"Genial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... BULMER is firmly convinced that I owe any modest success I may have attained and all my annual income to his beneficent efforts on my behalf. And the worst of it is, that he has a kind of top-heavy and overwhelming good-nature about him. He honestly means to be kind and genial where he only succeeds in irritating his perverse acquaintances. Was BULMER always thus? When he began on his small salary, did he patronise the office-boy? When he had learnt to spell, did he devote his first epistolary efforts to the pompous patronage of his parents? I fancy I can hear him declaring ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... won by a stranger's handsome looks. Muirhead's fair moustache and large blue eyes counted for little there. Crocker and others, masters in the art of judging men, noticed that his eyes were unsteady, and his manner, though genial, seemed hasty. Reggitt summed up their opinion in the phrase, "looks as if he'd bite off more'n he could chaw." Unconscious of the criticism, Muirhead talked, offered drinks, ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... and women, some masked and in motley, others in discoloured travel-stained garments, who pressed about the soprano with cries of joyous recognition. He was evidently an old favourite of the band, for a duenna in tattered velvet fell on his neck with genial unreserve, a pert soubrette caught him by the arm the duenna left free, and a terrific Matamor with a nose like a scimitar slapped him on the back ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... to enjoy this clear, unruffled evening of his days. Neither misfortune nor age had been able to quench in him the fire of passion, nor wholly to obscure the genial humor of his character. In his seventieth year he was still in pursuit of the shadow of a happiness which he had actually possessed in his twentieth. He at length died governor of the fortress where state ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... feels in his heart that the sermon is true: but he does not like it. He turns from it, and says in his heart—Oh! Christ's Cross is a painful subject, and Passion-week and Good Friday a painful time. I will think of something more genial, more peaceful, more agreeable than sorrow, and shame, and agony, and death; Good Friday is too sad a ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... cordially. He had an enormously massive genial manner, which was almost as overpowering as his violence. His smile of benevolence was a wonderful thing, when his cheeks would suddenly bunch into two red apples, between his half-closed eyes and his great ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... more than any other chief, maintained a sort of discipline among the Italians; and it was remarked that the troops of the south engaged in the fatal campaign of Moscow had endured the rigour of the cold better than those troops who were natives of less genial climates. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... endure long periods of waiting as a child when my mother took us in to the dentist, and had shopping and visiting of uncertain length to do. Uncle Henry himself was no favourite with me. He was harder than my father if you vexed him, and less genial when you didn't. And I wanted to go to sea. But it did not seem a light matter to me to oppose my parents, and they were both against me. My dear mother was thrown into the profoundest distress by the bare notion. In her view ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... too heavy and inert;[37] the Pontius Pilate not inappropriately reproduces the features of the worldling and viveur Aretino. The mounted warrior to the extreme right, who has been supposed to represent Alfonso d'Este, shows the genial physiognomy made familiar by the Madrid picture so long deemed to be his portrait, but which, as has already been pointed out, represents much more probably his successor Ercole II. d'Este, whom we find again in that superb piece by the master, the so-called Giorgio Cornaro of Castle ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... Briefless as yet, but with an eye to see Life's sunniest side, and with a heart to take Its chances all as godsends; and his brother, Pale from long pulpit studies, yet retaining The warmth and freshness of a genial heart, Whose mirror of the beautiful and true, In Man and Nature, was as yet undimmed By dust of theologic strife, or breath Of sect, or cobwebs of scholastic lore; Like a clear crystal calm of water, taking The hue and image of o'erleaning flowers, Sweet human faces, white clouds of the noon, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... who are married will have no difficulty in remembering the peculiar ecstasy of the first weeks of their wedded life. It is then that the flowers of this world bloom brightest; that its sun is the most genial; that its clouds are the scarcest; that its fruit is the most delicious; that the air is the most balmy; that its cigars are of the highest flavor; that the warmth and radiance of early matrimonial felicity so rarefies the intellectual atmosphere that the soul mounts higher, and enjoys a wider ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... of the "Cobbler of Preston" and "Old Dozey,"—methinks I see this fine actor, this genial and jovial comedian, and his son, gravely and carefully examining the great map of Kent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... four o'clock with their vegetables fresh from the suburbs. They did mostly a wholesale business but if one knew how it was always possible to buy of them a cabbage or a head of lettuce or a few apples or a peck of potatoes. They were a genial, ruddy-cheeked lot and after a while they came to know Ruth. Often I'd go up there with her before work and she with a basket on her arm would buy for the day. It was always, "Good morning, miss," in answer to her smile. They were respectful whether ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... edibles, and to make him drink wretched wines with magnificent names; and conducted himself, in short, like a model of caution and tact. Prince N—— was in general a man of lively manners, sociable and genial by inclination, and in this case incidentally from prudential motives also; he could not fail to be a complete ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... outcroppings are sometimes indications of noxious weeds hidden below the surface. Weeds are not unfrequently born from the very richness and exuberance of the soil, whilst many a dark and seemingly sterile stem conceals the embryo of fruit and flowers which a genial sunshine will call into ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... head. And suddenly, when the reading was at an end, in the midst of a veritable overflow of joy, of one of those outbursts of Southern effusiveness which compel one to think aloud, he cried, protruding his thick lips toward the guests in his genial smile: ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... him; Carline had learned nothing. For a minute remorse and comprehension had flickered in his mind, now he looked ahead to a good time in Mendova, to sight-seeing, sporting around, genial friends, and all the rest. Argument would do no good, and Terabon retreated from his position as friend and helper to that of an observer and a recorder of facts. Whatever pity he might feel, he could not help but perceive that there was no ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... him who, bettering not with time, Corrupts the strength of Heaven-descended will, And ever weaker grows through acted crime, Or seeming genial ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... and the grace' did not make us all country squires!" I said shortly, whereat he laughed—quite an easy, genial laugh, and twinkled at me with his blue eyes. It was extraordinary how natural and at his ease he appeared; so different from the stiff, silent man ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... broke with the customary tendency by turning away from pathos toward tragedy, and away from discreet benevolence toward emphatic candor. The prevailing school of naturalism has made its principal advance upon the passing school of local color by a sacrifice of genial neighborliness; no less exact and detailed in observation than their predecessors, the naturalists have insisted upon bringing criticism in and measuring the most amiable locality by wider standards. Here lies the essential point ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... stronghold, of Western pictorial photography is undoubtedly California. All forms of art seem to flourish mightily in this genial clime of wondrous, colorful beauty. A land of smiling sunshine, of lofty snow-capped peaks, of weird trees, of golden poppy-covered slopes, of sparkling seas—it is small wonder that the young art of the camera should thrive ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1920 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... half inclined to say, What! so little for so much?—and to spend so full an energy in resenting the pains of maternity as an unmeaning blot on the scheme of things, that I have none left for a more genial emotion. Altogether, I am disappointed in myself as a father. I seem to have no imagination, and at present I would rather touch a loaded torpedo ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... welcomed by the President, the cabinet, and General Scott with sincere friendship, by Congress with a hopeful eagerness, by the people with enthusiasm, and by Washington society with adulation. Externally he seemed to justify such a greeting. He was young, handsome, accomplished, genial and winning in conversation and manner. He at once manifested great industry and quick decision, and speedily exhibited a degree of ability in army organization which was not equaled by any officer during the Civil ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... his story and rose to go. The Dean, who was a genial soul, and who, with his generous embonpoint and his knickers, looked at present a little like Mr. Pickwick, regarded him affectionately. He had retired from the college two years before, but upon the President's departure for Europe on a six months' leave, he had been ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... were much more favorable for the production of a literature in New England than in the southern colonies. The free and genial existence of the "Old Dominion" had no counterpart among the settlers of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, and the Puritans must have been rather unpleasant people to live with for persons of a different way of thinking. But their intensity of character, their ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... from my musings by Wisting digging his axe into the snow as a sign that his work was done, after which he picked up the cutlets, and went into the tent. The clouds had dispersed somewhat, and from time to time the sun appeared, though not in its most genial aspect. We succeeded in catching it just in time to get our latitude determined — 85deg. 36' S. We were lucky, as not long after the wind got up from the east-south-east, and, before we knew what was happening, everything was in a cloud of snow. But now we snapped our fingers ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... never told an untruth unless for very weighty reasons. He was pre-eminently a philosopher, of a happy, sceptical turn of mind. He had no prejudices. He never looked down, as so many hard characters do, upon a person possessing a different code of ethics. His attitude was one of broad, genial tolerance. He saw nothing out of the way in the fact that he had himself been a road-agent, a professional gambler, and a desperado at different stages of his career. On the other hand, he did not in the least hold it against any one that he had always acted within the law. ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... Owen Sargent very well, although his money made her honestly think she did. He had a wide, pleasant, but homely face, and an aureole of upstanding yellow hair, and a manner as unaffected as might have been expected from the child of his plain old genial father, and his mother, the daughter of a tanner. He lived alone, with his widowed mother, in a pleasant, old-fashioned house, set in park-like grounds that were the pride of River Falls. His mother often asked waitresses' unions ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... slight passing alarm at one or two explosions that she would, for instance, address her stepfather, after hearing his volleys at some offender in the distance, with, "Who did I hear you calling a confounded idiot, Jeremiah?" To which he would reply, softening into a genial smile: "Lost my temper, I did, Sarah dear. Lost my temper with the Wash. The Wash sticks in pins and the heads are too small to get hold of"; or, "People shouldn't lick their envelopes up to the hilt, and spoil one's ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... was therefore no lack of subjects for conversation, and the time ran rapidly away. Hardee was in person and bearing a good type of the brilliant soldier and gentleman. Tall and well formed, his uniform well fitting and almost dandyish, his manner genial and easy, his conversation at once gay and intelligent, it would be hard to find a more attractive companion, or one with whom you would be put ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... on my best things when I drive with you, that your daughter may do you credit;" for Bessie in her heart thought her father the handsomest man in Cliffe; and indeed many people admired the doctor's clever, refined face, and quiet, genial manners. ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... dialogue is worthy of Anthony Hope, his dramatic power is intense, his satire is never ill-natured, it is always cutting, his humour is gentle, pathos is rare in his novels, he has never described a woman, he is undoubtedly a philosopher, but he is not one who is academic, above all he is the genial writer of phantastic tales that are as ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... the softening glow radiated by the liquor in me to make them as good as I had previously thought they were. There were some I found I did not miss, and more came to the same conclusion about me. They were all right—fine!—when seen or heard through ears and eyes that had been affected by the genial charitableness of a couple or three cocktails; but when seen or heard with no adventitious appliances on my part save ginger ale they were rather depressing—and I am quite sure they held the ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... were constant objects of his bounty. Large sums were spent in charity. No church or benevolent institution appealed to him in vain. His house was open, and his hospitality was princely and proverbial. No one was more genial at home. Few prominent persons ever visited Washington without being entertained by Toombs. His regular dinners to the bar of the circuit, as, twice a year, the lawyers came to Washington to court, are remembered by scores ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... proved to be a genial companion in the days that followed. Nothing suited him better than to fill up the Flyaway with the crew of campers and go sailing on the pond. No longer seeking to support a fallen dignity as skipper, he was pleased to receive instruction from Henry Burns and Harvey, and even ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... absent while a young scapegrace invaded the house and insulted its occupants. It was long before the domestic atmosphere of the lecturer's house resumed its normal quiet, and longer still before the genial face of Von Hartmann was seen beneath its roof. Perseverance, however, conquers every obstacle, and the student eventually succeeded in pacifying the enraged ladies and in establishing himself upon the old footing. He has now no longer any cause to fear the enmity ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... proud and reserved that they make one feel quite small, and an "outsider" as well. I can see quite well that they rather resent my being here at all. It is not personal, for when alone with me they are genial, almost brotherly; but the moment a few of them get together they are like a sort of jury, with me as the criminal before them. It is an odd situation, and quite new to me. I am pretty well accustomed ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... in mid-August, not cold for the time of year. I had been laid up for a few days, and my back was unpropitious, and I was tired. But I felt very happy, for so bad a man, since the sunshine was clear and genial, and my pipe went as easily ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... exclusively on the crossing of primordially distinct forms. Other authors attribute the tendency to variability to an excess of food, and with animals to an excess relatively to the amount of exercise taken, or again to the effects of a more genial climate. That these causes are all effective is highly probable. But we must, I think, take a broader view, and conclude that organic beings, when subjected during several generations to any change whatever ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... want a helpmeet; I can help myself. Nor did I expect to be loved devotedly, for the race has not yet evolved a man lovable on thorough acquaintance; even my self-love is neither thorough nor constant. I wanted a genial partner for domestic business, and Agatha struck me quite suddenly as being the nearest approach to what I desired that I was likely to find in the marriage market, where it is extremely hard to suit oneself, and where the likeliest ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... streets of Derby, or pressure of humanity, or wearying politics of the market-place. He found himself in one of those moods that visit all men sometimes, when the world appears, after all, a homely and a genial place; when the simplest things are the best; when no excitement or ambition or furious zeal can compare with the gentle happiness of a tired body that is in the act of refreshment, or of a driven mind that ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... fact by an Executive mandate which upset his promised and preferred arrangements. It was then that he became aware of two things: first, that neither himself nor General Scott, nor both combined, were infallible with the Administration; and second, that the President, with all his suavity and genial nature, had a mind of his own, and the resolution and self-reliance to form, and the firmness and independence to execute a purpose. They had each overestimated the influence of the other with the President, and underestimated his capacity, will, and ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... he answered, with that frank, genial smile of his which had so favourably impressed me at our former meeting. "You want to prove to me that my ideas concerning Bimbane are all wrong, and that I, and those who regard her as I do, are doing her the utmost injustice. ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... doubly laid plans the inmates of the hall welcomed their visitors, in whom were also included Captain Douglas. The sincerity of the latter was expressive in the humorous and hearty congratulations showered upon the genial host. ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... fading memory of Palmerston, we shall be able to point to no great truth which he taught, no great distinct policy which he embodied, no noble words which once fascinated his age, and which, in after years, men would not willingly let die. But we shall be able to say "he had a genial manner, a firm, sound sense; he had a kind of cant of insincerity, but we always knew what he meant; he had the brain of a ruler in the clothes of a man of fashion". Posterity will hardly understand the words of the aged reminiscent, but we now feel their effect. The House of Commons, ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... now," he assured them in a genial, offhand fashion. "Miss Valdes must be backing Pesquiera. They know you two are the guilty villains. Inside of twelve hours they'll ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... perhaps unreasonable to many to assert that a decent readable book which gives us actual instruction can be otherwise than a useful companion and a solid gain. Possibly many people are ready to cry out upon me as an obscurantist for venturing to doubt a genial confidence in all literature simply as such. But the question, which weighs upon me with such really crushing urgency is this: What are the books that in our little remnant of reading time it is most vital for us to know? For the true use of books ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... pretty of the girls—indeed, she was quite plain, but derived a charm from her infinite goodness of heart—was chosen in marriage by Dr. Chambouvet, a big, genial, kindly fellow, who had inherited his father's practice at Vieux-Bourg, where he lived in a large white house, which had become the resort of the poor. And thus the three girls being married, the only ones who remained with Mathieu and ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... red houses of the old town, we come at length into a shallow green valley, where the curious Gypsy Race flows intermittently along the fertile bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the pleasant landscape with a genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under the trees of the park surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the Stricklands. The family has been connected with the village for several centuries, and some of their richly-painted and gilded ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... that the Tonneraire was a happy ship. All the officers, both junior and senior, agreed. The chief lights of the senior mess were Tom Fairlie, always good-humoured and cheerful; honest M'Hearty, rough and genial; young Murray, the boy marine officer, merry and innocent; and Simmons the master, who would have his growl, who was all thunder without the lightning, but a very excellent old fellow, when young Murray didn't tease him ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... a little friendly visit to England's chief ally, taking with him little Arthur. He seems to have found the French Emperor a little stiff and cold at first, as he wrote to the Queen, "The Emperor thaws more and more." In the sunshine of that genial presence he had to thaw. The Prince adds: "He told me one of the deepest impressions ever made upon him was when he arrived in London shortly after King William's death and saw you at the age of eighteen going to open ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... in Fielding's pages, accorded to brutalised if honest country squires, and cruel and corrupt magistrates; and there is little evidence throughout his life to indicate that the great novelist drank more freely than did the genial heroes of his pen. As regards Murphy's general assertion that, at this his entrance into life, young Fielding "launched wildly into a career of dissipation" no other reputable contemporary evidence is discoverable of the "wildness" popularly attributed ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... they were to prayer, felt the genial influence, and at the spot where each happened at the moment to be, they stopped in the work in which they were engaged, and knelt likewise in an endeavour to imitate them in ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... British expeditionary force, who came to visit President Poincar before taking command of his army. At quarter to one, three motor-cars rapidly approached the Embassy. In the second I could get a glimpse of Sir John in his gray-brown khaki uniform. His firm, trim appearance and his clear blue eyes, genial smile, and sunburnt face made an excellent impression, and he was greeted with loud cheers. He had a long talk with M. Messimy, Minister ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... concluded, he muttered to himself, "Twenty dollars!—cheap enough." He had remained at home the day before; now he could go upon 'Change with a face cleared of all suspicion. A cloud of truth had overshadowed him, but it had been dissipated by the genial sunlight of falsehood. His self-complacency was fully restored when he received a note, in the daintiest text on the daintiest paper, congratulating him on the triumphant establishment of his innocence before the New York public, and bearing as its signature a name so precious to him that ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... from the closely-folded bud, wrapped in its olive-green calix, to the half- blown flower, ready to emerge from its watery prison, and in all its virgin beauty expand its snowy bosom to the sun and genial air. Nor is the beauty of the flower its sole attraction: when unfolded it gives out a rich perfume not unlike the smell of fresh lemons. The leaves are also worthy of attention: at first they are of a fine dark green, but as the flower decays, the leaf changes its hue to a vivid ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... he was informed on arrival, was out. The porter, politely genial, advised monsieur to seek her ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... much originality and attractiveness in its votaries. The Lives of Painters abound in the characteristic, the adventurous, and the romantic. Open Vasari, Walpole, or Cunningham, at random, and one is sure to light upon something odd, genial, or exciting. One of the most popular novelists of our day assured me, that, in his opinion, the richest unworked vein for his craft, available in these days of civilized uniformity, is artist-life at Rome, to one thoroughly cognizant of its humors ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... evidently did not look upon the challenge as a matter of serious moment, why then, no one else had any cause for anxiety, and the younger men were right glad to join in that bowl of punch which their genial host had offered with so ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and its collateral, the S.W., prevail nearly three-fourths of the year in the British seas, and though boisterous at times, are very genial on ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... then—as also according to Dr. Darwin, who was just such another practical and genial thinker, and who was distinctly a pupil of Buffon, though a most intelligent and original one—if an organ after a reasonable amount of inspection appeared to be useless, it was to be called useless without more ado, and theories were to ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... and stood by the mantelpiece, confronting them. He was a remarkably handsome young man; tall, well formed, very well dressed, hair and moustaches carefully trimmed, and features of regular though manly beauty, with an expression of genial kindness and courtesy. ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... his first slumber (he must have gone to bed at nine), and drowsily expresses a wish to be informed (for he will not take the trouble to examine into the matter for himself) whether we have any luggage; and this sense of depression becomes aggravated and intensified when no genial Boniface (as the landlord used invariably to be styled in romances of half a century ago) comes forth to greet us with a hearty welcome, and no buxom smiling hostess, is there to order the trim waiting-maid, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... been right in expecting the party at Mrs. Carfry's to be a small one. Besides their hostess and her sister, they found, in the long chilly drawing-room, only another shawled lady, a genial Vicar who was her husband, a silent lad whom Mrs. Carfry named as her nephew, and a small dark gentleman with lively eyes whom she introduced as his tutor, pronouncing a French name as she ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... see if I could make out any cause for his anger, since he is usually such a well-behaved man, and except his violent fits nothing of the kind had ever occurred. I found him, to my astonishment, quite composed and most genial in his manner. I tried to get him to talk of the incident, but he blandly asked me questions as to what I meant, and led me to believe that he was completely oblivious of the affair. It was, I am sorry to say, however, only another instance of his cunning, for within half an hour I heard ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... spirits of all our people were much exhilarated in proportion as we approached to the tropics, and our sailors diverted themselves with a variety of plays every evening. The genial mildness of the air was so welcome to us, after a long absence from it, that we could not help preferring the warm climates as the best adapted for the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... when this pine was a living tree, the springs were late and cold, and the summers cloudy and chill, as in that group of seasons which intervened between 1835 and 1841; and then, for four or five years, more springs were early and summers genial, as in the after group of 1842, 1843 and 1844. An arrangement in nature,—first observed, as we learn from Bacon, by the people of the Low Countries, and which has since formed the basis of meteoric tables, and of predictions and ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... rule for the young, along with dutifully adjusted demand and compliance between the older hands and their employers, ended in the transformation of the thin, starved, half-dazed creatures who entered the gates of the factory into the best type of workpeople to be found in the district. The genial side of the patriarchal system was seen at its best. There is a touch of grace about the picture of the pleasant house with its old beech-trees and its steep grassy lawns sloping to the river, with the rhythmic hum of the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... born in the year 1378 at Xativa, near Valencia. He served King Alfonso of Aragon as privy secretary, and was made Bishop of Valencia. He came to Naples with this genial prince when he ascended its throne, and in the year 1444 he ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... the fleet at the loss of this gallant and promising young officer, whose distinguished services at the evacuation of Toulon, as well as his kindly and genial disposition, had made him universally liked ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... energy and force has triumphed over his equals, is frequently the prey of the insignificant and vile. You doubtless know that the polar regions even in the original attitude of the earth, owing to their receiving the rays of the sun obliquely, must have possessed a less genial climate than the parts of the orb that lie between the arctic and the antarctic circles. This was a wise provision of Providence to prevent a premature occupation of those chosen regions, or to cause them to be left uninhabited, until mind had so far mastered ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... took him away forthwith, a writhing, furious Thing, utterly transformed from the genial personality which had for so long swindled and outwitted a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... knew no difference between his having been a personal benefactor of hers, and a kind friend to me, and that she would have received him with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any case. But his easy, spirited good humour; his genial manner, his handsome looks, his natural gift of adapting himself to whomsoever he pleased, and making direct, when he cared to do it, to the main point of interest in anybody's heart; bound her to him wholly in five minutes. His manner ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... sugar plantation, nor will I attempt to convey to the reader any definite idea of the Jamaicans' hospitality. Let it suffice to say that I never spent a happier month anywhere, and that the planters, with all their jollity, light-heartedness, and love of fun, were the most genial, kindly, hospitable folk I ever met with, each of them vieing with all the rest in an amicable contest who should show me the most kindness and attention. I went among them an almost total stranger; when I left, I felt as ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... however, that Gaston first set foot there; he saw the beautiful city for the first time as if sheathed austerely in repellent armour. In his most genial subsequent impressions of the place there was always a lingering [28] trace of that famous frost through which he made his way, wary of petrifying contact against things without, to the great western portal, on Candlemas morning. The sad, patient images by the doorways of the ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... seemed to have any of her wits about her. The rest of the inmates who were still on foot had evidently imbibed a larger amount of the potheen than their heads could stand, she herself being even more genial than usual. ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... the fiendishly cold mornings that soon set in; but the experiment was never designedly tried, thanks, possibly, to the frank exposition of his personal views as expressed by Lieutenant Blake, of the cavalry, who said, "Try it if you are stagnating for want of a sensation, my genial plodder, but not if you value the advice of one who has been there, so to speak. The chief will spot you quicker than he can a missing shoe,—a missing horseshoe, Johnny, let me elaborate for your comprehension,—and the next ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... with the jovial countenance, and doubtless genial ways, had the right to stand at her dressing-table, if he chose, and speculate upon the various uses of all the daintiness that was spread before him. He had the right and cared nothing for it, while the man who did care, stood there shamefaced, ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... came Hamlin and Avery, big, handsome, genial, sauntering men, clothed in white duck and low-cut shoes. They permeated the whole office with an aura of debonair prosperity. They passed among the clerks and left a wake of abbreviated given ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... lawyer and the lawyer's office proved genial and comfortable to him. He liked civil ways and smooth speech, and understood them far better than Master Shaw's brevity and uncouthness. The lawyer chatted kindly and intelligently; he gave Daddy Darwin wine and biscuit, and talked of the long standing of the Darwin family ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... and fresh; therefore its dead were easily distinguished where they lay. They marked in a dotted line an obtuse angle, covering a wide front, with its apex toward the enemy, and there upon his face, still in death, with his head to the works, lay the Colonel, the brave and genial Colonel ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... thing, they are very sensitive to the weather. With them, as with us, sunlight and a genial warmth go to produce serenity. A bright summer-like day, late in October, or even in November, will set the smaller birds to singing, and the grouse to drumming. I heard a robin venturing a little song on the 25th of last December; but that, for aught I ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... feature in the northern landscape so common that we cease to remark it, but which we miss at once when we enter a tropical or semi-tropical country. In Cuba and Jamaica and Hawaii I saw no meadows and no pastures, no grazing cattle, none of the genial, mellow look which our landscape presents. Harshness, rawness, aridity, ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... naturally, the critics whom I have most cause to fear; but I do not inscribe these pages to you with the design of purchasing your favor. I beg you all to accept the fact as an acknowledgment of the many quiet and happy years I have spent among you; of the genial and pleasant relations into which I was born, and which have never diminished, even when I have returned to you from the farthest ends of the earth; and of the use (often unconsciously to you, I confess,) which I have drawn from your memories of former days, your habits ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... will signed, sealed, and delivered,—the old man had felt a load lifted from his heart. Three or four of his old friends, bons vivants like himself, had seen his arrival duly proclaimed in the newspapers, and had hastened to welcome him. Warmed by the genial sight of faces associated with the frank joys of his youth, Sir Miles, if he did not forget the prudent counsels of Dalibard, conceived a proud bitterness of joy in despising them. Why take such care of the worn-out carcass? His will was made. What was left ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the time at least; and of course, so far as warm bathing promotes appetite, digestion, assimilation, and sound sleep, it contributes to the establishment of increased vigor. Thus we find, that hypochondriacal patients have often found new hopes in the genial lymph as it embraced and laved their naked limbs; they have felt the elements were still in their favor; they have rejoiced in the sunny air, and taken their homely meals as if they were ambrosia, with hearts grateful to the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... at the present day. They came down in those early times in great military hordes, and in fleets of piratical ships, through the German Ocean and the various British seas, braving every hardship and every imaginable danger, to find new regions to dwell in, more genial, and fertile, and rich than their own native northern climes. In these days they evince the same energy, and endure equal privations and hardships, in hunting whales in the Pacific Ocean; in overrunning India, and seizing its sources of wealth and power; or in sallying forth, whole fleets of ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... than France,—in fact, nothing to illustrate the memory of Leibnitz; not so much as an English translation of his works, or an English edition of them, in these two centuries. Nor have M. de Careil's countrymen in times past shared all his enthusiasm for the genial Saxon. The barren Psychology of Locke obtained a currency in France, in the last century, which the friendly Realism of his great contemporary could never boast. Raspe, the first who edited the "Nouveaux Essais," takes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the giver of increase to flocks, not the youthful and athletic messenger of the gods. Hephaestus, too, especially when associated with Athena, is the patron and teacher of all handicrafts, himself the ideal artisan, practical and genial, but with none of his godhead lost in a too human individuality; even his lameness—characteristic of the smith in all folk-lore—is lightly indicated, not dwelt on as an interesting motive. Various statues of particular gods may, of course, emphasise one side or another of their functions. Athena ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... that had often visited me in the past months, as I sat in the dingy courtroom, and listened perfunctorily to the legal wrangle, the abuse and defense, the long-drawn testimony of witnesses, the comment of the precise and genial judge, and contemplated idly the jaded, uncomfortable jury, the covert whispering of Assistant District Attorneys and postoffice inspectors, the dangling maps and the piles of documents—when I had ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... reconciliation of mankind by an unreal effusion. There will be no advantage in forcing the feelings of the late combatants. It is ridiculous to suppose that for the next decade or so, whatever happens, any Frenchmen are going to feel genial about the occupation of their north-east provinces, or any Belgians smile at the memory of Dinant or Louvain, or the Poles or Serbs forgive the desolation of their country, or any English or Russians take a ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... rear Their mound, 'twixt Ghent and Bruges, to chase back The ocean, fearing his tumultuous tide That drives toward them, or the Paduans theirs Along the Brenta, to defend their towns And castles, ere the genial warmth be felt On Chiarentana's top; such were the mounds, So fram'd, though not in height or bulk to these Made equal, by the master, whosoe'er He was, that rais'd them here. We from the wood Were ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... Uncle Ezra was more than usually genial, and beamed upon Maud and Watkins perpetually. Watkins was quite the hero and did ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... with the French mixed-bloods, who inflamed his prejudices against the Americans, all had their influence in making of the wily Sioux a determined enemy to the white man. While among his own people he was always affable and genial, he became boastful and domineering in his dealings with the hated race. He once remarked that "if we wish to make any impression upon the pale-face, it is necessary ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... something more definite and intelligible out of that doctor. Somehow or other I managed to get an introduction to the man, and he gave me an appointment to come and see him. He turned out to be a pleasant, genial fellow; rather young and not in the least like the typical medical man, and he began the conference by offering me whiskey and cigars. I didn't think it worth while to beat about the bush, so I began by saying that part of his evidence at the Harlesden Inquest struck me as very peculiar, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... to dinner call; A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall: The rich buffet well-colour'd serpents grace, And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face. Is this a dinner? this a genial room? No, 'tis a temple, and a hecatomb. A solemn sacrifice, perform'd in state, You drink by measure, and to minutes eat. So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear Sancho's dread doctor[53] and his wand were there. 160 Between each act the trembling salvers ring, From soup to sweet-vine, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... need description, as they abound almost wherever there is green grass. One summer only is their period of life; they are hatched in the spring, and die in the fall; previous to which, they deposite their eggs in the earth, which the genial warmth of the next season brings to life. They are food for ...
— The History of Insects • Unknown
... Cutler and his sister, who had quietly withdrawn to a little distance—for, of course, they took in the situation at once—and performed the ceremony, when, to her surprise, Mr. Cutler cordially shook her lover by the hand, remarking, with his genial smile: ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... I had better keep back and not disturb them. The room was not in its usual state of comfort and hospitality. Some kind of meal had been made at the table, as always must be in these parts; but not of the genial, reckless sort which random travelers carried on without any check from the Sawyer. For he of all men ever born in a civilized age was the finest host, and a guest beneath his roof was sacred as a lady to a knight. Hence it happened that I was much surprised. Proper conduct ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... genial face, creased into jolly patterns, and my heart warmed to him, and to Michael Daragh and the pretty girls and the fat old lady in front of me. Nice people, kind people. It seemed certain that they must want ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... strides made his way down the Strand and thence by Ludgate Circus to Aldgate and the mean streets he knew so well. It was nearly midnight when he arrived there, and yet he fell in with certain whom he knew and passed them by with a genial nod. His altered appearance, the black overcoat and the scarf which hid his dress clothes, called for many a "Gor blime" or "Strike me dead." Women caught his arm and wrestled with him, roughs tried to push him ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... morning was cold and frosty, as winter mornings in New England are wont to be, and Adah, accustomed to the more genial climate of Kentucky, shivered involuntarily as from her uncurtained window she looked out upon the bare woods and the frozen fields covered with the ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... the gradual work of some five or six years, during which my brother was between eleven and seventeen years old. At seventeen, I am told that he was remarkably well informed and clever. His manners were, like my father's, singularly genial, and his appearance very prepossessing. He had as yet no doubt concerning the soundness of any fundamental Christian doctrine, but his mind was already too active to allow of his being contented with my mother's childlike faith. ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... was no more fortunate than the first. For although he was willingly admitted to Mr. King's writing-room, it was to see that gentleman look up and say with the most genial of smiles: ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... with his brightened eye and bearing, as if there were a well-spring of joy within him, ready to brim over at once in tear and in smile, and finding an outlet in the praise and thanksgiving that his spirit chanted, and his face expressed, and in that sunny genial benevolence that must make all share ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... board to superintend the selection and treatment of the plants. Tahiti was duly reached, and the business of the expedition was taken in hand. One thousand and fifteen fine trees were chosen and carefully stowed. But the comfortable indolence, the luxuriant abundance, the genial climate, the happy hospitality of the handsome islanders, and their easy freedom from compunction in reference to restraints imposed by law and custom in Europe, had a demoralising effect upon the crew of the Bounty. A stay of twenty-three weeks at the island sufficed to subvert ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... up his rug. It was ample and soft, a smooth brown camel-hair. He wrapped us both up in it. We sat late on deck that night, as warm as a toast ourselves, thanks to our genial Irishman. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... his recollections of his friend, instead of supplying them for the larger biography; perhaps some connexion may be traced between this fact and the indignation of Scott's literary executor! Possessed, withal, of a genial temper, he was sensitive of affront, and keen in his expressions of displeasure; he had his hot outbursts of anger with Wilson and Wordsworth, and even with Scott, on account of supposed slights, but his resentment speedily ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... owe some of the most pleasurable moments of my boyhood existence. A more Christian-like spirit, a soul fraught with greater or intenser sympathies, and a mind less selfish in its manifestations, or imbued with more genial influences than hers, never existed within the compass of human being. As a teacher, she was firm, yet mild; as a neighbor, kind and obliging—in a word, her whole demeanor was such that the heart unconsciously awakened to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... I talking with my mind. I did not long to leave the door And find a new church, as before, But rather was quiet and inclined To prolong and enjoy the gentle resting From further tracking and trying and testing. "This tolerance is a genial mood!" (Said I, and a little pause ensued). "One trims the bark 'twixt shoal and shelf, And sees, each side, the good effects of it, A value for religion's self, A carelessness about the sects of it. Let me enjoy my own conviction, Not watch my neighbor's faith with fretfulness, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... correspondence continues: the intimacy added charm, interest, fragrance to his life, brought out in him all that was genial, playful, humorous. He fights the admonitions of coming weakness; goes to Sidmouth with a sore throat, but takes his papers and his books. It is, he says, a deserted little sea-coast place. "Mrs. Grundy has a small house there, but she does not know me by sight. If Madame Novikoff were to ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... through the dark to Malbourne Rectory, where, by the fire, he finds his invalid mother, his twin sister, Lilian, and two younger children. Here he appears the idol of the hearth—genial, graceful, gifted, beautiful, and warm-hearted. But he betrays ambition, sudden and great haste to be married, and some selfishness. He walks to his lodging in a neighbouring village, where trifling circumstances point to a refined sensuousness, self-indulgence, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... prevailed here as well. If the stranger did not give himself up to the whirl and yield himself, "rescue or no rescue," to the lance of the unmarried, he could find, behind the chevaux de frise of clashing knitting-needles, the most genial ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... as languorous as southern France Flow down her streets like water-talk at fords; While through iron gates where pickaninnies sprawl, The sound floats back, in rippled banjo chords, From lush magnolia shade where mockers call. Mornings, the flower-women hawk their wares— Bronze caryatids of a genial race, Bearing the bloom-heaped baskets on their heads; Lithe, with their arms akimbo in wide grace, Their jasmine nods jestingly at cares— Turbaned they are, deep-chested, straight and tall, Bandying old English words now seldom heard, But sweet as Provencal. ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... exquisitely delightful, that I think it quite impossible to recommend it too highly, if we consider it merely as a rational and elegant refinement. The manner in which the warm bath operates, in producing the salutary consequences, seems very evident. The genial warmth which is so applied to the skin in the place of the cold air of the atmosphere, by which we are commonly surrounded, expands all those very small vessels, where the extremities of the arteries and veins unite, and by gently stimulating the whole ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... he shall perform the true office of friendship. He will introduce his pupil into the society which he himself prizes most, surrounding him with the genial presence of the high-minded, that this good company may work its own kind ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... lamentable ignorance of even the names of the principal English authors, was both a pleased and a benefited listener to the conversations of these bookish men. Hawthorne says that to hear the old Inspector (whom he has immortalized in the quaint and genial introduction to the "Scarlet Letter") expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher's-meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing the same for the table, was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster; and to hear these literary gourmands talk with such gusto of this writer's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... any mystery about him, so far as I know," said the Reporter, who was seated as usual upon the carriage block. The Candy Wagon continued to act as a magnet for him, and in season and out his genial presence ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... the reunion is important, because the strong protecting arm of our Government would be extended over her, and the vast resources of her fertile soil and genial climate would be speedily developed, while the safety of New Orleans and of our whole southwestern frontier against hostile aggression, as well as the interests of the whole Union, would be ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... killing three grizzlies, two mountain lions, and a large number of elk, deer, sheep, wolves, beavers, and many other animals. When Bayard Taylor traveled through the parks of Colorado, Sumner was his guide, and he speaks in glowing terms of Mr. Taylor's genial qualities in camp, but he was mortally offended when the great traveler requested him to act as doorkeeper at Breckenridge to receive the admission fee from those who ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... to be more or less satisfied when he had put any one opposed to him proportionally in the wrong; and now his exultation at having put a poser manifested itself in his tone. This, however, braced up Stephen to cope with a difficult and painful situation. It was with a calm, seemingly genial frankness, that ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... habits would know how the land lay from the Irish quarter. If Mr. Power appeared hatless in the Lobby, a storm was brewing, and before the Speaker left the chair there would, so to speak, be wigs on the green. If his genial face beamed from under his hat as he walked about the Lobby the weather was set fair, at ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... amused and terrified at the truth of the drawing. "The devil guided my hand," the deaf painter said to me, chuckling mysteriously, and nodding his head with a good-natured irony in the way he generally accompanied his genial witticisms. This painter was, however, a wonderful old fellow; in spite of his deafness he was enthusiastically fond of music, and he knew how, when near enough to the orchestra, to read the music in the musicians' ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... cautious brethren in the pinnace meantime had anchored and made things as snug as possible on board, but as the fire blazed up, and one after another on shore showed signs of its genial influence, the dangers of abandoning the boat grew less and less formidable, until Standish, rubbing his hands and turning to toast the other side ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin |
