"Sociable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not abuse— Was sociable and gay: He wore large buckles on his shoes. And changed ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... faintly. The sounds were so weirdly fascinating that any one might have imagined it proceeded from a little group of Eastern musicians playing upon reeds in order to charm some snake to uncoil and become sociable after a lengthy seclusion in ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... to make of that man. He was nice and sociable, and he seemed to be always trying not to laugh, and everybody knows that fat people are good-natured. And he seemed kind of to like us, too. Then why didn't he let us go through his house? That was what I wanted to know. If he had just been grouchy ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... to the door with you," said Deulin, in the passage. He was always idle, and always had leisure to follow his sociable instincts. ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... neighborly, affable, complaisant, hearty, sociable, affectionate, cordial, kind, social, amicable, favorable, kindly, tender, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... in which he does not succeed. If there were no hopes of success at present, ought we not to sow the seed, which may he useful to posterity?[063] Even if we should only diminish the mutual hatred among Christians, and render them more sociable, would not this be worth purchasing at the price of some ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... in." He waved his hand toward the door, which he had left open. "Come along, Cornish. Poor ole Mellin'll play Du Barry with us and give us a morning leevy while he listens in a bed with a palanquin to it. Now let's draw up chairs and be sociable." ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... well-known member of the feathered tribe, the "laughing jackass;" more scientifically denominated the "giant kingfisher." When I saw the bird, I was very sorry that it had been killed; for, notwithstanding its discordant voice, it is a remarkably sociable and useful creature, as we afterwards discovered. It destroys snakes, which it catches by the tail, and then crushes their head with its powerful beak; it also renders an essential service to the settlers who want to get up early, by shouting out its strange ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... last. "We can't touch other people's property, and we might as well go on home. But if the ladies belonging to this church sociable would show themselves, I'd sit up and beg for a bone of that fried ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... at Christmas they give us two weeks," she goes on in the sociable tone of a woman whose hands are occupied. "I just didn't know what to do ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... hear it said that "it does not so much matter in our circuit whether we have a preacher or not"? Have we never been told that really the man most needed is "a visitor," or "an organiser," or "someone who can raise the wind"? "We want a sociable man," says the steward of one station. "We want a public man who will make his mark on the civic and political life of the town," say the brethren of another. We recognise that the gifts of men differ. We see that each, in his own order, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... champagne. 'You'll 'ear my idea soon enough. Wyte till I pour some chain on my 'ot coppers.' He drank a glass off, and affected to listen. ''Ark!' said he, ''ear it fizz. Like 'am fryin', I declyre. 'Ave a glass, do, and look sociable.' ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... respect decency, to cause him to love probity, to practice honesty, to value good faith, to esteem equity, to revere conjugal fidelity, to observe exactitude in fulfilling his duties? Religion, which alone pretends to regulate his manners, does it render him sociable? does it make him pacific? does it teach him to be humane? The arbiters, the sovereigns of society, are they faithful in recompensing punctual in rewarding, those who have best served their country, in punishing those who have pillaged, who have robbed, who have plundered, who have divided, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... known to myself," he snapped. "It's nice weather just now, and you ought to enjoy yourself at Eastbourne. It's a smart place for an English resort, and there's lots going on there. They will think you such a nice sociable young man. Besides, you will spend money and make pretense of being rich. And let me give you a valuable tip. On the first evening you arrive at the hotel call the valet, give him a pound note and tell him to go out and buy a pound bottle of eau-de-Cologne to put ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... a sociable centre for the whole idle place. Any one who chose came into it in a friendly way, and lounged about, gossiping, and inspecting the works in progress. Women brought their babies, and sat about on the stones suckling them and talking to the men—a proceeding which filled Beth with disgust, she thought ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... blamed 'em,'" he went on, evidently reverting to the spectres of the bridge-"I never blamed 'em for comin' back wunst in a while. It 'pears ter me 'twould take me a long time ter git familiar with heaven, an' sociable with them ez hev gone before. An', my Lord, jes' think what the good green yearth is! Leastwise the mountings. I ain't settin' store on the valley lands I seen whenst I went ter the wars. I kin remember yit what them streets in the valley ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... requisite for arriving at a certain point, the inhabitant of a country town should make due allowance for the necessary gossip which must take place on the road, and for the frequent interchange of bulletins of health, which is sure to occur; and after a residence of any length in these sociable places, a sensation of solitude and desertion is felt in those crowded streets of our metropolis, where the full tide of population may roll past us for hours without bringing with it a single glance of recognition or kindness. Here round games and Casino still find refuge ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... well as small tea tables, to seat two, three or four, while there is always one oblong table at which a sociable crowd of young people may gather for ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... never recovered from the shock of his nephew's murder last fall; he always used to be very sociable and hospitable, but now he seems too much cast down to care for society. You may have heard of the dreadful manner in which young George Gordon ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... the mountain-rats disturbed our slumbers at night, running about the cabin, and I do not at all think we should like our dormitory were we not watched over during our slumbers by a cat, the most sociable of beasts, who as a rule sleeps between us, and protests loudly if we either of us ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... character of this employment is complex and interesting. It is an attractive occupation, in which the girl is brought into relationship with people with whom she can help to develop a sociable, co-operative life, tending to improve her own character and usefulness and ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... a faithful wife to me," he says, "and an obedient one: you were kind and gracious, sociable and friendly: you were assiduous at your spinning (lanificia): you followed the religious rites of your family and your state, and admitted no foreign cults or degraded magic (superstitio): you did not dress conspicuously, nor seek to ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... Blanca there, is goin' to pick her way, cautious an' careful as a gal in a nice new white frock, like them the Little One wears. She ain't goin' to tear her white dress, Alfaretty, so don't you get scared if she falls a good ways behind the rest. She's a sociable beast, is Blanca, and she'll get to the top all right, give her time. But Dolly's calico'll nigh bust herself to be first. More 'n that she's the keenest nose for a shortcut of any horse in the batch. She's little and she's light, and she'll trust herself in ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... children assembled round an elderly sailor, who was amusing and caressing them. He had been on duty outside the tent ever since our arrival at the islands; and as the Russians are particularly fond of children, these little creatures had grown quite sociable with him. A pretty lively little girl appeared his especial favourite. She was allowed to play him all kinds of tricks, without being reproved; and even when she pulled him by the hair, he pulled again, and seemed as much entertained ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... and that I will not, and cannot pardon. Somebody says, that nature may make a fool, but a coxcomb is always of his own making. Now, my cousin—(as he is my cousin, I may say what I please of him)—my cousin Craiglethorpe is a solemn coxcomb, who thinks, because his vanity is not talkative and sociable, that it's not vanity. What a mistake! his silent superciliousness is to me more intolerable than the most garrulous egotism that ever laid itself open ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... particular to bring them except the neighborhood, and then it has to be Christian charity in the neighborhood that didn't ask them to pick them up. Mamma called, after a while; and Mrs. Hobart said she hoped she would come often, and let the girls run in and be sociable! And Grace Hobart says 'she hasn't got tired of croquet,—she likes it real well!' They're that sort of people, ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... dinner-table on the grass, and made every thing look exceedingly comfortable and inviting. Then we made tea, and invited each other to eat, and did eat without invitation; and joked and laughed, and felt considerably more happy and sociable than if vice-royalty had been real-royalty, and the green canopy of the trees were the banqueting-hall at Windsor Castle. The man munched his victuals at a small private bivouac of his own, within easy call, as he had to jump up every now and then, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... she makes coffee and hands it around in little brass cups. Also there's cakes, and the old man comes in, smilin' and rubbin' his hands, and we has a real sociable time. ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... far as we know, has been little treated by novelists. The antagonists are represented not in the smoke of battle, but at that critical and awkward moment when the first steps toward reconciliation are being made. A proud but sociable little Mississippi town is shown in the act of half-reluctantly opening its doors to the officers of a couple of Federal regiments stationed within its bounds. The situation is portrayed with much spirit and humor, as well as with the most perfect good-humor. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... for AGATHA'S maid, and the scene is now an animated one; but still our host thinks his girls are not sufficiently sociable. ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... thought he was making a mistake in keeping his canaries so much to themselves. They had become so timid, that when she went into the room they were uneasy till she left it. She told him that petted birds or animals are sociable and like company, unless they are kept by themselves, when they become shy. She advised him to let the other boys go into the room, and occasionally to bring some of his pretty singers downstairs, where all the family could enjoy seeing and hearing them, and where they ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... by twelve months, and see how the law of kindness is working then. Mrs. Parker is certainly happier, less troubled than she was two years ago; Edith is a better and more dutiful child, and the sisters are far more sociable with her than formerly. The dove of peace has taken up its abode in the Parker family. How is it in High Street? Emilie and aunt Agnes are not there, but Miss Webster is still going on with her straw bonnet trade and her lodging letting, and she is ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... became a little, but not much, more sociable, for, although Nigel's active mind would gladly have found vent in conversation, he experienced some difficulty in making headway against the discouragement of Van der Kemp's very quiet disposition, and the cavernous yawns ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... assure you that is a wonderful week in which I can get two, or one, to myself. I am never C.L., but always C.L. & Co. He who thought it not good for man to be alone, preserve me from the more prodigious monstrosity of being never by myself! I forget bed-time; but even there these sociable frogs clamber up to annoy me. Once a week, generally some singular evening that, being alone, I go to bed at the hour I ought always to be a-bed, just close to my bed-room window is the club-room of a public-house, where a set of singers—I take them to ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... the stead of the joyously-sociable monarchal hive, you behold a republic of solitarily-dwelling, and not unconditionally beautiful, naiads! No dancing! And a stature, prodigiously disqualifying for the asylum of an acorn cup! You are unsatisfied. Shakspeare has indeed vividly portrayed one curiously-featured ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... ludicrous and was all the time seeing funny things, which she described in a manner quite inimitable. She had grown up in New York, before her father's death, in the most select of Knickerbocker circles, but there was not a trace of aristocracy in her ways. She was sociable with the ostler and the office-boy, and agreeable to the neighboring farmers, talking with them with a spirit that quite delighted them. And yet there was nothing free and easy in her ways that encouraged undue familiarity. It was merely natural ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... Effinghams and Mr. Jarvis had arisen from the fact of their having been near, and, in a certain sense, sociable neighbours in the country. Their town associations, however, were as distinct as if they dwelt in different hemispheres, with the exception of an occasional morning call, and, now and then, a family dinner given by Mr. ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... other side a minute. Here is Captain Brace, forty years old, been at sea thirty. On his way now to take command of his ship and sail south from Bermuda. Next week he'll be under way; easy times; comfortable quarters; passengers, sociable company; just enough to do to keep his mind healthy and not tire him; king over his ship, boss of everything and everybody; thirty years' safety to learn him that his profession ain't a dangerous one. Now you look back at his home. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... an old friend, who was a boy at school with me, who was of this type. He was essentially solitary in spirit, though he was amiable and sociable enough. There can be no harm in my telling the story of his life, as the actors in it are ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Washington he remained to the end of the chapter. He soon learned his name, and would come flying at the first sound of it. He proved to be a pet that required considerable attention. He was of an especially sociable nature, and, if left alone in any room, he would howl in mournful and prolonged meows, that speedily brought some one to the rescue. He tagged the girls like a little dog, and would stand on the shore crying like a child if they went off in the boat and would not take ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... little Billingsfield society, it had become apparent to every one that he was a very simple man, making no pretensions whatever to any superiority on account of his station. They grew more and more fond of him, and ended by asking him to their small sociable evenings. On these occasions it generally occurred that the squire and the vicar fell into conversation about classical and literary subjects while the two ladies talked of the little incidents ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... found himself suddenly called upon to govern by the death of Monseigneur, and by the unexpected confidence testified in him before long by the king. "The prince should try more than ever to appear open, winning, accessible, and sociable," wrote Fenelon; "he must undeceive the public about the scruples imputed to him; keep his strictness to himself, and not set the court apprehending a severe reform of which society is not capable, and which would have to be introduced imperceptibly, even if it were ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... deal, and old people can't be expected to do much in the way of visiting. But I have a notion," she said, after gazing a few moments in a reflective way at the corner of the house, "that it would be well now to be a little more sociable again. My niece has no company here of her own sex, except me, and I think it would do her good to know a young lady like Miss March. Mr Brandon has asked me to let Annie come there, but I think it would be a great deal better for his niece to visit us. Mrs ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... where every passer-by, pamphlet, boy in the street, thinks he might just as well come up and ring one's door-bell awhile. All modern books are book agents at heart, around getting subscriptions for themselves. If a man wants to be sociable or literary nowadays, he can only do it by being a more or less disagreeable character, and if he wishes to be a beautiful character, he must go off and do ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... much better than I had anticipated. He did indeed stop at several butchers' shops during our walk, and looked inquiringly in. He also evinced a desire to enter into conversation with one or two other sociable dogs, but the briefest chirp or whistle brought him at once obediently to my heel, just as if he had known and obeyed ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... are sociable in their habits, and that they run together in broods in search of their food, is a fact well known [Page 54] to all sportsmen. A most excellent opportunity is thus afforded the hunter to secure several at one shot, and the same advantage may be gained by the trapper by specially ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... two Joel was perched on the old gentleman's knee, and they were having the most sociable time possible. And before long Joel forgot he hadn't laughed for oh, such a long while, and lo and behold! Grandpapa said something so very funny that they both burst out into a merry peal, that rang out into ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... Some of them were not without a tinge of superstition. "I crep' up the bank just now," said Kentuck one day, in a breathless state of excitement, "and dern my skin if he wasn't a-talking to a jaybird as was a-sittin' on his lap. There they was, just as free and sociable as anything you please, a-jawin' at each other just like two cherrybums." Howbeit, whether creeping over the pine boughs or lying lazily on his back blinking at the leaves above him, to him the birds sang, the squirrels chattered, and the flowers bloomed. Nature was his nurse and playfellow. For ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... the Sociable has been tried by many, and is practically a failure in so far as traveling quickly and easily is concerned. The Tandem, though it presents so objectionable an appearance, seems likely to become a favorite, for it surpasses any ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... quite appallingly sociable—"The spite of the woman!" thought Frau von Treumann, for what could it matter to her?—and remained fixed at Anna's side as they paced slowly up and down the grass, monopolising Karlchen's attention with her absurd questions about his brother officers. ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... above, but of a more familiar and sociable kind, are the visits every Friday afternoon to Mrs. Washington, where I always am. These public meetings, and a dinner once a week to as many as my table will hold, with the references to and from the different departments of state, and other communications with all parts of the union, is as ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... blankets could not last them to exceed 10 days, and I well knew they could hardly get off the desert in that time. Mr. Abbott was a man I loved fondly. He was good company in camp, and happy and sociable. He had shown no despondency at any time until the night of the last meeting and the morning of the parting. His chances seemed to me to be much poorer than my own, but I hardly think he realized it. When in bed I could not keep my thoughts back ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... couple were taken entirely by surprise, for they had supposed the party to be only one of many sociable evenings which the crowd were ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... about him. He made a distinct appeal to Henry, who sat absolutely still, so still that the little bear could not be sure at first that he was a human being. A minute passed, and the red eye of the bear rested upon the boy. Henry felt pleasant and sociable, but he knew that he could retain friendly relations ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... one of the most offensive wives known to creation, would scarcely call her "a little lark," which conveys the impression that he is a "gay dog," and one given to the traditional ways of that species of ultra-sociable animals. I have confessed I have not the original before me, so I cannot say whether the title used by IBSEN is "Smalle Larke," but I fancy that a "capering capercailzie," if not actually his words, would be nearer his meaning. A capercailzie is, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... a ghost," replied Manson, who felt like joking now, "and I succeeded. I not only found ghosts by the dozen, but two skeletons, and one or two skulls scattered around to make things more cheerful. Oh, I've had a real sociable time, I assure you! One of those kind of times when every way you turn a still more hideous object confronts you; a fit of the jims minus the fun that goes before it. The first night I was so scared I didn't ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... estates. They are chiefly brought from South America and from the Persian Gulf, and have many admirers, but I cannot say I like them as a substitute either for horses or for the gay little ponies. This is such an exceedingly sociable place that I have frequent opportunities of looking at the nice horses of my visitors, and most of the equipages would do credit to any establishment. The favorite style of carriage in use here is very like ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... medium height, with a light complexion, blue eyes, and brisk, cheery speech. Mary, he tells us; was always neatly dressed, but with nothing prim or sectarian in her style. 'Her expression was frank and free, yet very modest, and she was blessed with an affectionate, sociable spirit.' ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... from stem to stern, still always alone. As there were no second-class or steerage passengers on the Scoriac, there were no deck restraints, and so there was ample room for individual solitude. The travellers, however, were a sociable lot, and a general feeling of friendliness was abroad. The first four days of the journey were ideally fine, and life was a joy. The great ship, with bilge keels, was as ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... looks like inspiration; I love him much, and hope that I have some share in his affections.... He is a very modest, mild, well-bred, gentle-spirited and warm-hearted man, as ever I knew in my life. He is also to appearance very sociable. I never saw a man who seems better calculated for good company, nor who seems to take more pleasure in it." "He is a very agreeable, amiable man; but a great humorist. The philosophers of Paris foretold to me that I could not conduct him to Calais without a quarrel; ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... nothing more sociable than a fishing-fleet. The boats overtake each other, like horses in a race. They gallop in rivalry. But for the most part they keep together, and move like a travelling town over the sea. As likely as not they will ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... rivers which pour down from the mountains came together at that point, and flowed into the sea.[10] A number of islands dotted this sea, which are described as remarkable for their fertility and numerous population. The natives are gentle and sociable, but these qualities are of little use to them because they do not possess the gold or precious stones which the Spaniards seek. Thirty-six of them were taken prisoners. The natives call that entire region Mariatambal. The country to the east of this great river is called ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... literature since Tom Jones. It has not the consummate plot of Tom Jones; it has not the breadth, the Shakespearean jollity, the genial humanity of the great "prose Homer"; it has no such beautiful character as Sophia Western. It is not the overflowing of a warm, genial, sociable soul, such as that of Henry Fielding. But Vanity Fair may be put beside Tom Jones for variety of character, intense reality, ingenuity of incident, and profusion of wit, humour, and invention. It is even better written than Tom Jones; has more ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... dear," cried Mr. Craig, "that you shouldna make comparisons—what's past is gane—and Mrs. Glibbans and you maun now be friends." "They're a' friends to me that's no faes, and am very glad to see Mrs. Glibbans sociable in my house; but she needna hae made sae light of me when she was here before." And, in saying this, the amiable hostess burst into a loud sob of sorrow, which induced Mr. Snodgrass to beg Mr. Micklewham to read the Doctor's letter, by which a happy stop was put ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... from Espana with very exaggerated and preconceived ideas against the religious—even to the point of never having had relations or speech with a friar—and here have to come in contact with them, are surprised to find some (and even very many) of them very sociable, serviceable, tolerant, and worthy of all appreciation; and this has happened to me myself, both in Filipinas and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... remarks Archibald, sociable. 'I never saw such a red fat man. What makes him so red ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... thirty miles before me. And the miles seemed much longer than they did the day before, for my feet were sore and my limbs stiff. Quite welcome, therefore, was a lift offered by a young farmer, who, driving a cart, overtook me early in the forenoon. He was very sociable, and we soon got into an ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... had been going at good speed, pulled his horse down to a walk and showed indications of becoming sociable. ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... which we were fully prepared to endorse, for we thought the people we saw at the two extremes of our journey—say in Shetland, Orkney, and the extreme north of Scotland, and those in Devon and Cornwall in the South of England—were the most homely and sociable people with whom ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... it's Nat's own fault. If he'd only drop his important airs and be more sociable, he'd ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... for there is another Number One without date, but apparently earlier. This contains some exemplary sentiments "On Solitude," with a touch of what was real profundity in so inexperienced a writer. "Man is naturally a sociable being," he says; "and apart from the world there are no incitements to the pursuit of excellence; there are no rivals to contend with; and therefore there is no improvement.... The heart may be more pure and uncorrupted in solitude than when exposed to the influences of ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... too dangerous to linger over, so he began talking of the dance down at the Town Hall, and the meeting last Sunday after church. He asked her if she would go with him to the "sociable" they were going to have at No. 4 Truck-house; and when she said she couldn't,—that her mother didn't want her to go out, etc.,—Quigg moved his chair closer, with the remark that the old woman was always putting her oar in and spoiling things; the way she was going on with ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... by the road, for the plantation gate was far too serious an undertaking for any one not in the highest spirits for enterprise. On the way there was a good deal of that desultory talk, very sociable and interesting, that is apt to prevail between two people, who would never have chosen each other for companions, if they were not of the same family, but who are nevertheless very affectionate and companionable. Ethel was anxious to hear what her brother ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... said, fanning a tiny blaze among the shavings with his hat, which had been on his head until he remembered and removed it in deference to her presence. "But I ain't a very good neighbor, I guess; I never seem to have time to be sociable. It's lucky your horse fell close enough so yuh could walk in to camp; I've had that happen to me more than once, and it ain't never pleasant—but it's worse when there ain't any camp to walk to. I've had that ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... said; "let us sit down and be sociable. I daresay they will be some time in killing their quarry. We will enjoy ourselves till they come back. They shall not hurt you; ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... And here I encountered a veritable foot-pad, with a club in his hand and a bundle on his shoulder, coming down the dusty road, with the wild-eyed aspect of one who travels into a far country in search of adventure. He seemed to be of a cheerful and sociable turn, and desired that I should linger and converse with him. But he was more meagerly supplied with the media of conversation than any person I ever met. His opening address was in a tongue that failed to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... you're all dressed up!" he said, as he noted "Bob's" crisp white dress, the rose upon her bosom, the floppy hat that framed her face. "Church sociable som'er's?" ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Griffiths ripened, Done shook off thoughts of Lucy Woodrow, since they never came without an underlying sense of accusation. He was enjoying his present life to the full. In his heart was a great kindness towards the people with whom he mingled. He was naturally sociable, a lover of his kind, and recognised now that half the torment of his life since coming to manhood had arisen from his isolation, from the lack of opportunities of gratifying this affection. He admired Aurora, ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... no time to waste in words upon Harry Clifford, and after hearing the story started for his boarding-place. His route lay past the Moore House and as he reached it the door opened and Harry came reeling down the steps. He was just drunk enough to be sociable, and spying Richard by the light of the lamppost he hurried to his side, and taking his arm in the confidential manner he always assumed when intoxicated, he began talking in a half-foolish, half-rational way, very ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... and corrected by the trial of the years that follow. It has to be found out whether it is really spiritual kinship, or mere emotional impulse. It is a matter of temper and character. A naturally reserved person finds it hard to open his heart, even when his instinct prompts him; while a sociable, responsive nature is easily companionable. It is not always this quick attachment, however, which wears best, and that is the reason why youthful friendships have the character of being so fickle. They are due to a natural instinctive delight ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... old Mr. Bumble-Bee, flying around Mr. Thompson's head. Mr. Thompson didn't understand him, however, and only brushed at him impatiently, and said, "Get out!" in a tone anything but sociable; but the old bee kept flying around just the same, and complained in his drowsy voice: "Buzz, buzz-z, buzz-z-z. I wish you would go away. I want to get into my house, and I don't want you to see ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... statement was true enough, for Jawleyford, though apparently such a fine open-hearted, sociable sort of man, was in reality a very quarrelsome, troublesome fellow. He quarrelled with all his neighbours in succession, generally getting through them every two or three years; and his acquaintance ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... that capacity, both Congressmen and professors, and he preferred Congressmen. The same failure marked the society of a college. Several score of the best- educated, most agreeable, and personally the most sociable people in America united in Cambridge to make a social desert that would have starved a polar bear. The liveliest and most agreeable of men — James Russell Lowell, Francis J. Child, Louis Agassiz, his son Alexander, Gurney, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... person was pretty and pleasant, and I was glad to make her acquaintance as well as that of three other women speaking the same tongue and occupying the next stateroom to mine. The last named were going to start a restaurant in Nome. As they were sociable, jolly, and good sailors for the most part, I enjoyed their society. They had all lived in San Francisco for years, and though not related to each other, were firm friends of long standing and were uniting their little fortunes in the hope of ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... farther words. Evelina yielded to her sister's entreaty that she should finish the pie, and poured out a second cup of tea, into which she put the last lump of sugar; and between them, on the table, the clock kept up its sociable tick. ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... Fiegenspann, the proprietor of the Roof Club, bluntly advised her, after she had passed his scrutiny and been pronounced unusual enough even for the Aero Octet. "I don't have to. Because the opporchoonities here are big—very big. And I like my girls to be sociable. It ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... I'm as dry as a smoked herring. You must drink too, though. Yes, I insist. I have a toast to propose, so be sociable for once. What have you got ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... to get out in the woods and holler," she declared; "seems's if then I'd feel better. To look up, expecting to see the cars coming along real lively and pleasant, just as they always do so sociable-like when I'm sewing, and then—oh, dear me!" she wrung her fat hands together, "there, all of a sudden, were two of 'em bumping together, one end smashed into kindling wood, and t'other end sticking ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... the Countess Da Forli. She was a widow with no children, except Claudia, the young daughter who had accompanied her to the fete the evening before. Caretto, and four or five relations of the family, were the only guests beside himself. It was a quiet and sociable meal, and served with less ceremony than usual, as the countess wished to place Gervaise as much as possible at his ease. During the meal but little was said about the affair with the pirates, Caretto telling them some of his ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... to study the habits of the sparrow, for it is so bold and sociable that if a little house is nailed up in a balcony, or by a window where people are constantly sitting, a pair of birds will at once take possession, bring twigs and bits of scattered threads and wool for a nest, and proceed to rear their noisy little family. Chirp, chirp, very ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... mind, which was the best proof of a perfect mastery of his passions. St. Athanasius observes of him, that after thirty years spent in the closest solitude, "he appeared not to others with a sullen or savage, but with a most obliging sociable air."[30] A heart that is filled with inward peace, simplicity, goodness, and charity, is a stranger to a lowering or contracted look. The main point in Christian mortification is the humiliation of the heart, one of ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... are not considered fit associates for reputable fairies, the good people are not solitary, but quite sociable, and always live in large societies, the members of which pursue the cooeperative plan of labor and enjoyment, owning all their property, the kind and amount of which are somewhat indefinite, in common, and uniting their efforts to accomplish any desired object, whether of work or ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... this has been already indicated. It is due to the sympathetic motive which is developed in such communal life, and is manifested in the friendly relations with each other which the creatures maintain. A good instance of this is to be found in the crows and their kindred, a group of extremely sociable creatures, which are endlessly engaged in chattering communications with each other. All these forms are highly domesticable, and if for any reason they had proved permanently attractive to men they would doubtless have been ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... in their style, are consistent with their general character. They are sociable by nature and as such never forget the public whom they address. They take the trouble to be clear in order to convince, and agreeable in order to please. The English, as a rule, write well, as born orators and as practical and realistic men. Altogether, the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... help for it—Mrs. James must go down to receive her callers. She had to smile when she felt little like it—to be sociable when her thoughts were busy with her task. Her friends made a long call—they had nothing else to do with their time, and when they went, others came. In very unsatisfactory ...
— The Angel Over the Right Shoulder - The Beginning of a New Year • Elizabeth Wooster Stuart Phelps
... this here as sociable a neighborhood as I ever struck. It pleases me well. Folks are up ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... movement, and as we watched, conversation became spasmodic—not worth the energy required to sustain it—until gradually we slipped into one of those sociable silences of the bushfolk—silences that draw away all active thought from the mind, leaving it a sensitive plate ready to absorb impressions and thoughts as they flit about it, silences where every one is so in harmony with his comrades ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... capable of eternal rewards; and that God has an eye to the whole man's ways, and wills that he receive entire chastisement or reward according to his demerits or merits. The sect of the Peripatetics, of all sects the most sociable, attribute to wisdom this sole care equally to provide for the good of these two associate parts: and the other sects, in not sufficiently applying themselves to the consideration of this mixture, show themselves to be divided, one for the body and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... it stood solidly for a crowded past. It had not been, so much achievement missed, a light yoke nor a short load. It was at present as if the backward picture had hung there, the long crooked course, grey in the shadow of his solitude. It had been a dreadful cheerful sociable solitude, a solitude of life or choice, of community; but though there had been people enough all round it there had been but three or four persons IN it. Waymarsh was one of these, and the fact struck him just now as marking the record. Mrs. Newsome ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... differ," said Lydgate. But he was not sorry that the door was now opened, and Mr. Vincy was announced. That florid sociable personage was become more interesting to him since he had seen Rosamond. Not that, like her, he had been weaving any future in which their lots were united; but a man naturally remembers a charming girl with pleasure, and is ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... with the folks," Webber explained. "You go and shut yourself up in your room after every meal, instead of talking to people and being sociable like the rest of us. And you haven't formed any church connection. That helps a man, especially in your profession. You ought to get connected with a good church, and go to the meetings and church sociables. Join the young people's clubs and make yourself agreeable. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... up, her eye was not on me, but on the shelf where 'The Master of Ballantrae' stood inviting her. Mr. Stevenson's books are not for the shelf, they are for the hand; even when you lay them down, let it be on the table for the next comer. Being the most sociable that man has penned in our time, they feel very lonely up there in a stately row. I think their eye is on you the moment you enter the room, and so you are drawn to look at them, and you take a ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... Moreover, the ordeal that all have gone through has depressed intellectual as well as social life. Mulhouse has been too much saddened to recover herself as yet, although eminently a literary place, and a sociable one in the old happy French days. The balls, soires and reunions, that formerly made Mulhouse one of the friendliest as well as the busiest towns in the world, have almost ceased. People take their ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... fear an eventual danger, impels us to usurpation, and makes us robbers and murderers. Animals do not calculate the duty of instinct any more than the disadvantages resulting to those who exercise it; it would be strange if the intellect of man—the most sociable of animals—should lead him to disobey ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... mind seemed full of other things as he hurried along the street with Tom after him. On the ferryboat, as they crossed to Hoboken, he was more sociable. ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... only solid foundation of all moral virtues and sociable endowments. His friendship, where he professed it, went much beyond his professions; and I have been told of strong and generous instances of it by the persons themselves who received them, though his hereditary income was little more than ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... At this most sociable repast of the whole day, cheerfulness seemed again to disperse the gloom which had threatened the circle. Thaddeus set the example. His unrestrained and elegant conversation acquired new pathos from ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... in silence now for some time. Ethel was too sad to talk, and Tozer was busily engaged in recalling all the Latin at his command. After a while he began to grow sociable. ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... Canada and the Backwoods. Where is there boy or girl of romantic imagination who did not, at some juvenile period of existence, revel in descriptions of American forest-life? Agatha had scarcely passed this, the latest of her various manias; and on the strength of it, she and Mr. Harper became more sociable. She even condescended to declare "that it was a pleasure to meet with one who had absolutely seen, nay, lived among ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... sang a little, then she wandered about the large and lonely rooms. Patty was a sociable creature, and had never before spent an evening entirely alone, unless when engaged in some important and ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... his duty, but was too fond of the contents of his case-bottles of rum, which made him at times very irritable and hasty; in other respects he was a sociable messmate. The second was a kind of nondescript; he was certainly sober, and I hope honest, fond of adventure, and always volunteered when the boats were sent on any expedition. He was sociable, and frequently rational, although too often sanguine where hope was almost ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... and the best comforter, To an vnsetled fancie, Cure thy braines (Now vselesse) boile within thy skull: there stand For you are Spell-stopt. Holy Gonzallo, Honourable man, Mine eyes ev'n sociable to the shew of thine Fall fellowly drops: The charme dissolues apace, And as the morning steales vpon the night (Melting the darkenesse) so their rising sences Begin to chace the ignorant fumes that mantle Their cleerer reason. O good Gonzallo My true preseruer, and a loyall Sir, To him thou follow'st; ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... till fifteen years ago I started trucking here in Helena. I gets six dollars assistance from the Sociable Welfare and some little helpouts as I calls it—rice and potatoes and apples. I got one boy fifty-five years old if he be living. I haven't seen him since 1916. He left and went to Chicago. I got a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... went to Europe, but I suppose Aunty Plen will want to have some sort of merry-making to celebrate our return. I shall begin as I mean to go on, and have a simple, sociable sort of party and invite everyone whom I like, no matter in what 'set' they happen to belong. No one shall ever say I am aristocratic and exclusive so prepare yourself to be shocked, for old friends and young, rich and poor, will be asked to ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... weary day wore on till afternoon; one incessant storm raged on deck; but after dinner the few passengers, waked up with their roast-beef and mutton, became a little more sociable. Not with me, for the scent and savor of poverty was upon me, and they all cast toward me their evil eyes and cold suspicious glances, as I sat apart, though among them. I felt that desperation and recklessness of poverty which ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... and inveighs against the prejudice which has slandered them to the European world. He finds them mild and patient, tender to the brute creation, as becomes the children of a Tartar shepherd, kind and hospitable, self-possessed and dignified, the lowest classes sociable with each other, and the children gamesome. It is true; they are as noble as the lion of the desert, and as gentle and as playful as the fireside cat. Our traveller observes all this;[81] and seems to forget ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... the train, and the tide was high among the great marshes. The car was not very full at first, but at one or two stations there were crowds of people, and Betty soon had a seat-mate, a good-natured looking, stout woman, who was inclined to be very sociable. She was a little out of breath ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... readily agreed to. The driver made room for the trunk on the top of the coach, and the young strangers started for the hotel, in company with Alfred and Oscar. As they walked along, they grew quite sociable. The two new-comers,—who, by the way, were quite respectable in their appearance,—stated that they belonged in one of the cities of Maine, and had never been in Boston before. They were brothers; and both their parents being dead, they said they were on ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... looks like, and I know the other thing. She's no soft-heart to squinch at the sight of blood, and that sort of foolery. Tell ye, she was jest as quiet and cool as if 'twas a church sociable, and she set that bone as easy and chirk as my woman would take a pie out the oven; but when she had you all piecened up, and stood ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... kept from age to age. No imprudent, no sociable angel ever dropt an early syllable to answer the longings of saints, the fears of mortals. We should have listened on our knees to any favorite, who, by stricter obedience, had brought his thoughts into parallelism with the celestial currents, ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson |
