"Amiable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from my earliest childhood up. The first of the emigres could never expect a good word in the society in which my father moved. Even yet the reports I received were of a doubtful nature; even Romaine had drawn of him no very amiable portrait; and as I was ushered into the room, it was a critical eye that I cast on my great-uncle. He lay propped on pillows in a little cot no greater than a camp-bed, not visibly breathing. He was about eighty years of age, and looked it; not that his face was ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... befell, seemed always that of an amiable victim placing himself at the mercy of his enterprising comrades and going through every kind of outlandish escapade and adventure with a ludicrously sober look on his funny face. To him everything that happened seemed part of the ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... in upon me as I alighted at a very comfortable hotel at Rochester. The amiable Morpheus soon claimed me as his own, nor was I well pleased when ruthlessly dragged from his soft embrace at 6-1/2 A.M. the following morning; but railways will not wait for Morpheus or any other deity of fancy or fiction; ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... still as white as the table-cloth, and hardly speaks. It is clear that he will not get up his conversation again, until after the champagne has been round. Algy has taken no one; and, consequently, a bear is an amiable and affable beast in comparison of him. I am placed between our host and his nephew. The latter comes in for a good deal of my conversation, as most of my remarks have to be taken up and rebellowed by him ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Gueldenskioeld arrived with the captive general Reynier, who alighted and took up his abode in the apartment in which the emperor had lodged. He was followed by the Prussian colonel Von Zastrow, a most amiable man, and soon after the Prussian general Von ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... bloodthirsty Carlists turned out to be amiable individuals on acquaintance. I suppose they could put on a frown for their enemies, but for my companions and myself they had nothing but open smiles and hearty hand-grips. One great recommendation was ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... distress was glad to be hired by an elderly lady as her footman. I speedily acquired the good opinion of my mistress, and fell in love with her niece Narcissa, cursing the servile station that placed me so far beneath the regard of this amiable and adorable being. I soon learnt that the brother of my idol was a savage, fox-hunting squire, who had designed the lovely Narcissa for Sir Timothy Thicket, a neighbouring foxhunter. I cursed in my heart this man for his presumption, looking upon ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... thinges in readines at his comming in: and if he were by chaunce sicke, shee toke order that he shoulde lacke nothinge: vpon which occasions, he fell in loue with her: and no maruaile, for she was (as before is saide) a woman very fayre and amiable. Afterwards king Cyrus desirous to send a spie into the countrie of Lydia, to learne what the Assyrians did: Araspas which had the keepinge of the fayre Lady, seemed most mete for that purpose. But Araspas chaunced ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... flush and noted the man's silence. For the first time her suspicions were aroused, yet she would not believe that this gentle, amiable drifter could be guilty of any crime greater than negligence or carelessness. But why his evident embarrassment now? The girl was mystified. For a moment or two they sat in silence, ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... cherish our ideas to the point of fondness. In the long run, we freely grant, it may turn out that the Presbyterians are right and we are wrong—in brief, that God loves a moral man more than he loves an amiable and honourable one. Stranger things, indeed, have happened; one might even argue without absurdity that God is actually a Presbyterian Himself. Whether He is or is not we do not presume to say; we simply record the fact that it is our ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... in the hall. He was fond of Sidney; she always smiled at him; and, on his morning rounds at six o'clock to waken the nurses, her voice was always amiable. So she found him in the hall, holding a cup of tepid coffee. He was old and bleary, unmistakably dirty too—but he had ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... farther end the room gave through a colonnade on to the spacious garden which it was Messer Folco's privilege to possess, a garden which, it was said, had belonged in old time to a great noble of the stately Roman days. This colonnade, be it noted, for all it looked so open and amiable, could be shut off, if need were, by sliding doors, so as to make the room defensible whenever the war-cries rattled in the streets and Guelph and Ghibelline or Red and Yellow met in deadly ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... "ma," and "Dolly," and "sis." We should have liked it better had it been "mother," and "grandmother," and that the "sis" had been called Betsey or Molly; but we do not wish to be understood as exhibiting these amiable and good-looking strangers as models of refinement. "Ma" and "sis" did well enough, all things considered, though "mamma" would have been better if they were not sufficiently polished to ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... notable for the most amiable of moods and manners, was nourishing in his rather dull brain a sense of injury, in that he had been ousted from his point of vantage. As an object of redress the Tyro struck him as eminently suitable. From Mrs. Denyse he had heard the story of the pushing young "haberdasher," ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the throne she was majesty itself, but the moment she stepped down from the august seat, and took ones hand in both of hers, saying with the most amiable of smiles: "What a kind fate it is that has allowed you to come and see me again. I hope you are not over-weary with the long journey," one felt that she was, above all, a woman, a companion, a friend—yet for all that the mistress of every situation, ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... incapacitated him at times from attending to the onerous duties of his office. Mendel was ever at his side as a helper, until he grew into the office. Despite the honors showered upon him he remained the modest, unassuming, amiable young man, whom flattery could not affect nor pleasure lure from ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... What more amiable example of give-and-take than the intertwining of birch and orange, the thin ghostly sprays of the hyperborean caressing the fragrant leaf and golden globes of the sub-tropical? This, and other conjunctions less eloquent of contrast, may be seen on the headland of Zeffoun or Cape Corbelin. They stand ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... of one reasonably successful pastorate, had stood bewildered and baffled as he looked back over his five years of effort against this persistent and amiable passivity. It was not a deliberate sin, or he might have denounced it; nor a temporary numbness, or he might have waited for it to disappear. All the more it ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... The system was efficacious. It was mercilessness mixed with craft. When Prussian brusqueness was found to be unnecessarily irritating to the population, causing rash Belgians to turn desperate, the elders of the Saxon and Bavarian coreligionists were called in. They were amiable fathers of families, who would obey orders without taking the law into their own hands. The occupation was strictly military. It concerned itself with the business of national suffocation. All the functions of government were in German hands. But Belgian ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... character, and enthusiasm for liberty, had plunged into the desperate cause of the rebellion two years before, and did not, even then, despair of freedom and equality in Ireland. Some of them were in private life most amiable persons, and their fate was altogether entitled to sympathy. The poet, from that compassionate feeling which is an amiable characteristic of his nature, wrote The Exile of Erin, from the impression their situation and circumstances made upon his mind. It was set to an old Irish air, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829. • Various
... reducing them to a state of servitude. This is NOT "the question before us." We are quite satisfied on all such points. The precept, too, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, was not altogether unknown in the Southern States before his letters were written. A committee of very amiable philanthropists came all the way from England, as the agents of some abolition society there, and told us all that the law of God requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves. In this benevolent work of enlightenment they were, if we mistake not, several months in advance of Dr. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... we anchored at this place, whose wretchedness makes a great impression on me, because we are to deposit Mr. Hawley here as revenue collector. I have seen him every day for a week; he is amiable and courteous, as well as intelligent and energetic, and it is shocking to leave him alone in a malarious swamp. This dismal revenue station consists of a few exceptionally poor-looking Malay houses on the river bank, a few equally unprosperous-looking Chinese dwellings, a police ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... Smith and Miss Jones called a few days after to tell her that Mr. Fletcher was going abroad, the amiable creatures were entirely routed by finding Jack there in a most unmistakable situation. He blandly wished Horace "bon voyage," and regretted that he wouldn't be there to the wedding in October. Kitty devoted herself to blushing ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... "it will be the best policy; but, May Brooke, I feel as if I am in a panther's den, or, better still, it's like Beauty and the Beast, only, instead of an enchanted lover, I have an excessively cross and impracticable old uncle to be amiable to. Does he give you enough ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... introduced, entered the chamber. It was the same person whom we have called the Lady Helen, in her interview with Wilton Brown; and there was still in the expression of her countenance that same look of tender melancholy which is generally left upon the face by long grief acting upon an amiable heart. It was, indeed, less the expression of a settled gloom on her own part, than of sympathy with the sorrows of others, rendered more active by sorrows endured herself. On the present occasion ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... the unpierced shade Imbrowned the noontide bowers: Thus was this place A happy rural seat of various view; Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm, Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind, Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true, If true, here only, and of delicious taste: Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks Grazing the tender herb, were interposed, Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap Of some irriguous valley spread her store, Flowers of all hue, and ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... feeblest essay in the volume is the first. It is not without grave concern that I transcribe the name of its amiable, and (in every relation of private life) truly excellent author,—"FREDERICK TEMPLE, D.D., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen; Head Master of Rugby School; Chaplain to the Earl of Denbigh." Under the imposing title of "THE EDUCATION ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... otherwise prove incomprehensible in his character and actions. Let it be said, therefore, at once, that he was the second, and at one time favourite, son of the Earl of Swimbridge, whom the whole world knows to be beyond all question the proudest member of the British peerage. Amiable, generous, high-spirited, and with every trait of the best type of the British gentleman fully developed in him, this son had joined the British navy at an early age, as a midshipman, and had made rapid progress in the profession of his choice—to his father's unbounded satisfaction ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... call them uncivilized is as absurd in us as it is in them to call Europeans barbarians. They are a good, intelligent, and happy people. Lieutenant Forbes, who spent five years in China,—from 1842 to 1847,—says: "I found myself in the midst of as amiable, kind, and hospitable a population as any on the face of the earth, as far ahead of us in some things as behind us in others." As to the charge of dishonesty brought against them by those who judge the ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... been seen before. It was a regular harvest field after the reaping; only instead of stalks of grain there were bodies of men. That sobered the rest of us. But the Emperor soon came along, and when we formed a circle around him, he praised us and cheered us up (he could be very amiable when he liked), and made us feel quite contented, even although we were as hungry as wolves. Then he distributed crosses of honor among us, saluted the dead, and said, ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... I chance to find him? Through a young English lord—an amiable youth, who is a great friend of Natalie's—of Natalushka's. Why, he has joined ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... you are my husband," she said, "and then you may be as inquisitive as you please." Her amiable sweetheart's guess had actually hit the mark. During the year that had passed, she too had tried her luck among the Experts, and had failed. Having recently heard of a foreign interpreter of ciphers, she had written to ask his terms. The reply (just received) not only estimated his services at ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... one of M. Paul Bourget's amiable married heroines, who erred out of sheer goodness of heart, but he only ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... them, a letter from the prodigal himself to his father, and other papers, which appear to substantiate her claim; and the old couple have admitted it, and received the whole crowd. 'Matildy Jane' is sceptical, derisive, and not amiable. Nor can one be surprised that she is not pleased at this addition to her household cares and labors, for I have not told the worst. The woman is apparently in the last stages of consumption; one of the children is blind; another has hip-disease; and a third looks ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... his amiable response. "And I am sure it would not be worth while going into. Really, we neither of us know what we mean. Perhaps I am as wicked as I know how to be. And I may have painful ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... one of the most amiable, self-denying, self-sacrificing, benevolent women in the world. Nobody else believed it. She had to endure more trials, bear more crosses, undergo more hardships, than any other housekeeper in town. She had to work harder, to think of more things, ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... So the amiable and self-satisfied George took himself off to the mill, and all day long thought much of his mother's advice, and somehow he felt himself being impelled towards paying another visit to Bourhill. Out of that visit arose portentous ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... short, and half pulled, half lifted him into the door. I took off my rifle, emptied my pockets of brush and beat out the dust, and combed the pine-needles from my hair. My hands were puffed and red, and smarted severely. And altogether I was in no amiable frame of mind as ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... are not inclined to agree with you in particular, about my having an 'over-pleasure in pleasing,' for a besetting sin. If you had spoken of my sister Henrietta indeed, you would have been right—so right! but for me, alas, my sins are not half as amiable, nor given to lean to virtue's side with half such a grace. And then I have a pretension to speak the truth like a Roman, even in matters of literature, where Mr. Kenyon says falseness is a fashion—and really and honestly I should not be afraid ... I should have ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... the very close of this unhappy composition, as a set off to the compacted and often repeated asseverations of his earlier pages, is the amiable author's plaintive plea for "even the perverted use of the Bible;" adding,—"And meanwhile, how utterly impossible it would be in the manhood of the world to imagine any other instructor of mankind!" (p. 47.) It ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... for me," said her husband, as he threw his arms round his beautiful, amiable wife, and smoked his cigarette upon the open balcony, where the deliciously cool air was laden with the perfume of orange trees and beds of carnations. Music and the sound of castanets arose from the street beneath; the stars shone brightly above; and two eyes ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... Miscellanies he describes the poem as originally partly filled in with the 'Names of several young Ladies,' which part he now omits, "the rather, as some Freedoms, tho' gentle ones, were taken with little Foibles in the amiable Sex, whom to affront in Print, is, we conceive, mean in any Man, and scandalous in a Gentleman." Certainly the Miss Cradocks suffered no affront in the lines retained, wherein the young poet affirms that of all the famed nymphs ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... has assumed jurisdiction, the exact locality where the crime was committed being in doubt." He seemed to be the spokesman. The other, shorter and rotund, kept an amiable silence. "We hope you will see the wisdom of waiving extradition," he went on. "It ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... them they knew not; him they treated as a lunatic at large. If the papers had chanced to be full at this time of the doings of some flagrant murderer flying from justice, which fortunately for me they were not, I have little doubt that these amiable villagers would have delivered me up to the police without scruple, and have chuckled ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... ceased to speak, and the judge looked at his watch. There was not time for the defence to make its argument to-day, and so court was adjourned. The lawyers stretched themselves, chatted, and laughed. The raw district attorney had done his worst, and judging from Mr. Brinkerhoff's amiable smile, it was not very bad. The newspaper men scurried out of the room for the elevators,—there was ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... daughter, and she seems so amiable, that I am sure you can want no consolation she will ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... was a goose! But he was an amiable goose; therefore men forgave his follies. Had Gibault not been a goose he never would have set off alone in pursuit of a grisly bear when he had comrades who might have accompanied him. Every one knows—at least, if every one ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... reflect that there had been no occasion for anger. If one cannot be amiable when one is visiting, and is treated with every possible attention, then one must be ill-natured indeed! Dotty deceived herself. The lion was still there; he was curled up, and out of sight in ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... how dangerous it is to reason from any particular cause, or even from many in a single group. I have in my eye an able and amiable pamphlet by the Rev. S. E. Bishop: 'Why are the Hawaiians Dying Out?' Any one interested in the subject ought to read this tract, which contains real information; and yet Mr. Bishop's views would ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their designs by the very transparency of their method. She had come to London with the purpose of leaving Dora there under the care of her sister Lady Mazerod, and before she had talked to that amiable widow for half an hour the design was as apparent as if ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... said Dick, and relations of the most amiable were established ere silence came with the arrival of the subaltern, and the train jolted out over ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... and got half a pail of water apiece for the horses. They wanted more, but there was no more in the well. The man said we could get everything we wanted at the ranch, and we started on. The horses were tired, but even Old Blacky was quite amiable, and trudged along in the ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... home for the last twenty years;—but we shall quit it like honest people, and with the consciousness of our integrity. And now, honored madame, if, in the brilliant circle in which you move—you, who are so benevolent and amiable—could find a place for us by your recommendation, then, with endless gratitude to you, we shall escape from a position of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... to suffice. There was no convincing him that his seat could possibly be in danger. He smiled urbanely over the reports of Quarrier's speeches, called his adversary "a sharp lad," and continued through all the excitement of the borough to conduct himself with this amiable fatuity. ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... case, my friend," rejoined Magin in French as good as his English, "it is time you returned!" And he abounded in amiable speeches and ceremonious bows until ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... some sedentary head clerk or cashier; and even without the cheque-book and papers on his desk would have given the impression of a merchant or man of business. He was dressed in a light grey check jacket. He was the Duke of Windsor, the great Unionist statesman. Between these two loose, amiable men, the little Gaul stood erect in his black frock coat, with the monstrous gravity of French ceremonial good manners. This stiffness led the Duke of Windsor to put him at his ease (like a tenant), and he ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... of the Madras university, of which he was nominated a fellow in 1872 and a syndic in 1877, and was well acquainted with English law, literature and philosophy. He was through life a staunch Brahman, devout and amiable in character, with a taste for the ancient music of India and the study of the Vedas and other departments of Sanskrit ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... his country Adept in the lie implied Admirable scruples of an inveterate borrower After a big blow, a very little one scarcely counts Ah! how sweet to waltz through life with the right partner Amiable mirror as being wilfully ruffled to confuse An obedient creature enough where he must be And not any of your grand ladies can match my wife at home Any man is in love with any woman Because you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rich in health, in constant cheerfulness, in a mercurial temperament which floats them over troubles and trials enough to sink a shipload of ordinary men. Others are rich in disposition, family, and friends. There are some men so amiable that everybody loves them; some so cheerful that they carry an atmosphere of jollity about them. Some are ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... French is in notable contrast with the more taciturn deportment of the English; amiable contact has much to do with softening the asperities ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... recognized behind the shielding petticoats, some of his prefects, those from the environs of Paris, come from Versailles and Chartres, or from some sub-prefectures, and gallantly administering the affairs of France from the heart of the greenroom. Amiable functionaries of the Ministry of Fine Arts also came here to study aestheticism between ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... descendants still live upon the place, one of the most beautiful and extensive farms upon that fertile prairie. But on the spot where the disputed cabin stood, has since been built a handsome brick-house, and I pay only a just tribute to amiable character, when I say that a more hospitable mansion is not to be ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... a very amiable young man, a son of the former steward of the old Countess. He is in the service of the State somewhere, and is in receipt of a good income. Lizaveta is also ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... propensities; and that then, and then only, would crime really be arrested, when the lamp of knowledge burned in every mechanic's workshop, in every peasant's cottage. The idea was plausible, it was seducing, it was amiable; and held forth the prospect of general improvement of morals from the enlarged culture of mind. The present generation is generally, it may almost be said universally, imbued with these opinions; and the efforts accordingly made for the instruction ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... the old-fashioned style, has at the back a sort of glass-covered balcony overhanging the garden of the house next door. Here the boarders take their coffee after meals, while the proprietress, a gentle, amiable creature, strives to establish some sort of intimacy among them, to create an imaginary family out of these strangers who have come from all parts of the world with varying ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... animosity which the inhabitants bore to the English, and which all the amiable qualities of the prince of Wales were not able to mitigate or assuage. They complained that they were considered as a conquered people, that their privileges were disregarded, that all trust was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... any concern of Murguia's was preposterous, and Murguia would have liked nothing better than to tell him so. But he did not, and suffered inwardly because somehow he could not. He harbored a dim but dreadful picture of what might happen should the amiable cavalryman actually lose his temper. Loss of patience had menace enough, though the Southerner had not stirred from his lazy posture in the doorway nor overlooked a single contented puff from the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the hall trying to look warm and amiable, Mrs. Cole's heart forsook her. On that earlier day of her visit Miss Jones had looked possible, sitting up in Mrs. Cole's drawing-room, smiling her brightest, because she so desperately needed the situation, and wearing her best dress. Now she was all in pieces; she had had to leave her little ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... fail to read some of his plays every year, that I may keep up a constant intercourse with what is excellent. It is not merely the perfectly artistic treatment which delights me; but particularly the amiable nature, the highly formed mind of the poet. There is in him a grace and a feeling for the decorous, and a tone of good society, which his innate beautiful nature could only attain by daily intercourse with the most eminent men of ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... conscientious devotee of letters both wicked and unwise—wicked because it is disrespectful to them, unwise because it is quite likely to inflict loss on the reader. Now nobody can ever think of respecting Leigh Hunt; he is not unfrequently amiable, but never in the least venerable. Even at his best he seldom or never affects the reader with admiration, only with a mild pleasure. It is at once a penalty for his sins and a compliment to his good qualities, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... whereas the Genoese say that it was invented by those who rob on the high way, in order to disguise themselves; as if during the Genoese government publick robbers needed to fear punishment. I am sure however, that you will have taken the proper method with these amiable and delicate persons, insinuating to them, that the hearts of beauties are formed for compassion, and not for disdain and tyranny: and so you will have been easily restored to their good graces. Immediately on my return to Corte, I received information ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... our fine points to the enemy until the battle is on," was Prescott's amiable answer. "Even then you won't see all our best tricks; you'll be too busy paddling to ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... cushions, that he might realise the impossibility of overpowering me), but I felt he had enough 'science' to make me less than a match for him. I tried to look cunning and determined. I longed for a moustache like his, to hide my somewhat amiable mouth. I was thankful I could not see his mouth—could not know the worst of the face that was staring at me in the lamplight. And yet what could be worse than his eyes, gleaming from the deep shadow cast by the brim of his top-hat? ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... her to look her down, and cast a veil of humility over the sparkling diamonds which adorned her brow; no, she was to-night entirely herself—every inch a queen! proud and happy, smiling and majestic. Rejoicing in her own greatness and glory, she was still amiable and obliging to this great crowd of devoted, submissive, flattering, smiling men, who surrounded her; never had she been so gracious, never so queenly. As we have said, she had seated herself at the card-table, and the margrafin Maria Dorothea and the English and French ambassadors were her ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... brother, Dr. Wordsworth, which announced the death of his eldest son. He died last Tuesday, in Trinity College, of which he was a fellow, having been tenderly nursed by his father during rather a long illness. He was a most amiable man, and I have reason to believe was one of the best scholars in Europe. We were all strongly attached to him, and, as his poor father writes, the loss is to him, and to his sorrowing sons, irreparable on this ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... returned the other; "if a man have not peace in his own house, there is no peace for him on earth. Nevertheless my friend Thorward is not in such a bad case. Freydissa has improved vastly of late, and Thorward has also grown more amiable and less contradictions— add to which, he and she love each other dearly. But, Leif, there can be no domestic troubles in your case, for your household ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the priest, languid-eyed, fat, and jolly, his equally fat and jolly wife, and Igali, caress playfully, and cut up as many antics as three kittens in a bay window. The farther one travels southward the more amiable and affectionate in disposition the people seem ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... A good many amiable Frenchmen will shrug their shoulders at this, but if we act otherwise we shall be delivered over to our enemies, bound hand and foot, at the ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... being large, was full of passages and inconvenient turnings. Carrados asked an occasional question and found Mrs. Creake quite amiable without effusion. Mr. Carlyle followed them from room to room in the hope, though scarcely the expectation, of learning something ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... on the private character of Paul, and enables us to understand how he contrived to maintain such a firm hold on the affections of those among whom he ministered. Though he uniformly acted with great decision, he was singularly amiable and gentle, as well as generous and warm-hearted. No one could doubt his sincerity; no one could question his disinterestedness; no one could fairly complain that he was harsh or unkind. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians he had been obliged to employ strong language when ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... in collecting as they did in everything else. Mr. Peters' collecting, as has been shown, was keen, furious, concentrated; Lord Emsworth's had the amiable dodderingness that marked every branch of his life. In the museum at Blandings Castle you could find every manner of valuable and valueless curio. There was no central motive; the place was simply an amateur junk shop. Side by side with a Gutenberg Bible for which rival collectors would ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... her far in the rear, settling down comfortably upon a flat roof near the church. She rather envied her amiable disposition. It seemed so safe. Every one else was alive with such ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... Mendelssohn, too, was a person inwardly at war with himself, and perhaps Saint-Saens may be another example of the same conflict. Still, the latter has achieved a sort of waxy coldness from which the amiable Felix was after all saved. Elegant, finished, smooth, classicizing, the music of M. Camille Saint-Saens leaves us in the completest of objectivity. We are touched and moved not at all by it. Something, we vaguely perceive, is supposed to be taking place beneath our eyes. Faint ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... any member, to keep the others out by indifference. When the others managed to get in, for any reason, they lent them aid to the exclusion of those left outside. So long as it looked as if he were to have a berth in their cabin, they would be amiable, but not otherwise. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... then a sudden conception of the unrivaled absurdity of the situation flashed upon him,—of his passively following the amiable idiot at his side in order to contemplate, by the falling rain and lonely night, a heap of sodden ruins, while the coach was speeding to Summit Springs and shelter, and, above all, the reason WHY he was invited,—until, putting down his bag, he leaned ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... lieutenant, who was—a rare thing in those days in the navy—somewhat of a scholar. Mr Johnson had inflicted a mortal wound on another shark, who was immediately surrounded by his amiable brethren, eager to devour him as they had missed us. It is not difficult to conceive what would have been our fate had we remained another minute in the water, after the boatswain had ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... word, for Elnora's question, the reply, and her answer, had been repeated. Every one knew that the Limberlost girl had come out ahead and Sadie Reed had not been amiable, when the little flourish had been added to Elnora's name in the algebra class. Elnora's swift glance was pathetic, but no one helped her. Sadie Reed glanced from the hat to the faces ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... only son) as dear as he is brave, amiable as he is deserving to be so, only nineteen, a prisoner under the articles of capitulation of Yorktown, is now confined in America, an object of retaliation. Shall an innocent suffer for the guilty? Represent to yourself, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... disposition was one to inspire love is proved by the affection those bore him who had suffered most at his hands. Williams and Vane and Coddington kept their friendship for him to the end. But these very qualities, so amiable in themselves, made him subject to the influence of men of inflexible will. His dream was to create on earth a commonwealth of saints whose joy would be to walk in the ways of God. But in practice he had to ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... approve the thing, and be perfectly satisfied in what we do; for otherwise, after having put our resolution into practice, we shall out of pure weakness come to be troubled at the performance, when the grace and goodliness, which rendered it before so amiable and pleasing to us, begin to decay and wear out of our fancy; like greedy people, who, seizing on the more delicious morsels of any dish with a keen appetite, are presently disgusted when they grow full, and find themselves oppressed and uneasy now by what they before so greedily desired. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... has a delightful democratic flavor—and it is perfectly characteristic of the amiable author of the most popular poem in the English language. The "Psalm of Life" is a wonderful example of the power of commonplaces put into tuneful and ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... fact of personality make any difference in the enforcing of laws? That one man was amiable and the other not so amiable had nothing to do with eternal justice. If Bob were to fulfil his duty only against those he disliked, and in favour of his friends, he had indeed slipped back to the old days of henchman politics from which the nation was slowly struggling. He ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... with her elbows on the table, and her hands supporting her chin. Her richly-tinted cheeks glowed with interest; her large, dark eyes shone like two bright stars. The question she had asked could not be to her more than a subject of amiable curiosity; but no doubt the enthusiastic nature of the girl fully accounted for the eagerness with which she had spoken. Her sudden enquiry wafted "Cobbler" Horn back into the past; and there rose before him the vision of a bonny little nut-brown damsel of five summers, with eyes like ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... nursery, these children were playing together in the utmost harmony and good feeling; on returning thereto, the activity of another and far less amiable spirit was manifest; and instead of merry shouts and joyous laughter, angry words and complaining ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... 1717. He was a person of superior talents and learning. He published, with the sermon preached by Cotton Mather on the occasion, a poem on the death of his venerable colleague, Mr. Higginson, in 1708; and also a poem on the death of Rev. Joseph Green, in 1715. Although an amiable and benevolent man in other respects, it cannot be denied that he was misled by his errors and his temperament into the most violent course in the witchcraft prosecutions; and it is to be feared that his feelings were ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... dreamed of a life on the ocean wave, and regarded "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad the Sailor" as the end of all literary things. The savagery of boyhood he lacked. He was fond of playing battle, but could not bear to see his schoolfellows publicly thrashed, according to the amiable custom of that day. Otherwise he was all that a mother might deplore ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... guests,—Colonel Shepard, his wife, son, and daughter. Miss Edith, the daughter, was Owen's "bright particular star," and she was one of the most beautiful young ladies I ever saw. I may add that she was as gentle and amiable as she was pretty. All the Shepard family were very pleasant people, invariably kind to the ship's company; and though the Colonel was a very wealthy man, none of them ever "put on airs" in their relations ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... to the amiable and accomplished character to whom my epistle is addressed, as well as to the public, for the apparently confused and indigested manner in which the notes are attached to the first part of this treatise; but, unless I had thrown them to the end (a plan which modern custom does not ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... August, when the annual shutdown for repairs closed the mill and box factory during forty-eight hours—a matter of prescribing oil and new bearings for the overfed machines so that their digestions should remain unimpaired and their dispositions amiable. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... passable guest, let alone a perfect one, you must learn as it were not to notice if hot soup is poured down your back. If you neither understand nor care for dogs or children, and both insist on climbing all over you, you must seemingly like it; just as you must be amiable and polite to your fellow guests, even though they be of all the people on earth the most detestable to you. You must with the very best dissimulation at your command, appear to find the food delicious ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... which I have enumerated, are rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it be, that two such individuals should meet together in this wide world under circumstances that admit of their union as Husband and Wife. A person may be highly estimable on the whole, nay, amiable as neighbour, friend, housemate—in short, in all the concentric circles of attachment save only the last and inmost; and yet from how many causes be estranged from the highest perfection in this! Pride, coldness, or fastidiousness ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the Epistles of John,—not a doctrinal exposition, but a breathing forth of the spirit which the evangelical history had inspired. I have come to know more, however, than I did when I could have had such amiable but unenlightened feelings. I have read the "Key to Uncle Tom" and the ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... whenever they passed the embassy, which stood in the heart of the fashionable residences in the Koenig Strasse. Never a hot-headed Dreiberger passed the house without a desire to loot it, to scale the piked fence and batter in the doors and windows. Steinbock himself was a polished, amiable gentleman, in no wise meriting this ill-feeling. The embassy was in all manner the most important in Dreiberg, though Prussia and Austria overshadowed ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... man give in exchange for his soul? And are you yourselves in no danger of intemperance, plied as you are by so many allurements? Look around you and see how many strong men, how many of the wise, the moral, the amiable, and the apparently pious, have fallen before the fascinations of this prince of serpents. And are you safe who stand even within the reach of his forky tongue, and lay the bait for his victims, and lure them into his jaws by tasting of it yourselves? Oh, the history of distillers and temperate drinkers, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... confidence which I predicted would come with time. Her knack of disguising her own identity in the impersonation of different characters so completely staggers her audiences that the same people come twice over to find out how she does it. It is the amiable defect of the English public never to know when they have had enough of a good thing. They actually try to encore one of her characters—an old north-country lady; modeled on that honored preceptress ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... and told them that Vilonel had resigned, that an opportunity of choosing a substitute should be given to them later on, but that in the meanwhile I should appoint Veldtcornet Gert Van der Merve. Nobody had anything to say against "Gerie," who was a courageous and amiable man; and, after he had given orders that the waggons should be sent home, we continued ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... and slight, the barber had a large face, simple, amiable with a smirk of conceit as to the lower part; his forehead was very large and round, as was his head, and his blue eyes were very placid, even beautiful. ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in herself, had a wonderful effect upon the boarders. They were nearly all prepared to be humble. They grew arrogant and pretentious. They asked Mrs. Brice if she knew this and that person of consequence in Boston, with whom they claimed relationship or intimacy. Her answers were amiable and self-contained. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... clean and polished spectacles back on his nose and looked through them into the next room, where Ivan Petrofsky sat devouring his first lesson in political economy. Then he turned, beaming like an amiable sphinx upon his interrogator. "Do you know—I never realized it myself until just ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... women; for it seems that, at the time of the yearly meeting among the Friends, the men and women both have their separate meetings for attending to business. The aspect of the meeting was very interesting—so many placid, amiable faces, shaded by plain Quaker bonnets; so many neat white handkerchiefs, folded across peaceful bosoms. Either a large number of very pretty women wear the Quaker dress, or it is ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and calls you by name to come. Come, He says, and be one of My paradise children. In paradise,' the Teutonic Philosopher goes on, 'there is nothing but hearty love, a meek and a gentle love; a most friendly and most courteous discourse: a gracious, amiable, and blessed society, where the one is always glad to see the other, and to honour the other. They know of no malice in paradise, no cunning, no subtlety, and no sly deceit. But the fruits of the Spirit of God are common among them in paradise, and one ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... first by its extraordinary sale, and second by the quarter from which the assault on it came. She herself says that her expectations were strikingly different from the facts. "She had painted slaveholders as amiable, generous, and just. She had shown examples among them of the noblest and most beautiful traits of character; had admitted fully their temptations, their perplexities, and their difficulties, so that a friend of hers ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... should make his headquarters elsewhere. He worked hard and unceasingly, his agent was equally tireless, and it was only at the last that Mr Brooke's supporters awoke to the fact that if he was to represent Marlehouse again no stone should be left unturned. But it was too late: Mr Brooke, elderly, amiable, and lethargic, was quite incapable of either directing or controlling his more ardent supporters, and their efforts on his behalf were singularly devoid of tact. The Tory and Unionist ladies were grievous offenders in this respect. They started a house-to-house canvass ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... passed the distribution windows they would feel well repaid for their visible sympathy. Chairman Scott says the class of goods from Philadelphia have been of the highest quality. "We have been delighted with the thought and excellence of the selections and amiable nature of the contributions. The two miles of track lying between here and Morrellville are still blocked with cars stretched from one end to the other, and fresh arrivals are coming in daily over the Baltimore and Ohio." Although it is impossible to say how much has been received from Philadelphia, ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... see, as Mr. Ricketty wandered aimlessly down the Bowery, that his humor was entirely amiable. The knobs of ruddy flesh under his twinkling black eyes were encircled by a set of merry wrinkles, and his mustache had expanded ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... his undertakings, and of extraordinary application. He was of mild and humble manners. He possessed a strong understanding, with great coolness and courage. Patriotism and public spirit were striking traits in his character. In domestic life he was amiable: in the ministry, exemplary and useful; and he died to the great regret of his parishioners, but most of all to that of those, who moved with him in his attempts to bring about the important event of the abolition of ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... exclaimed, 'I never retained anybody's foot unjustly. Even though you have not got the five louis which it cost me, I present it to you gladly. I should feel unutterably wretched to think that I were the cause of so amiable a person as the Princess ...
— The Mummy's Foot • Theophile Gautier
... withdrew from all but the most essential social functions, and lived a life of strenuous work and of Spartan simplicity. His gloom had been increased by domestic misfortune. He had been married, in 1793, without his wishes being consulted, to the beautiful and amiable Princess Maria Louisa of Baden (Elizabeth Feodorovna), a political match which, as he regretfully confessed to his friend Frederick William of Prussia, had proved the misfortune of both; and he consoled himself in the traditional manner. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... woman—an amiable woman; but a woman whose resentment for a great wrong could be deep ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... about her father changing came back to her. He had changed—just in the little while that had elapsed since her marriage. But the realization of what that change was hurt her cruelly. He looked mean and base as he had never looked before. The old amiable submission to adversities had given place to an expression of petulance, of resentment, of cunning, of cowardice. Or was it that Sylvia was looking at ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... his broad shoulders to the floor, for, though the heat of the flames might well-nigh singe one's eyebrows, it would be cold behind. I looked upon his great girth of chest, upon his strong hands, which yet showed delicately fair when they were ungloved, and upon his round, full-colored, amiable face with much satisfaction. I seemed to swell with pride when he unbuckled his sword, belt and all, and handed it to me, I being nearest, to put aside for him. It was a ponderous, severe-looking weapon, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... station was more or less play-acting, of course. The whole thing was set up to fool you. We might not have gotten away with it if we'd used some other person, more shrewd about such things, but we'd studied you and knew you for an amiable, unsuspicious guy, too wrapped up in your own work ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... painters, was knighted. He was handsome and amiable, and his celebrity as an artist procured for him the friendship and patronage of princes and men of distinction ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... wrapped in the black cloaks of their order. They were petitioners for the poor of Messina, and everybody in the smoking-room gave them a franc. Because one of them was Irish and because it was her fate to live in Messina, I gave her ten francs. Meaning to be amiable, she said: "Ah, it takes the English ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... lives here,' he announced. 'Gertrud would like to see me in the fine clothes which the most amiable Herr has given me. Wait for me, I will not be long.' And he scrambled out of the car and lurched into ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... affable manners and attention to business he had won his way to the respect and esteem of the good people of the town, and was looked upon as one likely to succeed in the lottery of life. No one was more welcome, by reason of his amiable character, to those of his own age, while his steadiness recommended him to his elders. But his family was unknown, though he was supposed to be a distant relation of the second member of the firm, nor had he ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... friend," said he to the Bishop, "I congratulate myself on being in your company, and I am glad to have been able to get rid of that little wretch unworthy of Madame, the more so as if you had gone near him, my lovely and amiable creature, you would have perished miserably through the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... quarrel comes on in a delightful scene, where Sir Condy shows himself at all events an amiable gentleman; and so my lady goes home to her own people. There you have Miss Edgeworth at her very best; and, indeed, Castle Rackrent received such a tribute as no other novel ever had paid to it. Many people have heard how when Waverley came to the Edgeworth household, ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... haunted by this gentleman," mused Larcher, and scrutinized him rather intently. Even across the street, Larcher was impressed anew with the young man's engagingness of expression, which owed much to a whimsical, amiable look about ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Rosshire hills rather than an author and a man of science. In conversation or in lecturing, the man of original genius and cultivated mind at once shone out, and his abundant information and philosophical acuteness were only less remarkable than his amiable disposition, his generous spirit, and his consistent, humble piety. Literature and science have lost in him one of their brightest ornaments, and Scotland one of ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... its way. The sociology of the successful inventor is his own sociology too; and it is by his originality in this respect that he passes irresistibly through all the readymade prejudices that are set up to bar his promotion. And the heroine, nice, amiable, benevolent, and anxious to please and behave well, but hopelessly secondhand in her morals and nicenesses, and consequently without any real moral force now that the threat of hell has lost its terrors for her, is left destitute among the failures which are so puzzling to thoughtless people. "I ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... Greenwich. She was a screw propeller of eight hundred tons, a fast sailer, and the very vessel that had been sent out to the polar regions, to revictual the last expedition of Sir James Ross. Her commander, Captain Bennet, had the name of being a very amiable person, and he took a particular interest in the doctor's expedition, having been one of that gentleman's admirers for a long time. Bennet was rather a man of science than a man of war, which did not, however, prevent his vessel from carrying four carronades, that had never hurt ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne |
