"Phlegmatic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shouts and songs from the galleries and escorted by excited ushers across the floor to their seats on the stage. Miss Egerton had stopped in the midst of her sentence to find out whose coming had turned the galleries into pandemonium and brought every usher but the phlegmatic Jean to ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... the elder of the two, was a very tall, stout, squarely built young man, with a broad, good-humored face, fair skin, blue eyes and light hair. In temperament he was rather phlegmatic, quiet and lazy. In character he was honest, prudent and good-tempered. In circumstances he was a safe banker, with a notable wife and two healthy children. The one thing that was able to excite his quiet nerves was the chase, of which he was ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... cry of joy, and with a rapid movement, of which so phlegmatic a man might have been thought incapable, he ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... much longer. That very noon he was fighting with his back against the wall. In Workingman's Hall he was making his last fierce fight to hold from crumbling the resolution of the strikers who still stood by their guns.... He threw the fire of his soul into their dull, phlegmatic faces. It struck no answering spark. Never before had he spoken to men without a consciousness of his powers, without pose, without dramatics. Now he was himself, and more dramatic, more compelling than ever before. ... He pleaded, begged, flayed his audience, but ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... a blazing star or comet appeared for several months before the plague, as there did the year after, another, a little before the fire; the old women, and the phlegmatic hypochondriac part of the other sex, whom I could almost call the old women too, remarked, especially afterward, though not till both those judgments were over, that those two comets passed directly over the city, and that so very near the houses that it was plain they imported something peculiar ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... fan. The dull, slow rage was simmering within her. Even her vanity could not misinterpret the meaning of Hector's devotion to Mrs. Brown. He was deeply in love, of course, and she, Morella, was robbed of her hopes of being Lady Bracondale. Her usually phlegmatic nature was roused in all its narrow strength. She was like some silent, vengeful beast waiting a chance ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... phlegmatic hem; sad, very sad, truly! cried Mowbray; who sat himself down on one side of the bed, as I sat on the other: his eyes half closed, and his lips pouting out to his turned-up nose, his chin curdled [to use one ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... beneath; so near as to seem within the touch of a hand. Though he strained his ears, no alien sound came wafting upward. "Keep circling here," he directed the pilot. "The moon'll be up in a minute and then we can be sure of where we are." The pilot nodded. He was a phlegmatic young man. Not once during the trip had he uttered ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg
... was all parts and no whole, and all the parts were mere untrained militia. Moreover, the spirit of the 'town meeting' ruled the camp. Even a battery could not be moved without consulting a council of war. Schuyler, though far more phlegmatic than Montgomery, agreed with him heartily about this and many other exasperating points. 'If Job had been a general in my situation, his memory had not been so famous ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... be pardoned —of a horse with certain points; but you wouldn't dare go on a journey with a man merely upon the strength of knowing that his temperament was the proper mixture of the sanguine and the phlegmatic. Science is not able to teach us concerning men as it teaches us of horses, though I am very far from saying that there are not traits of nobleness and of meanness that run through families and can ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... do. Malone, being neither good-natured nor phlegmatic, was presently in a towering passion. He vociferated, gesticulated; Donne and Sweeting laughed. He reviled them as Saxons and snobs at the very top pitch of his high Celtic voice; they taunted him with being the native of a conquered land. He menaced rebellion in the name ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... reflected, as I wended my way homeward through the still moonlight; "so true-hearted, and genuine, and unaffected. And still beneath all that sweet, womanly tranquillity there are strong slumbering forces, which some day will startle some phlegmatic countryman of hers, who takes her to be as submissive ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... no need to try his hand at him. Young Ben was a born farmer, as was his father. He had come honestly by his nickname. In face, figure, expression, and manner he was a five-hundred-year throwback to his Holland ancestors. Apple-cheeked, stocky, merry of eye, and somewhat phlegmatic. When, at school, they had come to the story of the Dutch boy who saved his town from flood by thrusting his finger into the hole in the dike and holding it there until help came, the class, after one look at the accompanying picture in the reader, dubbed young Ben "Dike" ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... Wilmot represented a district which had always given Democratic majorities, and was himself an intense partisan of that political school. He was a man of strong physique and strong common sense; of phlegmatic temperament, without any pretension to genius; a sensible speaker, with no claim to eloquence or oratory. But he had courage, determination, and honesty. He believed the time had come to arrest the progress and extension of slavery. He knew that the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... diplomat wrote of him, "His person is tall and sufficiently graceful; his face well formed, his complexion rather pale, with a mild philosophic gravity in the expression of it In his air and manner he displays much natural dignity; in his address he is cold, reserved, and even phlegmatic, though without the least appearance of haughtiness or ill-nature; it is the effect, I imagine, of constitutional diffidence. That caution and circumspection which form so striking and well known a feature in his military, and, indeed, in his political ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... Apocalypse of Nature. I had been greatly impressed by the sound and original views which in the first volume he had taken of the national characters throughout Europe. In particular he was the first, and so far as I know the only writer who had noticed the profound error of ascribing a phlegmatic character to the English nation. 'English phlegm' is the constant expression of authors when contrasting the English with the French. Now the truth is, that, beyond that of all other nations, it has a substratum of profound passion: and, if we are to recur to the old doctrine ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... the legs. They excite vomiting by means of certain herbs which they chew, and keep in their mouths. They use likewise various other remedies and antidotes, which it were tedious to enumerate. They are subject to different sanguineous and phlegmatic humours, occasioned by the nature of their food, which consists of fish, with various roots, fruits, and herbs. They use no meal of any kind of corns or other seeds; but their chief food is made from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr. Barkis) to say—he being, as I observed in a former chapter, of a phlegmatic temperament, and not at all conversational—I offered him a cake as a mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant, and which made no more impression on his big face than it would ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... it needs explanation. The Filipino is by nature phlegmatic, and especially when it is a question of buying or selling anything; for he exerts himself to get the largest profit possible, and the calculation of that costs him much trouble. A countryman comes, for instance, to sell two ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... this idea to which we have thus bravely sacrificed ourselves, even a phlegmatic Englishman being the judge? It is the idea of the nation—the idea that the nation is the gift of God, to be cherished and defended as a sacred trust; and that we can no more rid ourselves of its obligations than we can rid ourselves of the obligations of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... counsels of Spain and the Empire. Please to observe that these two Courts, which had made incredible solicitations to him while he wavered, began, as soon as his purpose was fixed, to draw back,—a fatality due to the phlegmatic temper of the Spaniard, dignified by the name of prudence, joined to the astute politics of the house of Austria. You may observe at the same time that the Count, who had continued firm and unshaken ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... heart he returned to his aunt's with the news that it was too late, for that all means of exit was closed. Dame Plomaert took the news philosophically. She was a woman of phlegmatic disposition, and objected to sudden movement and changes, and to her it seemed far less terrible to await quietly the fortunes of the siege than to undergo the fatigues of a journey on horseback and the uncertainty of ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... virtuous association. It had been a relief to Mr Sniff to find his first impressions as to the lad's innocence confirmed, and to be able to withdraw the charge against him. But the manner in which the magistrate had dismissed the case had roused even his phlegmatic mind to indignation, and had set his conscience troubling him a little as to his own conduct of the affair. This was why he now felt and looked not quite happy in the presence of Reginald's ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... never can get enough? Let them cease, then, to watch my plate; and leave off their ungracious comparisons of it to the seven baskets of fragments, and the supernaturally replenished cup of old Baucis: and be thankful that their more phlegmatic stomachs, not their virtue, have saved them from the like reproaches. I do not see that any of them desist from eating till the holy rage of hunger, as some one calls it, is supplied. Alas! I am doomed to stop ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... called the nations to the defence of his holy sepulchre. [31] At the parliament of Vezelay he spoke before the king; and Louis the Seventh, with his nobles, received their crosses from his hand. The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easy conquest of the emperor Conrad: [311] a phlegmatic people, ignorant of his language, was transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone and gestures; and his progress, from Constance to Cologne, was the triumph of eloquence and zeal. Bernard applauds his own success in the depopulation of Europe; affirms ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... companion of whom even the phlegmatic Martian was proud, she brought with her presence on the Nomad a subtle something that made of the coldly mechanical space-ship a thing of new beauty and a place of cheerfulness—a home. And, to think he had won her for ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... grave, the phlegmatic Erasmus, melts into love and playful thoughts, when he thinks of kisses—"Did you but know, my Faustus," he writes to one of his friends, "the pleasures which England affords, you would fly here on winged feet, and if your gout would not allow you, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... long black lashes that matched in color the wavy hair under her coquettish hat. As he stared at her, with surprise, relief, and admiration struggling in his boyishly handsome face, she smiled, and in that instant the phlegmatic young man experienced a new sensation. His own white teeth flashed as he smiled back at her. Then he remembered that it was necessary to ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... mean; while the Berline arrives not. At last it comes; but Drouet, village postmaster, seeks a likeness; takes horse in swift pursuit. So rolls on the Berline, and the chase after it; till it comes to a dead stop in Varennes, where Drouet finds it—in time to stop departure. Louis, the poor, phlegmatic man, steps out; all step out. The flight is ended, though not the spurring and riding ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... is a typical New Yorker in appearance, thirty-two years old, good-looking, manly, self-poised, and somewhat phlegmatic in temperament. ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... unpleasant objects. It is a strange experience to be knocked backward by a dead fist separated from its parent body, yet on this occasion this actually happened to me, and, what is more, the fist had a spear in it. The camels tried to rise and bolt, but they are phlegmatic brutes, and, as ours were tired as well, we succeeded ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... The operator—a phlegmatic sort—gave me directions to the M&R, and off I went, still trying to figure out how to sail along as gracefully ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... racial traits, the German Staff had organized in their mass offensive the elan which means fast marching and hard blows. So, we found the supposedly excitable French digging in to receive the onslaught of the supposedly phlegmatic German. When the time came for the charge—ah, you can always depend ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... paroxysm of mortified vanity, nor the energy which he discovers when stung by the poisoned darts of sarcasm; but, on the other hand, the man that is roused to fighting-fury by a personal attack usually subsides very promptly. The more phlegmatic race, who take these things quietly, lay their account with the oblivion which speedily overtakes the spiteful article. These are the truly courageous men of letters; and if the weaklings seem at first to be the strong men, they cannot hold out ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... down at his wife in scornful pity. He wondered sometimes, in his phlegmatic reasoning, why women were ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... had last seen at Oxford, Sime the phlegmatic. He apologised for not meeting the train, but explained that his duties had rendered it impossible. Sime was attached temporarily to an archaeological expedition as medical man, and his athletic and somewhat bovine appearance contrasted oddly with ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... replied the phlegmatic pilot; "a darned pity it is," he added; "but if you must, you must. Darn the luck! We'd a-beat them into shucks in another quarter, I reckon. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... away from her, I'm bound to get over it. If I don't go away from her—" he broke off, and walked restlessly around the room, limping occasionally from force of habit. "It's easy enough for a cold-blooded chap like you to say 'wait.' But she doesn't help me, she doesn't help me! You phlegmatic people don't know how emotion, even the sight of emotion, goes to the head—or you'd never be actors. You wouldn't dare.—I am mad about her now, absolutely mad about her. Absurd, isn't it?" He gave a forlorn laugh. "In the words of the ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... little crestfallen, it may be, by my phlegmatic reception, so different from what he had looked for; with much apparent alacrity he commenced the survey; throwing open the cupboards on the first floor, and peering into the closets on the second; measuring one within, and then comparing that measurement with ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... being equal, the men with the greatest store of nervous energy came best through this expedition. Having more imagination, they have a worse time than their more phlegmatic companions; but they get things done. And when the worst came to the worst, their strength of mind triumphed over their weakness of body. If you want a good polar traveller get a man without too much muscle, with good physical tone, and let his mind be on wires—of steel. And if you can't get ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... are walking on level ground, and as unsteady as that of a person under the influence of liquor; but they appear the reverse of awkward when engaged in the avocations incident to their primitive life. They are exceedingly phlegmatic in temperament, greedy, avaricious, suspicious, very indolent and filthy, and by no means celebrated for strict adherence to truth. The Nordlanders one and all spoke of them, in answer to my questions, with mingled distrust and contempt, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... should we fall into the power of the hitherto submissive, but now savage and vindictive natives. It was no slight cause probably which had induced them to revolt. The cruelty and tyranny, the exactions and treachery of the white man had at length raised their phlegmatic natures, and they were about to exact a bitter revenge for long years of oppression and wrong. As in many similar instances, the innocent were doomed to suffer with the guilty; and as far as we had been able to judge, our friend Senhor Pimento had treated those around ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... event, for an emergency demanding at once the greatest coolness, consummate address, and acknowledged personal authority. His sublime enthusiasm, which carried him victorious over every obstacle, involved him also in numerous embarrassments, which men of more phlegmatic temperament would have escaped. It led him to count too readily on a similar spirit in others,—and to be disappointed. It gave an exaggerated coloring to his views and descriptions, that inevitably led to a reaction in the minds of such as embarked their all on the splendid dreams of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... shade of displeasure had come over the King's countenance, when Wilton expressed a doubt as to answering the question at all; but whether it was from his natural command over his features, the coldness of a phlegmatic constitution, or that he really was not seriously angry, the cloud upon his brow was certainly not a hundredth part so heavy as it would probably have been with any other sovereign in Europe. He contented himself, then, when Wilton had come to the end of the sentence, by ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... their working. This treatise was quite probably written, or conceived, while its author was busied with Shandy, and his division of the temperaments (p.53) into the sanguine or warm moist, the choleric or warm dry, the phlegmatic or cold moist, and the melancholy or cold dry, is not unlike some of Walter Shandy's half-serious, half-jesting scientific theories, though, to be sure, it falls in with much of the inadequate and ill-applied ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... Byron irritable? With his poetic temperament, his exquisite and almost morbid sensibility, so grievously tried by circumstances, it would be equally absurd and untrue to pretend that he was as impassible as a stoic, or phlegmatic as some good citizen who vegetates rather than lives. Did such qualities, or rather faults,—for they betoken a cold nature,—ever belong to Milton, Dante, Alfieri, and those master-spirits whose strength of passion, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... indifferent, regardless, unconcerned, calm, dispassionate, negligent, stolid, uninterested, careless, frigid, phlegmatic, stony, unmindful, cold, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... she respected, but could not love. He ruled her—she was his property. She found it easier to accept his rule than to rebel. Had his treatment of her descended to brutality, she would have flown to her lover or else died. One critic says: "Laura must have been of a phlegmatic type, not of a fine or sensitive nature, and all of her wants were satisfied, her life protected and complete. The adoration of Petrarch was not a necessity to her—it came in as a pleasing diversion, a beautiful compliment, but something she ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... not because he is altogether cold and phlegmatic, neither his age, his character, nor his tastes permit of this. In the fire of adolescence the life-giving spirits, retained in the blood and distilled again and again, inspire his young heart with a warmth which ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... desperate as your case seems to be, I participate in your sanguine hopes? I do not deem them entirely romantic, but share in that which the phlegmatic would call the frenzy of your mind; and half-persuade myself that you will finally ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... unquestionably," responded her more phlegmatic friend, "but the registers of her voice are not so even ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... hand, and obtains in exchange a promise from the young man, to confess his secret in presence of the foreign nobleman.—The cunning French ambassador, the Marquis de Chateauneuf, has easily found out the Czar and gained his purpose, while the phlegmatic English Lord, falsely directed by the burgomaster, is still in transaction with Ivanow. All this takes place during a rural festivity, where the Marquis notwithstanding the claims upon his attention finds time to court ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... idea John Shelley could not accept so suddenly. His slow phlegmatic mind could not travel beyond his own country—scarcely beyond ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... about her phlegmatic admirer but his tobacco. You must know, sir, every women carries in her hand a stove with coals in it, which, when she sits, she snugs under her petticoats; and at this chimney dozing Strephon lights his pipe. I take it that this continual smoking is what gives the man the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... characters and Dutch thought with ideas of the purely phlegmatic, will read with astonishment and pleasure the oft-times stirring and passionate sentences of ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... and romance are as plentiful as ever in the world, except for those phlegmatic natures, who, I suspect, would in any age have regarded them as a dull form of erroneous thinking. They exist very easily in the same room with the microscope, and even in railway carriages: ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... a sort of sluggishly responded Don Benito, like a phlegmatic appreciator, who would neither find fault ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... to shut them down at night, or while sailing. As long as these men were unarmed and themselves armed, they had not the slightest fear of any trouble arising. For the Acadians, though stout, muscular fellows, were all so good-natured and phlegmatic in their faces that no danger of anything so desperate as an attack on their part was to be anticipated. It was decided, however, while they were on deck, to keep them confined to the ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... a man of a highly nervous temperament, and it is just this sort of man who keeps his head in an emergency, whilst your level-headed, phlegmatic individual loses his balance. His first thought was of the children, his ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... you phlegmatic old cow," cried a merry voice. "Here we have spent ten minutes palavering your boy, in order to make him let us surprise you, and then when we spring it on you, you don't budge. Wasn't it ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... one common gesture plucking out their vitals for exportation? There is no doubt that our continuous receipt of this commodity has had a bracing effect on our national character. We used to be rather phlegmatic, used we not? We ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... pronounces a "sententious and declamatory drama" filled with "pompous Roman sentiments," but wanting action and pathos. He censures the tameness of Addison's "Letter from Italy."[17] "With what flatness and unfeelingness has he spoken of statuary and painting! Raphael never received a more phlegmatic eulogy." He refers on the other hand to Gray's account of his journey to the Grande Chartreuse,[18] as worthy of comparison with one of the finest passages in the "Epistle of Eloisa ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... phlegmatic sot it is! Why, sirrah, you are an anchorite! a vile, insensible stock! You a soldier! you're a walking block, fit only to dust the company's regimentals on! Odds life, I've a great mind to marry ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... he rose again, his rare strength of will enabled him to assume his usual phlegmatic manner; and he continued in ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... is no danger, sir; we shall get over"), he repeats. You may refer to the generally rotten appearance of the structure, and point in particular to the great holes sufficient to engulf half a post-horse. "Ne bos', Bog pomozhet" ("Do not fear. God will help"), replies coolly your phlegmatic Jehu. You may have your doubts as to whether in this irreligious age Providence will intervene specially for your benefit; but your yamstchik, who has more faith or fatalism, leaves you little time to solve the problem. Making hurriedly the sign of the cross, he gathers ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... under the control of Lord Dorchester at Quebec; but his relations with Dorchester were somewhat strained, and he succeeded in making himself virtually independent in his western jurisdiction. Though he seemed phlegmatic, he possessed a vigorous and enterprising disposition, and he planned great things for Upper Canada. He explored the country in search of the best site for a capital; and it is interesting to know that he had such faith in the future of Upper ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... have shifted their meaning. Moses is notable for an almost fiery vehemence of character, and the punishment that was laid upon him was the outcome of a display of intemperate wrath. Just as we associate meekness with the worm that never turns, so the typically patient animal is the ass who is too phlegmatic to resent the most unjust chastisement, and ready to accommodate itself to the most overtaxing burdens. But Job is the very opposite of this; he endures, because there is no way out; but he never for a moment acquiesces in the justice of his affliction, and his complaints are both specific and protracted. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... as I have said elsewhere; supplying the poverty of his language by his musical ear, and by his diligence. But to return: our two great poets, being so different in their tempers, one choleric and sanguine, the other phlegmatic and melancholic; that which makes them excel in their several ways is, that each of them has followed his own natural inclination, as well in forming the design, as in the execution of it. The very heroes show their authors; Achilles is hot, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... heroes of romantic history. It is a people's history, written in their hearts, rather than in their books; which their books could not write—which would lose all its golden glow, if subjected to the cold details of the phlegmatic chronicles. The tradition, however swelling, still testifies to that large merit which must have been its basis, by reason of which the name of the hero was selected from all others for such peculiar honors; and though these exaggerations ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... than his civilized neighbor. Castren, the Russian traveller, describes the Tartars and Lapps as a most nervous folk. When one shocks them with a sudden noise, they almost fall into convulsions. Among the North American Indians, falsely called a phlegmatic race, nervous diseases are epidemic to an almost unparalleled extent. Intense thought, on the other hand, as I have before said, tends to lessen and annul the emotions. Intellectual self-consciousness is adverse ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... probable. Infessura, though he expressed horror for the crimes of Sixtus, was yet a dry chronicler of daily events, many of which passed beneath his own eyes, Burchurd was a frigid diarist of Court ceremonies, who reported the rapes, murders, and profligacies of Alexander with phlegmatic gravity. The evidence of these men, neither of whom indulges in satire strictly so called, is more valuable than that of Tacitus or Suetonius to the vices of the Roman emperors. The dispatches of the Venetian ambassadors, again, are trustworthy, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... the classification of wine, according to its effects on a man, given in the old "Calendrier des Bergiers," The man of choleric temperament has "wine of lion;" the sanguine, "wine of ape;" the phlegmatic, "wine of sheep;" the melancholic, "wine of sow." There is a Rabbinical tradition that, when Noah was planting vines, Satan slaughtered beside them the four animals named; hence the effect of wine in making those who drink it display in turn the ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... skull, deep lower jaw, strong legs and neck, semi-hanging ears, truncated tail, and frequent presence of a fifth toe, distinguish the noble Mastiff. They are silent, phlegmatic dogs, conscious of their own strength, seem to consider themselves more as companions than servants, are resolute, and face danger with the utmost self-possession. A cold region, such as the highest ranges of Central Asia, is best adapted ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... a phlegmatic man; a self-contained and a reticent man. If Captain Roy had told him to get ready to sail to the moon that afternoon, he would probably have said "Very well, sir," in the same tone and with ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... different. Winthrop, active, eager, nervous in temperament, pushed forward boldly, rapidly, bent on "getting there," as he expressed it, and hitting hard before the reds could slip back to their holes. Chrome, slow, phlegmatic, cautious, advanced by carefully-studied marches, with scouts far ahead and flankers far dispersed. Arguing that Winthrop, with one hundred and fifty miles or more to go, and a bigger crowd to handle, and with Indians on his flank every inch of the way, would not ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... hot and dry in a high degree; of approv'd Vertue against all flatulency proceeding from cold and phlegmatic Constitutions, and generally all Crudities whatsoever; and therefore for being of universal use to correct and temper the cooler Herbs, and such as abound in moisture; It is a never to be omitted Ingredient of our Sallets; provided it be not too minutely beaten (as oft we find it) ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... all. The mason with his trowel in his hand, rushes from the half-finished wall; Pat drops his hod between heaven and earth and slides down the ladder, muttering: "Oi'll have me moaney or Oi'll have blood!" The fat phlegmatic Dutchman, dozing behind his bar, wakes to the situation and waddles down the street, puffing and blowing like an engine, and muttering: "Mine Got in Himmel—mine debosit ish boosted!" And thus they make ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... troubled," said Lord Evandale, in his quaint, phlegmatic British fashion, "at disturbing the last sleep of the poor unknown body which did expect to rest in peace until the end of the world. The dweller below would willingly dispense ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... operation of the gift. Some might be found, as well, to discredit the notion that there would supervene, on the consigning to the limbo of inutile political systems of the disabling regime that now governs, an epoch, which would witness the shaking off, by the heavy, phlegmatic red man of the present, of his dull lethargy, with the casting behind him of former inaction and unproductiveness; and his being moved to assert a healthy, genuine, wholesome activity, to be directed to lofty or soulful purpose, or expressed in high and honourable endeavour. And ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... violent passions into which he was apt to fall if thwarted or overlooked were purely Spanish; there seemed to be nothing of the patient, phlegmatic Netherlander about this side of him. Indeed it was this temper of his perhaps more than any other desire or tendency that made him so dangerous, for, whereas the impulses of his heart were often good enough, they were always liable to ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... Lord Lindore arrived on a visit, and the daily, hourly contrast that occurred betwixt the elegant, impassioned lover, and the dull, phlegmatic husband, could not fail of producing the usual effects on an unprincipled mind. Rousseau and Goethe were studied, French and German sentiments were exchanged, till criminal passion was exalted into the purest of all earthly emotions. It were tedious to dwell upon the minute, the almost imperceptible ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... Mostong, Kuti, Lasa, and Degarchi, are as black as the natives of Canton or Ava. Climate is not, therefore, able to change the colour of a nation; but it seems to have a greater effect on the temperament. Cold can produce a change of temperament from the melancholic and choleric to the phlegmatic and sanguine, and heat acting on the human frame, is capable of producing a contrary revolution. Hence, rosy cheeks and lips are frequently observed among the mountain Hindus of Nepal, although they are very little fairer ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... am a sinner," exclaimed Asa, usually one of the most phlegmatic of the youths, "the girl is ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... were both of us very young, and very unsophisticated. I had scarcely ever spoken to a young lady. The last I had seen, and the impression she had made was not deep, was Miss Deborah Doulass, the fair daughter of a retired linen-draper at Falmouth. The Poynders are in no way a phlegmatic race. The young lady was not backward in appreciating my sentiments, and we might very probably have stood gazing at the ocean till the moon had gone to bed also, when Miss Carlyon was summoned somewhat ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... poet. Even nations are distinguished by their writing; the vivacity and variableness of the Frenchman, and the delicacy and suppleness of the Italian, are perceptibly distinct from the slowness and strength of pen discoverable in the phlegmatic ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... with a fiery earnestness that Nevitt was only just beginning to understand. There was something in this. Here was a clue indeed to follow up and investigate. Surely, a menace to Granville Kelmscott's prospects could never have moved that heavy, phlegmatic, pachydermatous man to such an outburst of anger and ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... leaving us more forlorn than before We sat down on the stretchers: Anna Petrovna, fat, heavy, phlegmatic, silent; Marie Ivanovna silent too but with a look now of expectation in her eyes as though she knew that something was coming for her very shortly; Trenchard near her, trying to be cheerful, but conscious of the dead soldier under the tree from whom he seemed unable to remove ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... but for that reason surer when once aroused. The Emperor's enormous fame had preceded him; and the appearance among them of this genius, all fire and flame, who had come, as he said, to adopt them, warmed their phlegmatic nature. They were at once filled with admiration; his presence, his trust in them, his consoling and encouraging words, the good works at once begun by his active and able ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... little sister I first knew. Rachel, such cleverness as that is a far more perilous gift to woman than your plodding intellectuality could ever be. God grant," he added, with one of the effusions which sometimes broke through his phlegmatic temperament, "that this little fellow may be a kinder, wiser brother than ever I was, and that we may bring her up to your own truth and unselfishness. Then such power ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a ton of a little man with the phlegmatic Dutch face. He read the letter stolidly and began to ask questions as to the disposition of our squad. I lied generously, magnificently, my face every whit as wooden as his; and while I was still at it the door behind me opened and a man came in leisurely. He waited for the Duke to have ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... other reports, they were to be traced principally to the imagination and fears of the people. He ascertained, however, enough from Bartley Sullivan to justify a belief that there was something certainly uncommon about the woman; and being of a cold, phlegmatic disposition, with some humor, he desired them to go home, if they were wise—he shook his head mysteriously as he spoke—"and do the woman no injury, if they didn't wish—" and with this abrupt hint he sent them ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... climates may render the moderate use of alcoholic drinks comparatively harmless to races less nervously organized than ours. And there doubtless are individuals in our midst whose strong constitution, phlegmatic temperament, or social training enable them to use wine daily for years without appreciable injury. They can walk with comparative safety the narrow bridge. There are multitudes who cannot. There are tens of thousands for whom our distilled liquors, open saloons, ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... for "self-made" men. Knowing this, William H. Vanderbilt made a studious policy of standing in with his father, truckling to his every caprice and demand, and proving that he could make an independent living. He is described as a phlegmatic man of dull and slow mental processes, domestic tastes and of kindly disposition to his children. His father (so the chronicles tell) did not think that he "would ever amount to anything," but by infinite plodding, ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... want you," replied the baron—a phlegmatic man, who, nevertheless, saw the quivering lip, and turned away hastily. For he knew that mademoiselle would never forgive herself, or him, if she ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... bade a tearless farewell to the Blighted Fraus. When I told those eight phlegmatic souls I was going, they all said 'So!' much as they had said 'So!' to every previous remark I had been moved to make to them. 'So' is capital garnishing: but viewed as a staple of conversation, I find it a trifle vapid, not to ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... to end of the train, upon its arrival at Philadelphia, there was an aspect of absolute exhaustion, varied in its expression according to the individual. Phlegmatic men lay upon their backs, across the seats, with their legs dangling in the aisles. One might send them spinning round or toss their feet out of the passage, and their worn faces showed no more sign than if they were lifeless. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... say, that man's made of 'impenetrable stuff;' and, being too wise for whimsicality, is too phlegmatic for genius, and too crabbed for mellowness." Mark, what a set of merry open-faced rogues surround Punch, who peeps down at them as cunningly as "a magpie peeping into a marrow bone; "—how luxuriantly they laugh, or stand with their eyes and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... is life, so inexplicable are its contradictions, there were times when Oliver's ideal appeared almost to betray him, and the intellectual limitations of Virginia bored rather than delighted him. Habit, which is a sedative to a phlegmatic nature, acts not infrequently as a positive irritant upon the temperament of the artist; and since he had turned from his work in a passion of disgust at the dramatic obtuseness of his generation, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... along these lines gives the following instructive comments regarding the practice of psychometric power: "Persons of a highly-strung nervous organization, with large perceptive faculties make the best psychometrists. Phlegmatic people seldom psychometrize clearly, and usually lack receptivity to the finer forces. Letters, clothes, hair, coins, ornaments, or jewels—in fact, almost any article which has belonged to, or has been worn by, its possessor for any length of time, will suffice to enable the psychometrist to relate ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... to Lausanne, and the next day to Geneva. John Yeardley has preserved, in his diary of this part of the journey, a little anecdote of French character which naturally struck him the more forcibly from his having hitherto been conversant only with the phlegmatic temperament of the Germans. The coachman, it should be said, ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... been pushed just as long as the bondholders of Holland would put up the money. To keep things going, interest had been paid to the worthy Dutch out of the money they had supplied. Gradually, the phlegmatic ones grew wise, and the purse-strings of the Netherlanders were drawn tight. For hundreds of years Holland had sought a quick Northwest passage to India. Little did she know she was now warm on the trail. Little, also, did Jim ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Church, there was much, the growth of ignorance and neglect, to be reformed. The Church of England had never had a real affinity with Rome. The gorgeous and sensual ceremonies which, in the indolent airs of the Mediterranean, were imposing and attractive, palled upon the taste of the more phlegmatic Englishmen. Institutions organized at Rome did not flourish in that higher latitude, and abuses were currently discussed even before any plan was considered ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... he looked at the odd-looking instruments the medical man was taking from the case, but Thorndyke watched his movements with phlegmatic indifference. He stood erect; threw back his shoulders; expanded his massive chest and struck it with his clenched fist ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... conceal his sympathies with the French. It reappeared in an intermittent fashion during the years 1875-1879, when the Eastern question produced so much excitement in all ranks of Russian society. At first the cesarevich was more Slavophil than the government, but his phlegmatic nature preserved him from many of the exaggerations indulged in by others, and any of the prevalent popular illusions he may have imbibed were soon dispelled by personal observation in Bulgaria, where he commanded the left wing of the invading army. The Bulgarians had been represented ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... encrease upon us: nor could the storied earth or balmy atmosphere inspire us with enthusiasm or pleasure, while the fate of Raymond was in jeopardy. No man had ever excited so strong an interest in the public mind; this was apparent even among the phlegmatic English, from whom he had long been absent. The Athenians had expected their hero to return in triumph; the women had taught their children to lisp his name joined to thanksgiving; his manly beauty, his ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... less degrees of intensity in the change. The degree of intensity, or depth of experience, may depend on several things. It may depend, to, a certain extent, on the temperament of the individual. One person is of a phlegmatic temperament; his mind is sluggish; his feelings are not deep; he rarely becomes excited. Of a cool, calculating disposition, he does everything deliberately and cautiously. He feels the ground before him ere he takes a step. When God's Word comes to such an one, it does not generally revolutionize ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... stay to supper; but the latter declined. After a few moments' conversation on general topics the lawyer took his departure, secretly marvelling over the phlegmatic way in which Orde had taken what had been to Taylor, when he first stumbled against it, ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... and still our wond'ring eyes With deeds magnanimous like these surprize, And lest some wretch, phlegmatic, dull, and cold, Without applause such actions should behold, Aloud to list'ning crowds your worth proclaim, Yourself the herald of your deathless fame. To spacious Berks your dignity avow, From Buscot's meads, to Windsor's lofty brow, Till LOVEDEN's ...
— An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable the Lord Craven (3rd Ed.) • William Combe
... Herr Count," responded the colonel. "I have had the peculiar misfortune which sometimes overtakes a married man; my wife deceived me, and ran away with her lover, whom I do not even know. As mine is not one of those phlegmatic natures which can meekly tolerate such an indignity, I am searching for the fugitives—for what purpose I fancy you can guess. For four years my quest has been fruitless; I have been unable to find a trace of the guilty ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... enough have grown to universal flame of War. But this always needs two parties; and pacific George would not be second party in it. George, guided by pacific Walpole, backed by pacific Fleury, answers the ardent firing by phlegmatic patience and protocolling; not by counter-firing, except quite at his convenience, from privateers, from war-ships here and there, and in sulky defence from Gibraltar itself. Probably the Termagant, with all the fire she has, will not do much damage upon Gibraltar? ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... competitions at school, considered from the standpoint of fitting the competitors for the problems of after-life, is that the object saved on such occasions is a leather dummy, and of all things in this world a leather dummy is perhaps the most placid and phlegmatic. It differs in many respects from an emotional Swedish gentleman, six foot high and constructed throughout of steel and india rubber, who is being lugged away from cash which he has been regarding in the ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... explosion and deafening roar of a hundred shotted guns, as the vessel steamed into the jaws of death, leading the fleet into one of the most momentous and memorable conflicts in naval annals. Nor should cool and phlegmatic Harrison nor grand old Bailey be overlooked, as the constant flashes of the thick exploding shells revealed them standing, calm and grim, at their posts, in readiness to direct the movements of vessel and column, and ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... Carbury Hall, and its proprietor. The proprietor after a few weeks followed them up to London, and made a most matter-of-fact offer to the mother for the daughter's hand. He was at that time thirty-six, and Henrietta was not yet twenty. He was very cool;—some might have thought him phlegmatic in his love-making. Henrietta declared to her mother that she had not in the least expected it. But he was very urgent, and very persistent. Lady Carbury was eager on his side. Though the Carbury Manor House did ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... As his phlegmatic opponent persevered in his inaction, Caesar undertook to occupy the circle of heights which enclosed the plain on the shore held by Pompeius, with the view of being able at least to arrest the movements of the superior cavalry of the enemy ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... upon which the success of this enterprise hung were named Lindsay and Budge. Lindsay was a phlegmatic youth with watery eyes. Nothing disturbed him, which was fortunate, for the commotion which surrounded him was considerable. A stout sergeant lay beside him on a waterproof sheet, whispering excited counsels of perfection, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... natural science, in his 'Nova Atlantis,' predicted as the end of human misery has now been actually acquired. We are prevented from enjoying the fruits of this acquisition, from making full use of the discoveries and inventions of the great intellects of our race, by nothing but the phlegmatic faculty of persistence in old habits which still keeps laws and institutions in force when the conditions that gave rise to ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... precedent, but was founded upon common sense, which was the only guide and authority in the administration of it. In corroboration of this, the little black eye of Judge Mondelet brightly twinkled, and he nodded his head in dignified approbation. Judge Van Feloon, who seemed more phlegmatic, quietly settled the matter by saying, that he supposed if a man did work for another, and the other had agreed to pay him, he was entitled to the money, and that therefore the court would have to see that a bargain had been made, and the ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... to talk of the weather with the two men, who found him a little dismal. One—he of the Zambesi lion episode—was grizzled, phlegmatic, and patient, and in no way critical of his company. So soon he was embarked on extracts from his own experience to which Mr. Andrews, who had shares in some company in the neighbourhood, listened with ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... old phlegmatic Dutchman took A pretty Jewish wife, And what still more surprising is, He lov'd her 'bove his life— Oh! Holland and Jerusalem, What, tell me, do ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... infamous intoxication of Wilkes, have attacked the House of Commons itself, in the most gross and vilifying language.(5) In short, the plot thickens fast, and Catilines start up in every street. I cannot say Ciceros and Catos arise to face them. The phlegmatic and pedants in history quote King William's and Sacheverel's times to show the present is not more serious; but if I have any reading, I must remember that the repetition of bad scenes brings about a catastrophe at last! It is small consolation to living ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... fate's transferred decree, The visitor becomes the visitee, Oh, then, indeed, it pulls another string; Your ox is gored, and that's a different thing! Your friend is sick: phlegmatic as a Turk, You write your recipe and let it work; Not yours to stand the shiver and the frown, And sometimes worse, with which your draught goes down. Calm as a clock your knowing hand directs, Rhei, jalapae ana grana sex, Or traces on some tender missive's back, Scrupulos duos pulveris ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... they were sixteen they usually were dead from the metal that had entered their lungs. The children were mostly Jewish, for you must know that when the Jews become part of a slow Eastern civilization they sink yet lower and become yet more phlegmatic and listless than the people among whom they have settled. I was indignant and asked if nothing was being done to remedy this terrible evil. Then I was told that there was one man who was devoting his life to freeing these children. It was the Jewish merchant ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... would afford an ampler scope for conjecture. The sanguine might form expectations of extraordinary consequences, and be justified, in some degree, by the reflection, that from smaller, and not more respectable beginnings, powerful empires have frequently arisen. The phlegmatic and apprehensive might magnify to themselves the difficulties of the undertaking, and prognosticate, from various causes, the total failure of it. Both, perhaps, would be wrong. The opinion nearest to the right was probably ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... with their phlegmatic coolness and their terrible rolling fire, the Russians, with that inertia that is called their tenacity, have given way before attack. The German has given way, he who on account of his subordination and stability has been ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... the phlegmatic Augustus; "repeaters will not tell well for your conversation, Ned! But, powers that be! look at this ring,—a diamond ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to be taken of Burns as a man will have many and various answers. Those who still denounce him as the chief of sinners, and without mercy condemn him out of his own mouth, are those whom Burns has pilloried to all posterity. There are dull, phlegmatic beings with blood no warmer than ditch-water, who are virtuous and sober citizens because they have never felt the force of temptation. What power could tempt them? The tree may be parched and blistered in the heat of noonday, but the parasitical fungus draining ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... we "requisitioned" a car, some chickens, and a pair of boots. There was a fusty little tavern down the street, full of laughing soldiers. In the corner a fat, middle-aged woman sat weeping quietly on a sack. The host, sullen and phlegmatic, answered every question with a shake of the head and a muttered "N'importe." The money he threw contemptuously on the counter. The soldiers thought they were spies. "As speaking the langwidge," I asked him what ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... when to redouble the copulative, is of considerable importance."—Blair's Rhet., p. 113. "Cicero, for instance, speaking of the cases where killing another is lawful in self defence, uses the following words."—Ib., p. 156. "But there is no nation, hardly any person so phlegmatic, as not to accompany their words with some actions and gesticulations, on all occasions, when they are much in earnest."—Ib., p. 335. "William's is said to be governed by coat, because it follows William's"—Smith's New Gram., p. 12. "There are many occasions in life, in which silence ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Leake, "of taking snuff, is that of sneezing, which, in sluggish phlegmatic habits, will give universal concussion to the body, and promote a more free circulation of the blood; but of this benefit snuff-takers are deprived, from being familiar with its use." When the stimulus of snuff ceases to be sufficient, recourse is immediately had to certain admixtures, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... of her to his brother, and together they would chum the matter over, and slowly, in the more phlegmatic Ralph, Nick kindled the flame with which he ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... which will in some measure agree with all cliffs, to be of good parts, and fit for variety of employments, yet somewhat of an inconstant nature. Likewise from the TIMES: so semi-briefs may speak a temper dull and phlegmatic; minims, grave and serious; crotchets, a prompt wit; quavers, vehemency of passion, and scolds use them. Semi-brief-rest may denote one either stupid or fuller of thoughts than he can utter; minimrest, one that deliberates; crotchet-rest, one in a passion. So that from the natural ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... soul terribly, especially when he improvised, he would suddenly, as if to take away the impression and remembrance of his sorrow from others and from himself, turn stealthily to a glass, arrange his hair and his cravat, and show himself suddenly transformed into a phlegmatic Englishman, into an impertinent old man, into a sentimental and ridiculous Englishwoman, into a sordid Jew. The types were always sad, however comical they might be, but perfectly conceived and so delicately rendered that one could not grow weary of ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... that he made his proposal to the girl of his choice; and no one, hearing it, would have guessed that beneath his calm, even phlegmatic, exterior, the man was in a ferment of anxiety. He spoke with a slight nasal twang that seemed to emphasise his deliberation, and his face was mask-like in its composure. ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... in dumb endurance—as he would wait from day to day until the longed-for moment arrived. It had happened often before, Saltash's caprice had sometimes driven him to the verge of rebellion, but no one—not even Saltash himself—ever suspected it. Silent, phlegmatic, inexpressive, Larpent held on ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... needed is for him to see the work. They make very good carpenters; and this trade is not taught them, but they only have to see it. For in what pertains to agibilibus [101] they are better than we, for they are more phlegmatic. The Indian women have more capacity, and learn easily to use the needle, when they see it, thus they are more skilful than the Spanish women reared here; therefore the articles of handiwork that have been exported from these islands are numberless. And all these Indian women ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... only what exists, that enjoyed only what it possessed, whose happiness consisted in wealthy ease and an honest indulgence of the senses, although without violent passions or inordinate desires;—such a people would naturally be phlegmatic in their art,—they would love a style that pleased but did not arouse them, that spoke to the senses rather than to the imagination—a school of art placid, precise, full of repose, and thoroughly material like their life—an art, in a word, realistic ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... a large knotted rope, one end of which trailed on the flight of steps below. This being done, he began to look on tranquilly, whistling from time to time when a blackbird flitted past. Suddenly, at the moment when the superintendent's assistants were preparing to execute Charmolue's phlegmatic order, he threw his leg over the balustrade of the gallery, seized the rope with his feet, his knees and his hands; then he was seen to glide down the facade, as a drop of rain slips down a window-pane, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... the house of Jupiter and exaltation of Venus. Its natives are short, pale, thick-set, and round-shouldered (like fish), its character phlegmatic and effeminate. It governs the feet and toes, and reigns over Portugal, Spain, Egypt, Normandy, Galicia, Ratisbon, Calabria, etc. It is feminine, and ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... without moving, upon the spectacle of these two night-birds at their work. The countenance of the lady was animated; her motions rapid; and from time to time she stopped to listen. Swartz, on the contrary, was the incarnation of phlegmatic coolness. His face wore an expression of entire equanimity; and he seemed to indulge no ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... master's face with patient expectation. If Gyp had had a tail he would doubtless have wagged it, but being destitute of that vehicle for his emotions, he was like many other worthy personages, destined to appear more phlegmatic than ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... play the fool, is when they are met together, to relax from the severity of mental exertion. Their follies have a degree of extravagance much beyond the phlegmatic merriment of sober dulness, and can be relished by those only, who having wit themselves, can trace the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... courage. Lady Harriet in the background stiffened with displeasure, nearer to actual anger than she had ever before permitted herself to be with any one so contemptible as the surgeon's wife. Even Major Ralston himself, most phlegmatic of men, looked momentarily ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... Annie's bedroom, and Annie was rather startled one evening to hear this phlegmatic young person burst out into a strong tirade against Hester and Dora. Dora had managed, for some inexplicable reason, to offend Susan, and Susan now looked to Annie for sympathy, and boldly suggested that they should get up what she was pleased to called "a lark" between them for the ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... socket taught to roll, Proclaimed the sullen habit of his soul. Heavy and phlegmatic he trod the stage, Too proud for tenderness, too dull for rage. When Hector's lovely widow shines in tears, Or Rowe's gay rake dependent virtue jeers, With the same cast of features he is seen To chide the libertine and court the ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Chancellor Bismarck read aloud the Proclamation of the Empire, and the new German emperor gave thanks to God. It was a fitting sequence to the greatest military success since Napoleon crushed the German armies at Jena and Austerlitz. The tables at last were turned, and the heavy, phlegmatic, intelligent Teutons triumphed over the warlike and passionate Celts. So much for the genius of the greatest general and the greatest diplomatist that Europe had known ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... frozen mounds, had utterly failed to batter a way into the city. As a subaltern he had idolised Wolfe, and here on the ground of Wolfe's triumphant stroke he still dreamed of rivalling it. In Quebec a cautious phlegmatic British General sat and waited, keeping, as the moonless nights drew on, his officers ready against surprise. For a week they had slept in their clothes and with their arms ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... remark,—"It is impossible, therefore, for one-half at least, if not more, of mankind to become even fair rifle-shots, with any possible amount of practice; but to all men who have good eyes, iron nerves, sufficient physical strength, and phlegmatic tempers, it is a certainty beyond calculation that they can become ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... the Verplanck household who slept late that morning. Gulian's usually calm and somewhat phlegmatic temper had been moved to its depths by the startling and most unexpected revelation of Oliver Wolcott's identity with the spy, whose escape Betty had aided and in which he was also indirectly implicated ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... family pressed into service straightway became ardent water savers, and guests who volunteered gallantly somehow never, never came again. Yet it was not an exhausting or complicated task. It was simply so monotonous that it wore down the most phlegmatic nature. So the rural householder will do well to remember that, after all, this is a machine age and govern ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley |
