"Geniality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the lodge-keeper, as ten minutes later the gates rolled back again to welcome their lord, in an unusually genial temper (and, indeed, there was always about this old man as great a capacity for geniality on one side as for temper on the other; it is usually so with explosive characters). He even checked his horse and asked after "the missus" in so many words; although two days before a violent message had come down to complain of laxity in the gate-opening, owing to the missus' indisposition ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... the voices here are generally musical; they are nasal and a little loud and, though Americans have a great deal of geniality and love of fun, I am so slow at picking up the language, that I probably miss much of the irony and finesse that characterises our better kind of humour. The Canadians, who are of British stock, have a better sense of humour; ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... a curious meal, partly constrained, partly enlivened by strange little bursts of attempted geniality on the part of the professor. Mr. Bomford told long and pointless stories with much effort and the air of a man who would have made himself agreeable if he could. Edith leaned back in her chair, eating very little, her eyes large, her cheeks pale. She made her escape as soon as possible and Burton ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be reproduced in a life-size portrait, with such a distribution of rich colors as the subject seemed to call for, as his fine taste might select, and his cunning hand lay on. I sought to break down his reserve, and make myself acceptable to him, by the display of a discreet geniality, and a certain frankness, not falling into familiarity, which should seem to proceed from sympathy, and a bonhommie, that, assured of its own kindly purpose, would take no account of his almost angry distance. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... distinctly chilly; but Mafuta had afforded me a little insight into the king's character, and I trusted that a personal interview, coupled with a sight of the resplendent drum-major's tunic and the rest of the outfit, would, arouse a feeling of greater geniality in the breast of the savage autocrat. So I hung about the wagon for the remainder of that day, waiting for a summons which did not come. Nevertheless, although the king did not condescend to manifest any undue eagerness to see me, I was not exactly left to pine in solitude, for ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... exemplary regularity. He had taken a liking to these repetitions of nouns and verbs, which he listened to with a dignified, condescending air, slowly unrolling his screw of snuff the while; he only interrupted to interject little playful remarks with a geniality just touched with a trace of ferocity, that bespoke his real nature as an unctuous, cringing bully. He was jocular and pompous at the same time, and always made a pretence of being a long time in seeing the glass of wine put on the table ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... George's Hall would give his advances peculiar importance. His only fear was that the captain might not report the message correctly, and he wished he had been able to write a note. A remembrance of the man's geniality reassured him, and he reflected that such men were the most approachable and companionable in the world, always ready for a new acquaintance, and imbued with a certain fundamental humanity which is too often winnowed out from more artificial or ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... Trades Union element paid to him after his death the simplest tribute in the plainest and most popular language—"He was a straight man." I am so antiquated as to think it a better epitaph than the fashionable phrase about a strong man. Some silent indescribable geniality of fairness in the man once more prevailed against the possibility of passionate misunderstandings, as it had prevailed against the international nervousness of the atmosphere of Fashoda or the tragic border feud of the Boers. I suspect that it lay largely in the ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton
... the face, and seemed heavy with more than cloth. Beyond them stood the unreliable Signora, bowing good-evening to her guests, and supported by 'Enery, her little boy, and Victorier, her daughter. It made a curious little scene, this attempt of the Cockney to convey the grace and geniality of the South. And even more curious was the drawing-room, which attempted to rival the solid comfort of a Bloomsbury boarding-house. Was this ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... place of Secretary of State, he, Mr Christopher Darrell (such was his name), was likely to be employed by him in matters of trust, and thus fill a position which I must perceive to be of some importance. All this was poured forth with wonderful candour and geniality, and I, in response, opened to him my fortunes and prospects, keeping back nothing save the mention of Cydaria. Mr Darrell was, or affected to be, astonished to learn that I was a stranger to London—my air smacked of the Mall and of no other spot in the world, he swore most politely—but ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... said Inspector Chippenfield in a tone in which geniality was slightly blended with official superiority. ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... have I seen at her feet—how splendid, handsome, gallant, brilliant, chivalrous, lordly, and gay! And to all, from her, the same happy geniality—the same kindly, laughing, frolicsome, innocent gayety, with never a thought ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... with an abandon and witchery I have observed in no one else, on subjects of art and letters, on men and manners, of nations past and present, until hours fled like moments, and time seemed utterly forgotten in the presence of geniality and genius. Then, starting gayly and suddenly to his feet, he remembered an engagement, and sped away so abruptly that his visit seemed to me but a vision breaking in on the monotony of our lives, too bright to have ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... Mr. Bradlaugh is in connexion with the funeral of Mr. Austin Holyoake. The death of this gentleman was a great loss to the Freethought cause. He was highly respected by all who knew him. The geniality of his disposition was such that he had many friends and not a single enemy. For some years he was Mr. Bradlaugh's printer and publisher, and a frequent contributor to his journal. He was foremost in every good work, but he was one ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... strength and endurance. His face was smooth, his heavy eyebrows met in a straight line; his eyes were dark and now beamed with a kindly light; his jaw was square and massive; his mouth resolute; in fact, his whole face was strikingly expressive of courage and geniality. A great wolf dog had followed him in and, tired from travel, had stretched himself out before the fireplace, laying his noble head on the paws he had extended toward the ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... a lighted river steamer with steam up lay at the north bank, they ran in at the Apshodel wells. The steamer was small, and the nearly two hundred Americans—men, women, and children—crowded her capacity. Blasphemous greetings of pure joy and geniality were exchanged between the men, and Habert learned that the steamboat was waiting for his Billy Boy, who, astride a horse, was rounding up isolated drilling gangs who had not yet learned that the United States had seized Vera Cruz and ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... not give a better idea of Thomas Hood than we obtain from the simple Memorials now published.... These letters perfectly reflect his character with all its fun, geniality, and tenderness.... Much or little, however, all is well done.... The ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... his very nature, seemed to have undergone a fundamental change. Gondremark at home appeared the very antipode of Gondremark on duty. He had an air of massive jollity that well became him; grossness and geniality sat upon his features; and along with his manners, he had laid aside his sly and sinister expression. He lolled there, sunning his bulk before the fire, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... following week, the Vicar started for London, and his curate was left in sole charge of the parish. That there was something amiss with Mr. Todd was evident to all who came in contact with him, both before and after the Vicar's departure. His former geniality seemed to have quite deserted him, and he looked worried, anxious, and ill. The ladies of S. Athanasius were greatly concerned at the change, and speculated wildly as to its cause. There was one among them, however, who made no ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... him, as he usually attributed the fact that he "got on" with people "like a house on fire" to the good qualities possessed by "other fellows." Even the comforts by which he was surrounded in his lodging by his landlady and former nurse, Mrs. Evans, he considered as the result of the dame's innate geniality, though the opinion entertained of her by underlings and by those who met her in the way of business was scarcely as favorable. He was a handsome fellow too, this Lawrence, six feet three, with a curly brown head and the frankest blue eyes that ever looked pityingly, ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM
... the bare, bright little dining room, with its queer prints of chin-chucking lieutenants, and its queerer faces, and its German cookery became very dear to me. I had grown to like Frau Knapf, of the shining cheek bones, and Herr Knapf, of the heavy geniality. A close bond of friendship had sprung up between Frau Nirlanger and me. I would miss her friendly visits, and her pretty ways, and her sparkling conversation. She and I had held many kimonoed pow-wows, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... terrified on the divine will; his mother in her complacent bitterness; Mary; his father—and as he thought of him it seemed as if all God's blessings were not too great; Nicholas; his own brethren in religion, his Prior, contracted and paralysed with terror; Dom Anthony, with his pathetic geniality.... ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... less unpleasant than his words, however. He was in one of the rare moods of what passed with him for geniality. For one thing, he had won at the club that afternoon, where every day from four to six he played bridge with his own little group, reactionaries like himself, men who viewed the difficulties of the younger employers of labor with amused contempt. For another, he and Howard had had a difference ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... disseminate the same information. Everybody was properly impressed. Mr. Bullsom decided to give a dinner-party every month, and to double the greengrocer's tip, and by the time Selina's third stage whisper had reached her mother and the ladies finally departed, he was in a state of geniality bordering upon beatitude. There was a general move to his end of the table. Mr. Bullsom started the port, and his shirt-front grew wider and wider. He lit a cigar, and his thumb found its way to the armhole of his waistcoat. At that moment Mr. Bullsom would not have ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... large number of friends and acquaintances who have so cordially favoured him with advice and information on so many points. In only a couple of quite unimportant instances has he experienced anything approaching churlishness. The geniality and courtesy of the book-collector are proverbial, but specimens of a different type are evidently to be ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... the neighborhood of Bordentown, N.J., had Napoleon Bonaparte, conqueror of Europe, ruler of nations, and disposer of crowns, the hero of Austerlitz, Marengo, and Wagram, taken up his residence at Point Breeze, and established himself as a citizen of the State, cannot easily be imagined. The geniality, sociability, and hospitality of the ex-king could hardly have been expected from the ex-emperor; and, surrounded as he would have been in time by devoted followers who would have exiled themselves from their country for his sake, there ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... Lenbach, and she is said by some critics to have appropriated his peculiarities as a colorist and his shortcomings in drawing, without attaining his geniality and power of divination. In 1891 her portrait of Count von Moltke, begun shortly before his death and finished afterward, was sent to the International Exposition at Berlin, but was rejected. The Emperor, however, ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... a grim kind of geniality, at which I did not know whether to be encouraged or not: I did as he told me, and looked about me with as easy an ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... ever displayed, were the sacrifices of personal convenience he would make for Harry Molyneux. He had given up a good many engagements to see his comrade through that especial hour; and, if the day had left any available geniality in him, it was sure to come out then. Upon this occasion, however, he was remarkably silent, and answered several times at random as if his thoughts were roving elsewhere: they were not unpleasant ones, apparently, for he smiled twice ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... moment afterwards, a gentleman of middle age, or a little beyond, appeared in the doorway, in a dress that seemed clerical, yet not very decidedly so; he had a frank, kindly, yet authoritative bearing, and a face that might almost be said to beam with geniality, when, as now, the benevolence of his nature was aroused and ready ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lady with dark hair and eyebrows and dancing eyes, and there was a geniality and even generosity in her rather imperious ways. In most matters she could command her brother, though that nobleman, like many other men of vague ideas, was not without a touch of the bully when ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... little person, admitted that she felt very well indeed, and seemed cheered at the sight of Wade, who greeted her deferentially but with easy geniality. She liked him for his wholesomeness, and she frequently declared that he was worth all the doctors in the country because of the impression of health and optimism which he bore with him. But she was aware that Dorothy liked him, too, and so presently made an excuse to leave ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... not hesitating at even a little humorous extravagance if it added point to his statement; but in such cases the keen eye took a merry twinkle accentuated by the crow-foot lines in the corner, so that the real geniality and kindliness that underlay the brusque exterior were sufficiently apparent. The general effect was of a nature of intense, restless activity, both physical and mental. In conversation he poured out a wealth of original and striking ideas, from a full experience, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Chesterton has. It is like a clap of thunder that suddenly startles the echoes in the valley; it is the very soul of geniality. There is nothing that so lays bare a man's character as his laugh—it cannot pretend. We can pretend to like; we can pretend to be pleased; we can pretend to listen; we can't pretend to laugh. Chesterton laughs because he is amused; he is amused at all the small things, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... was furious. He saw the mistake he had made, but he would not own it. Putting strong constraint upon himself, he assumed a gay geniality of manner which his looks belied, and boldly advanced to the door. But Mrs. Wedmore flung her arms round her husband in a capacious embrace, dragging him backward with an energy there ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... very hot, but if Mr. Pawket had not asked this question he would have felt lacking in geniality. He did not, however, go forward to intercept possible mail. There was the little iron box with his name on it nailed to the tulip-tree; there was the red signal to be adjusted. It pleased Mr. Pawket to realize that the government had all this planned out for his special ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... or imitated. The whisk of those skirts, and the frank, incisive voice and pleasant, catching laugh were familiar and welcome sounds on board of the Korosko. Even the rigid Colonel softened into geniality, and the Oxford-bred diplomatist forgot to be unnatural with Miss Sadie Adams ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... entertainment: to take an admired friend of mine (whom the reader very likely knows and admires as much as I do), to deprive him of all his finer qualities and higher graces of temperament, to leave him with nothing but his strength, his courage, his quickness, and his magnificent geniality, and to try to express these in terms of the culture of a raw tarpaulin. Such psychical surgery is, I think, a common way of "making character"; perhaps it is, indeed, the only way. We can put in the quaint figure that spoke a hundred words with us yesterday by the wayside; but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... old, lives out in the country on Route 3. He still works on the few acres he owns, raising vegetables for himself and a few baskets to sell. He is a gray-haired, medium sized man and his geniality is frequently noticed by white and Negro ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... he said, "take me to Ursula," and after he had kissed his newly-arrived daughter, he sat down in the faded drawing-room with much geniality, and took ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... days and Mr Le ffacase was increasingly delighted as the proceedings went down, properly edited and embellished to excite reader interest, in the columns of the Daily Intelligencer. He even unbent so far as to call me a fool without any adjectival modification, which was for him the height of geniality. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... because of his life-long relation to its people. He looked a Netherlander rather than a Spaniard, and felt one, so that, so far as he showed favors, he showed them to this opulent people. Charles, with his many faults, had yet a rude geniality, which softened or seemed to soften his asperity toward ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... the state of geniality, was willing to let bygones be bygones in the broadest sense of the word. He had big plans afoot—he had had them the night he came home and found Gaston and Joyce hanging over the baby. These plans had been set aside while the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... and responsible position, I would give up alcohol during business hours altogether. I carried out that resolution, and shall continue to do so; Figgis, with all his so-called abilities, was frequently drowsy in the afternoon. Apart from that, I hope I was not wanting in geniality. I snatched a few moments to telegraph to Eliza: "Meet train to-night. ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... through some notices which appeared in the press after Miss Macnaughtan's death. Some of them allude to her wit, her energy and vivacity, the humour which was "without a touch of cynicism"; others, to her inexhaustible spirit, her geniality, and the "powers of sarcasm, which she used with strong reserve." Others, again, see through to the faith and philosophy which lay behind her humour, "Scottish ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... years. He was somewhat below the "just" standard of height; his limbs were well and elegantly shaped; his shoulders broad, his fingers rather long, his head small, his hair black, his face somewhat swarthy, and not unpleasant to behold. There was a certain geniality in a countenance serious and stern, with a natural dignity and air of command; his eyebrows, when he was in anger, were expressive. His forehead was rather narrow, depressed above the eyebrows; his cheeks were full and ruddy, so ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... flavour of happiness in the whole feast which could not be damped by any ceremonious stiffness on the part of Dr. Rylance and his daughter. The physician was all sweetness, all geniality; yet a very close observer might have perceived that his sentiments about Miss Palliser were of no friendly nature He had tried that young lady, and had found her wanting,—wanting in that first principle of admiration ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... it but to be as hard and tough as one's circumstances. But give me rather the German heart in the little old German village, with the small earnings and spendings, the narrow sphere of life and experience, and the great vintage of geniality which is laid up from youth to age, and handed down with the old wine from father to son. I don't like your cosmopolitan German any better than I do your Englishman done to death with travel. I prize the home-flavor in all the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... intercourse with those who might be still alive. He was not especially loved in society; he wanted humour and good-humour both, and had little of that frank cordiality which, according to Sidney Smith, "warms and cheers more than meat or wine." He had far less geniality than genius. Yet, in certain select circles, his mind, which was richly stored with all knowledge, opened delightfully, and men felt that he was the author of his splendid poem. One of his biographers gives him the palm for learning, next to Ben Jonson, Milton, and Gray (he might perhaps ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... smiled, tilting herself backward off the balls of her feet. The years had cropped out in her suddenly, surprisingly, and with a great deal of geniality. The taffy cast to her hair had backslid to ashes of roses. Uncorseted and in the white wrapper, she was quite frankly widespread, her hips fitting in tight between the chair-arms, ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... I believe," said he, rising from his armchair and greeting his visitor with the easy air of geniality which he could so readily assume. "Pray take this chair by the fire, Mr. Baker. It is a cold night, and I observe that your circulation is more adapted for summer than for winter. Ah, Watson, you have just come at the right time. Is that your hat, ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... this very familiar passage from the correspondence to remind you that Cowper could only have written it to a man possessed of considerable healthy geniality. ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... came a messenger who was for some reason very vividly realized by White's imagination. He was a tall man with lack-lustre eyes and sunken cheeks that made his cheek bones very prominent, and gave his thin-lipped mouth something of the geniality of a skull, and the arm he thrust out of his yellow robe to hand Prothero's message to Benham was lean as a pole. So he stood out in White's imagination, against the warm afternoon sky and the brown roofs and blue haze of the great town below, and ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... The geniality of Mrs. Jocelyn's smile might well assure Vinton Arnold that she welcomed his presence at her daughter's side, and yet, for some reason, the frank, cordial greeting in the lady's eyes and manner made him sigh again. He evidently harbored a memory or a thought that did not accord with the scene ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... some one, and all, just a little ashamed, though with a certain bravado of geniality to cover their ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... a mild evening on the Mediterranean, the wind light, the sea smooth, the temperature—though the season was that of midwinter—summer-like in its geniality. Into the harbor of Tripoli slowly glided a small, two-masted vessel, all her sails set and moderately well filled by the wind, yet moving with the tardiness of a very slow sailer. A broad bay lay before her, its surface silvered by the young moon whose crescent ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... in him the sure instinct of the natural diagnostician, she knew enough to realise that his methods and knowledge were up to date. Even that manner of his, though a little forbidding, had the merit of inspiring confidence. One felt he was a big man and could afford to dispense with geniality. Yet it was perfectly apparent that his practice never came first with him. Esther had not been in the house with him half a week before she made that discovery. Every free minute of the day found him engrossed in his experiments, to the utter exclusion of all else, ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... naughty young ones called him, was all good- nature and geniality—a thorough clergyman after the ideas of the time, and a thorough farmer too; and in each capacity, as well as in politics, he suited my father or Mr. Henderson. His lady, in a blonde cap, exactly like the last equipment ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is endeavouring to present himself as the corrupt and degraded creature Ling, has overlooked one important circumstance," said the upper one, smiling in a very intolerable manner, at the same time causing his head to move slightly from side to side in the fashion of one who rebukes with assumed geniality; and, turning over the written paper, he displayed upon the under side the Imperial vermilion Sign. "Perhaps," he continued, "the omniscient person will still continue in his remarks, even with the evidence of the Emperor's unerring ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... I left him more than satisfied at the information he had given me, and with a higher opinion than ever of his geniality and ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... manhood is described by friends as one of peculiar manliness, geniality, and unselfishness. It is said that, on one occasion, he put aside important work of his own in order to spend several days in the studio of a friend, whose gifts were quite inconsiderable compared with his, and whose prospects were ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... very pleasant sense of security. Beverley was not so easy to satisfy; but his suggestions regarding military discipline and a vigorous prosecution of repairs to the blockhouse and stockade were treated with dilatory geniality by his superior officer. The soft wonder of a perfect Indian summer glorified land, river and sky. Why not dream and bask? ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... eyes that contradict so pleasantly the heavy cast of his features began to twinkle. Little lines of geniality formed at their corners and rayed out over his cheeks. He beamed kindliness, as ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... glad and frank, though its habit of command was unmistakable. Every gesture bespoke authority and arrogance of body. Even in this moment of geniality, "Obedience and no explanations" was written all over him. He was a man who believed his acceptable importance to be a verity established beyond the pale of challenge. Yet there was something lacking—a sureness ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... stitch small, fine, and even, the weave generally perfect, the design original and worked out with artistic ability. He saw all this, yet, because it was Indian work, and the woman was a rude, coarse mountain of flesh, a feminine Falstaff, of a lower order of beings and without Falstaff's geniality and wit, he passed the basket by as merely worth a dollar or two extra, and placed it side by side with the work of other Washoe and Paiuti squaws. A Salt Lake dealer came into the store soon thereafter and saw this basket. "How much?" he asked. The ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... this fuss about?" he asked, with a fierce geniality. "I am the man you seek after, and why should I not be? Though why you should seek for me I fail to see. May not a man speak awhile in private to the lady of his honorable love, and yet no harm done to bring folk about our ears with torches and talk ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... feeling much the same general abhorrence myself, and had to hold myself in all the time for fear it should gallop over my commonsense. But Harburn, I could see, was giving it full rein. His whole manner and personality somehow had changed. He had lost geniality, and that good-humoured cynicism which had made him an attractive companion; he was as if gnawed at inwardly—in a word, he already ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... Calcutta, and in his visits to the North-west, and also of frequent correspondence with him. He was esteemed and loved as few have been. He was a man with a commanding presence, tall and well-built, and had a geniality of manner which won all hearts. He spoke and wrote English remarkably well, with a slight foreign accent and sprightliness, an elan, as our French friends call it, which told of his French birth and upbringing. He had a thorough knowledge of the Bengalee language, and used ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... philosopher of my acquaintance. He took great joy in a Jack-o-lantern. The ruddy countenance of the pumpkin was the very picture of geniality. Good-will gleamed from the round eyes, and the mouth was one luminous smile. No wonder that he asked the privilege of taking it to bed with him. He shouted gleefully when it was ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... by instinct, and understand a great deal perfectly well that is beyond their practical reach; where the old Puritan stiffness keeps them straight, but gets leavened in some marvelous way with the broader and more generous thought of the time, and wears a geniality that it is half unconscious of; the region where, if you are lucky enough to get into it to know it, you find yourself, as Miss Euphrasia said, encouraged and put in heart again about the world. Things are so genuine; when they make a step forward, ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... French local (English locale) and the German Choral (English chorale), and as, using contrary means for the same end of fixing a sound, we have turned French diplomate into English diplomat. Our English forte ('Geniality is not his forte,' &c.) is altered from the French fort without even the advantage of either keeping the French sound or distinguishing the spoken word from our fort; but who proposes to sacrifice the reader's convenience ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... to the dining-room where Dr. Lanyon sat alone over his wine. This was a hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair prematurely white, and a boisterous and decided manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson, he sprang up from his chair and welcomed him with both hands. The geniality, as was the way of the man, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on genuine feeling. For these two were old friends, old mates both at school and college, both thorough respecters of themselves and of each other, and, what ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... vivacity, having inherited much of the careless joyousness of his father's temperament; and although he was the light and joy of his home, yet his mother sometimes felt as if her heart was contracting with a spasm of agony, when she remembered that it was through that same geniality of disposition and wonderful fascination of manner, the tempter had woven his meshes for her husband, and that the qualities that made him so desirable at home, made him equally so to his jovial, careless, inexperienced companions. Fearful that the appetite ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... type, this, from the dark, sinewed master of Niss'rosh. Bohannan was frankly red-haired, a bit stout, smiling, expansive. His blood was undoubtedly Celtic. An air of great geniality pervaded him. His hands were strong and energetic, with oddly spatulate fingers; and the manner in which his nails had been gnawed down and his mustache likewise chewed, bespoke a highly nervous temperament belied by his ruddy, almost boyish face. His age might have ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... guests he managed them well, getting a talk with each, or bringing two or three together round his chair. In these conversations there was always a good deal of fun, and, speaking generally, there was either a humorous turn in his talk, or a sunny geniality which served instead. Perhaps my recollection of a pervading element of humour is the more vivid, because the best talks were with Mr. Huxley, in whom there is the aptness which is akin to humour, even when humour itself is not there. My father enjoyed Mr. Huxley's humour exceedingly, and would ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... thrown in; and as Juliet I shall henceforth speak of her (but without the adjective) in this narrative, wherein nothing has been kept back from the reader—Juliet's visit, then, had been a great success, for my colleague was really pleased by the attention, and displayed a quiet geniality that filled ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... confessed, dejectedly, turning his glance toward Mary, whom, plainly, he regarded as his real adversary in the combat on his client's behalf. "I'm going to be quite frank with you, Miss Turner, quite frank," he stated with more geniality, though with a very crestfallen air. Somehow, indeed, there was just a shade too much of the crestfallen in the fashion of his utterance, and the woman whom he addressed watched warily as he continued. "We can't afford any scandal, so we're going to ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... wilds of Assam one gets unused to the grand freedom and cultured geniality of English ladies. I hardly knew what to do, but I extricated myself slowly from the folds of the hat, chucked her under the chin, and remarked, "Houp-la!" The French Governess had retired to the cabin to be ill, and we were rapidly steaming from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... might also say of an Ingoldsby Legend; but even a good-natured reader will hardly return to Doctor —— with pleasure. Chaucer with as thin a jest could have made an admirable poem, for the interest would have been distributed by his lightness of touch, by his descriptive power, by slyness, by geniality, by a changeful ripple of enjoyment over the entire piece. With Browning, when we have arrived at the apex of the jest, we are fatigued by the climb, and too much out of breath to be capable of laughter. In ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... see, all wanted to be friendly; but none of them possessed the open, frank geniality of our men. However, everyone was talking ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... appealed to tenderness, and keeping on with him, while they walked, to the next corner and the next. "You needn't tell me, you needn't tell me!"—this again as they proceeded, he wished to make Strether feel. What he needn't tell him was now at last, in the geniality of separation, anything at all it concerned him to know. He knew, up to the hilt—that really came over Chad; he understood, felt, recorded his vow; and they lingered on it as they had lingered in their walk to Strether's hotel the night of their first meeting. The latter took, at this ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... hitherto within his narrow limits. He had pleasant manners, too, and a pleasant face, which gained him as many friends as he ever cared to have; for he had a queer, reserved, unsociable twist in his character, which kept him aloof from much company, and rather spoilt his reputation for geniality and heartiness. He hated the hard work he had to go through in society; so at least he was wont to grumble, and then would add, laughing, "I daresay I am a conceited puppy to say so: but the fact is, there are not six people in the ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... of San Pantaleone, where Gianbattista Fumiani paints the glorification of the martyred patron, and which, fantastic and extravagant as it is, with its stupendous, architectural setting, and its acutely, almost absurdly foreshortened throng, is not without a certain grandiose geniality, ample and picturesque, like the buildings of that date. In Alessandro Varotari (il Padovanino), whose "Nozze di Cana" in the Academia is a finely spaced scene, in which a charming use is made of cypresses, we seem to recognise the last ray of the Titianesque. The painting ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... Benny Rowett, hands in trouser-pockets, came dandering along. He, too, taking the geniality of every one for granted, halted, spread his legs ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... here and read for a few minutes," she said, as she tucked Eleanor under the covers. Then, since she was quite desperate for subjects of conversation, and still determined by the hot memory of her night's vigil to leave no stone of geniality unturned, she added: ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... as he could command seemed to be employed in gratifying a passion for the stage.[1143] Yet this taste was but one expression of a genuine thirst for culture;[1144] and, whatever the opinion of men might be, this youth whose most strenuous endeavours were strangely mingled with a careless geniality and an appetite that never dulled for the pleasures of the senses and the flesh, had a wonderful faculty for winning the love of women. His father had made a second marriage with a lady of considerable means; and the affection of the step-mother, who seems to have been herself childless, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... Rondo for pianoforte and orchestra of his own composition. This piece is written throughout in the chromatic style, rarely rises to geniality, but has passages which are distinguished by depth and thoughtful working-out. On the whole, however, he seems to be somewhat lacking in variety. The master showed in it his dexterity as a pianist to perfection, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... begins to sink once more. The seas spread in great arms over the revelled continents, the plant world rejoices in the increasing warmth and moisture, and the animals increase in number and variety. We pass into the Jurassic period under conditions of great geniality. Warm seas are found as far north and south as our present polar regions, and the low-lying fertile lands are covered again with rich, if less gigantic, forests, in which hordes of stupendous animals find ample nourishment. The mammal and the bird ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... the most coveted. I, too, was always glad to get it, because it gave me the best chance to observe the behaviour of the Indians at the feasts. The dispenser establishes himself close to the big jar, and being immensely popular with everybody he is never left alone. The geniality of the Tarahumares, their courteousness and politeness toward each other in the beginning of a feast, is, to say the least, equal to that of many a civilised gentleman. When the cup is offered to anyone, he most urgently ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... his examination of the broken window in the living-room, Herman Krech contrived—partly by his sheer physical bulk and partly by the exercise of a soft assertiveness that was saved by his bland geniality from being plain rudeness—to sequester Simon Varr for a word in private. To accomplish this end he was obliged to shake off his own wife, the tanner's wife, the Jason Bolts and Miss Ocky Copley, the last lady in especial revealing the ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... friends, all who love France. Rest assured that the best way of doing honour to France is to maintain her reputation for good sense, geniality, and humour. Let the voice of Marcelle Capy's book, tender and valiant, be an example and a guide. Use your eyes, let your heart speak. Be not fooled by big words. Peoples of Europe, throw off this herd mentality, the mentality of sheep who would ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... overlook discrepancies," answered Errington, smiling back—there was something infectious about Stair's geniality. "I'm afraid a boiled shirt is out of the question—unless I go home ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... brought with him, and only when he had laid these out to his satisfaction did he rise to address the meeting. He held himself stiffly erect, his fingers resting lightly on the table, his pale face turned toward the window as though he wished to avoid addressing any one directly. The usual geniality was lacking in his ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... his head a little behind, with a movement that sent his straw hat forward in the direction of his nose. "I don't know as I'd do anything for him that I wouldn't do for you," he responded with an equal geniality. "I guess you'd better open that one"—and he gave a little affectionate kick to one of ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... dear ladies; I hope soon to meet you all again," said the young General, with playful geniality, as he handed them to their seats. "If Monsieur de Montcalm will but give me the chance of coming to conclusions with him, I will do my utmost to bring this uncomfortable state of affairs ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... you enter the service?" he asked with that affectation of military bluntness and geniality with which he ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... logical deduction in estimating a masculine nature not governed by religious scruples; but with this Joyce was hardly concerned, having little comprehension of all that gossips implied. She was delighted to requite so much self-sacrifice on the doctor's part with all the geniality she could command. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... tendency towards that higher liberty which she had sought in the abandonment of outward restraints, but which can never be thus attained. Some great moral safeguards she had in her tireless industry, her love of art, her honesty and geniality of nature, and, above all, in her passionate love for her children. Happily, these deep and solid forces of Nature are calculated to outlast the heyday of the blood, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... at least a hundred per cent. He merely sits there—in his arm-chair, at his club let us say—with all power, even all desire to work gone out of him, not thinking rigidly, not sustaining his thought, a mere shapeless chunk of geniality, half hidden in the blue smoke of ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... hearty welcome, and no buxom smiling hostess, is there to order the trim waiting-maid, with polished candlestick, "to show the gentleman his room." And, at length, when a hostess, amiable but shivering, does appear, there is still an absence of all geniality; no questions are asked as to what we might like to take in the way of refreshment, there is no fire to cheer us, no warm drinks are suggested, no apparent probability of getting food or liquor, even if we wanted ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... was M. Fitzgerald the journalist? And M. Breitmann had also been one? How delighted he was to be here! All this flowed on with perfect naturalness; there wasn't a false note anywhere. At dinner he diffused a warmth and geniality which were infectious. Laura was pleased and amused; and she adored her father for these impulses which brought to the board, unexpectedly, such men ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... to excuse many of his irascible and uncongenial moods. You to whom that gaunt face seems forbidding—look into the eyes! If he seems "dry and priggish" to you, Mr. Stevenson, "with little of that large unconscious geniality of the world's heroes," follow him some spring morning to Baker Farm, as he "rambles through pine groves ... like temples, or like fleets at sea, full-rigged, with wavy boughs and rippling with light so soft and green and shady that the Druids ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... in the transaction. In moments of relaxation his coarse streak appeared, and Waythorn dreaded his geniality; but in the office he was concise and clear-headed, with a flattering deference to Waythorn's judgment. Their business relations being so affably established, it would have been absurd for the two men ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... thing which haunts me, and which was typical of him then as throughout life, was the spirit which he then possessed and conveyed. It was one of an agile geniality, unmarred by thought of a serious character but warm and genuinely tender and with a taste for simple beauty which was most impressive. He was already the author of a cheap songbook, "The Paul Dresser Songster" ("All ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser |
