"Pleasantness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... offended. Petty trials were welcome then, for if she met them with a Christian temper, a Christian spirit, she might hope that, whatever she might endure, she was progressing in His paths, "whose ways are pleasantness, and whose paths are peace;" could she but remove the lingering displeasure and distrust of her aunt and uncle, she ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... scientific nomenclature, ordinary language has likewise a terminology for describing things according to their qualities and structure. Such is the function of all the names of colours, sounds, tastes, contrasts of temperature, of hardness, of pleasantness; in short, of all descriptive adjectives, and all names for the parts and processes of things. Any word connoting a quality may be used to describe many very different things, as long as they agree ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... all meet together. Those who are to stay next year are all bemoaning their fate; together we have had a very courteous and friendly circle,—rather peculiarly so for such a rough kind of life and surroundings,—and the loss of so many as will go will probably rob the work here of much of its pleasantness. ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... determines their respective values by the degree in which they possess that quality which all recognise but none can define—goodness. By higher and lower, superior and inferior pleasures we mean simply more good and less good pleasures. There are, therefore, two different qualities, Pleasantness and Goodness. Pleasure, amongst other things, may be good; but pleasure cannot mean good. By "good" we cannot mean "pleasureable;" for, as we see, there is a quality, "goodness," so distinct from pleasure that we speak of pleasures that are more or less good without meaning pleasures that are ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... expressed the doctrine in a more extreme form than the others. Will, according to him, is a modification of the brain by which it is disposed, or prepared, to set our other organs in motion. The will is necessarily determined by the quality and pleasantness of the ideas which act upon it. Deliberation is the oscillation of the will when moved in different directions by opposing forces; determination is the final prevalence of one force over the other. There is no difference between the man who ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... the pleasantness of these beech woods, where the light is green from the silky verdure of the young leaves, and where the mossy wood-paths are embroidered with thousands of flowers, from the earliest violet and primrose, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... 1802, and in that beautiful town passed through the period of childhood. She was educated with missionary sympathies and feelings. All the circumstances under which she was placed were calculated to invest the holy enterprise with sacred pleasantness. In her father's house she never heard a word of reproach breathed forth against the cause itself or the devoted men and women engaged in it. She traced her descent from the famous John Robinson, ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... merchandise of it is better than silver, And the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, And all things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand, And in her left hand riches and honor; Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... knew. It was like eternal spring, the air pure and the temperature remarkably even. There is a story of a Mexican woman, who, settling in this part of the country, broke her thermometer because the mercury never moved and she therefore concluded that it was out of order. The pleasantness of the climate struck me particularly on one occasion, after a prolonged stay in the invigorating though windy climate of the sierra. I had caught a cold the night before, and was not feeling very well as I dozed on the back ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... enjoyment and pleasantness of living, there is nothing like a sojourn in a well-appointed country house, peopled by well-assorted guests. The guests at Millstead Manor were not perhaps particularly well-assorted; but nevertheless the hours passed by in a round of quiet ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... the heights of thought and fine imagination to commune with the minds and hearts of children; to sympathize with their little joys and sorrows; to feel for their temptations. She is a safe guide for the little pilgrims; for her paths, though 'paths of pleasantness,' lead straight upward."—Grace ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... not deduct something from your elaborate furniture, your expensive dress, and devote it to models, lithographs, or paintings? Subtract but the half from these luxuries and devote the sum to designs of art, and you will contribute doubly to the attractiveness and pleasantness of your home. Where we cannot hope to possess the original masterpiece, we may have photographic or lithographic copies, which are within the compass of very humble means. You will freely toss away five dollars in useless embroidery or surplus furniture, and it would buy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and that it had flourished in the Saturnian age, when it had as yet no rival. Creatium set forth its own splendour, pleasantness, and power. At last, a council being called, Creatium got the preference by the universal votes of the assembly; for such is the iniquity of the times, that though the head be covered with grey hairs, yet nothing is allowed ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... conscious of a sudden change in things. The garden smiled about him, the valley below laughed in the breeze, the blackcaps sang, the many windows of the Castle glistened in the sun; but their beauty and their pleasantness had departed, had retired with her into the long, low, white-walled, red-roofed pavilion. He was conscious of a sudden change in things, and of a sudden acute and bitter depression ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... German psychologists call Einfuehlung, or "Infeeling"—which Prof. Titchener has translated Empathy. Now this new, and comparatively newly discovered element in our perception of shape is the one to which, leaving out of account the pleasantness of mere colour and sound sensations as such, we probably owe the bulk of whatever satisfaction we connect with the word Beautiful. And I have already given the Reader an example of such Empathy when I described the ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... the prairie in the glorious morning air, the sunshine, the lowing of the cattle on the hills, and the songs of the birds in the trees along the Sweetwater had banished all depressing thoughts, and her mind dwelt on her love for Jack and the pleasantness of the lines in which her life ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... saw and heard. Many said, when she had passed: "This is not a woman; rather she is one of the most beautiful angels of heaven." And others said: "She is a marvel. Blest be the Lord who can work thus admirably!" I say that she showed herself so gentle and so full of all pleasantness that those who looked on her comprehended in themselves a pure and sweet delight, such as they could not after tell in words; nor was there any who might look upon her but that at first he needs must sigh. These and more admirable things proceeded from her admirably and with power. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... knew that friendship admitted the pleasurable element? It would be impossible to say. But just as spurious and mock gold only imitates the brightness and glitter of real gold, so the flatterer seems to imitate the pleasantness and agreeableness of the real friend, and to exhibit himself ever merry and bright, contradicting and opposing nothing. We must not however on that account suspect all who praise as simple flatterers. For friendship requires praise ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... But pleasantness is light and versatile, And moods must change and tranquil breezes veer, And o'er this blissful hour there came a chill And sullen shadows slowly creeping near In lengthening lines, and murkier dusk took form ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... their hearts Daphne and Barty squeezed each other's hand to express the joy and elation they felt at the pleasantness of everything. She was his little sister once more, from whom he had so long been parted, and they loved each other ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... water is one of the greatest additions to the pleasantness of any place, the Koran often speaks of the rivers of paradise as a principal ornament thereof: some of these rivers, they say, flow with water, some with milk, some with wine, and others with honey; all taking their rise from the root of the ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... Emily had strolled out with Mr. Trundle; the deaf old lady had fallen asleep in her chair; the snoring of the fat boy, penetrated in a low and monotonous sound from the distant kitchen; the buxom servants were lounging at the side door, enjoying the pleasantness of the hour, and the delights of a flirtation, on first principles, with certain unwieldy animals attached to the farm; and there sat the interesting pair, uncared for by all, caring for none, and dreaming only of themselves; there they sat, in short, like a pair of carefully-folded ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... enough to be trusted with its contents, and given it to her to wear, so it was her very own. But was not this a worthy occasion for bringing of one's best and most precious things? Might not this pearl locket help to bring some little outcast waif into paths of pleasantness and peace? Yes, the locket should be given to the special collection, Grace resolved; but it might not be wise, to divulge the intention to Margery, who had already replied, when she was asked by Grace if she could lend her any money, that nobody would expect a collection ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... William N. Kennedy, of distinguished Nile memory, who was also a member of the choir. The late Mrs. Chambers, formerly of Peterboro', was the organist. I can say with much delight that my acquaintances and associations during the two years were fraught with much pleasantness and reciprocated kindness. ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... philosophers are agreed, is the most philosophical of duties. What can be more heavenly to poor mankind than to have one's hobby grow into a duty to the State? Then, indeed, do the ways of life become ways of pleasantness. Never had the Doctor seen reason to be more content with his endowments. Philosophy flowed smoothly from his lips. He was so agile a dialectician that he could trace his nonsense, when challenged, back to some root in sense, and prove it to be a sort of flower upon his system. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of slaughter and its lament over death, there is much also of a gentle beauty, a childlike saying over of wind and wave and the brightness in the tops of green things, as a child counts over its toys. In the 'Song of Pleasant Things' there is no distinction between the pleasantness of sea-gulls playing, of summer and slow long days, of the heath when it is green, of a horse with a thick mane in a tangle, and of 'the word that utters the Trinity.' 'The beautiful I sang of, I will sing,' says Taliesin; and with him the seven senses become in symbol 'fire and ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... agreed Mrs. Blair with pleasantness, laying out the spoons. "Yes, it's very interesting for her to have this," she went on, "before she really knows Roman society. . . . She will come out as soon as she returns from America, I suppose. The eldest sister is being married this fall, and the next sister and Maria Angelina ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... its place as in the evocation of great perspectives of feeling. For her, as he again perceived when they were seated at their table in a low window above the Seine, Paris was "Paris" by virtue of all its entertaining details, its endless ingenuities of pleasantness. Where else, for instance, could one find the dear little dishes of hors d'oeuvre, the symmetrically-laid anchovies and radishes, the thin golden shells of butter, or the wood strawberries and brown jars of cream ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... And by the way in which this invitation had come he had been secured as a partner for the evening. He could not write to them, and especially call upon them to come without doing all he could to make the evening pleasant for them. She included Edith in all these promises of pleasantness. But Edith, if the thing was to be done at all, would do it all for Ada. As for the danger in which the man passed his life, that must be left in the hands of God. Looking at it with great seriousness, as in the midst of her joking she did look at these things, she told herself that Ada ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... coinage. The Florentines, using pure gold, and thin, can strike their coin anywhere, with only a wooden anvil, and their engraver is ready on the instant to make such change in the stamp as may record any new triumph. Consider the vigour, popularity, pleasantness of an art of coinage thus ductile to events, ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... do you do, sir?" exclaimed the apothecary, with great pleasantness, of face. It seemed the most natural thing that they should resume their late conversation just where they had left off, and that would certainly be pleasant. But the man of more experience showed an unresponsive expression, that ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... that the odor was due to the fact that I knew most of these flowers to be such as are laid on coffins—are smelled during interment. Again, many people find perfumes good or bad as they like or dislike the person who makes use of them, and the judgment concerning the pleasantness or unpleasantness of an odor is mainly dependent upon the pleasantness or unpleasantness of associative memories. When my son, who is naturally a vegetarian and who could never be moved to eat meat, became a doctor, I thought that he could never ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... by the camp-fire, or the pleasantness of the shady place where your tent is pitched, keep you there when the cloud lifts. Be ready for change, be ready for continuance, because you are in fellowship with your Leader and Commander; and let Him say, Go, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... Spanish silence and reserve, which estranged Englishmen from Philip as they had already estranged his subjects in Italy and his future subjects in the Netherlands. Here however he sought by an unusual pleasantness of demeanour as well as by profuse distributions of gifts to win the national goodwill, for it was only by winning it that he could accomplish the work he came to do. His first aim was to reconcile England with ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... recollections of my childhood. They will gather interest with every year. They will ripen in forgotten corners of my memory; and some day I shall waken and find them vested with new glory and new pleasantness. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cried Eyebright, yielding to the pleasantness of the thought. "I'd rather live with you than anybody else in the world, Mr. Joyce, if only you are ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... with dire intent of obliging a recognition), may be, especially upon old and provincial friends, practised ad libitum, without the slightest danger of your character for etiquette, politeness, suavity, and general pleasantness, being impeached. Indeed it is not incompatible with the highest breeding, to allow your slighted and amazed acquaintance to hear you quizzing, and see you laughing at, him heartily, should it be your interest so to do; and then next day, to walk boldly up to him, protest he is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... lately that there's something different at the farm. Something that runs through everything, as you might say. The beasts do their work as well again, and the sun shines brighter, and the flowers bloom prettier, and there's a kind of a pleasantness about the place. I can't set it down to anything, any more than I know why the sky's blue, but it's there all the same. So I thought over it a deal, and one day I was up in the High field, and all of a sudden it rapped into my head what Grannie Dunch says about the brownie as used to work at ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... have happily as much power as that bath of Aix, or Venus' enchanted girdle, in which, saith Natales Comes, "Love toys and dalliance, pleasantness, sweetness, persuasions, subtleties, gentle speeches, and all witchcraft to enforce love, was contained." Read more of these in Agrippa de occult. Philos. lib. 1. cap. 50. et 45. Malleus malefic. part. 1. quaest. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... circus? How does she explain her going? What can you tell of 'Bijah from what is said of 'Liza's "memories"? Would the circus people have cared to buy the dog? Notice how the author makes you feel the pleasantness of the walk in the woods. Do you know where coons have their dens? How does Isaac show his affection for old Rover? Is it true that "worthless do-nothings" usually have "smart" dogs? Why does the ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... merchant pass without robbing him of his monies and his merchandise; and the traders endured this with patience, by reason of their profit from the fatness of the earth in the means of life and its pleasantness, more by token that it was renowned for its richness in precious stones and gems. Now the just King, who loved jewels, heard of this land and sent one of his subjects thither, giving him much specie and bidding ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... wiry nervous strength about the muscles of the mouth and chin: it would have been a womanly, pleasant mouth, had it not been crossed by a white scar, which attracted more of one's attention than either the womanliness or pleasantness. Her eyes had light long lashes, ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... they any mechanical office: they add nowise to the serviceableness of the plate; and their agreeableness, if they possess any, depends, therefore, neither on any imitative, nor any structural, character; but on some inherent pleasantness in themselves, either of mere colors to the eye, (as of taste to the tongue,) or in the placing of those colors in relations which obey some mental principle of order, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... in his moments of effusion and abandonment (then so full of pleasantness), had said more than once: "If I have any physical beauty, I owe it to the Queen, my mother; if my daughters have any beauty, they owe it to me: it is only fine couples ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... look to the gracious protection of the Divine Being whose strengthening support I humbly solicit, and whom I fervently pray to look down upon us all. May it be among the dispensations of His providence to bless our beloved country with honors and with length of days. May her ways be ways of pleasantness and ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... Rodaja was infinitely delighted, as well for the pleasantness of its position as for its sumptuous buildings, its fine river, agreeable streets, and cleanliness of aspect. He remained there but four days, and then departed for Rome, the queen of cities and mistress of the world, whose ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... passing a milestone in her emotional life on the evening of this day, when she said to herself that she loved Rodney Parker. She admitted it with a sort of splendid shame, as she went about her usual household occupations, passing from the hot pleasantness of the kitchen to the cool, stale odours of the dining room; running upstairs to light the bathroom-and hall-gas for her father and brother, and sometimes stepping for a moment into the darkness of the yard to be alone with ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... comply with these requests. I was in the gallery on Monday, and can testify to the pleasantness of the little installation, to the dexterity with which customers were led there, and to the grace with which the canvasser dipped the pen in the handsome silver inkstand. The county squire, the owner of racehorses, the undergraduate, and the Brixton ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... certainly, that men and women do so much to destroy the pleasantness of their days,' said she, interrupting him. 'It is a pity that there should ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... evicted or evade, with a week's notice or a week's rent, any day—this sort of life is natural and even delightful to some people. There are those who, like strawberry plants, are of such an errant disposition, that grow them where you will, they will soon absorb all the pleasantness of their habitat, and begin casting out runners elsewhere; may, if not frequently transplanted, would actually wither and die. Of such are the pioneers of society—the emigrants, the tourists, the travelers round the world; and great is the advantage the world derives from them, active, energetic, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... the forest, very green and innocent, and solemnly surrounded by trees. Otto paused on the margin, looking about him with delight; then his glance returned to Seraphina, as she stood framed in that silvan pleasantness and looking at her husband with undecipherable eyes. A weakness both of the body and mind fell on him like beginnings of sleep; the cords of his activity were relaxed, his eyes clung to her. "Let us rest," he said; and he made her sit down, and himself sat ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... similarity between the words used to name things and to express their actions; as, builders build buildings; singers sing songs; writers write writings; painters paint paintings. In the popular use of language we vary these words to avoid the monotony and give pleasantness and variety. We say builders erect houses, barns, and other buildings; singers perform pieces of music; musicians play tunes; the choir sing psalm ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... poetry, then, in accomplishing this moral end lies in its pleasantness. The poet, says Sidney, in that most famous passage which is too ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... sometimes to say, and felt that he hit it off. The breeze carried the scent of the tobacco in intermittent waves of fragrance, and on the air floated delicately that subtle message of peace, prosperity, and leisure which is part of the mission of a good cigar. The pleasantness of the wide, cool piazza, with its flowers and vines and gay awnings; the charm of the summer morning, not yet dulled by wear and tear of the day; the steady, deliberate dash of the waves on the beach below; ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... without generalizing, even to herself, on the state of the family. The English comfort which she brought into the Limenian household was one element of peace; and her brisk, energetic habits produced an air of ease and pleasantness that did much to make home agreeable to her father, and removed many cares which oppressed her mother. To her, Mary was all the world-daughter, comforter, friend, and nurse, unfailing in deeds of love or words of cheer, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ways of the Lord I shall have feasts of "pleasantness." But not always at the beginning of the ways. Sometimes my faith is called upon to take a very unattractive road, and nothing welcomes me of fascination and delight. But here is a law of the spiritual life. The exercised ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... conceal a portion of them, and also resorted to every subtle trick of intellect which could possibly be employed by an experienced man of the world who has a wide knowledge of his fellows. Nothing which could be effected by pleasantness of demeanour, by moving oratory, by clouds of flattery, and by the occasional insertion of a coin into a palm did he leave undone; with the result that he was retired with less ignominy than was his companion, and escaped actual trial on a criminal charge. Yet he issued stripped of all his capital, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... gratuitously, into their mouths. She laid it down, a rule, with Master Herbert, that he was not to go to the apple stand with her unless he had first put by a penny for a purchase. And so unflinchingly she adhered to this determination, that sometimes weeks went by—hard, weary weeks, without a bit of pleasantness for her; weeks of sore pining for a morsel of heart food—before she was free of her own conscience ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... I'm glad to see! Pax vobiscrum, my filly! You look as fresh as an Aperel shad. Praised be the Lord,' continued he, relapsing into Mormon slang, 'who has sent thee again, like a brand from the burning, to fall into paths of pleasantness with the Saints, as they wander from the Promised Land to the mean section where the low-lived Gentiles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Temple. It was built in the reign of James I., being consequently nearly three centuries old. White-aproned porters, with numbered pewter badge on lapel, stand on either side, ready—for a consideration—to direct our transatlantic ignorance into veritable "paths of pleasantness and peace." Access to the Middle Temple from Fleet Street is had by way of another gate-house, built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1684, soon after the Great Fire. It is in the style of Inigo Jones, of reddish brick, with stone pointing. There ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... New Year of 1893 the fine addition to the house at Vailima was finished, and its pleasantness and comfort went far to console Stevenson for the cost. But the year was on the whole a less fortunate one for the inmates than the last. A proclamation concerning penalties for sedition in the Samoan Islands, which from its tenor could have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... resounding speeches,' she said. Her tranquillity and her buxom pleasantness overcame him with sudden affection. He was minded to tell her—because indeed she had made his fortunes for him—that her marriage to him did not hold good since a friar ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... multitude that had remained in the city, with their wives and children, came into the road, and waited for him there; and for those whom he passed by, they made all sorts of acclamations, on account of the joy they had to see him, and the pleasantness of his countenance, and styled him their Benefactor and Savior, and the only person who was worthy to be ruler of the city of Rome. And now the city was like a temple, full of garlands and sweet odors; nor was it easy for him to come to the royal palace, for the multitude ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... differences of colouring and expression. Emmy was less dark, more temperamentally unadventurous, stouter, and possessed of more colour. She was twenty-eight or possibly twenty-nine, and her mouth was rather too hard for pleasantness. It was not peevish, but the lips were set as though she had endured much. Her eyes, also, were hard; although if she cried one saw her face soften remarkably into the semblance of that of a little girl. From an involuntary defiance her expression changed to something really pathetic. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... successful farmer of to-morrow. Nor, in these days of impersonal industrial relations, should the fact be overlooked that under an intensive system of agriculture, we find still preserved the kindly personal relation between employer and employed which contributes both to the pleasantness of life and to economic ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett
... himself, had loved a woman who was now long since dead. He wanted to ask him questions, that so he might make up for omitted kindnesses; but he was restrained when he looked upon the grey dreamy countenance, for it was evident that le Pere was wandering in the idealised meadows of a bygone pleasantness—a country which was known only to himself. So Granger returned his eyes to the portrait which he had taken from the dead man's hand, and, gazing upon it, tried his best to fill in the blanks in his little knowledge of the woman he ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... described the advantages of it, that it would be injustice to communicate his ideas in any words but his own. "No other sort of abode," says he, "seems to contribute so much both to tranquillity of mind and indolence of body. The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of the smell, the verdure of plants, the clearness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking; but above all, the exemption from care and solicitude, seem equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... few drawings, and became more accustomed to the employment, she found that she need not be so absorbed in it, as to be unable to attend to her sisters while they read aloud. This added great pleasantness to their morning employment, and both Jane's work, and Isabella's drawing, got on fast while they listened to Harriet and Alfred, who took it in turn to read. But when the pasting together of their work began, ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau
... the first words of true wit that I have heard these many days. I swear," he added, with a pleasantness that was oddly at variance with his sullen humour of a moment back, "that I have not tasted human food these four weeks, and as for my appetite—it is capable of consuming the whole patrimony of St. Peter. Lead the way, my good Henriette. ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... and park in this town; the house indeed is old built, but very commodious; it is called Christ Church, having been, as it is said, a priory or religious house in former times. The green and park is a great addition to the pleasantness of this town, the inhabitants being allowed to divert themselves there ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... we are too hot, too sore at heart, for easy pleasantness! And, God, raise up in India Christian statesmen who will inquire into this matter, and refuse to be blindfolded and deceived. His laws and ours clash ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... of your habitation, when you see your wives, your sisters, and your daughters contributing so materially by the brightness of their appearance, the softness, of their manners, their housewifely qualities, to the pleasantness and cheerfulness of your domestic lives, contrasting as all these do so strikingly with your former surroundings, you will remember that it is to Mr. Duncan you owe this blessed initiation into your new life. By ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... of one of Duerer's Madonnas for you out of one of his most careful plates.[AB] You think it very ugly. Well, so it is. Don't be afraid to think so, nor to say so. Frightfully ugly; vulgar also. It is the head, simply, of a fat Dutch girl, with all the pleasantness left out. There is not the least doubt about that. Don't let anybody force Albert Duerer down your throats; nor make you expect pretty things from him. Stothard's young girl in the swing, or Sir Joshua's Age of Innocence, is in quite angelic sphere of another world, compared to this black domain ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... intemperance. Ah! is not the name of the evil that comes in through this door Legion? and we throw it wide open and invite both young and old to enter. We draw them by various allurements. We make the way of this door broad and smooth and flowery, full of pleasantness and enticement. We hold out our hands, we smile with encouragement, we step inside of the door to show ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... anger, 'I don't mind your abusing me, but Mr. Roger Hamley has been very kind to me while I've not been well: I can't bear to hear him disparaged. If he's coarse, I've no objection to be coarse as well, for it seems to me it must mean kindliness and pleasantness, and the bringing of pretty ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... are covered with downy fur. A tail is probably hidden under the garment. Only a sculptor of the finest imagination, most delicate taste, and sweetest feeling would have dreamed of representing a faun under this guise; and, if you brood over it long enough, all the pleasantness of sylvan life, and all the genial and happy characteristics of the brute creation, seem to be mixed in him with humanity—trees, grass, flowers, cattle, deer, and unsophisticated man." This passage shows ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... of late years to numerous cheap reprints, but one and all fall very short of the Nelson Library in daintiness, in ease to handle, in pleasantness to ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... evil habits to the evil tendencies of their fallen nature must expect "to go mourning all the days of their life." It is only to those who have served the Lord from their youth that "wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths peace." To others, though by the grace of God they may be finally saved, there is but a dreary prospect until the end come. They must ever henceforth consult their safety by denying themselves many pleasant things which ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... fare as well as in thy warm and cheerful town of Vevey, which outdoes most of Italy in its pleasantness and fruits; but thou shalt, at least, drink of thine own warm wines," observed the superior, as they went along the corridor; "and a right goodly company awaits thee, to share hot only thy repast but thy ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... sacred self! What orations on the benefit of starvation—on the comeliness of rags! Have we not heard selfishness speaking with a syren voice? Have we not seen the haggard face of state-craft rouged up into a look of pleasantness and innocence? Have we not, night after night, seen the national Jonathan Wilds meet to plan a robbery, and—the purse taken—have they not rolled in their carriages home, with their fingers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... that inexplicable something in him that prevented him crying out from the pain of the stick. And, without thinking of it as beauty, the beauty of line and colour of Jerry had insensibly penetrated him with a sense of pleasantness. It was ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... to whittle sticks, swap jack-knives and horses, and to listen to the white-haired parson who led them by the resistless rhetoric of a blameless life, as well as by his heartfelt prayers and exhortations in those "ways which are ways of pleasantness and those paths which are ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... Starbuck, the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated, then Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along the planks, and, after a grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some touch of pleasantness, Dinner, Mr. Stubb, and descends the scuttle. The second Emir lounges about the rigging .. awhile, and then slightly shaking the main brace, to see whether it be all right with that important rope, he likewise takes up the old burden, and with a rapid Dinner, Mr. Flask, follows ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... The pleasantness of his humour, and the manner in which he had gained upon me, were sufficient to insure him a compliance with this request. I had the money in my pocket, gave it him, and we bade each other adieu; with a promise on his part that 'he would soon be in town ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... for would we not wish to meet them there, when, ere long, this mortal shall have put on immortality? Grieve not because that gentle one has passed away! say not that she met with an untimely end, when in her summer of life all was pleasantness before her. Think of her not as one gone far away, never to be on earth more; cast her not from your heart, where, during her little day here, in innocence she entwined herself within its recesses. Oh, no, for she is nearer to us now; she is not dead, but has ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... shoulder. "We got married last March a year. It's our first—first—first"—he turned to me with a confiding smile—"it's our first dividend, judge." "Rolfe! I never! You come right down." "And now let's go get a prize," he declared, with his confiding pleasantness. "I remember now! I remember! They claimed twins was barred. And I kicked down the bars. Take me to those twins. They're not named yet, judge. After they get the prize we'll name them fine names, as good as any they got anywhere—Europe, Asia, Africa—anywhere. My gracious! I wish they was boys. ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... the young Chinese lady in blue silks are walking the Italian gardens, talking about nothing in particular. Ted has managed to discuss the moon—it is high now, a round white lustre—the night, which is warm—the art of garden decoration, French, English and Italian—the pleasantness of Southampton after New York—all with great nervous fluency but so completely as if he had met Elinor for the first time ten minutes ago that she is beginning to wonder why, if he dislikes her as much as that, ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... able to break up the feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness into anything simpler. "Pleasure" and "displeasure" are not always so simple; they are names for whole states of mind which may be very complex, including sensations and thoughts in addition to the feelings ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... door myself. On opening it I saw standing before me a man of, I should say, fifty odd years of age, tall, slender, pale-faced, and clad in sombre black. He was entirely unknown to me. I had never seen him before, but he had about him such an air of pleasantness and wholesomeness that I instinctively felt glad to see him, without knowing why ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... as an accomplished man of the world, was of course free from any awkward bashfulness; and at the very first interview was ready to meet Fitzjames half-way. His enthusiasm accordingly met with a rapid return. One of Fitzjames's favourite assertions was that nobody but a humbug could deny the pleasantness of flattery; and, in fact, I think that we all like it till we discover it to be flattery. What he really meant was that he liked downright, open-hearted and perfectly sincere praise; and both parties to this alliance could praise each other both ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... receives her ferment of mirth and jollity: of which this may be urged as a convincing argument, in that as soon as I appeared to speak before this numerous assembly all their countenances were gilded oyer with a lively sparkling pleasantness: you soon welcomed me with so encouraging a look, you spurred me on with so cheerful a hum, that truly in all appearance, you seem now flushed with a good dose of reviving nectar, when as just before you sate drowsy and melancholy, as if you were ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... one great wish of the human soul in which all the others center. But desire is not enough. We must seek the Happiness we wish; seek it in the wisdom which opens life's mysteries plainly to our view; which reveals our present and eternal relations, and points out the ways of pleasantness and peace. Would we know the truth, the gemmy walks of knowledge, the flowery bowers of inward and joyous life, the teachings of nature, revelation, the Son and the Father? We must seek, else how shall ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... and built from the ground by that great statesman and favourite of King Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey; and if it be a just observation anywhere, as is made from the situation of the old abbeys and monasteries, the clergy were excellent judges of the beauty and pleasantness of the country, and chose always to plant in the best; I say, if it was a just observation in any case, it was in this; for if there be a situation on the whole river between Staines Bridge and Windsor Bridge pleasanter than another, it is this of Hampton; close to ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... really availed to enliven the Escurial," cried Don John recklessly, "your friendship must indeed possess miraculous properties! However, you may judge with your own eyes the pleasantness of my position; and every day that improves your acquaintance with the ill blood and ill condition of this accursed army of the royalists, ill-paid, ill-disciplined, and ill-intentioned, will inspire you with stronger yearnings after our days of the Mediterranean, where ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... them to have all their juyce: but strain the Liquor from the Grains or Seeds, or Stones. And then proceed with this tincted water, as is said above. You may make your Liquor as strong, as you like, of the fruit. Cardamon-seeds mingled with the suspended spices, adde much to the pleasantness of the drink. Limon-peel, ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... was so dingy and dark. Lilac lane was dirty, and poor; yet it was broad enough and the cottages stood far enough apart to let the sky look in. Here, in these streets, houses and people seemed to be packed. There was a bare look of want; a forlorn abandonment of every sort of pleasantness; what must it be to go in at one of those doors? Matilda thought; and to live there?—the idea was too disagreeable to dwell upon. Yet people lived there. What sort? Dingy people, as far as Matilda could see; dirty people, and as hopeless looking ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... Bear-garden and the Swan Theatre, for instance, the artist has managed to throw over his minute plate a wonderful air of pleasantness, a light which, though very delicate, is very theatrical. The river and its tiny craft, the little gabled houses of the neighbourhood, with a garden or two dropped in, tell delightfully in the general effect. They are worthy to rank with Cruikshank's ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... water. He struggled up to air and life at last, with many gasps for breath, and once more clutched at the rocks behind him. It all seemed like the terror of a dream, not real and threatening. Was he to be drowned? Some sudden thought of the pleasantness of life, of dear friends across this same cruel, ravenous sea, of Uncle Richard and his warning, came to him here. To be drowned in this dark, chill, raging flood? Oh! no, no! Then he saw, out in the gloom and mistiness, the white gleaming of a ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... soon as we were dressed we left the tent together. He led me about the camp, and then we walked upon the surrounding hills overlooking the great city of white tents and sleeping soldiers. Very little was spoken between us, beyond a few words as to the pleasantness of the morning or similar casual observations. Lincoln seemed to be peculiarly serious, and his quiet, abstract way affected me also. It did not seem a time to speak. We walked slowly and quietly, meeting here and there a guard, our thoughts leading ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... poet. A good deal of Whitman is little else but such catalogues; and Whitman was a great poet. The effort (even without the reward of this not-always-desired label) is worth making, because (and this is where the poetry comes in) it forces one to visit the past and dwell again in the ways of pleasantness before the world was too much with us and life's hand had begun to press heavily: most of such loves as Rupert Brooke recalls having their roots in our childhood. Hence such poetry as we shall make cannot ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... and dress, it was easy to recognize mode, that is to say, life; she did not live for this alone, but that goes without saying. What struck me in her taste was that there was nothing bizarre, everything breathed of youth and pleasantness. ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... salmon to the fishermen and very largely the price of canned fish to the consumer, and their most arduous labor had been to tot up the comfortable balance after each season's operations. All this pleasantness was to be done away with, they mourned. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry was to be turned loose on the salmon with deadly gear and greedy intent to exterminate a valuable species of fish and wipe out a thriving industry. The salmon would all be killed off, so did the packers cry. What few small ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... swans on the water are nine times blacker than a blackberry since the man died from us that had pleasantness on the top of his fingers. His two grey eyes were like the dew of the morning that lies on the grass. And since he was laid in the grave, the cold is ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... that time, was already surely what Plato pleads for, already one half music, mousik, a matter, partly, of character and of the soul, of the fair proportion between soul and body, of the soul with itself. Who can doubt it who sees and considers the still irresistible grace, the contagious pleasantness, of the Discobolus, the Diadumenus, and a few other precious survivals from the athletic age which immediately preceded the manhood of Pheidias, between the Persian ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... says Guibert of Nogent, "were still hanging on the branches of the vines; on all sides discoveries were made of grain shut up, not in barns, but in subterranean vaults; and the trees were laden with fruit." These facilities of existence, the softness of the climate, the pleasantness of the places, the frequency of leisure, partly pleasure and partly care-for-nothingness, caused amongst the crusaders irregularity, license, indiscipline, carelessness, and often perils and reverses. The Turks profited thereby to make ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... is to be admitted that it is always well that a man should be agreeable. Pleasantness is always a pleasing thing. And a sensible man, seeking by honest means to make himself agreeable, will generally succeed in making himself agreeable to sensible men. But although there is an implied compliment, to your power, if not to your ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... pattern one for February, and I went out before the brightness was passed, and had several turns in the walled garden. I am afraid you will never be able to understand the pleasantness of such a morning. Perhaps you will say the very description makes you shiver, but I must tell you how beautiful it was. The frost last night was not sharp, but just sufficient to detain the dew till the sun could turn it into diamonds. There were ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... crushing the mint leaves with a bit of sugar, in each glass. Into this, at the proper moment was added the crushed ice to the brim and, as a jigger or two of liquor flowed over the ingredients, the glasses frosted and were topped with a sprig of mint. The pleasantness of the drink was not deemed its single virtue, for there was a very sincere belief in the efficacy of this refreshment in the promotion of good health and, particularly, in warding off the current ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... certainly, that men and women do so much to destroy the pleasantness of their days," said she, interrupting him. "It is a pity that there should be ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... step has died away, and Starbuck, the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated, then Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along the planks, and, after a grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some touch of pleasantness, "Dinner, Mr. Stubb," and descends the scuttle. The second Emir lounges about the rigging awhile, and then slightly shaking the main brace, to see whether it will be all right with that important rope, he likewise ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... highly transcendental Cremorne. There could be no doubt, however, that the Faithful were enjoying themselves amazingly—"right lucky fellows," as we read in the new translation of the Koran. Yet even here all was not peace and pleasantness, for I heard my name called by a small voice, in a tone of patient subdued querulousness. Looking hastily round, I with some difficulty recognized, in a green turban and silk gown to match, my old college tutor and professor of Arabic. Poor old Jones had ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... force and fitness of his satire; for as he was both the delight, the love, and the dotage of the women, so was he a continued curb to impertinence, and the public censure of folly; never did man stay in his company unentertained, or leave it uninstructed; never was his understanding biassed, or his pleasantness forced; never did he laugh in the wrong place, or prostitute his sense to serve his luxury; never did he stab into the wounds of fallen virtue, with a base and a cowardly insult, or smooth the face of prosperous villany, with ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... first division of natural beauty to sound, which we distinguish from diction in that propriety and force of meaning are looked to in this; in sound it is the pleasantness or harshness that is regarded, flattering or offending the ear, or it is a kind of imitation of the subject-matter—sad things recited tearfully, excited rapidly, or harsh harshly. This is common enough in the spoken word; in writing, however, with which we are ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... whatever to overlook any piece of work carrying on by the convicts. Near to this farm-house, there is a very good barn and a granary. The convicts houses form a line at some distance, in front of the barracks, with very good gardens before and behind each house: indeed, the whole, joined to the pleasantness of the situation, makes it a ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... of many broad acres. This appearance was very much added to by the size and extent of the barns and out-houses; and the impression of age and stability was enhanced by the fine old trees which surrounded the yards and added so much to the pleasantness of the situation. From her old memory of the place, and of conversations during previous visits when she had no interest whatever in the inmates, Josephine Harris had an impression that this house was the abode ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... hand of death extinguish. A conviction of this truth leads him to hate sin, to forsake its dark dominions, and enter those fields of felicity, where the brilliant beams of virtue shed a cloudless day. Here he walks and enjoys an antepast of heaven. Its paths are the paths of peace. All its ways are pleasantness and delight. Its crystal streams are pure and sweet; its breezes healthful and its fruits delicious. He believes God to be the father of his creatures—that he governs the world in wisdom and mercy—that he created with a benevolent ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... up and came alongside us, taking his part in our talk in all cheerfulness. And from that time I had little thought but of the pleasantness of the ride in the sharp winter air and under the bright sun with him toward the new court which I had often longed to see, with its strange ways, in the ancient British-Roman palace that he had ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... or meagre the personalities are, leave those personalities in the category of "safe" painters. They do not disturb by an excessively intimate point of view toward art or toward nature. They come up to gallery requirements by their "pleasantness" or the inoffensiveness of their style. They offer little in the way of interpretive power or synthetic understanding. It is the tendency to keep on the comfortable side in American art. Doubtless it is more practical as any innovator or investigator ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... flower-scented drawing-room side by side. The young man threw off his hat, and she saw the silky ripple of his nut-brown hair, his smooth forehead, his bright-glancing hazel eyes, all the happy pleasantness of his countenance. Before she had had time to reconsider her dislike of him, he had caught her in his arms and kissed her hair and face, whispering little words of love between the kisses. For one paralyzed moment ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods |
