"Complaisance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out of custom, as lovers, coxcombs, footmen, sailors, mechanics, merchants, and chambermaids; and others lie out of complaisance or necessity, as courtiers, chaplains, &c. In short, it were endless to enumerate them all, but this sketch may be sufficient to give us some small ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... laughed at the suggestion that the living quarters were untenable. But there! The representative could see for himself. With every semblance of complete complaisance the representative was escorted into the camp. With unassumed unconcern, but with deliberate intention, he was accompanied to Barracks 1 or 2, to see with his own eyes a typical illustration of the living ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... It will be either you or Candaules. I leave you master of the choice. Kill him, avenge me, and win by that murder both my hand and the throne of Lydia, or else shall a prompt death henceforth prevent you from beholding, through a cowardly complaisance, what you have not the right to look upon. He who commanded is more culpable than he who has only obeyed; and, moreover, should you become my husband, no one will have ever seen me without having the right to do so. But make your decision at once, for two of those ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... been long observed, that men do not suspect faults which they do not commit; your own elegance of manners, and punctuality of complaisance, did not suffer you to impute to me that negligence of which I was guilty, and [for] which I have not since atoned. I received both your letters, and received them with pleasure proportioned to the esteem which so short an acquaintance ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... but being told the family received no hurt, they were extremely glad: but being informed that we were almost killed by the fright, they were vastly sorry; but hearing that we had a very good night, they were extremely glad again. Nothing could exceed their complaisance to my daughters; their professions the last evening were warm, but now they were ardent. They protested a desire of having a more lasting acquaintance. Lady Blarney was particularly attached to Olivia; Miss Carolina Wilelmina Amelia Skeggs ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... rallied him at what they laughingly chose to call his infidelity. Jack Churchill, Frank Esmond's lieutenant in the royal regiment of foot guards, getting the company which Esmond vacated, when he left the Court and went to Tangier in a rage at discovering that his promotion depended on the complaisance of his elderly affianced bride. He and Churchill, who had been condiscipuli at St. Paul's School, had words about this matter; and Frank Esmond said to him with an oath, "Jack, your sister may be so-and-so, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Mayor hesitated—"it is the yellow beard which gives to Monsieur the aspect of a German. With only whiskers nobody could take Monsieur for anything but an Englishman. If Monsieur would only have the complaisance ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... should all come to be Devils incarnate; I say, let us not be alarm'd, for Satan does not get these Advantages by Encroachment, and by his infernal Power or Art, no not at all; but 'tis the Man himself does it by his Indolence and Negligence on one Hand, and his Complaisance to the Devil on the other; and both Ways he, as it were, opens the Door to him, beckons him with his very Hand to come in, and the Devil has nothing to do but enter and take Possession: Now if it be so, and ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... No complaisance to our court, or to our age, can make me believe nature to be so changed, but that public liberty will be among us as among our ancestors, obnoxious to some person or other; and that opportunities will be furnished for attempting, at least, some alteration to the prejudice ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the Baron with the utmost complaisance, and Hawbury was surprised, and Mrs. Willoughby and Lady Dalrymple were disgusted; but the Baron was delighted, and his soul was filled with perfect joy. Too soon for him was this drive over. But the end came, and they reached the hotel. Hawbury left them, but the Baron ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... o'clock—Legrand, Jupiter, the dog, and myself. Jupiter had with him the scythe and spades—the whole of which he insisted upon carrying—more through fear, it seemed to me, of trusting either of the implements within reach of his master, than from any excess of industry or complaisance. His demeanor was dogged in the extreme, and "dat deuced bug" were the sole words which escaped his lips during the journey. For my own part, I had charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand contented himself with the scarabus, which he carried attached to the end of a bit of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Barton, I must tell you in confidence, he was a little particular; but, perhaps, I mistake his complaisance; and I wish I may, for his sake — You know the condition of my poor heart: which, in spite of hard usage — And yet I ought not to complain: nor will I, till ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... replied Cleve, and apparently, for all his complaisance, a call upon memory had its pain. "I'm from Montana. Range-rider in winter and in summer I prospected. Saved quite a little money, in spite of a fling now and then at faro and whisky.... Yes, there was a girl, I guess yes. She was pretty. I had a bad case over ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... that though it was a relief she mustn't let it become a weakness; mustn't let herself slide into the danger of allowing grief and desolation to blur outlines for her. That others were blind mustn't blind her; that others did not see her as good and lovely must not make her, with cowardly complaisance, forswear her own clear consciousness of right. She was thinking this, and her sobs were becoming a little quieter, when her mother, now in her evening tea-gown, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... creditable business; four months before he had signified his readiness to make room for Bute,[28] and he received a present pension of L4,000 a year and the reversion of the wardenship of the Cinque Ports, which was at least equally valuable, as a reward for his complaisance. He was succeeded by Bute as secretary of state ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... skill at short notice as I have after preparation; if indeed there be any of you who have never heard the trifles I toss off on the spur of the moment. You will listen to them with the same critical exactitude that I have bestowed on their composition, but with greater complaisance, I hope, than I can feel in reciting them. For prudent judges are wont to judge finished works by a somewhat severe standard, but are far more complaisant to improvisations. For you weigh and examine all that is actually written, but in the case of extempore speaking ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... to threaten me. You have been cruel, aunt, and at the same time, unjust. If you have been unhappy in our house, you alone are to blame. Why have you said nothing? I attributed your complaisance to your affection for me. How was I to know that a woman as quiet and modest as yourself longed for fine apparel. Confess that it was impossible. Had I known—But rest easy, aunt; I will atone for ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... all Thorpe's martial spirit. Now at last the mystery surrounding Morrison & Daly's unnatural complaisance was riven. It had come to grapples again. He was glad of it. Meet those notes? Well I guess so! He'd show them what sort of a proposition they had tackled. Sneaking, underhanded scoundrels! taking advantage of a mere boy. Meet those notes? You bet he would; ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... senses, as a perfidious man. And if any clergyman should in compliance with the humours or designs of a man in power, echo such a false declaration in the church of GOD, he would in my opinion do well seriously to consider, whether an excessive complaisance may not have betrayed him into the sin of Ananias and Saphira, in lying against the Holy Ghost! This is a most weighty consideration: But the times require plain dealing. We hope and believe, nay we know that there are ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... which the mockeries of the courtiers continued to feed. He was called in Vienna the Snow King, whom the cold of the north kept together, but who would infallibly melt as he advanced southward. Even the electors, assembled in Ratisbon, disregarded his representations; and, influenced by an abject complaisance to Ferdinand, refused him even the title of king. But while they mocked him in Ratisbon and Vienna, in Mecklenburg and Pomerania, one strong town after another fell into ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... me more attractive, into the freedom of the outside world—Ted's world. Not that I was permitted to leave the island, but, until the time for evening milking, I was allowed to walk about the farm and talk at ease with Ted. By a further miracle of the goddess's complaisance I was permitted to ignore the Orphanage dinner that day, and intoxicate myself with Ted upon sandwiches and cakes and ginger-beer. That was a ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Gentlemen and ladies establish their claims to being called such by their bearing, and not by arrogating to themselves, even indirectly, the titles. In England, the title lady is properly correlative to lord; but there, as in this country, it is used as a term of complaisance, and is appropriately applied to women whose lives are exemplary, and who have received that school and home education which enables them to appear to advantage in the better circles of society. Such expressions ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... usual quiet and gloomy fashion, and, after a day's leave for the purpose of arranging the affairs of a sick aunt in Camberwell, came back only a little less gloomy than before. It was also clear that Mr. Swann's complaisance was nearly at an end, and a letter, couched in vigorous, not to say regrettable, terms for a moribund man, expressed such a desire for fresh air and exercise that Hardy was prepared to see him at ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... longer on my fair visitor's complaisance, but if she have not found the gloom of this apartment insupportable, it would be a charitable action to brighten it once more with ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in his turn, conducted himself towards the schemer with much cordiality and kindness. Proud men never unbend until their supremacy is acknowledged through your servility. Your submission turns their gall to honey—converts their vinegar to milk—to the very cream of human complaisance. Mr Bellamy acted his part in this respect, as in every other—well; a tiger to such as would not cringe, he could become a playful lamb to all who were content to fawn. Planner and he were on the best possible terms. Looking into what is called the nature ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... through it, if not serenely, at least without ever a thought of yielding to those temptations that beset a girl who is at once poor and charming. Fortunately for her, those in closest authority over her were not so deeply smitten as to make obligatory on her a choice between complaisance and loss of position. She knew of situations like that, the cul-de-sac of chastity, worse than any devised by a Javert. In the store, such things were matters of course. There is little innocence for the ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... more out of humour with the oracle for the answer which Apollo gave the Athenians, when Xerxes was about to attack Greece with all the strength of Asia. The Pythian declared, that Minerva, the protectress of Athens, had endeavoured in vain to appease the wrath of Jupiter; yet that Jupiter, in complaisance with his daughter, was willing the Athenians should secure themselves within wooden walls; and that Salamis should behold the loss of a great many children, dead to their mothers, either when Ceres was spread abroad, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... ironically. He was a fit figure of a man, clean-cut and vigorous, from the steadfast outlook of the gray eyes and the firm, smooth-shaven jaw to the square fingertips of the strong hands, and his smile was of good-natured contempt. "As you say, it is an outrage on filial complaisance. All the same, with the right-of-way fight in prospect, Quartz Creek Canyon may not prove to be such a valley of ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... to wait. Marcel will have to send for the fille. It is a bore to wait in a room with red curtains and a picture of Amour et Psyche on the walls.... What have you been doing?" He paid the consommation and started to leave without waiting for a reply, because he knew of my complaisance. I rose with him and ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... my Tonine charmed me with the gracefulness of her carriage. I was delighted to see Righelini enchanted, and the ambassador dumb with admiration. When I was in love I did not encourage my friends to cajole my sweetheart, but I became full of complaisance when time had cooled ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... oft in turn deplore, And kindly add,—'Heaven grant I lose no more!' Yet while he spake, a sly and pleasant glance Appear'd at variance with his complaisance: For as he told their fate and varying worth, He archly looked—'I yet ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... such a triumphant argument on his side, that I should have blushed to oppose so capital a host."[25] So it was agreed that he should be put in a way to be further instructed of these matters. We may accept Rousseau's assurance that he was not exactly a hypocrite in this rapid complaisance. He admits that any one who should have seen the artifices to which he resorted, might have thought him very false. But, he argues, "flattery, or rather concession, is not always a vice; it is oftener a virtue, especially in the young. The kindness with which a man receives ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... absolute aversion; and though moved, by the King's representations of the embarrassed condition he should be reduced to if the supply were refused, to yield a subsidy of seventy thousand pounds a month for eighteen months, they forced him to pay a high price for their complaisance by extorting his consent to the "Test Act." By the operation of this act, the Duke of York, the inveterate enemy of the Dutch, and Sir Thomas Clifford, the minister who had the most zealously pushed forward the business of the war, were forced to resign their offices. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... punished. The noble lords were busy settling amongst themselves who should be consuls for several years to come, and how the confiscated villas of the proscribed Caesarians should be divided. As to the military situation, they were all complaisance. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... I not trust him only this time, Who have always trusted him? What, then, has happen'd That I should lose my good opinion of him? In complaisance to your whims, not my own, I must, forsooth, give up a rooted judgment. Think not I am a woman. Having trusted him E'en till today, today ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... intelligent, accomplished, and thoughtful—naturally and without effort. He was sincerely courteous, and capable of all complaisance. The display of these qualities reached to the four extremities of the empire, and extended from earth to heaven. He was able to make the able and virtuous distinguished, and thence proceeded to the love of the nine classes of his kindred, who all became harmonious. ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... wistfully into his face as she addressed him, as though half afraid to go on, and begging that he would receive with complaisance whatever she found herself ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... me?—not to any compassion that could benefit you or myself. Your example was before me; but to what avail? Was I more considerate of you and your comfort? Did I imitate your forbearance, or lessen your restraints, by taking any part in those offices of general complaisance or particular gratitude which you had hitherto been left to discharge alone? No; not less when I knew you to be unhappy, than when I had believed you at ease, did I turn away from every exertion of duty or friendship; scarcely ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... wrong the fair, the muse must own In this pursuit they court not fame alone; But join to that a more substantial view, "From thinking free, to be free agents too." They strive with their own hearts, and keep them down, In complaisance to all the fools in town. O how they tremble at the name of prude! And die with shame at thought of being good! For what will Artimis, the rich and gay, What will the wits, that is, the coxcombs say? They heaven defy, to earth's ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... the presence of so strange a people was entertained with no great degree of complaisance by the vicinage, and at last an old deed granting Pick-a-Neck-a-Sock to Captain Isaiah Applebody was revived by the heirs of that renowned Indian-fighter, whereupon the Free Grace Believers were warned to leave their bleak and rocky refuge for some other abiding-place. Accordingly, ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... before a stall spread with cotton cloth and bought enough for several skirts, the result of her complaisance being a siege of itinerant vendors that nearly deafened her. The big women were literally covered with their young ("pic'nees"), who clung to their skirts, waist, hips, bosoms; and these mites, with the ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... be a sign of extraordinary complaisance, were Captain Ludlow to apply to the girls of the colony for instruction in his duty! We may be secret encouragers of the contraband, but surely we are not to be suspected of any greater familiarity with their movements. These hints may compel me to abandon ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... for Hellas, and touching at various places they saw the coast regions of it and wrote down a description, until at last, when they had seen the greater number of the famous places, they came to Taras 120 in Italy. There from complaisance 121 to Demokedes Aristophilides the king of the Tarentines unfastened and removed the steering-oars of the Median ships, and also confined the Persians in prison, because, as he alleged, they came as ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... say to her in old times: "He is a Prince, that Frederick, who has a good heart, and whose genius is very small. Rather ugly than handsome; slightly out of shape even (UN PEU CONTREFAIT). But provided you have the complaisance to suffer his debaucheries, you will quite govern him; and you will be more King than he, when once his Father is dead. Only see what a part you will play! It will be you that decide on the weal or woe of Europe, and give ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... remainder of my walk, I touched my hat to every one I met. I conferred the honour of a salute on midshipmen, master's mates, sergeants of marines, and two corporals. Nor was I aware of my over complaisance, until a young woman, dressed like a lady, who knew more of the navy than I did, asked me if I had come down to stand for the borough? Without knowing what she ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... itself is competent to alter the essential constitution of right and wrong, sure I am that such THINGS, as they and I, are possessed of no such power. No man carries further than I do the policy of making government pleasing to the people. But the widest range of this politic complaisance is confined within the limits of justice. I would not only consult the interest of the people, but I would cheerfully gratify their humours. We are all a sort of children that must be soothed and managed. I think I am not austere or ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... us!" said Angela, making a mysterious signal to the mulatto; then she amuses herself laughing madly at and rumpling her lover's hair. He takes her little caprices with complaisance, and contemplates her with love. ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... further his character, he declared, "that he designed to govern according to the model of Augustus"; and omitted no opportunity of showing his generosity, clemency, and complaisance. The more burdensome taxes he either entirely took off, or diminished. The rewards appointed for informers by the Papian law, he reduced to a fourth part, and distributed to the people four hundred sesterces ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... authors of cruelty. But their behaviour has been in some instances savage, and might excuse a fear, if reckoned among usual calamities; but these should be viewed on a larger scale than that of common complaisance. It should be remembered we are engaged in a civil war, and effecting the most important revolution that ever took place. How little of the horrors of either have we known! Fire or the sword have scarce left a trace among us. We may be ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... seeds of variance and dissention among his countrymen: he meant that good citizens should be led to dispute; he considered emulation as the brand by which their virtues were kindled; and seemed to apprehend, that a complaisance, by which men submit their opinions without examination, is a ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... Southern plantations, would profess the most unbounded faith in the creed of the planters, and would crowd their favorite temples located on our own soil. But this would not be a real bond of union between us, but merely an exhibition of servility and fawning hypocrisy. And so the Northern complaisance toward slavery has in no degree tended to avert the disaster which has overtaken us, but only to breed self-reproach on the one side, and hauteur with ineffable loathing on ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Nostri Salvatoris, |56| Qui fait la complaisance Dei sui Patris. Cet enfant tout aimable, In nocte media, Est ne dans une etable, ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... more counties than any other shire in England, his tastes were various and his heart was large, and consequently his borderline was long. And yet Northampton has a surface and a solid content, as well as a circumference; and amidst all his complaisance and all his versatility, Doddridge had a mind and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... Expedition a change for the better has come over the gentil sesso. The traveller is no longer in the "dilemma of Frere Jean," and, except at the river-mouth and at the adjacent villages, there is none of that officious complaisance which characterizes every hamlet in the Gaboon country. The men appear peculiarly jealous, and the women fearful of the white face. Whenever we approached a feminine group, it would start up and run away; ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... after-deck, and was playing with 'Dolph—or, rather, was feeling 'Dolph's ears and paws in a wondering fashion, as one to whom even a dog was something new and marvellous; and 'Dolph, stretched on his side in the sunshine, was undergoing the inspection with great complaisance. No; the cause of her restlessness was ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hope. The Saint acknowledged the pilot to have spoken judiciously, and yet doubted not but the chalop would return. He constantly maintained that she could not be far off, and pressed him to send up to the scuttle before the dusk. The pilot, less out of complaisance to the Father, than out of his desire to undeceive him, went up himself, and could discover nothing. Xavier, without any regard to the affirmation of the pilot, instantly desired the captain to lower the sails, that the chalop might more easily come up with the ship. The authority of the holy man ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... domestick Affairs. But as this Lady was young, beautiful, and gay, so those that were given to censure, pass'd a Judgment upon her which she no Ways merited, since she was a Woman of strict Honour and Virtue; and tho' she might be agreeable to his Lordship in every Particular, that noble Peer's Complaisance to her, proceeded wholly from the great Esteem he had for her Wit and most exquisite Understanding, as will appear from what relates to her in his Will at the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... Major Pendennis to be found from Trolhatten to Messina, and yet Pendennis is a class with us; and it is in the nicely-blended selfishness and complaisance, the egotism and obligingness, that we find the purest ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... corridor after corridor, row after row of heavy-barred doors. The deeper we penetrated the mighty pile, the fonder I grew of my friend Mayenne, by whose complaisance none of these doors would shut on me. We climbed at last a steep turret stair winding about a huge fir trunk, lighted by slits of windows in the four-foot wall, and at the top turned down a dark passage to a door at the end, the bolts of which, invisible to me in the gloom, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... Nothing in their previous conversation had heralded it, and, worse still, no tenderness had ensued. If a man cannot lead up to passion he can at all events lead down from it, and she had hoped, after her complaisance, for some interchange of gentle words. But he had hurried away as if ashamed, and for an instant she was reminded ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... the curious sense of body and identity, the greed that with perfect complaisance devours all things, The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows, The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and the wonders that fill each minute of time forever, What have you reckon'd them for, camerado? Have you reckon'd ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... were limits to the complaisance he found due to this future relation; the family secrets, the family confidences, though they might indirectly concern him, should at least be kept from him for the present. Georges knew all his sister's story, as far as her mother knew it. The story was safe, though ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... the author, inflated with this success, "that it is necessary to pass through Complaisance and Sensibility; and that if we do not take this road, we run the risk of losing our way to Tiedeur, Oubli, and of falling into the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... so much complaisance. She was as quiet as a lamb and as good as bread. In her slight gluttonous forgetfulness, when she had lunched well and taken her coffee, she yielded to the necessity for a general indulgence all round. Her common saying was "One must forgive one another if one does not wish ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... expected, that the house of representatives, which had disregarded his recommendation, would now approve his project? It is impossible that the president or his advisers could have believed they would carry their complaisance so far. They must have known that the subject would be referred to the same committee, composed of the same persons, as that of the preceding year, and who would be likely, if they reported at all, not ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... should proceed in the same style with my friend Mr. Windham, I kept as aloof as possible, to avoid his notice, entreating James at the same time to have the complaisance to be silent upon this subject, should ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... circumstance which seems to have puzzled some naive writers: that Australians and Africans have been known to show less "jealousy" of whites than of their own countrymen, finds an easy explanation in the greater ability of the white man to pay for the husband's complaisance. In some cases, in the absence of a fine, the husband takes his revenge in other ways, subjecting the culprit's wife to the same outrage (as among natives of Guiana and New Caledonia) or delivering his own guilty (or rather disobedient) wife to young men (as among the Omahas) ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... bards who requited his hospitality with alliterative odes very difficult to compose, and which at the present day only a few book-worms understand. There he dwelt for many years, the virtual if not the nominal king of North Wales, occasionally no doubt looking down with self-complaisance from the top of his fastness on the parks and fish-ponds of which he had several; his mill, his pigeon tower, his ploughed lands, and the cottages of a thousand retainers, huddled round the lower part of the hill, or strewn about the valley; and there he might have lived and died ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... a sufficient Guard and Pioneers and Gentlemen, with a sufficient Stock of Provision, with abundant Fatigue passed these Mountains, and cut his Majesty's Name in a Rock upon the Highest of them, naming it MOUNT GEORGE; and in Complaisance the Gentlemen from the Governor's Name, called the Mountain next in ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... Alice and Mr. Stocks were left sole occupants of the carriage for the better half of the way. The man was only too willing to seize the chance thus divinely given him. His irritation at Lewis's projects had been tempered by Alice's kindness at lunch and Wratislaw's unlooked-for complaisance. Things looked rosy for him; far off, as on the horizon of his hopes, he saw a seat in Parliament and a fair and amply ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... so experienced, so learned in the ways of women, numbers of whom had passed through his hands, doubtless, soon perceived this uneasiness, and, without approving, or liking me the better for it, had the complaisance ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... this polite attention surprised the objects of it, his brother officers wondered still more, and no sooner did they perceive the major and his companions issue forth, than they set out in a body to watch where this most novel and unexpected complaisance would terminate. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... all the time, that, at all events, they were what the French call 'entr'ouvert', that enough light for practical purposes came sifted in through his eyelashes. At a later time, being reminded of Miss Wilkes, he said with a certain complaisance, 'Ah, yes! she proffered much entertainment during my widowed years!' He used to go down to her boarding-school, the garden of which had been the scene of a murder, and was romantically situated on the edge of a quarried cliff; ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... then, having been helped out of his carriage by half-a-dozen of his servants, he was shown into a neat but plain parlour, from which he had the prospect of twenty or thirty people at dinner in a spacious hall. In the middle of them was the learned doctor himself, who with much complaisance invited the company to eat heartily. 'My good friend,' said the doctor to a pale-looking man on his right hand, 'you must eat three slices more of this roast-beef, or you will never lose your ague.' 'My friend,' said he to another, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... my dear; but what induced you to bring him to Buisson? I should have gone to see and thank him the first time I went to Paris, and meanwhile a letter would have been sufficient. Did he carry his complaisance and interest so far as to offer you ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... if it be said that the people, or rather the many different nations, abandoned their religions out of complaisance to their sovereign, I answer, Why do we not see the same thing repeated when Julian wished to reverse the experiment? They were not so pliant then; then was it seen very dearly that the people were, as in every other case, unwilling, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... so,) and acquainted them with the favours he had received from his grace the Duke of Bolton. The gentlemen, having such ocular demonstration of the duke's great liberality, treated him with great complaisance and respect, and relieved him very generously, not presuming to offer any small alms to one whom the Duke of Bolton had thought so worthy of his notice. In the same manner, and with the same success, he visited Lord Arundel, Sir Edward Bouverie, and many ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... meet him, and, notwithstanding their endeavours to appear sorrowful, their joy, felt for having got rid of their sister, was visible in every feature. A moment after, everything disappeared, with Beauty's apprehensions at this proof of Beast's complaisance. ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... was not gifted with any great degree of penetration, and the generosity of his disposition combined with his vanity to render him generally the dupe of outward homage and fair professions. He repaid the insidious complaisance of Leicester with good will and even with confidence; and it was not till all was lost that he appears to have recognised this fatal and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Creator to revere, Must sure become the creature; But still the preaching cant forbear, And ev'n the rigid feature: Yet ne'er with wits profane to range, Be complaisance extended; An atheist-laugh's a poor ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... general's sight. In consequence of all this he had several honors conferred upon him; and once when at an entertainment a question arose about commanders, and one of the company (whether really desirous to know, or only in complaisance) asked Scipio where the Romans, after him, should obtain such another general, Scipio, gently clapping Marius on the shoulder as he sat next him, replied, "Here, perhaps." So promising was his early ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to me with a civil salutation. Now, Sir, this is their way. An Englishman would have stomached it, and been sulky, and never have taken further notice of you; but a Scotchman, Sir, though you vote nineteen times against him, will accost you with equal complaisance after each time, and the twentieth time, Sir, he will get ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... he would meet Mary Campbell very soon, and he was not indifferent to the meeting. He could not help glancing with complaisance at the new evening suit he had brought with him; and looking a little ruefully at his browned and hardened hands, and the tan of wind and weather on his face. He hoped he would meet Mary before his father's arrival; so that he could get accustomed ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... proudly. He realized how pure, how tender, how true she was. He knew, too, that she was daily and hourly weaving about him bands which held him captive to beliefs which though true to her were the veriest falsehoods to him; and that only his love of ease, his fatal complaisance, prevented his rending these cords as did Samson the new ropes of the Philistines. He realized that he was sacrificing his manhood, that he was bartering his convictions for flattery and ease by allying himself to Calvin and his following. He recalled Helen's remark that what ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... kept his eyes on her until finally she became aware that he was gazing at her, and then she looked back at him in an arch, smiling way, fixing her mouth in a potent line. Cowperwood was captivated. Was she vulnerable? was his one thought. Did that faint smile mean anything more than mere social complaisance? Probably not, but could not a temperament so rich and full be awakened to feeling by his own? When she was through playing he took occasion to say: "Wouldn't you like to stroll into the gallery? Are you fond of pictures?" He gave ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... United Provinces "as free States" was soon settled. The archdukes, who were aiming at the conclusion of a truce in which to recuperate and not of a definitive peace, showed an unexpected complaisance in granting a concession which they regarded as only temporary. Then came the really serious questions as to freedom of trade in the Indies and the liberty of Catholic worship. Of these the first was of most immediate interest, and ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... always fancy I can judge better by myself of the accommodation, and I can stay as long as I like, and ascertain the sizes of all the rooms without the disagreeable feeling upon my mind, which no amount of complaisance on your part, could ever get me over, that I was most unaccountably detaining somebody from more important business of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... blame myself at least as much as them. If, instead of sending our youthful aristocracy to the continent of Europe, to treat the natives with contempt and increase the unpopularity of the British abroad, while their stock of native arrogance is augmented by the cringing complaisance of those who only bow to their superiority in wealth, they were sent to the United States, or even to Canada, they would receive a lesson or two which would be of infinite service to them; some of their most repulsive prejudices and peculiarities would soon be ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... the old man. They stood in silence, clasped in each other's arms, until the old man, taking the young one by the hand, led him to a table on which two lights were burning, looked at him with complaisance, and said, "It is indeed yourself—it is the likeness of my poor brother: the same eyes, the same proud and resolute air. You look as he did thirty years ago, when he was about to cast himself ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... being declared, as the lesser evil; and the nearer he could approach this delicate boundary line, without crossing it, the greater his success. "I do not think a Spanish war [that is, a declaration by Spain] so near," wrote Nelson in November, 1803. "We are more likely to go to war with Spain for her complaisance to the French; but the French can gain nothing, but be great losers, by forcing Spain to go to war with us; therefore, I never expect that the Spaniards will begin, unless Buonaparte is absolutely mad, as many say he is. I ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... difficult for a happy man with an imperturbable digestion to be a pessimist. He is always inclined to give Nature the benefit of the doubt. His favourite term for this mental complaisance is "catholicity of faith," or, it may be, "a divine hope." The less fortunate brethren bewail the laws of Nature, and doubt a future readjustment, because of stomachs chronically out of order. An ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... and gay with every costly luxury of wealth and taste. Here were statues to Diana and Apollo, and to the household Juno—not meant for worship—of course not—but simply to conform to the general usages of good society; and so far had this complaisance been carried, that the shrine of a peerless Venus was adorned with garlands and votive offerings, and an exquisitely wrought silver censer diffused its perfume on the marble altar in front. This complaisance on the part of some of the younger members of the family drew from ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... poor gentleman, vassal-born, of the house of Gramont. M. de Manicamp, with his tact and talent had created himself a revenue in the opulent family of the celebrated marechal. From his infancy he had, with calculation beyond his age, lent his mane and complaisance to the follies of the Comte de Guiche. If his noble companion had stolen some fruit destined for Madame la Marechale, if he had broken a mirror, or put out a dog's eye, Manicamp declared himself guilty of the crime committed, and received ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the blossoms with joy and hurry home; but the stars light us on our way and make our homes beautiful. Talent has something familiar and social in its impression and greeting; but Genius receives us with a calm dignity that transfigures courtesy and complaisance, and makes our relations healthy and grand. The whole tone of Artot's violin differs from Bull's. I felt they must not be compared, and so listened delightedly, but with a pale, ghastly joy. When I heard Ole, I could not sleep. It was ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... of unselfish cordiality, for further manifold proofs of political complaisance, to be reviewed by me in detail later, proofs of a sincere desire to be enduringly united with a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... mother, who prohibits their correspondence. Declines to accept her offers of money: and why. Mr. Lovelace not a polite man. She will be as ready to place a confidence in him, as he will be to deserve it. Yet tricked away by him as she was, cannot immediately treat him with great complaisance. Blames her for her liveliness to her mother. Encloses the copy of her ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the Reformers went even further in the marriage question, true enough, only for opportunist reasons, and out of complaisance towards the Princes whose strong support and permanent friendship they sought to secure and keep to the Reformation. The friendly Duke of Hessen, Philip I, had, besides his legitimate wife, a sweetheart, willing to yield to his wishes, but only under the condition that he marry her. It ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... than to find the Writings of many of our Modern Divines, not only Stiff and Harsh, but full of Rancour, and to find an easy Propensity and Complaisance in the Writings of the Laity; a Gentleman without the Gown commonly Writes with a genteel Respect to the World, abundance of good Temper and a condescension Endearing; when a brawny Priest, shall shew a great deal of Ill-nature, ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... something sinister or selfish, from the suggestions of their own sordid and vicious inclinations. The young Count subjected himself to such misinterpretation, among those who observed the increased warmth of civility and complaisance in his behaviour to Ferdinand. They ascribed it to his desire of still profiting by our adventurer's superior talents, by which alone they supposed him enabled to maintain any degree of reputation at school; or to the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... of the music-room, and here we were joined by a beautiful gray Angora cat, the pet and pride of his mistress, and a very important personage indeed. He has a trick of climbing to Miss Goodson's shoulder, from which point of vantage he surveys the world about him with all the complaisance of which an animal of such high degree ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... to be directed. I may have clung to him instinctively as a wholesome corrective. At all events, he submitted, in the main good-humouredly, to my frequently personal diatribes, and, by his very complaisance and merry indifference, supplied me again and again with point and illustration for ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... and she took him in her arms and then began to cry. The woman had spoken in complaisance; but she had warmed to her own words, and tenderness followed. The Doctor, entering, found them enlaced: he concluded that his wife was in fault; and he was just beginning, in an awful voice, "Anastasie——," when she looked up at him, smiling, with an upraised ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Elfride's conventional smiles of complaisance and hospitality; and, to make her still less comfortable, Mrs. Swancourt immediately afterwards left them together to seek her husband. Mr. Knight, however, did not seem at all incommoded by his feelings, and he said ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... only answer my question on the assumption that they had found the treasure and were making merry. Yet it was not like Holgate to give them the reins so completely unless he had some purpose to serve by his complaisance. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... Bigottini and sweet Fanny Bias! Fanny Bias in Flora—dear creature!—you'd swear, When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round, That her steps are of light, that her home is the air, And she only par complaisance touches the ground. And when Bigottini in Psyche dishevels Her black flowing hair, and by demons is driven, Oh! who does not envy those rude little devils, That hold her, and hug her, and keep her from heaven? Then, the music—so softly its cadences die, So divinely—oh, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Around his body were skins adorned with different kinds of feathers, and he had on his head a very large and high head-piece, in the form of a grenadier's cap, with prickles like a porcupine; and he made a certain noise which resembled the cry of an alligator. Our people skipped amongst them out of complaisance, though some could not drink of their tourrie; but our rum met with customers enough, and was soon gone. The alligators were killed and some of them roasted. Their manner of roasting is by digging a hole in the earth, and filling ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... lasted some seventy years. The missions to China were entirely in the hands of the Jesuits until 1631, when Dominicans entered that country, and Franciscans in 1633. The new missionaries soon began to accuse the Jesuits of undue complaisance and conformity with heathen customs, and made complaint against them at Rome. For a time the Holy See permitted the practice of the Chinese rites, but frequent contentions arose on this subject between ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... made a relict through cholera, and he had more time than he knew what to do with, to say nothing of moustaches that predestined him to a box-office. And certainly circumstances justified the lady's complaisance, for while hitherto hers had been but a fleeting show, it was now, in the excusably imaginative terms of Colonel Pike, an architectural feature of the cold weather. There was the Mystic Bower, too, in an octagonal tent under a pipal tree, which ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... But his natural complaisance induced him at least to feign himself asleep; whereupon. Paul, laying down "Poor Richard," rose from his chair, and, withdrawing his boots, began walking rapidly but noiselessly to and fro, in his stockings, in the spacious ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... old writers, when they wanted a syllable. And buxom, which means only obedient, is now made, in familiar phrases, to stand for wanton; because in an ancient form of marriage, before the Reformation, the bride promised complaisance and obedience, in these terms: "I will be bonair and buxom in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... ii. 42 f.). Hamlet scarcely ever speaks to him without an insult, but he never shows resentment, hardly even annoyance. He makes use of Laertes with great dexterity. He had evidently found that a clear head, a general complaisance, a willingness to bend and oblige where he could not overawe, would lead him to his objects,—that he could trick men and manage them. Unfortunately he imagined he could trick ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... often been at Mount Vernon on the Sabbath morning when his breakfast-table was filled with guests; but to him they furnished no pretext for neglecting his God and losing the satisfaction of setting a good example. For, instead of staying at home out of false complaisance to them, he used constantly to invite them to ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... tendered to him as the future Lady Orme, and he was agreeably surprised to find that a new mistress for The Cleeve had been so well chosen. He would be all kindness to his grandson and win from him, if it might be possible, reciprocal courtesy and complaisance. "Your mother will be very pleased when she hears ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... politeness &c. adj.; bienseance, urbanity, comity, gentility, breeding, polish, presence; civility, civilization; amenity, suavity; good temper, good humor; amiability, easy temper, complacency, soft tongue, mansuetude; condescension &c. (humility) 879; affability, complaisance, prvenance, amability[obs3], gallantry; pink of politeness, pink of courtesy. compliment; fair words, soft words, sweet words; honeyed phrases, ceremonial; ,salutation, reception, presentation, introduction, accueil[obs3], greeting, recognition; welcome, abord|, respects, devoir, regards, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... he cried, springing from his chair. "Never! Never! Frances is buying the king's complaisance, God knows at what price! It shall not be! The cur! The coward! I'll kill him ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... fy, Laura, a Lady bred at Court, and Yet want complaisance enough to entertain A Gallant in private! this coy Humour Is not a-la-mode.—Be not so peevish with a ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... began to search wearily, indifferently, for the kind of shop that might answer her purpose. The receiving of letters which, for one reason or another, must be dispatched to a secret address, is a very ordinary complaisance on the part of small London stationers; hundreds of such letters are sent and called for every week within the metropolitan postal area. It did not take Monica long to find an obliging shopkeeper; the ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... fashion and far too readily; while the extreme humility with which she deferred to John's opinion, and hung on his lips, made another bad impression on Mary. Nor was she alone in her observations. After a particularly glaring example of the widow's complaisance, Tilly looked across and shut one ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... had scarcely any influence with Elizabeth, and seemed to love her, rather because she would love her, than because Elizabeth deserved it. She had never received from her more than outward attention, nothing beyond the observances of complaisance; had never succeeded in any point which she wanted to carry, against previous inclination. She had been repeatedly very earnest in trying to get Anne included in the visit to London, sensibly open to all the injustice and all the discredit of the selfish ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... fellows, or drunken dogs, Jack had only to say so on good grounds, and they were forthwith sent adrift. Matters went on for a time very smoothly on this footing. Nay, it was even said that Jack was inclined to carry his complaisance rather far, and after a time seldom troubled himself much about the usher's qualifications, provided his credentials were all right. He might ask the young fellow, who presented John's commission, perhaps, what was the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... too divine complaisance, Whose grace misleads them thus, Being gods, in heavenly blindness They call our worship kindness, Our pebble-gift a gem: They think us good to them, Whose glance, whose breath, whose presence, Are ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... meantime, unanimity and force in America are the best arms of the States there, and their best arguments in Europe. To which, if much complaisance to the Spanish King and nation is added, even in objects not essential, the Congress will enable their servants to defeat the designs of the British emissary and their party here, so long as the present King lives. According to present appearances, the war is likely to continue. Although ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... to possess a rare magnetism; most certainly men came under his influence with a noiseless, cheerful complaisance. It may have been that there was a slight fascination in the oblique contour of his eyes, but in reality his power lay in his exquisite finesse; people delved for him under the impression that they were laboring according to the dictates of their ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... unmanner'd curs,' Between his teeth impatient Belcour mutter'd, As each his wit so truly attic utter'd; Then, 'mid the laughter of the brutal throng, Dark frowning through the door he moved along. Within the upper lobby Morris sate, And touch'd with easy complaisance his hat; And cried, not deigning from his seat to stir, 'We hope you're pretty comfortable, Sir. 'These chaps about the door are rather rum; 'But, love you! So they do to all that come.' Short was the conference; the Turnkey's look Quick cognizance of Belcour's features ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... it did not go to the rescue. It is a question whether it would not have been forced to go, if, at the outset, Cavour had declared war. France joined in the protests of the other Powers, and Cavour's enemies spread a monstrous rumour that he was going to give up Genoa to win Napoleon's complaisance. In reply to an anxious inquiry from the British Government, he declared that under no circumstances would he yield another ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... may be the cynical criticism of an elderly gentleman; for it is certain that when I was young I read verses of every kind with infinitely more indulgence, because with more pleasure than I can now do—the more shame for me now to refuse the complaisance which I have had so often to solicit."[311] Similarly he speaks in the preface to Kenilworth of having once been delighted with the poems of Mickle and Langhorne: "There is a period in youth when the mere power of numbers has a more ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... Mr Hobson, "it makes no alteration in my argument; I am speaking to the purpose, and not for the matter of complaisance: and therefore I'm bold to say Mr Harrel's action had nothing of the gentleman in it. A man has a right to his own life, you'll tell me; but what of that? that's no argument at all, for it does not give him a bit the more right to my property; and a man's running in debt, and spending other ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Baghdad, where by means of the Imam he at last finds the desiderated virgin, whom he conducts to Mubarak. In the Arabian story the Imam, Abu Bakr (Haji Bakr in the Turkish), is at first inimical towards the prince and the shaykh but after being propitiated by a present of money he is all complaisance, and, as in the Turkish, introduces the prince to the fallen vazir, the father of the spotless virgin. The sudden conversion of the Imam from a bitter enemy to an obliging friend is related with much humour: one day denouncing the strangers to the folk assembled in ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... plainly pleased at my complaisance and the prospect of using me to gather in another harvest of dollars later. Playing my ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... and used for the purpose of trying to pretend that the Government have abandoned the principle of their opposition to the larger question of Imperial preference. If, although we think them unsatisfactory, we were, out of complaisance, to accord the small preferences suggested upon dutiable articles, we should be told in a minute that we had given up every logical foothold against preference, and that nothing prevented us imposing a tax on bread and meat except our inability ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the wash-day drama comes to an end. We survey with pride and complaisance the piles of clean linen, shining with spotless elegance, and as we read therein a whole sermon on the "Gospel of Cleanliness," we conclude that it is decidedly worth while, and rejoice that fifty-two times a year ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... in high spirits, and full of complaisance, now that the hated Undershaw had departed, walked up and down as usual, talking and smoking. It was evident that the whole process of unpacking his treasures had put him in a glow of excitement. The sudden interruption of habit had acted with stimulating ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... first degrading them into weaknesses Cautious how we draw inferences Chameleon, be able to take every different hue Cheerful in the countenance, but without laughing Common sense (which, in truth, very uncommon) Commonplace observations Complaisance Consciousness and an honest pride of doing well Contempt Conversation will help you almost as much as books Conversation-stock being a joint and common property Converse with his inferiors without insolence Deserve a ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... perhaps five minutes behind his time, but the Earl was all complaisance: the arrangements that he had made for his son; the unexpected facility with which Lord Sherbrooke had apparently entered into those arrangements; the political importance of the alliance with the Duke; the immense accession of wealth to his family; the aspect of public affairs, were all ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... foregone conclusion; and though the learned lawyer duly prepared a very fine speech and pocketed some monstrous fees with a great deal of complaisance, he was honest enough not to hold out the smallest hope of being able ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... astonished official, to whom non-complaisance in the matter of inspection was unprecedented, "you certainly will not put any obstacle in the path of ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... at his friend's complaisance. He gave Joris full credit for his victory over his national prejudices, and he did his very best to make the concession a pleasant event. In this effort, he was greatly assisted by Mrs. Gordon; she set herself to charm Van Heemskirk, as she had set herself to charm Madam ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... water had become heavier. We had often noticed a mutinous, complaining note in it at night, quite different from its cheerful daytime chuckle, and seeming like the voice of a much deeper and more powerful stream. Our water had always these two moods: the one of sunny complaisance, the other of inconsolable, ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... asserted, that the plan which is most steadily pursued, will probably succeed the best. People who are moved by the advice of all their friends, and who endeavour to adapt their system to every fashionable change in opinion, will inevitably repent of their weak complaisance; they will lose all power over their pupils, and will be forced to abandon the education of their families ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... could muster a good horse, as it would seem, joined the jolly cavalcade and rollicked through the moonlight nights, merely to make fun for their conquerors by playing on the superstitious fear of the sable allies of the Northmen. Never before was such good-natured complaisance, such untiring effort to please. So the North laughed, the South ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... on an extensive correspondence with curates in Artois as well as in the other provinces of France, as the best means of educating the people to an intelligent appreciation of his purposes and of his plans. Condorcet, who treated the brutal murderers of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld with a complaisance which entitles him to the confidence of the most advanced anti-clerical philosophers of our own day, bears witness to the good intentions of Turgot's correspondents. He says, in his memoir of Turgot, printed at Philadelphia seven years ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... in speech: my tongue is slow The graceful courtesies of life to pay; To deck kind meanings up in trim array, Keeping the mind's soft tone: words such as flow From Complaisance, when she alone inspires! And Caution, with a care that never tires, Marshals each tribe of thoughts in such a way That all are ready for their needful task, The moment the occasion comes to ask, All prompt to hear, to answer and obey; When mine, undisciplin'd, their cause betray, By coward falterings, ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham
... the flowers to grow. And this would lead to moods of weakness and satisfaction—not to that divine discontent, that rage of impatience which Thyrsis craved. It seemed to him that Corydon grew more and more in love with him, and more willing to cling to him; and he was savage because of his own complaisance. They would spend hours, exchanging endearments and whispering youthful absurdities; and then, the next day, he would write a note of protest, and Corydon would be wild with misery, and would tear up his ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... ninny-hammer of yours from ruin, and all his family? It is well known how he has rose early and sat up late to make him easy, when he was sotting at every alehouse in town. I knew his last wife: she was a woman of breeding, good humour, and complaisance—knew how to live in the world. As for you, you look like a puppet moved by clockwork; your clothes hang upon you as they were upon tenter-hooks; and you come into a room as you were going to steal away a pint pot. Get you gone in the country, to look after your mother's poultry, ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... of details in their exactitude for the purpose of bringing out character. The fact that they may be ugly and vulgar the reverse, makes not the slightest difference. The modern realist contemplates the inanimate things which surround us with peculiar complaisance, and it is right that he should as these things exert upon us a constant and secret influence. The workings of the human mind, in complex civilizations, are by no means simple; they are involved and varied: our thoughts, our feelings, our wills, associate themselves with an infinite number of sensations ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... year, I believe, which was opulence in the Latin Quarter. Now, the squire had been aware of Pair's relation with Godelinette from its inception, and had not disapproved. On his visits to Paris he had dined with them, given them dinners, and treated her with the utmost complaisance. But when, one fine morning, her tailor died, and my quixotic friend announced his intention of marrying her, dans les delais legaux, the squire protested. I think I read the whole correspondence, ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... him with exemplary complaisance, and when he had finished said, "And Madame Bonacieux, do you know who carried her off?—For I do not forget that I owe to that unpleasant circumstance the good fortune of ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... decline this peremptory invitation, but curiosity threw its weight into the balance with complaisance, and with a dignified lift of the chin ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... another, &c. and by the help of some Wax in the hollow of his Hand, he drew away several Guineas every time, which he conveyed into a Handkerchief he held in his Left-hand. When the Number was compleated, they parted, with much Complaisance on each side: but when the Banker came the next Morning to settle the Account of his Cash, he found in his Gold a ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... in the shape of a strip of land along the Maritza controlling that river and Adrianople. An even more sinister concession to Bulgarian exorbitance was that of Epirus, a district assigned to Albania in 1913 but populated by Greeks who had revolted and claimed incorporation in Greece. This Prussian complaisance was doubtless due to the fact that Venizelos, who had resigned owing to Constantine's opposition to his policy, had at the Greek general election in June secured nearly a two to one majority in the Greek Chamber. Greece could not be allowed the benefit of a Prussian queen when it ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... than enough? and yet you will observe (as I now do on recollection) that he was in no great hurry to solicit for a day; since he had no thoughts of proposing settlements till I had got into my new house; and now, in his great complaisance to me, he desired leave to propose his terms, not with an expectation of my immediate answer; but for my consideration only —Yet, my dear, your advice was too much in my head ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Mr. McKinley's apparent vacillation and of his complaisance toward men and interests representing wealth was due to an endowment of exquisite finesse which stooped to conquer, which led by seeming to follow, or by yielding an inch took an ell. In him was rooted by inheritance a quick sense of the manufacturer's point ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... as you will, I know you, You were too honest, knight, to be more civil; A girl all feeling, and a she-attendant All complaisance, a father at a distance - You valued her good name, and would not see her. You scorned to try her, lest you should be victor; For ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... nothing else by it, the pleasure he receives in reflecting on the applause which he knows is secretly given him, is to a proud man more than equivalent for his former self-denial, and overpays self-love, with interest, the loss it sustained in his complaisance ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... princesses. One day, when he was performing mass before herself, her attendants, and a large congregation, something occurred which rendered it necessary for the princess to leave the room. The ladies in waiting and the nobility, who attended church more out of complaisance to her than from any sense of religion followed her example. Sieyes was very busy reading his prayers, and, for a few moments, he did not perceive their departure. At last, raising his eyes from his book, behold the princess, the nobles, and ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... small countenance to the French contention. Thus, for many years it was the policy of the Home Government to discourage the colonists from exercising the right which was always alleged in theory to be concurrent. Nor did the Imperial complaisance end here. The French fishermen and their protectors from time to time put forward pretensions only to be justified by a revival of the sovereignty which was extinguished by the Treaty of Utrecht. Thus, they attempted systematically to ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... in the dirt; when my horse, having slipped his bridle, ran away, and took us up more than an hour to recover him again. It is evident that none of the absurdities I met with in this visit proceeded from an ill intention, but from a wrong judgment of complaisance, and a misapplication in the rules ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education |
