"Prepossessing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one instance at least enforced by the attractions of pleasure, pointed out the vast superiority of England to the oppressed, impoverished country which he had left, as a field for genius and industry to work upon. Having a prepossessing face and person, and manners frank, conciliating and firm, he soon extended his acquaintance to a wide circle of friends, whose advice conspired with his own taste to bring him to a determination, in consequence of which he settled ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... gentleman of prepossessing appearance entered the store. He heard the grocer's last words, and their inhumanity made ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... went up and spoke to Captain Mason of the staff, who had not the slightest idea who I was. When he found me out he was greatly amused, and introduced me to several others whom I already knew. My appearance was even less prepossessing that when I had met my father at Cold Harbour, for I had been marching night and day for four days, with no opportunity to wash myself or my clothes; my face and hands were blackened with powder-sweat, and the few garments I had on were ragged ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... further interest in his fortunes. During the fifteen or sixteen years which he had spent in or about the colony, Hadden followed many trades, and did no good at any of them. A clever man, of agreeable and prepossessing manner, he always found it easy to form friendships and to secure a fresh start in life. But, by degrees, the friends were seized with a vague distrust of him; and, after a period of more or less application, he himself would close the opening that he had made by a sudden ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... to the river with deep ravines. On this last bearing fully six miles on the opposite or left bank of the river, at about two miles distance from our camp here a large creek with abundance of running water joins from north-west by north through apparently a not prepossessing country, very hilly and little or no valley belonging to it; in travelling along the bed of the river occasionally the bed is of a quicksand nature and very heavy. Sun quite overcast all day, at night it ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... chosen to express their relation. Dan was tall, dark, muscular; he had a well-shaped head on his square shoulders; strong well-cut features; a face that the sun had deeply tanned and dark hair that it had burnished with gold. Altogether he was a prepossessing lad, though he looked several years older than he was, and he was commonly treated by his neighbours with a consideration that his years did not merit. Tom Pembroke was fairer; more attractive, perhaps, ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... arrived November 25, 1853. He was a prepossessing man of twenty-six, dark complexion, and intelligent. At the time of Joseph's escape, he was owned by Jacob Kneeland, who had fallen heir to him as a part of his father's estate. Joseph spoke of his old master as having treated him "pretty well," but he had an idea ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... concerning the organization of stock companies. While the South Improvement Company thus came to a sudden and rather inglorious end, its founders soon contrived other means to carry out their ingenious plans. They bought a refinery, reorganized by taking the prepossessing title of Standard Oil Company, and were now prepared to resume their operations under the guise of ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... cushions in front of it sat a man, whom he recognized as the leader of the party who seized him. Other Arabs were squatted on the ground or standing round. The chief was past the prime of life, but still a powerful and sinewy man. His features were not prepossessing; but Edgar, looking round, thought that the expression of his face was less savage than that of the majority ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... medley one might have seen a small French cart, of the sort very appropriately called a "mule-killer" beyond the frontiers, and not far distant a tent, together with a miscellaneous assortment of boxes and barrels. The whole equipage was far from prepossessing in its appearance; yet, such as it was, it was destined to a long and arduous journey, on which the persevering reader will ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... promise of a blow-pipe, with arrows galore, and this was that young sister of his, whose name was Oalava, a maid of about sixteen, shy and silent and mild-eyed, rather lean and dirty; not ugly, nor yet prepossessing. And this copper-coloured little drab of the wilderness he proposed to bestow in marriage on me! Anxious to pump him, I managed to control my muscles and asked him what authority he—a young nobody, who had not ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... the wretchedness of servitude, were one by one withdrawn. Mrs. Delany, whose society had been a great resource when the Court was at Windsor, was now dead. One of the gentlemen of the royal establishment, Colonel Digby, appears to have been a man of sense, of taste, of some reading, and of prepossessing manners. Agreeable associates were scarce in the prison house, and he and Miss Burney therefore naturally became attached to each other. She owns that she valued him as a friend; and it would not have been strange if his attentions had led her to entertain for ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to stammer out an incoherent explanation; that news had reached her of the retirement of one of the Lady Adelaide's attendants, and of her wish to fill the vacant place. "What is your name?" inquired the countess, already taken, as the young are apt to be, with the prepossessing manners and ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... compliments on Elise on account of her children. "They are positively the ornament of the room," said she;—"charmant! and your son a most prepossessing young man—so handsome and comme il ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... wandering. The hair was light brown; and the complexion of the face, which had evidently once been blonde, was now nearly as dark as that of a half-breed. Sun-tan had produced this metamorphosis. The countenance was prepossessing: it might have been once handsome. Its expression was bold, but good-humoured, and bespoke a kind and ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... surreptitiously watched the player. He had never before had an opportunity of observing Schilsky so closely, and, with a kind of blatant generosity, he now pointed out to himself each physical detail that he found prepossessing in the other, every feature that was likely to attract—in the next breath, only to struggle with his honest opinion that the composer was a slippery, loose-jointed, caddish fellow, who could never ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... characters, it is liable to cause friction when practised upon equals or elders whose views are also self-opinionated. As regards looks, Marjorie could score. Her clear-cut features, fresh complexion, and frank, grey eyes were decidedly prepossessing, and her pigtail had been the longest and thickest and glossiest in the whole crocodile of Hilton House. She was clever, if she chose to work, though apt to argue with her teachers; and keen at games, if she could win, but showed an unsporting tendency to lose her temper if the odds were ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... agreed in expressing the deep regret with which they looked forward to his approaching departure for England; when their little daughter, who was then just ten years old, gravely offered to prevent the catastrophe by marrying the illustrious, but by no means prepossessing, historian. ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... husband, the present Rajah of Bhuderee, a fine, handsome, and amiable youth, of sixteen years of age, who is now learning Persian. He was one of the many chiefs who took leave of me yesterday, and the most prepossessing of all. His adoptive mother, however, absorbs the estates of her weaker neighbours, by fraud, violence, and collusion, like other landholders, and the dispossessed become leaders of gang robbers ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... badinage with the barmaid when she joined him, and perhaps this made her look a little cross. "She's jealous, too," said Mr. Chalker, observant; "all the better." Yet a face which, on the whole, was prepossessing and good natured, and betokened a disposition to make the ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... conspicuous. He was busying himself in putting together a quantity of flowers for her; and Mrs. Evelyn and old Mr. Thorn stood looking on; with Mr. Stackpole. Mr. Stackpole was an Englishman, of certainly not very prepossessing exterior but somewhat noted as an author and a good deal sought after in consequence. At present he was engaged by Mrs. Evelyn. Mr. Carleton and Constance sauntered up towards them and paused at a little distance to look ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... said her brother, looking in at the door. He was quite a young gentleman of pleasure now, and not quite a prepossessing one. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... and seemed quite overjoyed to see us, as such guests, they said, were not common; and they certainly took uncommon pains to treat and to please us. The old man appeared between sixty and seventy years of age, with a long white beard and moustachios, which, added to a mild, sensible, and prepossessing countenance, gave him a most sage and respectable appearance, and personified to my imagination the wise enchanter whose name he bore. Conon Merlin had been educated by the famous Mr. Evashkin, a Russian nobleman, who was banished to Kamtchatka during the reign of Catharine ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... perceive the ungainly figure of Jethro Bass coming toward him across the green. Jethro was about thirty years of age, and he wore a coonskin cap even in those days, and trousers tacked into his boots. He carried his big head bent forward, a little to one aide, and was not, at first sight, a prepossessing-looking person. As our story largely concerns him and we must get started somehow, it may as well be to fix a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in rather scrutinizing fashion on the Spanish girl, and, as he saw that he was attracting attention, he quickly averted his eyes. In appearance he was a Cuban or Spaniard, well dressed and prosperous looking, but not of prepossessing appearance. ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... the West of Asia under Hulaku. According to Rashiduddin, about 1265 he was sent to Cathay with certain ambassadors of the Kaan's who were returning thither. He was received with great distinction by Kublai, who was greatly taken with his prepossessing appearance and ability, and a command was assigned him. In 1273, after the capture of Siang-Yang (infra, ch. lxx.) the Kaan named him to the chief command in the prosecution of the war against the Sung Dynasty. Whilst Bayan was in the full tide of success, Kublai, alarmed by the ravages of Kaidu ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... for the unfortunate cleric was none else, seated himself in the comfortable quarters of the do[u]mori, to earn his shelter by a talk which in interest richly repaid the meagre fare, and made amends for no prepossessing exterior. On his pleading weariness the do[u]mori got out futon and spread a couch for the guest. This suited Jinnai's real purpose, which was not to loiter close to Edo and Aoyama's claws, but to push on that night toward Tsukuba and ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Lawley," said Thorndyke, rather stiffly, and, as he held the door open, the two visitors entered. They were both men—one middle-aged, rather foxy in appearance and of a typically legal aspect, and the other a fine, handsome young fellow of very prepossessing exterior, though at present rather pale and wild-looking, and evidently in ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... is this?" Creighton was facing the door from the hall, to which the other two men had their backs, and he was the first of them to notice a tall, prepossessing young man who hurried into the room. Behind him came Miss Ocky, looking pleased, and after her Krech, hunting for the detective from whom he had become ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... it with gentle harmony. His utterance was very distinct—a capital requisite in a speaker—and he had the art of varying his tones, so as to sustain the attention of both judges and juries for almost any length of time. His person and attitudes, also, were most prepossessing. Their chief characteristics were a calmness and dignity which never disappeared in even the most exciting moments of contest, and of irritability, and provoking interruption. Woe, indeed, to one who ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... regarded in a dubious light by some of the members. Johnson and Reynolds, of course, were well aware of his merits, nor was Burke a stranger to them; but to the others he was as yet a sealed book, and the outside was not prepossessing. His ungainly person and awkward manners were against him with men accustomed to the graces of society, and he was not sufficiently at home to give play to his humor and to that bonhomie which won the hearts of all who knew him. He ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... the most prepossessing countenance of any Turk I had yet seen, and in conversation evinced a spirit of inquiry and an amount of intelligence that far surpassed my expectations.... His history is a pleasing one. He was a poor ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... in all directions, for a moment obscuring everything. When the firelight again illuminated the room there was seen, sitting gingerly on the edge of a stool by the hearthside, a swarthy little man of prepossessing appearance and dressed with faultless taste, nodding to the old man with a friendly and engaging smile. "From San Francisco, evidently," thought Mr. Beeson, who having somewhat recovered from his fright was groping his way to a solution ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... not ill made. His feet and hands are large, as has ever been the case, with all his family, but he has a broad chest and wide shoulders to carry off these excrescences, and on the whole his figure is good. His countenance, however, is not specially prepossessing. His hair is lank, and of a dull pale reddish hue. It is always formed into three straight lumpy masses, each brushed with admirable precision, and cemented with much grease; two of them adhere closely to the sides of his ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... house was opened to them by Helene Jegado, another of M. Bidard's servants. She was a woman of forty odd, somewhat scraggy of figure and, while not exactly ugly, not prepossessing of countenance. Her habit of looking anywhere but into the face of anyone addressing her gave ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... bark, perceived Mr. Larmer fishing, upon which he approached the riverbank, and after throwing to him a fish which he had caught, continued in his frail bark to float down the stream. This was a most prepossessing act of kindness, and I begged Mr. Larmer to endeavour to recognise the man again and show our sense ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... sense in order to satisfy that passion, and who spent large sums on his dogs, his keepers, his ferrets and his guns. The bride, Rosalie Roussel, had been courted by all the likely young fellows in the district, for they all thought her prepossessing, and they knew that she would have a good dowry, but she had chosen Patu, partly, perhaps, because she liked him better than she did the others, but still more, like a careful Normandy girl, because he had ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Several islands visible that were hid from us yesterday. Pulo Aor looking beautiful and picturesque. Some of the natives on board with their scant stores of fowls, eggs, and cocoa-nuts. They are larger than the natives of Condore, and stouter, and more developed, but with countenances not very prepossessing. The Governor, a rough-looking, middle-aged fellow, above the common height, pulled out some greasy papers, the recommendations of former visitors, and desired that I also would give him one, which I declined, as I knew nothing ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... guard; all her suspicions were awake; and her integrity and her innocence were as vigilant as ever. Incapable of effecting any thing under that form she had learned to detest, I laid it aside. I assumed a form most prepossessing and most amiable in her eyes. Surely if her breast had not been as cold as the snow that clothes the summit of Snowdon; if her virtue had not been impregnable as the groves of Mona, a stratagem, omnipotent and impenetrable ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... was a young man of prepossessing exterior, who had recently moved in a higher sphere than either of his companions in suffering. His cheek was flushed when he entered, and he staggered forward, writhing in agony, and scarcely able to sustain himself. He looked at those who surrounded him as if he feared to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... I liked his looks or was greatly attracted by him. He was not prepossessing. Fair, with a flaccid unwholesome complexion, foxy haired, his beard cut to a point, small moustaches curled upward showing thin pale lips, and giving his mouth a disagreeable curve also upwards, a sort of set smile that was really a sardonic sneer, conveying distrust ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... was not at all prepossessing applied to me one day for a job. He conducted the sale of himself very skillfully, but I meant to put him off. It was our dull season, and his looks didn't make a hit with me anyway. However, he realized there was a good deal on the negative side of the scale, and he weighed his ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... face, which he did not now feel was worn with study and care—which now that he saw it near was full of lines and wrinkles which meant something else, and which even the emotion in it, emotion of a kind which Pippo did not understand, hidden by a laugh, did not make more prepossessing—and then he stood with his eyes cast down, not caring to see ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... happening to look behind him, saw a young woman of prepossessing appearance ascending the steps of a dive in Clay Street. He was instantly attracted, as he always was attracted by a pretty woman, and something—a kind of intuition he had never had before—told him that she was a waitress; that she was discontented with her present situation; ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... Valletort and Count Ladislas Vassilan," announced a clerk, and Curtis took one square look at his rival. He needed no more to confirm Hermione's unfavorable opinion. The Count's appearance was not prepossessing. His nose was still swollen, and the earnest effort of a doctor to paint out two black eyes ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... occasionally allowed to visit. Pale-faced and delicate-looking, very severely treated by his mother, who is what one is bound to call une maitresse femme, the boy at seventeen was by no manner of means prepossessing, and his efforts to assert himself, and to crush down a good deal of natural awkwardness and timidity added to his ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... whose crime has been that of ignorance. I await your reply with the most lively impatience, and have the honor to remain, etc., etc." This note puzzled me excessively, however I gave orders for the immediate introduction of M. de Mandeville, whose appearance was even more prepossessing than his note; he looked and spoke like an honorable man endowed with that sensibility so precious and so rare; he put into my hands the petition, whilst he explained to me the particulars relative to it, and I instantly wrote to the chancellor the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... taking from it a black Tussa coat which he exchanged for that hanging upon the handle of the door. Then he lighted a Java cigar and sat down upon the bed to think. Taken altogether, his was not a prepossessing countenance. The peculiar attributes I have already described were sufficient to prevent that. At the same time it was a strong face, that of a man who was little likely to allow himself to be beaten, of his own free will, in anything he might undertake. The mouth was firm, the chin square, ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... a prepossessing figure at these times. With his sallow skin and his black dishevelled hair, with finger-nails which had been allowed to grow very long, with fingers discolored by tobacco—in short, with a general untidiness that was all his own, Stevenson, so Bok felt, was ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... found herself in Wurtemburg, where, much to her annoyance, she discovered that a certain Amalia Stubenrauch, a prepossessing damsel, who would now be called a gold-digger, had conquered the spare affections of King William, on whom Lola herself had designs. But that large-hearted monarch had, as it happened, few affections to spare for anybody just then, for, when she encountered ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... man! You have talents and art to captivate any woman. I'm doom'd to adore the sex, and yet to converse with the only part of it I despise. This stammer in my address, and this awkward prepossessing visage of mine, can never permit me to soar above the reach of a milliner's 'prentice, or one of the duchesses of Drury-lane. Pshaw! this fellow ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... man he was? In outward aspect all accounts agree that he was singularly, noticeably prepossessing—bright, animated, eager, with energy and talent written in every line of his face. Such he was when Forster saw him, on the occasion of their first meeting, when Dickens was acting as spokesman for the insurgent reporters ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... loutishness of that big fellow always brought to her lips. To think that he had not even cared to see her again. She found him so much altered since the last time she had seen him, so funny, and not at all prepossessing, with his hair standing on end, and his face wan and sallow, as if he had had a severe fever. Pained that he did not seem to notice her, she wanted to attract his attention, and touched his arm with ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... fast losing faith in all things. So we sat—he trying to interest me in the old talk of other days, I oppressed by one thought—when our old servant, Anthony, opened the door, and, without speaking, showed in a very gentlemanly and prepossessing man, who had something remarkable about his dress, betraying his profession to be that of the Roman Catholic priesthood. He glanced at my uncle first, then at me. It was to me he bowed. 'I did not ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... two-tined iron fork in their hands. It is a poor thing to take up their milk porridge with in their young days, but in after years it will often transfix the solid dumplings that roll out of the silver spoon. So Velpeau found it. He had not what is called genius, he was far from prepossessing in aspect, looking as if he might have wielded the sledge-hammer (as I think he had done in early life) rather than the lancet, but he had industry, determination, intelligence, character, and he made his way to distinction ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... main entrance, is opened and shut by the portress as often as a hundred times a day and more; but when it is open there is nothing to be seen within but a dark vestibule paved with flagstones; and the portress's wooden face is no more prepossessing than the wall itself. If any one asks her a question, she answers civilly in a businesslike tone, with a hard foreign accent, for she is the widow of one of the Swiss Guards at the Vatican; but she is naturally silent, stolid, mechanical, and trustworthy. ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... to mixed or general society. It was probably owing to the same cause that his conversation, for a man who had seen so much, had nothing remarkable, and was rarely striking or animated. Hence, although his appearance was interesting and prepossessing, he was apt to disappoint the expectations of strangers; and those persons who estimated his general talents from his powers of conversation, formed an erroneous and inadequate ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... as he visits the churches on all festas, they do not openly murmur. His personal appearance certainly wants dignity, and his Tartar features appear to great disadvantage when contrasted with those of true Grecian mould, by which he is surrounded. However, his prepossessing manners and perfect urbanity, in some measure compensate for these personal defects; and, upon the whole, the people appear well pleased and contented with their youthful monarch. It is said the palikari, or soldiers ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... and baby disappeared as soon as I saw my father; which was not surprising, for he could not be called a prepossessing half-breed. His lower lip protruded and hung sullenly. He had heavy brows and a shaggy thatch of hair. Our St. Regis Iroquois kept to the buckskins, though they often had hunting shirts of fulled flannel; and my father's buckskins were ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... came forward, pressed my hand warmly, and said he was 'glad to have the honour of meeting me.' His long, loose, silvery locks struck me; he looked like Franklin at his best. He also reminded me of Benjamin West; he had the great benevolence of William Roscoe about him and a kindness most prepossessing. I could not forbear looking at him, my eyes feasted on his countenance. I watched his movements as I would those of a celestial being; his long, heavy, white eyebrows struck me forcibly. His little room was tidy, though it partook a ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... pleasing expression of countenance; and, if he be moulded after the old man, and not after his minister, the country may perhaps have in him the 'lucky accident' of a good governor.[11] I have rarely seen a finer or more prepossessing man than the Raja, and all his subjects speak well of him. We had an elephant, a horse, abundance of shawls, and other fine clothes placed before us as presents; but I prayed the old gentleman to keep them all ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... at Bagdad ever since the Mussul-men made a conquest of that kingdom. Nature seemed to have taken pleasure to endow this young prince with many of the rarest qualities both of body and mind. His face was so very beautiful, his shape so fine, and his physiognomy so prepossessing; that none could see him without loving him immediately. When he spoke, he expressed himself always in terms the most proper and well chosen, with a new and agreeable turn, and his voice charmed all who heard him. He had withal so much wit and judgment, that he thought and spoke on every subject ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... about a year, and, in that time, had succeeded in making but a small practice. Not that he was wanting in ability; but he lacked address. In person, he was rather awkward; and, in manners, far from prepossessing. Moreover, he was poor, and not able, in consequence, to make a ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... been most extensive—there is one who made an impression on our mind which can never be effaced, and who awakened in our bosom a feeling of admiration and respect, which we entertain a fatal presentiment will never be called forth again by any human being. He was a man of most simple and prepossessing appearance. He was a brown-whiskered, white-hatted, no-coated cabman; his nose was generally red, and his bright blue eye not unfrequently stood out in bold relief against a black border of artificial workmanship; his boots were of the Wellington form, pulled up to meet his corduroy knee-smalls, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... was very slender, and the deep sunken eye, the gloomy frown which was fixed between his brows, and the thin lips, had no very prepossessing expression, and yet there was something imposing in the whole appearance of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... replied Yes. Ellen begged that she might go likewise. We objected, fearing that she might be exposed to danger. "She will be perfectly safe," answered Captain Byles; "for though the people on shore are not very prepossessing, I have always found them perfectly harmless. We will, however, carry our muskets, and the ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... moment with head cocked intelligently to one side, dropped the dismembered implement, and got up alertly. At the same moment the door to the hallway opened, and two women entered, apparently sisters: one a lady of mature and distinguished charm, the other an equally prepossessing creature much her junior, the one strongly animated with intelligent interest in life, the other a listless prey to ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... especially warned against the women who lure the unwary seaman into dark dens and rob him of money and life. But no adventure befell him, thanks chiefly to the swiftness of his heels, for when a young lady of prepossessing appearance came up to him and inquired after his health, affectionately putting her arm in his, he promptly took to his ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... he did not forget to give me the character he had received from the masters of the two schools which I had previously left; adding his own testimony, in confirmation of my being of a kind, generous, and open disposition. Mrs. Griffith received us very politely; and, as she had a very prepossessing manner, I felt pleased with the prospect before me, although I thought I saw something that I did not much like in the countenance of Mr. Griffith, who was a muscular, swarthy, dark-looking person, with rather a forbidding air. My father, having given me his blessing, took his ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... the cold caress of nickelled steel, his body poised lightly and tensely upon the balls of his feet—in a word, ready. Prepared against the worst he was hopeful of the best: apprehensive, he reminded himself that he had first met Labertouche under auspices hardly more prepossessing ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... appearance; and if they can be said to have any vices at all, perhaps drinking and cheating are the most conspicuous among them. Their residences are usually on the outskirts of 'the Rules,' chiefly lying within a circle of one mile from the obelisk in St. George's Fields. Their looks are not prepossessing, and ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Dir, is an Eusafzai, ruler of a population exceeding 600,000. In appearance he is anything but prepossessing—small of stature and very dark in complexion for a Pathan; with not a tooth in his head, and the skin on his face loose and wrinkled, he presents the appearance of an aged man, though really not more ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... aloft in a note of pealing gladness. Laurence, who was beginning to feel vividly interested in this strange race of valiant fighters, failed not to note that many of these girls were of extraordinarily prepossessing appearance, with their tall, beautiful figures and supple limbs, their clear eyes and white teeth, and bright, pleasing faces. Then suddenly song and dance alike ceased, and the women, parting into ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... as he meditated upon the words of the emir. At last rousing himself, he had finished the marrons glacees and was about to begin upon a Nesselrode pudding, when he heard himself addressed, and looking up saw before him a young woman of an exceedingly prepossessing appearance. She was richly dressed with a quiet elegance that bespoke her a person of good taste. Laughing, roguish eyes illuminated a piquant face in which were to be seen good sense, ingenuousness ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... could decide whether it was Cecilia or not, the room-door opened, and the servant had scarcely time to say, that two ladies who did not give their names had insisted upon being let up—when the two ladies entered. One in the extreme of foreign fashion, but an Englishwoman, of assured and not prepossessing appearance; the other, half hid behind her companion, and all timidity, struck Helen as the most beautiful ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... wronged a dog for her own personal advantage. Her black eyes, lean and spirited face, her prematurely whitening locks, as they were exposed by the backward fall of her old-fashioned, quilted hood, presented a physiognomy at once piquant and prepossessing. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... person was remarkably handsome, and his manners extremely prepossessing, while to a cultivated understanding and an early fondness for the belles lettres he joined the ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... his age. Suavity and self- possession are points of honor with him; and though this, rightly considered, is only the modern mode of boyish self-consciousness, its effect is none the less staggering to his elders, and would be insufferable in a less prepossessing youth. He is promptitude itself, and has a question ready the moment ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... before me the realization of a character which in the abstract so much absorbed my regards, gave me a degree of satisfaction which it would be difficult to express." Eighteen years later Lord Byron calls him a prepossessing looking person, and, with his usual admixture of satire, says, "To have his head and shoulders I would almost have written his Sapphics;" and elsewhere he speaks of his appearance as "Epic," an expression which may be either a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the Devil himself could not cheat your countrymen with a shabby exterior. Doubtless you observe that all the swindlers, whose adventures enliven your journals, are dressed 'in the height of fashion,' and enjoy 'a mild prepossessing demeanour.' Even the Cholera does not menace 'a gentleman of the better ranks;' and no bodies are burked with a decent suit of clothes on their backs. Wealth in all countries is the highest possible morality; but you carry ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... there, and entered his cabinet now by the secret door. They were headed by Baron von Hormayr in his brilliant gold-embroidered uniform, which rendered doubly conspicuous the beauty of his slender yet firmly-knit form, and the noble expression of his prepossessing, youthful face. He was followed by three Tyrolese, clad in their national costume, and holding ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... everywhere chief actor and master. His son Louis, on the contrary, was completely possessed with a craving for doing, talking, agitating, domineering, and reaching, no matter by what means, the different and manifold ends he proposed to himself. Anything but prepossessing in appearance, supported on long and thin shanks, vulgar in looks and often designedly ill-dressed, and undignified in his manners though haughty in mind, he was powerful by the sheer force of a mind marvellously lively, subtle, unerring, ready, and inventive, and of a character indefatigably active, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... had come down in the world, but she was an ideal landlady of the good old sort, for she sent us some venison in for our tea, the first we had ever tasted, and with eggs and other good things we had a grand feast. Moreover, she sent her daughter, a prepossessing young lady, to wait upon us, so we felt ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... chair, into which his visitor subsided with exaggerated expressions of gratitude. He had very small black eyes, set very close together, and he blinked continually. The more Wrayson studied him, the less prepossessing he found him. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... than time to point out the details to Lance before a waggonet drove up from one of the roads that branched among pleasant 'villa residences;' and in it appeared a white-haired but hearty-looking gentleman, prepossessing and merry, very unlike Lance's notion of attorneys, who shook hands with them warmly, and took care to put the boy under the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... attention, may be descried a dark object. It is a small Indian canoe, in which are seated two white men and a female, all of whom are attired in the garb of civilization. The young man near the stern is of slight mold, clear blue eye, and a prepossessing countenance. He holds a broad ashen paddle in his hand with which to assist his companion, who maintains his proximity to the shore for the purpose of overcoming more deftly the opposition of the current. ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... of the people was not specially prepossessing, though the chief and his son had good-humoured countenances. The women wore petticoats of matting; and the men kilts or cloths round their waists and brought between their legs. They were naturally brown rather than black; but many of them had covered ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... Waleski evinces a preference for that of men old enough to be his father. People are not generally aware of the advantages which agreeable manners confer, and the influence they exercise over society. I have seen great abilities fail in producing the effect accomplished by prepossessing manners, which are even more serviceable to their owner than is a fine countenance, that best ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... There are generally to be found hanging about foreign hotels people ready to undertake anything the traveller may require, little as they may be competent to fulfil their engagements. One of this class presented himself, his appearance by no means prepossessing; but the view he took of our present scheme ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... expression. The forehead was not remarkable for height, but was unusually prominent and white, and almost overhung the eyes. The mouth was perfect, the lips delicately chiseled, and curving beautifully toward the full dimpled chin. The face, though intellectual, and artistically beautiful, was not prepossessing. The expression was cold and haughty; and for this reason she had received the appellations of "Minerva" and "Juno," such being considered by ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... says Mrs Lean, "Captain Marryat's personal appearance was very prepossessing. In figure he was upright and broad-shouldered for his height, which measured 5ft. 10in. His hands, without being undersized, were remarkably perfect in form, and modelled by a sculptor at Rome on account of their symmetry. The character of his mind was borne out by his ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... rehabilitate her. It was easier to take her into their homes as an equal than to refuse to call upon her as the mistress of a lodging-house in the adjoining street. And upon inspection it was found that she was still quite an eligible partie, prepossessing, and withal, in her widow's weeds, a kind of poetical and sentimental presence, as necessary in a wealthy and fashionable American family as a work of art. "Yes, poor Caroline has had a sad, sad history," the languid Mrs. Walker Catron would say, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... proceeded to insert all the feathers—two hundred and sixty in number—in her bonnet; thereby causing it to have a lovely and glittering appearance, highly prepossessing and efficacious. ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... seriously annoyed, but he strove to bear it with the sensible philosophy of his nature. Those who saw him as he moved here and there with the boys, or Mul-tal-la, or Spink and Jiggers, had to admit the truth of the assertion heard many times; he was the most prepossessing young warrior upon whom any of them had ever looked. Neither among the Blackfeet nor any of their neighboring tribes had so comely a youth been seen. And this being the fact, many were more unwilling ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... could not see them as she wore gauntlets. He further decided that she was neither plain nor pretty: just average good-looking, one might say. An air of friendliness was in her favour, though what might or might not be a prepossessing trait, depending on circumstances, was the suggested ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... to be a most prepossessing man, so far as manners and appearance were concerned. He looked rather older than I had expected, his head being bald over the forehead, and his face somewhat marked and worn, but his movements were as active and his spirits as high as a young man's. His meeting with Miss ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... Committees. No name carried more weight in Parliament than his, and his influence in the country was as marked as was his influence in the House. This was as readily conceded by his political opponents as it was claimed by his friends. He had, moreover, a prepossessing manner, a comely presence, and a countenance which, when animated, was not wanting in expression or fire. He was, withal, the most modest and lovable of men; and had he not sat on the Opposition benches he would ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... his extensive property, but of poor timid Miss Nelson and of wondering Ermengarde. Mr. Wilton could be the jolliest of companions if he pleased, but he also could be stern, with a severity which Basil inherited. At such times his face was scarcely prepossessing. He came of a proud race, and pride, mixed with an almost overbearing haughtiness of manner, made him a person to ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... directness and energy that characterized all his actions. There was quite a number of young girls in his parish, more proportionately than in the others. Bell Masters and Amy Duckworth had long been hovering on its borders, and the advent of so young and prepossessing a rector had instantly removed their last scruples as to infant baptism, and settled forever their doubts as to the apostolic succession. They had come in at once. It was even whispered that Maria Upjohn had in an incautious moment confessed that she ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... that a peculiar bias was given to my own disposition in consequence of not being understood by the nurse and aunt who petted my brother, while they neglected me. Perhaps I was not a prepossessing child, but I had deeper qualities which might have been drawn out, though, on the whole, I do not regret what threw me early on my own resources. It has made ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have been fooled out of half a crown by a young woman, who represents herself as an American and destitute, having come over to see an uncle whom she found dead, and she has no means of getting back again. Her accent is not that of an American, and her appearance is not particularly prepossessing, though not decidedly otherwise. She is decently dressed and modest in deportment, but I do not quite trust her face. She has been separated from her husband, as I understand her, by course of law, has had two children, both now dead. What she wants is to get back to America, and perhaps arrangements ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had decided, and was rather passively suffering himself to be conveyed to the village, the expression of his eyes by no means indicated any great degree of self-satisfaction at the step. But the lines of an uncommonly prepossessing countenance were gradually becoming composed; and he now sat silent, and apparently musing. The Judge gazed at him for some time with earnestness, and then smiling, as if at his own ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... man of marked character. Long before my business connection with him ceased, I learned to regard him with genuine respect and liking, and these feelings I entertained for him to the day of his death. But his somewhat rough exterior was not altogether prepossessing, and when I came to him first as a raw lad, shy, sensitive, and intolerant of manners that were foreign to my own, I must frankly confess that I felt repelled by him. Besides, I quickly discovered that I should have to fight my own battles if I wished to preserve my professional rights ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... one's mind, to one's liking; satisfactory &c. (good) 648. refreshing; comfortable; cordial; genial; glad, gladsome; sweet, delectable, nice, dainty; delicate, delicious; dulcet; luscious &c. 396; palatable &c. 394; luxurious, voluptuous; sensual &c. 377. [of people] attractive &c. 615; inviting, prepossessing, engaging; winning, winsome; taking, fascinating, captivating, killing; seducing, seductive; heart-robbing, alluring, enticing; appetizing &c. (exciting) 824; cheering &c. 836; bewitching; enchanting, entrancing, enravishing[obs3]. charming; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Beethoven was short, broad, and strong-looking. His face was not prepossessing. 'He was meanly dressed, and very ugly to look at,' wrote a lady who knew and admired him, 'but full of nobility and fine feeling, and highly cultivated.' It must have been difficult to describe a face which was subject to such frequent changes of expression, but its ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... the moment without arousing any other feeling; but afterwards I remembered it with a clearer sense of what it meant. He was more absorbed altogether than I had been used to see him. He was visited by men sometimes not of very prepossessing appearance. Surprise grew in my mind without any very distinct idea of the reason of it; and it was not till after a chance conversation with Morphew that my vague uneasiness began to take definite shape. It was begun without any special intention on ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... cases had been disposed of, Stephens came to my room. He was a slender, sinewy man, with fair complexion, pale blue eyes and light brown hair, not prepossessing in manners or appearance; illiterate and unpolished, but very earnest; belonging to the plain classes of the South. His origin was respectable, although born into a poor family, in Guilford county. He had courage and tenacity. He was the leader of the Caswell county Republicans, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... as much devoted to him and his every interest as a young mother is to her first-born. During this time he wrote his longest prose romance, entitled the Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym. Poe had a remarkably pleasing and prepossessing countenance—what the ladies would call decidedly handsome. He died after a brief and fitful career at Baltimore, October, 1849, where his remains lie ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... is on his way to the baker's shop, a few words of explanation and description may be in place. First, for our hero. I have already said he was fifteen. Let me add that he was stout and strongly built, with an open, prepossessing face, and the air of one who is ready to fight his own battles without calling for assistance. His position in life is humble, for he is a street bootblack. He has served, by turns, at other vocations; but he has found none of them pay so well as this. He has energy ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... she be a lady, a shepherdess, or a brigandess, cannot be said to be prepossessing. In fact, it was not my luck to see a single good-looking woman in the country, although I naturally saw women who were less ugly than others. With the accumulated filth that from birth is undisturbed by soap, ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... the sort of mystery previously attaching to me, combined with her father's glowing eulogiums and her own gratitude for his preservation, worked upon Bertha's ardent and susceptible imagination, prepossessing her in my favour. For my part, I had been struck to the heart by the very first glance from the dark eyes that sparkled like diamonds beneath their lashes of sable silk; I had been captivated and fettered on the instant, by the smile of enchanting sweetness that played round her ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... idly at the pictures. In the far corner of the carriage two expansive looking gentlemen were engaged in an animated conversation, interrupted momentarily by his entrance. In fact they had seemed to regard his intrusion rather in the light of a personal affront. Their general appearance was not prepossessing, and Vane having paused in the doorway, and stared them both in turn out of countenance, had been amply rewarded by hearing himself described as an ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... invaluable to us. The moment we are tired of fighting and want billets, the Squadron sits down where it is and the Skipper passes the word along for William. William dusts his boots, adjusts his tie and heads for the most prepossessing farm in sight. Arrived there he takes off his hat to the dog, pats the pig, asks the cow after the calf, salutes the farmer, curtseys to the farmeress, then turning to the inevitable baby, exclaims in the language of the country, "Mong Jew, kell jolly ong-fong" (Gosh, what a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various |
