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More "Compliment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their arms and fell in. They considered it a compliment that they had been chosen to furnish the first guard. Beorn's men, with a portion of Wulf's, were to furnish the first line of sentries. The two young thanes, accompanied by Osgod, went round with them and posted them, ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... loose to graze in the square, joining a number of cows that were there already. As I sat in the shop, closely examined by the inhabitants, I returned the compliment by analysing them. What a strange, dried-up, worn-out appearance young and old presented! What narrow, chicken-like chests, what long, unstable legs and short arms. And, dear me! what shaggy, rebellious hair, which stood out bristle-like in all directions upon their scalps! Yet those people ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... provision remaining. A council of war was therefore held, to which General Burgoyne summoned all the principal officers. Mr. Pellew attended, as commander of the brigade of seamen; and a more decisive testimony to his merits and services could not be afforded, than the unprecedented compliment of calling a midshipman, only twenty years of age, to ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... abroad,—talked of art, music and architecture, literature, artists and literary men—displayed such high culture and easy acquaintance with themes quite above the range usually met with among ordinary people, that Mrs. Emerson felt really flattered with the compliment of a visit. ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... early part of this session the lord-chancellor gave notice of bills respecting bankruptcy, lunacy, and county courts. Adverting first to the subject of bankruptcies, he commenced by paying a compliment to Lord Brougham, upon the improvements in that department of the law which he had introduced. His lordship continued:—"That system, however, excellent as it was, comprised within its jurisdiction only a circuit of forty ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... National Standards, Mr Baily (who undertook the comparisons relating to standards of length) died soon, and Mr Sheepshanks then undertook the work.—I attended the meeting of the British Association held at York (principally in compliment to the President, Dr Peacock), and gave an oral account of my work on Irish Tides.—At the Oxford Commemoration in June, the honorary degree of D.C.L. was conferred on M. Struve and on me, and then a demand was made on each of us for L6. 6s. for fees. We were ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... very slightly. But as I had met her and she had kindly asked me to dinner, I was glad to return the compliment when Mrs. Oglethorpe sent me her box, as she always does once or twice during the season, you know. But go on. What you said interested me immensely, although I don't agree with you. I have certain fixed standards when it ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Bailey. He is a faultlessly dressed young man of about twenty-seven, who takes it as a compliment when people think him older. His mouth, at present gaping with agitation and the unwonted exercise, is, as a rule, primly closed. His eyes, peering through gold-rimmed glasses, protrude slightly, giving him something of the dumb pathos of ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... do much harm or to avoid doing some good; and one of the greatest forces for good is the power of a bad example. Still it is not our bad examples that make us get on and earn us these smothers of flowery compliment. ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... was walking back and forth alone through her long drawing-room. She was revolving in her mind a compliment, breathed into her ear by her friend Mrs. Talbot that day. Mrs. Talbot had heard from the mouth of one of Mrs. Dillingham's admirers the statement, confirmed with a hearty, good-natured oath, that he considered the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... addito Proefiscini, ne puella fascinaretur." [Footnote: See also Turnebi Comm. in Orat. Sec. contra P.S. Rullum de Leg. Agrar. M.T. Ciceronis.] This same custom exists at the present day among the Turks, who always accompany a compliment to you or to anything belonging to you with the phrase, "Mashallah!" (God be praised!)—thus referring the good gifts you possess to the Higher Spirit. To omit this is a breach of courtesy, and in such case the other person instantly adds it in order to avert fascination; for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... consequently invited this company of ladies and gentlemen to be present to welcome Mr. Garrison, the black advocate of emancipation from the United States of America!' I have often said that that is the only compliment I have ever had paid to me that I care to remember, or to tell of! For Mr. Buxton had somehow or other supposed that no white American could plead for those in bondage as I had done, and therefore I ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... demand all my time?" he asked and flushed. The well-turned compliment caught her unawares and she admitted to herself that perhaps she had underrated this briny youth who was again beginning to interest ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... This company was raised in Coldwater, Michigan, and the camp-chests, caissons, and other property were marked "Loomis's Coldwater Battery." The chaplain at once sought Captain Loomis, and paid a high compliment to his moral courage in taking a firm and noble stand in favor of temperance. After the termination of the interview, the captain and several friends drank to the long life of the chaplain and the success of the ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... to pay court to the burgomaster's little hump-backed niece, whom the old fellow thinks so much of, and who is his right hand, just as the bailiff is his left. Understand me correctly! I didn't say anything nice to her about herself, except perhaps a compliment regarding her hair, which everybody knows is red—so I just told her some nice things she liked to hear ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... nothing to say, Mr. Meyer, except that I do not love you or any living man, and I never shall. I thank you for the compliment you have paid me, and there is ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... heave-to the Montauk," said the lieutenant civilly, while he raised his cap, apparently in compliment to the passengers who crowded the rail to see and hear what passed. "I am sent on the duty ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... Howard; a very fine bit of seamanship!" exclaimed Captain Vavassour, when at length the frigate was fairly round, and was once more going through the water; "you must allow me to compliment you; to tack ship successfully in such a wind and sea as this is no mean feat, in my opinion, and the slightest error of judgment, a single second of hesitation, must have resulted ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... very plainly, Monsieur de G—; and perhaps it is as well you have taken this unusual step, as it will save you the trouble of making any application to Madame d'Albret. Flattered as I am by your compliment, I beg to decline the honour you propose, and now that you know my feelings, you will of course not be so ungenerous as to make any application ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... not to be caught in the weakness of smiling at a compliment, but a quiet complacency over-spread her face like a stealing sunbeam, and gave a milder glance than usual to her blue-grey eyes, as she looked at Adam drinking the whey. Ah! I think I taste that whey now—with ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... [Poor HORSHAM gasps.] I'm not going to pretend either now or in a month's time that I think Trebell anything but a most dangerous acquisition to the party. I pay you a compliment in that, Trebell. Now, Horsham proposes that we should go to the country ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... her," admitted Jim. "But she couldn't very well stand by and see you perish—anyway, you had saved her life, and she felt duty bound to return the compliment." ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... the antique courtier ventured to compliment his sovereign on his bearing. It reminded him, he said, ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... arquebusiers were stationed to act as occasion might require. The dispositions were made in so masterly a manner, as to draw forth a hearty eulogium from old Carbajal, who exclaimed, "Surely the Devil or Valdivia must be among them!" an undeniable compliment to the latter, since the speaker was ignorant of that commander's presence in ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... lamenting the want of silver, "Your intentions, sir," said he, "are so good, that I cannot help lending you my assistance to carry them into execution," and gave the beggar a shilling. The other returned a suitable compliment, and extolled the benevolence of Harley. They kept walking together, and benevolence grew the topic ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... enthusiasm; in sneering at the extravagances of fancy or passion, instead of giving a loose to them; in describing a row of pins and needles, rather than the embattled spears of Greeks and Trojans; in penning a lampoon or a compliment, and in praising ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... was then reluctantly called, and I took my place at the foot of the column. I felt very grateful towards our master for his compliment and I thought I would be able to hold my position in the line long enough to demonstrate that our master was correct. The school-master from our district was selected to pronounce the words, and I ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... responded her father, nodding his head in the direction of Herbert. The latter felt his cheeks grow rosy at this compliment. ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... vigor and spirit which he flung into his work can only be compared to that of William Tyndale in his translation of the New Testament. Here was very different material for drama from the {109} dry bones of history offered by Holinshed. Shakespeare paid North the sincerest compliment by borrowing, particularly in Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, not only the general story, but whole speeches with only those changes necessary for making blank verse out of prose. The last speeches of Antony and Cleopatra ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... order of your toast, I have to take the first part in the duet to be performed in acknowledgment of the compliment you have paid to literature. In this home of art I feel it to be too much an interchange of compliments, as it were, between near relations, to enter into any lengthened expression of our thanks for the honour you ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... that, on his return home, he may exhibit them to his admiring friends, and extract from them the most approved of epithets and exclamations, taking the praise bestowed upon the fish as a particular compliment to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... was, in all probability, a gentleman, since he was a member of a gentlemen's club. But second thought convinced her that this proved nothing. Men are often called gentlemen out of compliment to their ancestors. Still, if this man only saw the affair from her angle of vision, the grotesque humor of it and not the common vulgar intrigue! She hesitated, as well she might. Supposing that eventually he found out who she was? That would never, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... mention, there had been several sugar parties, and now came Fabens' turn to reciprocate the compliment. So, one pleasant day, when there was a slight cessation in the run, he received a few neighbors to his camp, to spend ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... arrival of Miss Mason's letter McEwan had dropped in upon Constance in the evening, when he knew she would be resting after her strenuous day's work at headquarters. By way of a compliment on her gown he led the conversation round to Felicity Berber, and elicited the information that ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... absolutely I had forgotten! Figure it to yourself! I came out of the house, hot and cold for my poor picture, and immediately we met—" He laughed again. "Mon ami! What a compliment to you!" ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... the effect of a surprise. The work has since received the further indorsement of translation into French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish; I think into Italian also, but of this I am not certain. The same compliment has, I believe, been paid to its successor, which carried the treatment down to the fall of Napoleon. Notably, it may be said that my theme has brought me into pleasant correspondence with several ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... and preceded the admiral down the staircase; but, to his great surprise, instead of a compliment in the shape of a shilling or half-a-crown for his pains, he received a tremendous kick behind, with a request to go and take it to his master, with ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... clay mixed together. If our outsides are sometimes rough, all within is smooth and polished as the best of work. It is the purest spirit, which, like the finest china, lets the light shine through it. (Aside.) Not a bad compliment to myself, ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... find that Mr. Saltus has said his word on the subject: "In fiction as in history it is the shudder that tells. Hugo could find no higher compliment for Baudelaire than to announce that the latter had discovered a new one. For new shudders are as rare as new vices; antiquity has made them all seem trite. The apt commingling of the horrible and the trivial, pathos and ferocity, is yet the one secret of enduring work—a ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... compliment," laughed Margaret, as they passed down the winding path that made its way through the tall red pines to the rocky bank of the Goat River. There on a broad ledge of rock that jutted out over the boiling water, Margaret ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... recognise in it Diego de Escobar, whom he remembered having condemned to death for his share in the rebellion of Roldan. He was not the man whom Columbus would have most wished to see at that moment. The boat came alongside the hulks, and a barrel of wine and a side of bacon, the sea-compliment customary on such occasions, was handed up. Greatly to the Admiral's surprise, however, Escobar did not come on board, but pushed his boat off and began to speak to Columbus from a little distance. ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... poetry indicates. But we may fairly take as correct what he says of his friend or of himself, as to their relations and companionship, the incidents and descriptions, which were but the framework on which he wove his poetic wreaths of affection, compliment, or regret. ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... who could never appreciate the fine directness and simplicity, of Dad's nature—not if they lived to be a thousand years old. But Mr. Blakely Porter understood perfectly; I know he did, for he told me so afterwards. "It was the greatest compliment I ever had paid me in my life," he said. "Your father knew nothing about me, absolutely nothing, yet he invited me to dine with him—and you. It was ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... thoughts were too earnest on some topic to allow him to converse. He shortly made some excuse for taking leave, and, rising, addressed himself to the youth with a request that he would walk home with him. This invitation, delivered in a tone which left it doubtful whether a compliment or menace were meant, augmented Mervyn's confusion. He complied without speaking, and they went out together;—my wife and I were left to comment ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... but justice," said the Saracen, evidently gratified by the compliment, as he had been touched by the implied scorn of the European's previous boast; "from us thou shouldst have had no wrong. But well was it for me that I failed to slay thee, with the safeguard of the king of kings upon thy person. Certain it were, that the cord ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... you'll never be a thin wedge,' she answered, meaning to show her gratitude by a compliment. She joined herself as loudly as anybody in the roar that followed this sally. Obviously, she had said a clever and amusing thing, though it was not clear to her why it was so. Her flushed face was very happy; it even wore a touch of proud superiority. Her talents were domestic ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... saint is Cherry?" inquired the younger girl, ignoring the compliment she had just received. "If Gail is Saint 'Lizabeth and Faith is Saint Cecilia and Hope is ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... eminence as a lawyer. He was made Queen's Counsel, and on his retirement from practice, because of ill health, in 1883, a farewell banquet was given him by the bar in the hall of the Inner Temple, probably the most notable compliment paid in England to any orator since the banquet to Berryer. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... the Lord Mayor of Belfast rose at the adjournment to express all our thanks, and to insist that there should be a session in Belfast, where he could return the compliment. Immediately, there came another proposal for a similar visit to the South of Ireland. We went to Belfast at the beginning of September, and the attitude of the Ulster members, which had till then been somewhat guarded and aloof, changed into ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... through the intellect. The sermon must contain, at least, a solid foundation of good reasoning. "Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord," was the prophet's invitation to Israel in the day of her rebellion. The preacher should see to it that he "render a reason." It is no compliment to an audience to fail to recognise its mental powers. It is something less than a compliment merely to pretend to argue, as is so often done. That is not only to fail to produce the result we desire but to estrange the ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... will the compliment become a little bigger? Twenty pounds! Oh! it's just for a few gloves, ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... at Corsica, in 1794, he became the next heir to the title. In 1797, a friend, meaning to compliment the boy, said, "We shall have the pleasure some day of reading your speeches in the House of Commons," he, with precocious consciousness, replied, "I hope not. If you read any speeches of mine, it will be in the House of Lords." Similarly, when, in the course ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... had collars of flowers to the eyes the other day for some reason or other. I suppose that because the white man won't take "presents" he must take flowers and limes. On our part we gave each of these good people a small token in silver, with which return compliment they seemed highly pleased, and Krishna addressed us: standing straight he puckered his little face, so dark against his white turban, and wept, saying, "Father and Mother and all that I have I leave to follow Massa" or "my sahib"—I can never make out which he says, and in reply ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... outside for a ride through the Castellana. That strange woman in the diplomatic gallery had also risen to go. But no: she was giving her hand to her companion, bidding him good-bye. Now she had resumed her seat, continuing the busy movement of her fan that annoyed Rafael so. Thanks for the compliment, my fair one I Though as far as he was concerned, the whole audience might have gone, leaving only the president and the mace-bearers. Then he could speak without any fear at all! The public galleries, especially, unnerved him. Nobody had moved there. Those ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... duly given to the Sales. The Sales returned the compliment; and Mrs. Batty, not to be outdone, offered what could only adequately be described as a banquet in honour of the bride; there was a general revival of hospitality, and the Malletts were at every function. This was Caroline's reward for her instructed enthusiasm for ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... Ritualistic services at Saint Cow's, and he renders the organ-accompaniments with such unusual freedom from reminiscences of the bacchanalian repertory, that the Gospeler is impelled to compliment him as ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... of the world's cleverness and kindness than I do," was Lilburne's rather ambiguous answer to the compliment. "But why does my sister ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the choir, the congregation seemingly supposing it as little their concern as Cupid thought it his—who curled himself up comfortably, and went to sleep. The gentlemen appeared to be amusing themselves by staring at the ladies; the ladies either returned the compliment slily behind their fans, or exchanged courtesies with each other. There was a long, long bidding prayer, and a sermon which might have been fitly prefaced by the announcement, "Let us talk to the praise and glory of Charles the First!" It was over at last. The gentlemen ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... blessings and of one coming blessing in particular. Mr. Gladstone joined us, and Sir Henry Irving came over to speak to Eve. She told him I had just said that England had a mold for handsome men. Irving was interesting and striking, though certainly not handsome; but he took the compliment to himself, smiled, bowed ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... that of the lawyer who made a similar inquiry with the purpose of tempting the Master.[1000] Jesus said: "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." This remark was no denial of sinlessness on the Savior's part; the young man had called Him "good" by way of polite compliment rather than in recognition of His Godship, and Jesus declined to acknowledge the distinction when applied in that sense. The Lord's remark must have deepened the young man's conception as to the seriousness of his question. Then said Jesus: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... whom this could have been said without absurdity. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was so conspicuous a factor in bringing on the war which abolished American slavery that to credit these results to Mrs. Stowe was not fulsome flattery but graceful compliment. ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... pleased to see you again, Mr. Hendrickson." There was more than a parting compliment in her tones as she said these words. "I have never thought you stupid." What pleasure he derived from repeating these sentences over and over again! Early in the evening he called upon his ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... been a dull wife, for this last compliment is a reply, full of polite alacrity, to a letter from her asking for a little flattery. How assiduously, and with what a civilized absence of uncouthness, of shame-facedness, and of slang of the mind, with what simplicity, alertness, and finish, does he step out at her invitation, ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... after, on a winter evening, there was a large company assembled at Mr. Clinton's dwelling. It was in compliment to Alice, for that day completed her twentieth year. As she moved from one spot to another, her sweet face radiant with happiness, Aunt Mary's eyes followed her with a devoted expression, which betrayed ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... more talkers than thinkers; more speakers than listeners. Presently 'Order' would be called, and comparative silence would ensue; a speaker, stranger or citizen, would be announced with much courtesy and compliment. 'Hear, hear, hear' would follow, with clapping of hands and knocking of knuckles on the tables, till the half-pints danced; then a speech, with compliments to some brother orator or popular statesman; next a resolution in favour of Parliamentary Reform, and a speech to second it; an amendment ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... will you undervalue yourself? Will you degrade yourself? I took Abbot Thorold, from his talk, to be a man who set even a higher value on himself than other men set on him. What higher compliment can I pay to your vast worth, than making your ransom high accordingly, after the spirit of our ancient English laws? Take it as it is meant, beau Sire; be proud to pay the money; and we will throw you Sir Ascelin ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... there are always Napoleons who hold their own through many vicissitudes; but the ordinary cow is continually liable to lose her foothold. Some cow she has always despised, and has often sent tossing across the yard at her horns' ends, some pleasant morning will return the compliment ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... bewitching enthusiasm and convincing calculation. Dicaeopolis in the "Aeharnenses," in presenting a gentleman called Nicharchus to the audience, observes: "He is small, I confess, but, there is nothing lost in him: all is knave that is not fool." Parodying the equivocal compliment, I may say that though Uncle Jack was no giant, there was nothing lost in him. Whatever was not philanthropy was arithmetic, and whatever was not arithmetic was philanthropy. He would have been equally dear to ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... only he had a grain of wit he would compliment her in the grand style by way of thanks; but that being so stupid he could only say he was ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... but compromised by leaning over the house and watching the cutter and making comments on her actions for the benefit of the rest of us. Through it all O'Donnell stood to the wheel and the nearest he came to honoring the cutter by a compliment was when he'd half turn his head, spit over the rail and swear at her. The wind and sea-way together were too much for the cutter. The Colleen left her behind, and she at last drew off after bunching a few ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... wife's character, who were in an aroused and excited state by the fact that so lovely and good and patient a woman had actually been forced for some unexplained cause to leave him. His policy at that time was to make large general confessions of sin, and to praise and compliment her, with a view of enlisting sympathy. Everybody feels for a handsome sinner, weeping on his knees, asking pardon for his offences against his wife ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of himself. To the same friend, who had printed something comparing Mr. Mill's repulse at Westminster with the dismissal of the great minister of Lewis the Sixteenth, he wrote:—'I never received so gratifying a compliment as the comparison of me to Turgot; it is indeed an honour to me that such an assimilation should have occurred to you.' Those who have studied the character of one whom even the rigid Austin thought worthy to be called 'the godlike Turgot,' ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... his letters, complaining of the treatment which his poem had found, "owns that such critics can intimidate him, nay almost persuade him, to write no more, which is a compliment this age deserves." The man who threatens the world is always ridiculous, for the world can easily go on without him, and in a short time will cease to miss him. I have heard of an idiot, who used to revenge his vexatious by lying all night upon the bridge. "There is nothing," says Juvenal, "that ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... me the compliment I want. Look at those barges loaded with pottery! All those thousands of little vases—koulal, as the natives call them—are made in Keneh. I've seen the men doing it—boys too—the wet clay spinning round the brown finger that makes the orifice. How good it is to see ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... he was especially proficient in the art of strapping on a lady's skates, and murmuring,—as he adjusted the last buckle,—"The prettiest foot and ankle on the river!" It cannot be denied that this compliment gave secret pleasure to the fair village maidens who received it, but it was a pleasure accompanied by electric shocks of excitement. A girl's foot might perhaps be mentioned, if a fellow were daring enough, but the line was rigidly drawn at the ankle, which was not ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that rejoiced the hearts of pirates. I considered that it took a brutal kind of man to do such work. For myself I felt certain that, though I got the upper-hand of a fellow who had tried to murder me, I should never have the callousness to return the compliment. The thought of shedding blood ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... offer of assistance rather more seriously than I intended. Muttering some commonplace compliment, I begged ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... Basil's welcome were those of a born commander. In contrast with his host's elaborate courtesy, the manners of Venantius might have been judged a trifle barbarous, but this bluntness was no result of defective breeding; had he chosen, he could have exchanged lofty titles and superlatives of compliment with any expert in such fashionable extravagances, but he chose a plainer speech, in keeping with his martial aspect. First of all he excused himself for having arrived with ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... twenty-four, and she twenty-two. He asked permission to visit her at Clichy, and made his appearance there the next day. He first wrote to her, declaring his love, under the name of Romeo, and she, taking advantage of the subterfuge, returned his letter in the presence of other friends, with a compliment on its cleverness, while she advised him not to waste his ability on works of imagination, when it could be so much better employed in politics. Lucien was not thus to be repulsed. He then addressed her in his own name, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the compliment with a bland gesture, which asserted that only his magnanimity prevented ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... Thank you, Brian. There's few I'd let put me under a compliment; but I take it from you. Maire, as I said, is a careful girl, but some of us must have our freedom. Besides, Brian, the bird that sings lone sings slow. The man of art must have his listeners. (Conn takes the money off dresser) Anne, daughter, what's keeping you there? Sure the spectacles ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... regarded as their "sensation," or stock in trade. True, there is now and then one made happier by hearing that he seems exceedingly miserable; but it is more natural to brighten with pleasant words, and a morning compliment of good looks will often set one up for the day. Indeed, we fancy that most persons, knowing their disease, in their own minds, prefer that it should chiefly rest there. To discuss seems only to define it more sharply, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... always easily aroused, returned the compliment with the most evident sincerity; but the Borzoi, having flung down the gage of battle and asserted her dignity, retired gracefully from the contest, and walking daintily up to her master rose and placed her slender paws ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... friend, I can return the compliment," observed the man of business. "Your limitation is to be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... weeks later the proverbially "unlucky Smith" was ordered to report at the office of the Admiral Commanding, and he had a sharp struggle to maintain a becoming composure when he heard the terse compliment and the mention of a recommendation from that austere officer, coupled with the intelligence that the zeppelin had dropped into the sea off the coast ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... up finally, when a powerful large Secesher came up and embraced me, and to show that he had no hard feelins agin me, put his nose into my mouth. I returned the compliment by placin my stummick suddenly agin his right foot, when he kindly made a spittoon of his able-bodied face. Actooated by a desire to see whether the Secesher had bin vaxinated I then fastened my teeth onto his left coat-sleeve and ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... Shepherd's Orphans' Home fund for the fiscal year. Ever since the wreck of the Through, Friendship had contributed to the support of the Home,—having first understood then that the Home was its patient pensioner,—and now it was almost like a compliment that we had been appealed to ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... subtropical vegetation, that the charm of the town lies. That charm is a certain homely friendliness in the aspect of the place, the bustle, the soberness and geniality of its people. Further, Penzance is a good place to get away from—which sounds like a left-handed compliment, but has really quite other meaning; it is a fine centre for the whole far ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... boiled potatoes and spinach and sliced cucumbers that day, followed by a marvellous concoction which the steward called a prune pudding. Perry said he didn't care what it was called so long as it came, and, please he'd like some more! No cook can withstand such a compliment as that, and Ossie cast off his gloom. They all declared that that dinner was just about the best they had ever eaten, and they meant it, and Ossie swelled visibly with pride and almost declined Han's half-hearted offer ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... were even indications that he admired it; indications dimmed, it is true, by the distance that lay between the lofty boss-pilotical altitude and my lowly one, yet perceptible to me; perceptible, and translatable into a compliment—compliment coming down from about the snow-line and not well thawed in the transit, and not likely to set anything afire, not even a cub-pilot's self-conceit; still a detectable ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... rebuilt and refitted in many ways, was christened the M. N. 1, and a wonderful craft she proved to be. Mary Nestor was quite pleased when Tom told her what he had done. She appreciated the delicate compliment he had ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... for our merchandize, and desired a list of our wares might be sent on shore; all of which our general promised to do forthwith, and withdraw from the shore, causing our bases, curriers[296], and arquebuses to be fired off in compliment to the Portuguese, while at the same time our ships saluted them with five or six cannon shot. Most of the Portuguese now left the shore, except a few who remained to receive the list of our commodities; but, while we meant honestly and fairly to trade with them as friends, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... gratified at this compliment, although (to one used to natives) it seemed rather a hollow one. It meant only that I should have to lay out a good deal of money on tools and food and to give wages under the guise of presents to some workmen who were most of them old and in ill-health. Conceive how much I was surprised ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... know'st, the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek, For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night! Fain would I dwell on form; fain, fain deny What I have spoke! But farewell compliment! Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say—Ay; And I will take thy word! yet, if thou swear'st, Thou may'st prove false; at lover's perjuries, They say, Jove laughs. Oh, gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully! Or, if thou think'st I am too ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... marry, and promised to support him through the consequences. His own measures had been arranged beforehand, and he had secured himself in technical entrenchments by his appeal. After the issue of the brief, however, he could allow no English embassy to compliment Clement by its presence on his visit to France. He "knew the pope," as he said. Long experience had shown him that nothing was to be gained by yielding in minor points; and the only chance which now remained of preserving the established order of Christendom, ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... mystillectual insect," she replied, proud of the compliment. "But what's the good of being alive, even like a daisy, unless ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... second time of meeting, and you already venture to doubt! This can scarcely be construed into a compliment, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... Cardinal, who paid her a compliment composed of old words taken from one of her books; she saw the point immediately. 'You laugh over the poor old girl, but laugh, great genius, laugh! everybody must contribute something to your diversion.' ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... of his hand waved his brother's courtly compliment away, as it were, and turned on him with a ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... victim. He makes no reproaches, since he is ever of opinion that all such things as offences and services, crimes and virtues, are soup prepared from the bones of great-grandfathers, and served in painted pots to Arcadians. All this was concluded with a compliment which was smooth, rounded, exquisite as to style, plan, ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... President in the election which was to take place that fall to choose a successor to President Buchanan. Indeed, quite a year earlier, an editor in Illinois had written to him asking permission to announce him as a candidate in his newspaper. At that time Lincoln had refused, thanking him for the compliment, but adding modestly: "I must in candor say that I do not think myself fit for the Presidency." About Christmas time, 1859, however, a number of his stanchest Illinois friends urged him to let them use his name, and he consented, not so much ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... leaders, she took one's best work for granted, and was chary with her praise; and even when praise was given it usually came by indirect routes. I recall with amusement that the highest compliment she ever paid me in public involved her in a tangle from which, later, only her quick wit extricated her. We were lecturing in an especially pious town which I shall call B——, and just before I went on the ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... that he has got himself the name of Scotinus—a dark writer. "Now," says Casaubon, "it is a wonder to me that anything could be obscure to the divine wit of Scaliger, from which nothing could be hidden." This is, indeed, a strong compliment, but no defence; and Casaubon, who could not but be sensible of his author's blind side, thinks it time to abandon a post that was untenable. He acknowledges that Persius is obscure in some places; but so is Plato, so is Thucydides; ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... shirt—the nearest shave he had ever had. The volunteer dropped back to his side, and then, after, a while, waved an empty tin in his hand as a notice that he desired a resumption of friendly relations. The Chinese brave cautiously put his head up, and once again, with a crack, the compliment was returned, and the soldier was slightly wounded, and now we only peer through our loopholes and are careful of our heads. The novelty of the armistice is wearing off, and we feel that we are only ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... am doing here in New York, and who my friends are, and what my work amounts to. You have let me see a great deal of you, and I have appreciated your doing so very much; to so young a man as myself it has been a great compliment, and it has been of great benefit to me. I know that better than any one else. I say this because unless you had shown me this confidence it would have been almost impossible for me to say to you what I am going to say now. But you have allowed me to come here frequently, and to see you and talk ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... voice for her uncle's ambitions was so unmistakable that it made her whole answer seem a compliment to Mr. Hall, rather than the reverse. It implied that the sterling worth of the young secretary was far more to be desired than the riches and rank advocated by her uncle. This time Gregory Hall looked at the speaker with a faint smile, ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... this compliment, and gave Carrington one of his cold glances that meant mischief. But he took up the ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... he declared, bluntly; in his mood of the day he was finding no good qualities in mankind. "I never heard of Eck Flagg having any friends. Well, I'll take that back! I believe he's ace high among the Tarratine Indians up our way; they have made him an honorary chief. But it's no particular compliment to a white man's disposition to be able to qualify as an Indian, ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... Monsieur Froment. You are a priest, your book is a success, you have published a cheap edition of it which sells very readily; and I don't speak of its literary merit, which is remarkable, for it contains a breath of real poetry which transported me, and on which I must really compliment you. However, under the circumstances which I have enumerated, how could we close our eyes to such a work as yours, in which the conclusion arrived at is the annihilation of our holy religion and the destruction ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... astronomy, are not of much use. Suppose you find out the chemical composition of the nebulae you are studying, will that lower the price of bread? No; but it will interest and enlighten us. If the Martians can tell us what Mars is made of, and we can return the compliment as regards the earth, that ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... the value of which is enhanced by its coming, as it does, from an acute observer of a social system in which every thing was wholly at variance with his preconceived habits and ideas, and from one, moreover, totally unacquainted with that routine of compliment, which serves gentlemen in the regions of Franguestan, to use the words of Die Vernon, "like the toys and beads which navigators carry with them to propitiate the inhabitants of newly-discovered lands." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... my thanks for your compliment, were I able. I make but a sorry picture at the moment, I fear, but my ragged and hardly respectable appearance you will excuse. May I know to whom I am indebted for ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... was softened by his crushed mien, and by his inflamed eyes. Having arrived at their verdict, they discussed Arabs—or, as they called them, "Ayrabs"—and one honest old fellow even paid the race a compliment, in saying: ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... pages, leading a multitude of richly-caparisoned horses towards the upper end of the court, where a gallant troop of dames, nobles, and gentlemen, all attired for the chase, awaited them; and where, amidst much mirth, and bandying of lively jest and compliment, a general mounting took place, the ladies, of course, being placed first on their steeds. While this was going forward, the hounds were brought from the kennel in couples—relays having been sent down into the park more than an hour before—and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... are set in constant Opposition, and Religion every-where inculcated in its native Beauty and chearful Amiableness; not dressed up in stiff, melancholy, or gloomy Forms, on one hand, nor yet, on the other, debased below its due Dignity and noble Requisites, in Compliment to a too fashionable but depraved Taste. And this I will boldly say, that if its numerous Beauties are added to its excellent Tendency, it will be found worthy a Place, not only in all Families (especially ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... so early, cousin, that you have come in upon us just as mother was about to dress," said Cecile Camusot in a coaxing tone. But Cousin Pons had caught sight of the Presidente's shrug, and felt so cruelly hurt that he could not find a compliment, and contented himself with the profound remark, "You are always charming, my ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... flattered," answered the Baronet, sternly, and roused by the risk in which he saw himself placed, "if it is to me you mean to apply that compliment." ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... TENNYSON'S Poems. Very pleased with the result. Must send a copy to dear old ALF. Perhaps it might suggest to him that it would be a graceful compliment in return to translate all my speeches into Latin verse. Dear old friend! There is not another man to whom I would entrust such a task with equal heartiness. He would do it so well. Must look up my earlier orations. If ALF ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... is, and which will yet make her that which she is destined to become? These are things which it becomes us both to remember and to think upon. And, therefore, it is that, as our distinguished guest, with innate modesty, has already said, this is not a mere personal festivity—this is no occasional compliment. We see in it a deeper and wider significance. We celebrate in it the union of two nations. While I ask you to return your thanks to our chairman I think I may venture also to ask of our guest a boon which he will not refuse us. We have a great message to send, and we ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... Lupicinus, of whom we have already spoken, learnt by secret intelligence that this was taking place, while he was engaged in an extravagant entertainment, surrounded by buffoons, and almost overcome by wine and sleep, he, fearing the issue, put to death all the guards who, partly as a compliment and partly as a guard to the chiefs, were on duty before ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... refer. The same thing is still more strikingly true of the variations on the termination of nouns, as prince, princess; lion, lioness, which are all discriminative of Sex. It seems therefore to be a mis-stated compliment which is usually paid to the English, when it is said that "this is the only language which has adapted the gender of its nouns to the constitution of Nature." The fact is, that it has adapted the Form of some of the most common names of ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... Frederick in the end, and the latter outlived him by some thirty years. The relations between the two must have been quite pleasant and comfortable, as you may judge from the concessions made by the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire to Bohemia's King. A pretty and tactful compliment it was on the part of Frederick to allow Ottokar's heralds, when preceding their royal master to the Imperial Diet, to carry lighted torches on poles before him, and this to signify that the Bohemian excursionists were at liberty to burn down anything ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... to you, under a flying seal, a letter of congratulation and compliment to Fitzgibbon, which expresses no more than I really feel on that subject. ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... you—no doubt," said Escobar, and again he smiled at her covetously. Joan shook the compliment off her with ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... only thing that always happens to you is success,' said Kendal, rather hating himself for the cheapness of the compliment. 'I hear wonderful reports of the difficulty of getting a seat at the Calliope; and his friends tell me that Mr. Robinson looks ten years younger. Poor man! it is time that ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her wedding were indeed a halcyon season for Mrs. Tempest. She existed in an atmosphere of millinery and pretty speeches. Her attention was called away from a ribbon by the sweet distraction of a compliment, and oscillated between tender whispers and honiton lace. Conrad Winstanley was a delightful lover. His enemies would have said that he had done the same kind of thing so often, that it would have been strange if he had not done it well. His was assuredly no 'prentice hand in the art. Poor Mrs. ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... Gresham be involved so deeply as you say, Frank has but one duty before him. He must marry money. The heir of fourteen thousand a year may indulge himself in looking for blood, as Mr Gresham did, my dear"—it must be understood that there was very little compliment in this, as the Lady Arabella had always conceived herself to be a beauty—"or for beauty, as some men do," continued the countess, thinking of the choice that the present Earl de Courcy had made; "but Frank ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... people in the face, on which head, by-the-bye, I notice the papers to take "Mr. Dickens's extraordinary composure" (their great phrase) rather ill, and on the whole to imply that it would be taken as a suitable compliment if I would stagger on to the platform and instantly drop, overpowered by ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... straw hat, and he wished that he had the courage to tell her in her own language that she was just too sweet for anything. But he feared above all things lest he should offend her, and so put an end to their present pleasant intimacy. So his compliment ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and very vital psychic influences are probably the best stock in trade of the "Doctor of the old school." These qualities appear at present less likely to be "had for hire" in a Government official. The Chinese may yet return the missionary compliment by teaching us to adopt their method of paying the doctor only when and as long as the ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... enough for one day, to test her power over me, to-night she made me dance with her. And now I feel like a fool as I think of Etty playing a waltz for us, at Flora's request, and giving me a long, serious look as I approached the piano to compliment her playing. I could not utter a word. I answered her gaze with one as sober, and more sad, and came away to my room, to have some talk with my ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... love was not devoid of gallantry, by any means. To pay compliments to the woman whom a man loves is the first method of bestowing caresses, and he is half audacious who tries it. A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil. Voluptuousness mingles there with its sweet tiny point, while it hides itself. The heart draws back before voluptuousness only to love the more. Marius' blandishments, all saturated with fancy, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... The daup (bauhinia) is a small, white, semiflosculous flower, with a faint smell. The leaves alone attract notice, being double, as if united by a hinge, and this peculiarity suggested the Linnean name, which was given in compliment to two brothers of the name of Bauhin, celebrated botanists, who ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... for the trouble I took in changing my dress this evening," said Elizabeth, glancing down at it complacently. "I did not expect that it would bring me so poetic a compliment. Thank you, Percival." ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... {obscure}. VMS fans sometimes refer to Unix as 'Runix'; Unix fans return the compliment by expanding VMS to 'Very Messy Syntax' or 'Vachement Mauvais Syst'eme' (French ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... then visible in Italy. 'This extraordinary man,' writes the baron, February 1820, 'speaks thirty-two languages, living and dead—in the manner I am going to describe. He accosted me in Hungarian, with a compliment so well-turned, and in such excellent Magyar, that I was quite taken by surprise. He afterwards spoke to me in German, at first in good Saxon, and then in the Austrian and Swabian dialects, with a correctness ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... with which the clergy of monotheistic religions attack suicide is not supported either by the Bible or by any valid reasons; so it looks as if their zeal must be instigated by some secret motive. May it not be that the voluntary sacrificing of one's life is a poor compliment to him who ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... went on to Leyden, Utrecht, Rynen, and Nimeguen, to where the Dutch army was encamped about Genep, a strong fortress on the Wahale river. Here he enrolled himself and served for a few days as a volunteer in the Queen's army 'according to the compliment,' being attached to the English company of Captain Apsley: and in this capacity he 'received many civilities.' Even when thus playing at soldering, he did not like the roughness of a soldier's life, 'for the sun ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... the stage they stopped to compliment her with a few mechanical words and a hard smile. Kate thanked them and returned to her dream all aglow and absorbed in remembrances of her success. The word 'success' returned in her thoughts like the refrain of a song. Yes, she had succeeded. Wherever she went she would be admired. There ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... to have been the founder of a great many English churches, turned the temple into a Christian sanctuary. Then we hear that in 616 A.D., Sebert, King of Essex, founded an Abbey here, and dedicated it to St. Peter, "in order to balance the compliment he had made to St. Paul on Ludgate Hill." All this is very doubtful, but from the earliest times in history there has been shown a grave of Sebert as that of the founder ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... yonder and his friends there, and when he is tired of them returns hither, and expects that I shall kneel and welcome him. And he sends you as his chamberlain! What a proud embassy! Monsieur, I make you my compliment of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of corn and oats in the same field, he protected it most carefully, and picketed his horses so that it could not be injured. No fences were wantonly destroyed, poultry was not disturbed, nor did he compliment our blooded cattle so much as to test the quality ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... answered Hal, "Dick had us and we returned the compliment, and here's a tenner for your trouble. Now you had better go back to Melbourne by to-day's express and keep your eye on Dick. Our address will ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... have played a better game," he said solemnly, and the girls knew that he could pay them no higher compliment, for this team was considered invincible ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... "for it was a compliment to you that I return, and no compliment at all to me that you stay after I am gone so as to visit the ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... eve, and the first who announced the crowing of the Cock, if a male, was rewarded with a cup of tea, in which was mixed a glass of spirits; if a female, the tea only; but, as a substitute for the whisky, she was saluted with half a dozen kisses, which was the greatest compliment that could be paid her. The Christmas block for the fire, or Yule log, was indispensable. The last place in which I saw it was the hall of Lord Ward's mansion, near Downpatrick, in Ireland; and although it was ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... each other, according to the part of the world they were to meet in.—I remember the time, when I only knew your person, and coveted your acquaintance; at that time we lived in the same town, knew each other's general character, but passed without speaking, or even the compliment of the hat; yet had we met in London, we should certainly have taken some civil notice of each other: had the interview been at York, it is five to one but it would have produced a conversation: at Edinburgh, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... by saying that his father was the handsomest man in Persia, but his grandfather was the handsomest of all the Medes he had ever seen. Astyages was even more pleased by this proof of his grandson's adroitness and good sense than he had been with the compliment which the boy had paid to him; and thenceforward Cyrus became an established favorite, and did and said, in his grandfather's presence, almost ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... something half under his breath that may have been meant for a compliment to Ranjoor Singh, but the risaldar-major missed it, for he had stepped up to the nearest of the Northern gentlemen and confronted him. There was a great show of looking in each other's eyes and muttering under the breath some word and counter-word. Each made a sign with his right hand, then ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... at my compliment (as I am sure she need not have done, since it was a very commonplace fact), but at something which was stirring in her mind; and she still looked at me kindly, but with the above-said keen look in her eyes, ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... wait. The puppies became troublesome; he chided them, and put the bit of leather they were quarreling about in his pocket. Then he patted the hound, and said: "There's a deal o' difference between them and thee, Fanny, and it's a' in thy favor, lass;" and Fanny understood the compliment, for she whimpered happily, and thrust her handsome head ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... city of the name of Berenice, called the Berenice Epidires, at the very mouth of the Red Sea on a point of land where Abyssinia is hardly more than fifteen miles from the opposite coast of Arabia. This naming of cities after his mother and sisters was no idle compliment; they probably received the crown revenues of those cities for their ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... been filled with claret Dr. Woodford uttered a diplomatic compliment on the healthful and robust appearance of the eldest and youngest sons, and asked whether any cause had been assigned for the difference between them ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flushed with pleasure. The compliment was unexpected, but in every way the prospect it opened was an agreeable one. His only doubt was as ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... can be no bridesmaids; which deprives us of the happiness of paying a pretty compliment to the daughters of several families of distinction whom we have the privilege of numbering among ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... appetizing courses were served, the conversation drifted back to the World's Columbian Fair which all had attended. Many of the wonders of the "White City" were recounted, and Henley in his off-hand manner repeated a compliment which was paid by a cultivated Parisian who visited the Fair. The Frenchman said that at the last Paris Exposition, he saw immense and unsightly structures, such as one might expect to find in far-off ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... Mrs. Darrell received the compliment very modestly, and then tried to persuade Milly to sing or play; but the girl declined resolutely. Nothing could induce her to touch the piano after that ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... not the game all to themselves. The French almost immediately replied with considerable spirit to the compliment ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... this Berowne is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which, accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king; it may concern much. Stay not thy compliment; ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... that's great pay!" cried Polly, with sparkling eyes, ignoring the compliment, but enchanted to hear what a price verses brought. "I'll send ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... country been apt to confound scientific inquisitiveness with unbelief, and to denounce physical science especially as a delusion and a snare, and its cultivators as impostors none the less mischievous for being at the same time dupes. Of course, the latter have not been slow to return the compliment. Hearing the truths discovered by them stigmatised as falsehoods, they naturally enough retorted the charge of falsity against the divine authorities in whose name it was made. Finding war waged against them by every religion with which they were acquainted, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... Steevens observes, no uncommon thing to introduce a compliment to Queen Elizabeth in the body of a play. See "Midsummer's Night's Dream," act ii. sc. 2. See also "Locrine," act ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... of record two distinct accounts of Colonel Starbottle's first meeting with his ward after his appointment as her guardian. One, given by himself, varying slightly at times, but always bearing unvarying compliment to the grace, beauty, and singular accomplishments of this apparently gifted child, was nevertheless characterized more by vague, dreamy reminiscences of the departed parents than by any personal experience of ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... you could manage it for me, Mr. Bansemer," she said, plaintively. "They say you never fail at anything you undertake." He was not sure there was a compliment in her remark, so he treated it ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... there to welcome him—the little boy's name was Laurie, he had been given the name out of compliment to Aunt Laura; somehow or other it was almost like "coming home" instead of "going away" he thought, it was so home-like; perhaps it was because everything was so very, very old, that their newness and strangeness had entirely worn off. Perhaps it was because his mother had so often told him ...
— The Pigeon Tale • Virginia Bennett
... We'll have lunch at the Amarilla Club—though I belong also to the Anglo-American—mining engineers and business men, don't you know—and to the Mirliflores as well, a new club—English, French, Italians, all sorts—lively young fellows mostly, who wanted to pay a compliment to an old resident, sir. But we'll lunch at the Amarilla. Interest you, I fancy. Real thing of the country. Men of the first families. The President of the Occidental Republic himself belongs to it, sir. Fine old bishop with a broken nose in ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... a strangely attractive animal, and 'Zekiel, from the time he could first indistinctly put a name to anything, had christened it the "Fozzy-gog" out of compliment to its owner, Dame Fossie—and the "Fozzy-gog" it remained to him, and to the other children of the ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... gave her a saucy bow, with his hand on Dan's arm,—Dan, who was now too well pleased at having Faith made happy by a compliment to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... said Mr. Burnham, smiling. "Taking the circumstances into consideration, I regard that as the best compliment for our coal that I ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... sound, advanced Radical like Emerson T. Herdman, a man who pays them thirty or forty thousand a year, and who spends all his money in their midst, the fules go and vote for a thing like Arthur O'Connor, who never was here but once, and who never did them the compliment of issuing an address. When Mr. Herdman came to Stranorlar the people stoned him and his friends. And yet nobody ever said, or could say, a word against the Herdmans, who are among the most popular people in Ireland, and who deserve the best that can be said of ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... frequent visits seldom fail'd to please; Easy himself, he sought his neighbour's ease: To a small garden with delight he came, And gave successive flowers a summer's fame; These he presented, with a grace his own, To his fair friends, and made their beauties known, Not without moral compliment; how they "Like flowers were sweet, and must like flowers decay.' Simple he was, and loved the simple truth, Yet had some useful cunning from his youth; A cunning never to dishonour lent, And rather for defence than conquest meant; 'Twas ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... we encountered officers from our own corps and from other regiments, with whom we were acquainted, and who greeted us gaily or otherwise, according to their temper and disposition. But everybody—officers, troops, batt-men—looked curiously at our Siwanois Indian, who returned the compliment not at all, but with stately stride and expressionless visage moved straight ahead of him, as ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... to Lilian, "his appearance is a compliment to Miss Mumbray. When did you see him looking so well ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... "I never heard of Eck Flagg having any friends. Well, I'll take that back! I believe he's ace high among the Tarratine Indians up our way; they have made him an honorary chief. But it's no particular compliment to a white man's disposition to be able to qualify as an Indian, as I look ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... bears had eaten all their bread, whereon the men agreed that "Bruin was now square with them." An islet next to Table Island—they are both mere rocks—is the most northern land discovered. Therefore, Parry applied to it the name of lieutenant—afterwards Sir James—Ross. This compliment Sir James Ross acknowledged in the most emphatic manner, by discovering on his part, at the other Pole, the most southern land yet seen, and giving to it the ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... it was a compliment to you that I return, and no compliment at all to me that you stay after I am gone so as to visit the ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... There was something in the earnestness of her manner which made a facetious compliment seem grossly inappropriate, and in the moment no ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... was largely overshadowed by the sturdy Radicalism of Charterson, but presently as he understood this interesting game better, he embarked upon a line of his own. Charterson wanted a seat, and presently got it; his maiden speech on the Sugar Bounties won a compliment from Mr. Evesham; and Harman, who would have piloted a monoplane sooner than address the House, decided to be one of those silent influences that work outside our national assembly. He came to the help of an embarrassed Liberal weekly, and then, in a Fleet Street crisis, undertook the larger ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... many others of high rank, some of the most distinguished tribunes generally come to salute an emperor on his arrival from distant lands. And accordingly, when Constantius, on his return from Mesopotamia, received this compliment, a Paphlagonian named Amphilochius, who had been a tribune, and whom suspicion, not very far removed from the truth, hinted at as having, while serving formerly under Constans, sown the seeds of discord between him and his brother, now ventured, with ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... agitated her as Liars All. And she had paid it the highest compliment in her power—she had flung aside her political novel, and the historical one that she had been touching up, and the detective tale that she had been copying afresh, and she had started feverishly upon a short story that ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... wuz different then;" but didn't really spoze so, human nater havin' capered about the same from the start. "'Tennyrate," sez I, "I shall always believe that Miss Crassus wuz good as gold, and this great massive monument that it seems as if the hand of Time can't ever throw down I take as a great compliment to my sect as ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... manner might be a very misleading symbol, might cover pitfalls and bottomless gulfs, when it had reached that perfection and corresponded so little to fact. What he had wanted was that his people should be as easy as they could see their way to being, but with such a high standard of compliment where after all was sincerity? And without sincerity how could people get on together when it came to their settling down to common life? Then the Dossons might have surprises, and the surprises would be painful in proportion as their ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... The compliment, which should have brought happiness to the girl, only touched her lightly; she hardly acknowledged it with a weak smile. Picking up a pencil, she ran the thick end along the edge of the desk, as if she were giving the teacher only ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... friend wife's favorite Victrola record. Told her about it. She came back with, "Well, that's the only record you ever broke." Do you think she was bawling me out or was she paying me a compliment? ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... more than once invited her to come and pay her a visit in the town. Nothing had hitherto come of the invitation, for even Madeleine, unversed as she was in the ways of society, could see that nothing more was meant than a compliment. ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... in her; one way or another she will find children looking to her for love and help, and she must fit herself to educate those children, for this is a woman's main duty in life; she should never be satisfied till she has earned a right to the compliment which Steele paid his wife—that "to know her was a liberal ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... afterward told me, Brant advised General Herkimer to go home, thanked him for having come to pay the visit, and said that at some near day he might return the compliment. ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... flag in compliment to Switzerland, where the movement was started. You see they are the same except that the ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... was not able to give the least attention to this compliment. The moment he cast his eyes on the forty trays, full of the most precious, brilliant, and beautiful jewels he had ever seen, and the fourscore slaves, who appeared by the elegance of their persons, and the richness and magnificence of their dress, like so many princes, he was so struck, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... head of the poet-world, than it would have been in the first half of the sixteenth century. During the reign of Francis I. and after the date of Clement Marot, there is no poet of any celebrity to speak of, unless we except Francis I. himself and his sister Marguerite; and it is only in compliment to royalty's name that they need be spoken of. They, both of them, had evidently a mania for versifying, even in their most confidential communications, for many of their letters to one another, those during the captivity of Francis I. at Madrid amongst the rest, are written in verse; but their ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... The Queen must compliment Sir Robert Peel on his beautiful and indeed unanswerable speech of last night, which we have been reading with the greatest attention.[1] The concluding part we also greatly admire. Sir R. Peel has made a very strong case. Surely the impression ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... almost abreast, looked like two islands joined together at the bottom, rising to a sharp edge ragged at the top and resembling a large tower or castle. This island I named The Devil's Tower. An island inshore was observed, it bore west-north-west distant 10 miles: I called it Moncur's Island in compliment to Captain Moncur of the Royal Navy, and another was visible bearing north by east 16 or ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... observance has been slowly and painfully accomplished, the extremities in question are not less small but infinitely less graceful than the select and naturally-formed pair which this person sees before him." And at the ingeniously-devised compliment (which, not to become large-headed in self-imagination, it must be admitted was revealed to me as available for practically all occasions by the really invaluable Quang-Tsun), ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... any body.' Johnson said, he thought he had already done his part as a writer. 'I should have thought so too, (said the King,) if you had not written so well.'—Johnson observed to me, upon this, that 'No man could have paid a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a King to pay. It was decisive.' When asked by another friend, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, whether he made any reply to this high compliment, he answered, 'No, Sir. When the King had said it, it was to be so. It was ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Nicholas Longworth came to Harvard College in the autumn of 1862 and called on Mr. Longfellow, who had been entertained at his father's house in Cincinnati, the poet said to him: "It is worth that makes the man; the want of it the fellow" —a compliment that almost dumfounded his young acquaintance. It is certain that Longfellow addressed a poem to Mrs. Longworth which will be found in the collection of his minor poems, and in which he speaks ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... bears!" (It was rather a compliment to call it a lake, it being only about twenty yards across and forty long.) "The ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... pay me. He paid me the compliment of supposing that I take an interest in you. But he said nothing except what I said he said. He said if he got down on his knees you would ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... You look very nice always,' answered Gladys truthfully, and the sincere compliment pleased Liz, though she did not ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... shall break out in paeans of brilliant stars!—for, when I entered the charmed presence, the very ball that I had been wishing to roll was upon the carpet. But of this I was unconscious as I admired Fanny's new dress, the mysterious earrings of our stately Bertha, and ventured upon a slight compliment to Henrietta, who lounged upon the divan. With admirable dexterity, the young lady caught the fleurette upon her crochet needle, reviewed it carelessly, and finally decided to accept it; an event that I had undoubtedly foreseen, for the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... much gratified at this compliment, although (to one used to natives) it seemed rather a hollow one. It meant only that I should have to lay out a good deal of money on tools and food and to give wages under the guise of presents to some workmen who ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mr. Baird was hastening to catch a train at Rochester Bridge Station, a stout elderly lady, handsomely dressed, supposed to be Dean Scott's wife,—but to whom he was unknown,—bowed very politely to him, and in slackening his pace to return the compliment, which he naturally did not understand, he very ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... equivalent Of British Oaths. The French is More chic. A pretty compliment To Piou-Piou in the trenches! A boon untold To Indian colonels suffering from ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... dear. But, oh, John, I liked the powder puff jar the best of all!" Which was the truth, for the fact that he thought her old enough for such feminine weapons was a soul-satisfying compliment. ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... a woman to be met with in society, who does not know, from experience, what a painful thing it is to crush the hopes of a man who is paying her the high compliment of wishing to place the happiness of his life in her keeping; and when to this source of embarrassment is added the consciousness of having culpably raised expectations that she shrinks from realising, the situation becomes doubly distressing. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... Geograph. Minor. Hudson.) In another place he styles the country differently, (v. 898.) This poetical geographer lived in the age of Augustus, and his description of the world is illustrated by the Greek commentary of Eustathius, who paid the same compliment to Homer and Dionysius, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. l. iv. c. 2, tom. iii. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... that they are discoveries. He thinks that the whole street is humming with his ideas, and that the postman and the tailor are poets like himself. Browning's impenetrable poetry was the natural expression of this beautiful optimism. Sordello was the most glorious compliment that has ever been paid ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... paid his compliment to the showy appearances of the late war in our favor, is in the utmost haste to tell you that these appearances were fallacious, that they were no more than an imposition.—I fear I must trouble the reader with a pretty long quotation, in order to set before him the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... little distance off. We were received at the entrance to the garden by our host and his son, who led us to a marble platform by the side of a tank on which three boats were floating. One of these had the name of 'Sunbeam' painted upon it; but the compliment must have been paid some time ago, for both boat and paint looked decidedly shabby. On a marble platform in the centre of the tank a band was playing. My little girls embarked for a row in the boat, discarding the services of the four boatmen ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... kings—his thousands of reader friends have ere this seen with pleasure that the Emperor of all the French was not unmindful of one of his brother-potentates,—in the world of song,—when he paid OLIVER WENDELL the courteous compliment which has of late gone the rounds, and which conferred as much honor on the giver ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... strife at first, but would have protracted it still further had his advice been listened to, was not looked upon with the same favour by the Parisians; but the Parliament sent deputations to them both on their arrival in the city, to compliment them on their efforts for the ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... absolute sincerity dissipated every trace of his apprehension. He felt gay, calmly happy, and yet excited too. He was sure, then, that Rachel's agitation was a pleasurable agitation. It was caused solely by his entrance into the kitchen, by the compliment he was paying to her kitchen! Her eyes glittered; her face shone; her little movements were electric; she was intensely conscious of herself—all because he had come into her kitchen! She could not conceal—perhaps she did not wish to conceal—the joy that his near presence inspired. ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... seen, from one of her letters, that it took her two hours to dress—that she thought nearly as much of eating and drinking as even of Monsieur Grimod; and we shall shortly perceive, that clothes, and love, and gluttony, don't interfere with the powers of poetical compliment, and that her husband—perhaps on the principle of poetry succeeding best in fiction—is still the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... at the boy's unsophisticated compliment. "Well, if you will come to the castle, I will try to teach you to read at all events," she answered. "I should like such a pupil, for I am ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... slippers and a collar, and the ceremony of initiation at once commenced. The candidate was stretched across the lowest desk, face downwards, and in this position greeted with the flat side of a cricket-bat by the junior brother present. He was then advanced to the next desk, where a similar compliment was paid by the next youngest; and so on to the senior brother present. Half way through the ceremony the new member expressed a desire to withdraw his candidature, but this motion was negatived by a large majority. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... is the letter from the Goethe Club of New York, making Mrs. Kendal an honorary member. She is the only woman member of this club. And this pretty little doll dressed as a Quakeress—a charming compliment to the recipient—was presented by the Quakeresses of Philadelphia, who never, never, never go the play, yea, verily! So they sent this as a tribute of their admiration for the talents and character of the woman who has been called ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Miguel Briones; and the least respect I can show a man of your kind is not to pretend that I don't understand the sacrifice you're making. I shall always remember it as about the biggest compliment I ever received, and the biggest risk that any man—except one—ever ran for me. But as the man who ran that bigger risk isn't here to speak for himself, and generally trusts his wife, Susan Markham, to speak for him—it's ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... and Mrs Gunning rising from her chair, curtseyed in her turn, and begged the visitor to be seated. "Lord, Madam," says she, "you catch us very unfit for company; but so kind a heart needs no excuse, and I will be candid with you. We are of birth and breeding like yourself." ('Twas a skilful compliment and the lady simpered.) "And therefore, as a gentlewoman of quality, you shall understand my grief when I present myself as my Lord Viscount Mayo's daughter, and add that I have not the wherewithal to clothe or feed these innocents! You are yourself too young to be a mother, ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... continued. 'As a rule, I fully indorsed his statements on the subject of the war, expressed, I suppose, in that speech and in other speeches.... I share with all my comrades the greatest respect for Debs, and cannot think any compliment ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... for a final game of 'Twenty Questions;' when our hitherto so amiable friend, the Caribbean, suddenly flung a spiteful wave right over the quarter upon us, and put a very unexpected extinguisher on our pastime. The ladies, who were reclining on the deck, came in for the chief share of the compliment, and were in some danger of an indiscriminate swash down the cabin gangway; but the mate gallantly picked up one, and her husband the other, and saved them from all mischief but the drenching. This sudden interruption of amicable relations with the powers of the wave ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... fruit of the durians would be in New York,—mutton from Shanghai, turkey from Siam, beef from Australia, and oysters from far up the river Maur. We felt that besides being a pleasure to ourselves it was a compliment to our royal host to partake generously of his ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... said executor, that I may safely trust my fame to the justice done me by Mr. Lovelace, in his letters to him my said executor. And as Mr. Belford has engaged to contribute what is in his power towards a compliment to be made of all that relates to my story, and knows my whole mind in this respect; it is my desire, that he will cause two copies to be made of this collection; one to remain with Miss Howe, the other with himself; and that he will show or ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... her; she barely answered him. When he attempted to pay her some little compliment on her color, she cut him short in a tone so brusque that he felt suddenly one of those furies of a lover that change tenderness to hatred. Through soul and body he felt a nervous shock, and in a moment he detested her. Yes, yes, that was, indeed, woman! She, ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... new book found vent, The Devil to all the first Reviews A copy of it slyly sent, 465 With five-pound note as compliment, And ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... tribunal," he began, and then went on with a compliment to the King, a flourish to the name of the Prime Minister, a word of praise to the army, and finally a scathing satire on the subversive schemes which it was desired to set up in place of existing institutions. The most crushing denunciation of the delirious idea ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... size, Len, and that's a heavy compliment to the bass. They have been known to reach the weight of one hundred ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... her expression of interest in her kind, of receiving her plan for helping the other half to lead a happier life! Adrian Bond, a dozen, a hundred other men would have known how to give her credit for her kindly intentions toward the less fortunate, would have found a ready way to praise her, to compliment her.... ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... A single recumbent figure in a not very interesting landscape, deserving less attention than a picture of St. Martin just opposite to it,—a noble and knightly figure on horseback by Pordenone, to which I cannot pay a greater compliment than by saying that I was a considerable time in doubt whether or ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... former times, were celebrated for politeness; yet we meet with a naive compliment of a Frenchman, which would have been accounted a bull if it had been found ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... enough to be her father. She replied that she was a good Christian, but not a fool. I fastened her garters for her, saying that I should never have supposed she had so well-shapen and so white a leg, which compliment made her smile in a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... than take an oath denying the Stuarts and to support the House of Hanover? Both might have purchased power at the price of one annual falsehood. There are some in this country who do not seem to think that price at all unreasonable. It were a rare compliment indeed to the non-resistants, if every exhibition of rigid principle on the part of an individual is to make the world suspect him of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... either be made of unnecessarily thick and cumbersome wire, to stand the strain, or if made, as it should be, of the proper sized wire and of light construction, it is sure to break out at one or the other of the joints. Experience having proved this, I devised the net shown in Fig. 43, which, in compliment to a gentleman who gave me a hint with regard to the slide, I have called the "Hill Sliding Net." This slide allows the net to be folded to just half the size of the preceding one, making it, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... with a soldier's frankness to thank you personally for the handsome compliment bestowed in general orders of yesterday, which are reported in the journals of the day. To me it was a surprise and a most agreeable one. I had supposed the actual date of my retirement would form ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... encomium, panegyric, eulogy, applause, laud, acclaim, eclat, plaudit, compliment, acclamation, puff, flattery; worship, homage, glorification; paean. Antonyms: condemnation, dispraise, disapprobation, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... his bread, with his cheese on it, in the palm of his left hand, and glancing at my untasted supper as if he thought of the time when we used to compare slices. "So might Wopsle. And the Jolly Bargemen might take it as a compliment." ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... who is a great admirer of things English, suddenly gave the command to his men, and out of compliment to us "It's a long way to Tipararee" rang out. The pronunciation of the words was most odd and we listened in wonder; the Major's chest however positively swelled with pride, for he had taught them himself! We assured him, tactfully, the result was ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... a compliment, though she fancied that it had not been his direct intention to pay her one. His general attitude since she had met him scarcely suggested such a lack of sense. She was becoming mildly interested in this stranger, but she possessed several essentially English characteristics, ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... persist in the pernicious habit of the formal lecture. Some men plead large classes in excuse. If they were honest with themselves they would usually find that they like large classes as a subtle sort of compliment to themselves. Given the opportunity to break up a class of two hundred into small discussion groups they would frequently refuse, on the score that they would lose a fine opportunity to influence ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... freedom from all affectation. Dr. Johnson's bearing during his interview with the king showed him to be a thorough gentleman, and demonstrates how rare and elevated that character is. When his majesty expressed in the language of compliment his high opinion of Johnson's merits, the latter bowed in silence. If Chesterfield could have retained sufficient presence of mind to have done the same on such an occasion, he would have applauded himself to the end of his days. So delicate is the nature of those qualities that constitute a gentleman, ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... send in for his majesty's signature your commission as captain of horse, and attached to the king's personal staff; it is a high compliment to the memory of your father, sir, and, I may add, your own personal appearance. Chaloner will see to your uniforms and accoutrements; you are well mounted, I believe you have no time to lose, as we march to-morrow for Warrington, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... was undoubtedly delicate. He had paid it the compliment of summoning his two sensible married sisters to aid him with their counsel; and even they, though not lacking in decision as a rule, regarded first the Colonel's letter and then their brother with ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... what letters I shall have to send to you, with an account of all that I can collect, of pleasant or rare, in this wild-goose jaunt of mine! All I stipulate is that you do not communicate them to the SCOTS MAGAZINE; for though you used, in a left-handed way, to compliment me on my attainments in the lighter branches of literature, at the expense of my deficiency in the weightier matters of the law, I am not yet audacious enough to enter the portal which the learned Ruddiman so kindly opened for the acolytes of the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... reasoning might have some weight, if we did not read, in section 44, that it was the ardent wish of Agricola that he might live to behold Trajan in the imperial seat. If Nerva was then alive, the wish to see another in his room would have been an awkward compliment to the reigning prince. It is, perhaps, for this reason that Lipsius thinks this very elegant tract was written at the same time with the Manners of the Germans, in the beginning of the emperor Trajan. The question is not ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... The little compliment pleased John, and he answered, "You shall do just as you wish, darling! I would give up everything to see you look as ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... to my youth, and to Italy: two fine things! (H—- began). I had arrived late in the evening at Florence, and while I finished my bottle of wine at supper, had fancied that, tired traveller though I was, I might pay the city a finer compliment than by going vulgarly to bed. A narrow passage wandered darkly away out of the little square before my hotel, and looked as if it bored into the heart of Florence. I followed it, and at the end of ten ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... of this session deserves mention as showing the distaste of Gallatin for anything like personal compliment, stimulated in this instance, perhaps, by his sense of Washington's dislike to himself. It had been the habit of the House since the commencement of the government to adjourn for a time on February 22, Washington's birthday, that members might pay their respects ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... less than a compliment to compare the American Constitution to the Spanish Inquisition. But oddly enough, it does involve a truth; and still more oddly perhaps, it does involve a compliment. The American Constitution does resemble the Spanish Inquisition ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... prize. 'Tis an old proverb that a man married is a man marred, but in you I see an exception. Were I a few years younger I should have ventured to enter the lists against you. I have knocked about the world, and I can pay Miss Hatherton no higher compliment than to say that she is equally fitted to be queen of a London drawing room or mistress of a factor's humble house. But enough. I wish you every prosperity and happiness, and a long career in the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... which followed the conclusion of the detective's reconstruction of the crime. "It has been quite entrancing to listen to your syllogistical skill. You would have made an excellent Crown Prosecutor." The chief constable's official mind could conceive no higher compliment. "Your statements seem almost too incredible for belief, but undoubtedly you have made out a case for the further investigation of this crime. What do ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... Louise. "You can have a lovely scout meeting out here Grace. Let's hurry and organize so we can have a meeting," suggested Louise in sincere compliment ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... in money, and the rest with grace.' He adds, it may be hoped, before October 29, 1618: 'Leaving the arrears of recompense due for their merit to her great successor, who paid them all with advantage.' Ralegh himself, after a similar compliment to James, laments in his History the Queen's parsimony to her 'martial men, both by sea and land,' none of whom, he remembers, 'the Lord Admiral excepted, her eldest and most prosperous commander,' did she 'either enrich, or otherwise ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... man and his wife looking at me with some interest, so I gave them good-day and pulled up alongside. I began with a remark upon their dog, which had somewhat the look of a pointer; thence I slid into a compliment on Madame's flowers, and thence into a word in praise of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in reality to feast his eyes on beauty which daily bound him in stronger chains of fascination. Her head drooped under his words, but only as the flowers bend under the dew and rain that give them life. His passing compliment was a trifle, but it seemed like the delicate touch to which the subtle electric current responds. From a credulous, joyous heart a crimson tide welled up into her face and neck; she could not repress a smile, though she bowed her head in girlish ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the "Two jackals of Lord Steyne and Mess. Wegg and Wenham, reminiscent of Pike and Pluck, and Sedley's native servant, who was supposed to have descended from Bagstock's menial." Much more of the same sort might be recounted, all of which, if it is true, is perhaps no sin, but rather a compliment. ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... of Macao in the Success, Captain Clipperton saluted the fortress, which compliment was returned. He then went on shore, where he prevailed on the captain of a Portuguese ship of war, formerly mentioned, to carry the property belonging to his owners to Brazil. At this place, the crew of the Success found themselves considerably at a loss, as the Portuguese ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... the horses to recover their wind, while the precipitous sides of the eminence in front grew clearer to the eye and gave ample proof of being able to furnish nooks which would afford them and their horses security, while enabling the friends a good opportunity for returning the compliment to the Boers as far as ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... trade was a compliment to the European Powers which would denote the superiority of Egypt, and would lay the first stone in the foundation of a new civilization; and a population that was rapidly disappearing ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... as that was the highest compliment he could pay a girl, Marjorie felt a thrill of pleasure that King was going ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... Barley did not do himself justice this evening, though some of his ideas were very poetical; but, really, the other night, when he told us how much the Royal Sextons were thought of in the spheres, and repeated that very high compliment which Thomas Herne paid to my family-history, it all seemed so marvellous, and yet so natural, that I could not help subscribing pretty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... free." "How many?" "From the 21st to the 26th." He was silent for a minute, meditating. Then he took from his traveling-bag a porte-feuille, and from the porte-feuille a visiting- card, which he handed to me. "That is my name," he said briefly. I took the hint, and returned the compliment in kind. On his ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... much freedom and energy (but no wit) on a subject on which I have information and feel interested: but I cannot make an after- dinner speech of compliment, nor talk on a subject which I do not feel I have very maturely considered.... In regard to local government, I think you would disarm the fears or scruples of many excellent and wise persons if you made prominent that you do not wish to return to the Middle Ages, or ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... give his sunflower compliment the delicacy of a violet, and Anne wore it proudly. She was looking her best that night, with the bridal rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her eyes; even gruff old Doctor Dave gave her an approving glance, and told his wife, as they drove home together, that that red-headed wife ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... we gather from Hentzner and other authorities, wore false hair. We are told that ladies, in compliment to her, dyed their hair a sandy hue, the natural colour ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... their parties and festivities as well, their mistresses superintending the suppers and decorating the tables with their own hands, while ladies and gentlemen from the mansion came to look on, an attention which was considered a compliment by the ebon guests. And the Christmas season rarely passed without a colored wedding, the holidays being specially chosen for this ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... had forgotten! Figure it to yourself! I came out of the house, hot and cold for my poor picture, and immediately we met—" He laughed again. "Mon ami! What a compliment to you!" ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Husband [should] never be deceived in you—and in that case it becomes you to be frail in compliment ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... station hot coffee and chocolate are always ready. Hotels: L'Universo; Italia; Europa. Alessandria received its name in compliment to Pope Alexander III. The citadel, capable of holding 50,000 men, was built in 1728. The cathedral has a faade in the modern taste, with granite columns; in the interior is a colossal statue of St. Joseph ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... down in our new home, and I resolve to keep a diary. Tradesmen trouble us a bit, so does the scraper. The Curate calls and pays me a great compliment. ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... Tom said: "Well, after paying my kid brother such a left-handed compliment, I feel I must continue my ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... please, Tucker," she remarked one morning when she had awakened with an appetite to find that her eggs had frozen in the kitchen, "but you can hardly be so barefaced as to compliment this weather. I'm sure I never felt anything like it when ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... by the interpreter that the palaver was over. On which I took my leave, not highly pleased. You are going to leave us, I understand," said he. "I much regret it, for we have just made your acquaintance, and I should like to have continued it." I acknowledged the compliment, which I believe was sincere. "To-morrow," continued he, "I am invited to dine at the Danish settlement. The Governor is a very good kind of man, well-informed, and hospitable. Would you like to accompany me? He speaks English, and I am sure would ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... time had nearly come for the remnant to march to the port and embark for England, when a farewell party was given to the officers by a Mr and Mrs Trevor, the principal merchant and his lady, and out of compliment the Colonel and officers sent the band up to the mansion to play in the garden during dinner, Dick being told that he might go with the musicians to ...
— Our Soldier Boy • George Manville Fenn
... were celebrated for their fine cider. The best cider in Massachusetts—that which brought the highest price—was known as the Arminian cider, because the minister who furnished it to the market was suspected of having Arminian tendencies. A very telling compliment to the cider of one of the first New England ministers is thus recorded: "Mr. Whiting had a score of appill-trees from which he made delicious cyder. And it hath been said yt an Indyan once coming to hys house and Mistress Whiting giving him a ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... of H. M. Byllesby and the late Luther Stieringer, was completed and in operation within six weeks after the placing of the order. The Jury of Awards, in presenting four medals to the Edison company, took occasion to pay a high compliment to the efficiency of the system. It has been thought by many that the magnificent success of this plant did more to stimulate the growth of the incandescent lighting business than any other event in the history of the Edison company. It was ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... drew the child within her arms, and her countenance beamed with delight. Never had the queen received so grateful a compliment from the most flattering courtier as these words of her fair-haired boy conveyed, who threw his arms around her neck and nestled up ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... turn were expected to rise up and return the compliment by helping our helpers. I clutched my sticks, drove them into a piece of fish and dropped it into my neighbour's wine. Tableau! Never mind, I tried pickles and preserves in detail with about an average success. No good ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... least of our treasures, sir. Most of them daughters of pioneers—and all Californian bred and educated. Connoisseurs have awarded them the palm, and declare that for Grace, Intelligence, and Woman's Highest Charms the East cannot furnish their equal!" Having delivered this Parthian compliment in an oratorical passage through the doorway, the captain descended, outside, into familiar speech. "But I suppose you will find that out for yourself if you stay here long. San Francisco might furnish a fitting bride to California's ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... "if ye'll do that, b' Gawd, I'd say yeh was a damned good fellow, I would, an' I'd remember yeh all m' life, I would, b' Gawd, an' if I ever got a chance I'd return the compliment"—he spoke with drunken dignity—"b' Gawd, I'd treat yeh white, I would, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... it here is no mere pretty compliment. The Thessalonians did not need to be bidden to love the brethren, for such love was a part of their new life, and breathed into their hearts by God Himself. They were drawn together by common relation to Jesus, and driven together by common ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... earnest on some topic to allow him to converse. He shortly made some excuse for taking leave, and, rising, addressed himself to the youth with a request that he would walk home with him. This invitation, delivered in a tone which left it doubtful whether a compliment or menace were meant, augmented Mervyn's confusion. He complied without speaking, and they went out together;—my wife and I were left to comment upon ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... feat, I got down rapidly on deck, and received something like a compliment from Max ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... that the cross is the sacred post, and the symbol of the fourth degree of the Mid[-e]/wiwin, as will be fully explained in connection with that grade of the society. The erroneous conclusion that the cross was erected as an evidence of the adoption of Christianity, and possibly as a compliment to the visitor, was a natural one on the part of the priest, but this same symbol of the Mid[-e]/ Society had probably been erected and bedecked with barbaric emblems and weapons months before ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... after this election he manages to make another journey to Rome to compliment his friend on his elevation to the pontifical chair. He had many talks with Urban, and made himself ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... steam power. On closing she was made out to be one of the punt fleet come to pay a visit to the admiral. As she lay to she ran the St. George's Cross up to the main, and saluted it with seventeen guns (wooden ones), out of compliment to Admiral Coote, who shortly receives his promotion. She next asked permission (by signal) to part company, a request the admiral answered by hoisting the affirmative. It was ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... those big, thick-ended, British laughs that don't lead anywhere, and whacked up some sort of compliment about America that made me mad ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... simplicity itself. I seek a Christmas-present for a lady," he continued, waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech he had prepared; "and certainly I owe you every excuse for thus disturbing you upon so small a matter. But the thing was neglected yesterday; I must produce my little compliment at dinner; and, as you very well know, a rich marriage is not a thing ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... of our rector's fiery temperament, or perhaps in consequence of it, he was remarkably susceptible to the charms of beauty. We were constantly invited to dinner and garden parties in the neighbourhood; nor was the good rector slow to return the compliment. It must be confessed that the pupil shared to the full the impressibility of the tutor; and, as it happened, unknown to both, the two were in one ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... wealth was all the deeper and more effective on her inclination because it was now obvious that his visits were made for her sake. This accomplished man condescended to think of a young girl, and take the pains to talk to her, not with absurd compliment, but with an appeal to her understanding, and sometimes with instructive correction. What delightful companionship! Mr. Casaubon seemed even unconscious that trivialities existed, and never handed round that small-talk of heavy men which is as ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... 'And etching?' 'I have practiced etching myself.' 'Are you a Royal Academician?' 'I'm a drawing-master at a ladies' school.' 'Whose school?' 'Miss Ladd's.' 'Damn it, you know the girl who ought to have been my secretary.' I am not quite sure whether you will take it as a compliment—Sir Jervis appeared to view you in the light of a reference to my respectability. At any rate, he went on with his questions. 'How long do you stop in these parts?' 'I haven't made up my mind.' 'Look here; ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... declined he became familiar, paid a compliment to Zoe's beauty, and assured her that a certain lace shawl in his possession would be irresistible ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... twenty assembled doctors," he adds before long, "I had a hundred and fifteen, and their resolution even contains eulogies which I did not expect." Despite certain boldnesses which had caused anxiety, the Sorbonne had reason to compliment the great naturalist. The unity of the human race as well as its superior dignity were already vindicated in these first efforts of Buffon's genius, and his mind never lost sight of this great verity. "In ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of them, taking off his hat and bowing politely, "I am sent by the chief of the port to compliment you on the way you have brought your ship into this loyal port, but to express regret that the regulations he has been compelled to issue make it necessary for you to go over to the southern side of the harbour, there to perform ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... judgment; but it seemed to him that she played very well, and he had heard her praised by people who understood the matter; for instance, Herr Wilenski, the virtuoso, from whom—in itself a great compliment—Alma was having lessons. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... have already told you, I mean to have my innings. I have taken nearly three years to think it over. You may think that is long, but I need some amusement as well as you. The fact that I have taken nearly three years to think it over is a compliment to you, but you ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... Lord Loughborough, to whom he had made a promise of going on his arrival. Neither the air or the bonne chere of the Castle have (has) done him any harm; il a bonne mine. He has left me to go to Brooks's, and perhaps to the Cockpit(177); but as that is a compliment to the Minister rather than as a support of Government, he shewed no great empressement; nor could I inspire him with a zeal which I have not myself. I am not a solicitor of any future benefit from those who are in power, and when I require ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... Neapolitan violets blue; sugar is only sweet to those unversed in metaphysics, and sugar of lead not even to them. As for the compliment to the juvenile petticoat, let it remain. But the blackness of black is a superstition that deserves no such courteous concessions. There is, in fact, no black and no white at all, as any black-and-white artist will tell you. Black ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... appinted. Here it was that Jaxon rooled. I hed a respex for Jaxon. I can't say I luved him, for he never yoosed us rite. He hated the Whigs ez bad ez we did, but after we beat em and elevated him to the Presidency, the stealins didn't come in ez fast ez we expected. Never shel I forgit the compliment he paid me. Jest after his election I presented myself afore him with my papers, an applicant for a place. He read em, and scanned me with ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... Kamrasi to accompany us to the lake! Fortunately for all parties, the Turks were not with us on that occasion, or the Satanic escort would certainly have been received with a volley when they so rashly advanced to compliment ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... had his own moment of embarrassment, but with her swift appreciation of their moods she talked rapidly on, leaving the compliment to fall as it would, and turning their thoughts to the subject in hand. "But the box, mamma, it is heavy, and it is far down on the terrible plain. If that you should try to obtain it, Sir Kildene: ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... knight was married to the daughter of a noble lord, a connexion of which the knight was somewhat proud. Boasting of this union once to a friend, he observed that his lordship had paid him the highest compliment in his power. "He had seven daughters," said he, "and he gave me the ouldest, and he told me, too, that if he had an ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... night to morning; tippled off the sack to correct the crudity of the ale; sent the spirits after the sack to keep all quiet, and then declared that, probably, he should not taste liquor till post meridiem, unless it was in compliment to some especial friend. Finally, he intimated that he was ready to proceed on the business which brought him from home so early, a proposition which Nigel readily received, though he could not help suspecting that the most ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... in his left, he added, "My niece, gentlemen; my brother's only daughter, and nearly spoiled with attentions." A pleasant smile stole over her face, as gracefully she acknowledged the compliment. In another minute three or four old negroes, moved by the exuberance of their affection for her, gathered about her, contending with anxious faces for the honour ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... quite like a Scot," Beresford admitted with a smile. "When he wants to make you one, Mr. McRae pays you a great compliment" ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... question and an address to the king were then carried without a division. The answer of his majesty, which was very vague, was reported to the house on Monday, and thanks were voted unanimously. But opposition had no idea of being satisfied with a half-triumph. As soon as they had paid this compliment to his majesty, General Conway moved:—"That the house would consider as enemies to his majesty and the country all those who should advise, or by any means attempt, the further prosecution of offensive war on the continent of North America;" a motion which was agreed to without a division. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... that he was a FIT person might have been sufficiently flattering: to state that he was the most fit, was a little hard upon the rest of the Society; but to resolve that he was "BY FAR THE MOST FIT" was only consistent with that strain of compliment in which his supporters indulge, and was a eulogy, by no means unique in its kind, I believe, even at ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... wealth in the purchase of drugs and metals. He was also a poet, but of less merit than pretensions. His Chrysopeia, in which he pretended to teach the art of making gold, he dedicated to Pope Leo X., in the hope that the pontiff would reward him handsomely for the compliment; but the pope was too good a judge of poetry to be pleased with the worse than mediocrity of his poem, and too good a philosopher to approve of the strange doctrines which it inculcated; he was, therefore, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Zog, frowning. He felt that he had received a high compliment, and the frown showed he was pleased ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... you what sort of a man you'd have to do with; one that does his work thoroughly, and, I think, pays you a compliment, by thinking that you want it ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... bell-boys, and three new blotters, and a different pen, and an entirely fresh bottle of ink, and just exactly the right-sized, the right-tinted sort of letter paper, he concocted a perfectly charming note to little Eve Edgarton—a note full of compliment, of gratitude, of sincere appreciation, a note reiterating even once more his persistent intention of rendering her somewhere, sometime, ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... patron would leave the ground unscathed. But a duel was so alien from the lawyer's walk in life, that he knew nothing of the punctilios, and he felt a delicacy. Tamely to wish a man a safe issue seemed to be a common compliment incommensurate with the occasion; and a bathos. So, after a moment of hesitation, he gathered up his papers, and tip-toed out of the room with an absurd exaggeration of respect, and a heart bounding jubilant under ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... unstinted admiration, without the slightest subtlety or suggestion; and if he had been the devil himself it would have been no less a compliment, given spontaneously to ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... as she spoke them, sounded like a compliment. It mightn't be so bad, Elliott reflected, to wash milk-pans every morning. And in Rome you do as the Romans do. She watched closely while Aunt Jessica washed the separator. She could easily do that, she was sure. It ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... and Counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly count-confect: a sweet gallant, surely! O that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie, and swears it:—I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... are no good," he said to himself, when in response to his sallies they only smiled vaguely. "Although they get but a dollar and a half a day they are overpaid!" Like McGregor he had nothing but contempt for the men whose numbers he put in the book. Their stupidity he took as a compliment to himself. "We are the kind who get things done," he thought as he put the pencil back of his ear and closed the book. In his mind the futile pride of the middle class man flamed up. In his contempt for the workers he forgot also to have ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... to threaten and command, upon which great thought registered every varying expression, one of the least of which would have endowed an ordinary prince with lasting renown. On the other hand, "fantastic compliment strutting up and down tricked in outlandish feather." A motion from the hand of majesty, now fully erect, sent another mighty wave of martial music flying on invisible wings, in thousand forms, ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... period of time: the conditions of the peace of Utrecht have been applauded by most part of mankind, even in the two Houses of Parliament: should not matters rest here, at least for some time? I presume your great end is to do justice to truth; the second point may perhaps be to make a compliment to the Oxford family: permit me to say as to the first, that though you know perhaps more than any one man, I may possibly contribute a mite; and, with the alteration of one word, viz. by inserting parva instead of magna, apply to myself that passage of Virgil, et quorum pars parva fui. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... that of the Emperor with the Court of Rome. Dubois, overjoyed at the reconciliation which had taken place, wished to show this in a striking manner, in order to pay his court to the King of England. He named, therefore, the Duc de la Force to go to England, and compliment King George on the happy event ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... king pronounced the sentence. People came to this solemnity from the extremities of the earth. The conqueror received from the monarch's hand a golden cup adorned with precious stones, his majesty at the same time making him this compliment: ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... time had been lurking up there in the tower! I wondered what his survey portended. If it signified that he had detected my presence at the moment that I had left the house, why was his gaze focused upon the distance and not upon the surrounding grounds? If he had not seen or heard me, then I must compliment myself upon a very ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... general envy and admiration thereby, if at that moment Dr. Grimstone had not happened to appear at the head of the cast-iron staircase that led down into the playground; whereupon Mr. Tinkler affected to be intensely interested in the game, which, as a kind of involuntary compliment to the principal, about this time was galvanised into ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... a polished sincerity, declared his high gratification at this visit from the Count Sobieski, brought to him by the gracious lady who so deservedly shared his illustrious name. Thaddeus, with his usual modest dignity, received the implied compliment, and expressed his just sense of the deep obligation conferred on him and his countess by the last consecrated rite to the memory of his ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... do; and notwithstanding all this, so noble is his nature, that he professes himself ready to show kindness and pity to Mr. Montagu on any occasion. My Lord told me of his presenting Sir H. Bennet with a gold cupp of L100, which he refuses, with a compliment; but my Lord would have been glad he had taken it, that he might have had some obligations upon him which he thinks possible the other may refuse to prevent it; not that he hath any reason to doubt his ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... gone, Sophia, who had been hitherto silent, as well indeed from necessity as inclination, began to return the compliment which her father had made her, in taking her part against her aunt, by taking his likewise against the lady. This was the first time of her so doing, and it was in the highest degree acceptable ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... placed on my mother's right hand at table, with a Foreign Office interpreter, all gold lace and decorations, on his other side. As soon as dinner began, the pasha conceived it incumbent on him to address my mother with a fine Turkish compliment, which, judging by the way he turned up his eyes, and laid his hands on his heart, and the bows he made her, must have been adorned with every flower of Oriental poetry. When his speech was finished, the pasha ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... though her beauty had begun to wane; but with her the sweetness, the grace, and the ease of manner supplied the lack of youth. She knew how to make a compliment of the slightest expression, and was totally devoid of any affection ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... he adds,—"The tongues of women are very voluble; they speak earlier, more readily, and more agreeably than the men; they are accused also of speaking much more: but so it ought to be, and I should be very ready to convert this reproach into a compliment; their lips and eyes have the same activity, and for the same reason. A man speaks of what he knows, a woman of what pleases her; the one requires knowledge, the other taste; the principal object of a man's discourse should be ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... so-called, the sect of Mrs. Eddy, is the most radical branch of mind-cure in its dealings with evil. For it evil is simply a LIE, and any one who mentions it is a liar. The optimistic ideal of duty forbids us to pay it the compliment even of explicit attention. Of course, as our next lectures will show us, this is a bad speculative omission, but it is intimately linked with the practical merits of the system we are examining. Why regret a philosophy of ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... sir! For a compliment, sir! As we jog through town, Allow me to suggest, sir! A woman oft looks best, ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Age, that Brann is not an Englishman as the Age editor in one of his elephantine efforts to be humorous seems to have suggested, and that "all Englishmen in this country repudiate his every utterance." Thanks, awfully; that's the highest compliment ever paid an American sovereign by a British subject. When I next visit San Antonio I'll testify my gratitude by giving Lewis 50 cents instead of the usual two-bits for toting my grip from the "Sap" depot to the Menger hotel. ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... came back, Roger's heart was no longer soft. What a fool he had been, that day in the train, not to connect the girl's change of colour with his mention of O'Reilly! She might have blurted out her compliment to excuse the blush, instead of the blush having followed the compliment. Good heavens! could Justin O'Reilly have been the man from ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... chances are that unless she modifies her statement the Smith boy will be compelled to answer for the crime of her compliment. ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... having recourse to these foreign assistances. Our language sunk under him, and was unequal to that greatness of soul which furnished him with such glorious conceptions."—Spectator, No. 297. This, however, Dr. Johnson seems to regard as a mere compliment to genius; for of Milton he says, "The truth is, that both in prose and verse, he had formed his style by a perverse and pedantick principle." But the grandeur of his thoughts is not denied by the critic; nor is his language censured without ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... we saw, to the north-east, several fine streams of water, and the whole had the appearance of being well sheltered. These observations agreeing with the accounts given us by Koah, who accompanied Captain Cook, and had changed his name, out of compliment to us, into Britannee, the pinnace was hoisted out, and the master, with Britannee for his guide, was sent to examine the bay, whilst the ships worked ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... killed at Corsica, in 1794, he became the next heir to the title. In 1797, a friend, meaning to compliment the boy, said, "We shall have the pleasure some day of reading your speeches in the House of Commons," he, with precocious consciousness, replied, "I hope not. If you read any speeches of mine, it will be in the House of Lords." Similarly, when, in ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... life Daisy felt that to be the sweetest compliment ever paid her. Daisy laughed—the only happy laugh that had passed her lips since she had met Rex that morning ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... (31/2. "Himalayan Journals," 2 volumes. London, 1854.) has been publicly acknowledged to be of some value, I feel bold to write to you; for, to tell you the truth, I have never been without a misgiving that the dedication might prove a very bad compliment, however kindly I knew you would receive it. The idea of the dedication has been present to me from a very early date: it was formed during the Antarctic voyage, out of love for your own "Journal," and has never deserted me since; nor would it, I think, had I never known more of you ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... calculation. Dicaeopolis in the "Aeharnenses," in presenting a gentleman called Nicharchus to the audience, observes: "He is small, I confess, but, there is nothing lost in him: all is knave that is not fool." Parodying the equivocal compliment, I may say that though Uncle Jack was no giant, there was nothing lost in him. Whatever was not philanthropy was arithmetic, and whatever was not arithmetic was philanthropy. He would have been equally dear to Howard and to Cocker. Uncle ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... you're goin' to say the same words over the one and the other? I ain't a friend to flattery, but it can't hurt a man to have a few compliments paid him in the churchyard, and when all's said an' done, 'lookin' for the general Resurrection' can't be construed into a personal compliment to Reuben." ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... which was a contraction of Stephen. St. Stephen was always represented in the Catholic pictures of the saints, as a very handsome man, and Buckingham being handsome too, James called him Steeny by way of a compliment. Steeny called the king his dad, and used to sign himself, in his letters, "your slave and dog Steeny." There are extant some letters which passed between the king and his favorite, written, on the part of the king, in a ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... be apologetic about criticism from people who have a right to criticise. I always look upon any criticism as a compliment, not but what the old Adam in T.H.H. WILL arise and fight vigorously against all impugnment, and irrespective of all odds in the way of authority, but that is the way ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... Mr. Murphy's having paid him the highest compliment that ever was paid to a layman, by asking his pardon for repeating some oaths in the course of telling ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... whom Mary Anderson was a special favorite were the prince and princess. They witnessed each of her performances more than once, and both did her the honor to make her personal acquaintance, and compliment her on her success. So many absurd stories have been circulated as to Mary Anderson's alleged unwillingness to meet the Prince of Wales, that the true story may as well be told once for all here. On one of the early performances of "Ingomar," the prince and princess occupied the royal ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... cross," answered Peace, ignoring her share of the compliment. "Gail says it makes her nervous thinking p'r'aps the oven will be too hot or too cool, or the dough not just right, or something. But Faith hardly ever gets so cross that she won't let us clean ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... pointed and limited the compliment, and, at the same time, there was a wary shrewdness in it;—he was measuring how deep his shaft had sunk, as he always instinctively measured the person ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... grand opening, and the Bishop would come down, and perhaps young Figgins might be on a visit to them—she must ask Ernest if young Figgins had yet left Roughborough—he might even persuade his grandfather Lord Lonsford to be present. Lord Lonsford and the Bishop and everyone else would then compliment her, and Dr Wesley or Dr Walmisley, who should preside (it did not much matter which), would say to her, "My dear Mrs Pontifex, I never yet played upon so remarkable an instrument." Then she would give him one of her very sweetest smiles and say she feared he was ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... my aunt. 'Why, yes, that's all, except, "And she lived happy ever afterwards." Perhaps I may add that of Betsey yet, one of these days. Now, Agnes, you have a wise head. So have you, Trot, in some things, though I can't compliment you always'; and here my aunt shook her own at me, with an energy peculiar to herself. 'What's to be done? Here's the cottage, taking one time with another, will produce say seventy pounds a year. I think we may safely put ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... is no strength in that. This one is better; it calls it 'highway robbery.' That sounds something like. But now this one seems satisfied to call it an 'iniquitous scheme'. 'Iniquitous' does not exasperate anybody; it is weak—puerile. The ignorant will imagine it to be intended for a compliment. But this other one—the one I read last—has the true ring: 'This vile, dirty effort to rob the public treasury, by the kites and vultures that now infest the filthy den called Congress'—that is admirable, admirable! We must have more of that ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... a shape, what matters the robe that covers it?"—a compliment at which Betty blushed, for she was proud of her ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... Nut Growers Association in its forty-first meeting expresses its appreciation for the fine accomodations for its meeting place supplied by Post No. 739 of the American Legion. The Association also desires to compliment the Post on its foresight in providing this community with ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... "That is a gentleman's reading," he says. When the paper is lowered, as he turns a page, you behold one of those oldish gentlemen with a rather pleasant bad temper who really only mean to demand by it that young people shall pay them the compliment of "getting round" them. As the time of the performance draws near he is apt, at each lowering of the paper, to count you up as you sit there waiting, and if there are not enough of you he looks ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... defiance of her own consciousness. "Well, I was trying to make you compliment me; I'm not going to deny it. But I must say I got my come-uppance: you didn't say a thing I cared for. But you ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... pleased and flattered. Jelliffe was a personage, always surrounded by admirers, and the compliment was consequently of a ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... did not seem unsatisfied; and, indeed, occasionally remarked that she believed I meant to be a good child. Perhaps that was something out of my governess's former experience; for it was the only style of commendation I ever knew her indulge in, and I always took it as a compliment. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... show that it is the authority, and not the person, he opposes, when that is out of sight, there is no rule so sacred which is not to be violated to manifest his real esteem and perfect trust in the person whom he has rejected. However, by overturning general principles to compliment Mr. Fowke's integrity, he does all in his power to corrupt it; at the same time he establishes an example that must either subject all future dealings to the same pernicious clause, or which, being omitted, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... connection it is proper to urge a warning that a mere sign talker is often a bad authority upon principles and theories. He may not be liable to the satirical compliment of Dickens's "brave courier," who "understood all languages indifferently ill"; but many men speak some one language fluently, and yet are wholly unable to explain or analyze its words and forms so as to teach it to another ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... 1779, Jones started on a cruise in command of an old Indiaman, which he called, in compliment to Franklin, the Bon Homme Richard. Associated with the Bon Homme Richard were the Alliance and the Pallas, and one smaller vessel officered by Frenchmen, but under the American flag. On September ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... addresses on the occasion were made by the President and Secretary—that to Mr. Reece in a few choice words by Dr. Bunting; and to me, in a kindly manner, by Dr. Newton. In reply I acknowledged the unexpected compliment, not as paid to me, but to the country and connexion ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... his cousin. The artless little Lydia had certainly a queer way of receiving her friends. But six weeks before madly jealous of George's preference for another, she now took occasion repeatedly to compliment Theo in her conversation. Miss Theo was such a quiet, gentle creature, Lyddy was sure George was just the husband for her. How fortunate that horrible quarrel had been prevented! The constables had come up just in time; and it was quite ridiculous to hear Mr. Esmond ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you before, a famous battery, which the public voice named after me; but Sir James, thinking very properly that any thing so very pre-eminent should be distinguished by the most exalted appellation, has called it the King's Battery, the greatest compliment, I conceive, that he could pay to my judgment.[22] Not a desertion has been attempted by any of the 49th for the last ten months, with the exception indeed of Hogan, Savery's former servant. He served Glegg in the same capacity, who took him ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... existence of Jupiter Ammon. "Les Pensees" could appear to me only as infinitely childish; the form is no doubt superb, but tiresome and sterile to one of such modern and exotic taste as myself. Still, I accept thankfully, in its sense of two hundred years, the compliment paid to Balzac; but I would add that personally he seems to me to have shown greater wings of mind than any artist that ever lived. I am aware that this last statement will make many cry "fool" and hiss "Shakespeare!" But I am not putting forward these criticisms axiomatically, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... week. On Monday morning, the 8th of September, 1664, he led his troops from the fort to a ship on which they were to embark for Holland, and an hour after, the red cross of St. George was floating over Fort Amsterdam, the name of which was changed to Fort James as a compliment to ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... and with many feelings and reflections, your record of Sir C. Napier's Administration of Scinde. You must permit me to thank you, in the name of Britain at large, for writing such a book; and in my own poor name to acknowledge the great compliment and kindness implied in sending ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... the usual tinsel things and red baize and sham flowers. Sergeant Hodge much impressed. He said after we emerged: "You know, sir, it's very fine indeed. It puts me in mind of a bazaar." This was in all good faith, and was intended as a great compliment to the church! We are having lots of rain, which is bad for the horses, who are picketed in the open. And thunder. It's often extremely difficult to tell whether, when the thunder is far away, it is thunder or guns. Quite a novel experience, and quite pleasant after the long period ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... a sudden and uncomfortable stop. He knew he ought to go on piling up compliment on compliment to make good his point. But he had emptied his brain cells by his threefold denial, and now found himself groping in something which was little better than a vacuum. And in his trouble he found himself wishing he was gifted with Sunny's wit. Wild Bill's force would have carried ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... not expect it, my dear sir, you have been so long away. You have very much improved in person, I must say; yet still, I recollect your features as a mere boy. Without compliment, I had no idea that you would ever have made so handsome a man." I bowed to the compliment. "Have you ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... married in time, and on occasion brought Lady Simpson, who was a native of the country, to visit the Red River Settlement. Her presence was taken as a compliment by the people. Sir George Simpson, like many of the Hudson's Bay Company, had among all his business engagements the taste for literature. He encouraged the formation of libraries at the several trading posts, and in his letters throws in a remark about Sir Walter Scott, or Blackwood's ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... should it be otherwise? Why should she have stayed? Why should he compliment himself by believing that there was aught about him visible through the veneer acquired in a score and odd years of purposeless existence, to attract a young and ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... caused the men to renew their efforts, and twice did Jet receive a severe blow on the body before he found an opportunity to return the compliment. ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... go up upon the mount to see the soldiers march, for it was Sir Charles Lee's company of foot, an acquaintance of ours; I said yes, and went up, leaning my back to a tree that grew on the mount. The commander seeing us there, in compliment gave us a volley of shot, and one of their muskets being loaded, shot a brace of bullets not two inches above my head as I leaned to the tree, for which mercy and deliverance I praise God. And next week we were all on our journey for Bristol very merry, and thought that now all things would mend, ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... Compliment (some say, before his Death) upon P—pe's Pastorals, in which he says, his Arcadia speaks the Language of the Mall, but does not explain, whether he means at Noon or Night. I do not agree with what Mr. Wycherley is supposed to have writ ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... lilac frock?" said Lady Blanchemain, absently. "Yet you certainly have the Eton voice," she mused. "And if I don't pay you the doubtful compliment of saying that you have the Balliol manner, you have at least a kind of subtilized reminiscence ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... inflict loss on the reader. Now nobody can ever think of respecting Leigh Hunt; he is not unfrequently amiable, but never in the least venerable. Even at his best he seldom or never affects the reader with admiration, only with a mild pleasure. It is at once a penalty for his sins and a compliment to his good qualities, that to make any kind of fuss over him would be absurd. Nor is there any selfish risk run by treating him, in the literary sense, in an unceremonious manner. His writing of all kinds carries desultoriness to the height, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... it was! But he is not the first noble heart I ever heard of!" said Herbert, with an affectionate glance that directed the compliment. "Nor is his the last that you will meet with. I must tell you the good ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... of Commons to another in the heat of debate. "True enough," was the prompt reply, "but did I not blacken them well?" The sense of right-doing was sufficient to turn an intended insult into a well-merited compliment, and to increase for him the esteem ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... usual on the high stool and pushed his hat back, and put his hands in his pockets in delicate compliment to Mr. Hobbs. ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... can you suggest such a thing? I have the highest respect and esteem for you, Mr. Dryland. I can never forget the great compliment you have paid me. I shall always think of you as ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... grades got no more compensation than the pay of their actual rank. On the 24th of January, Colonel Wilcox sent in his resignation, and Lieutenant-Colonel Albright was commissioned colonel. Major Shreve was promoted to be lieutenant-colonel, and I had the honor to receive the rare and handsome compliment of an election to the office of major, although, being a staff-officer, I was not in the regular line of promotion. Sergeant-Major Clapp succeeded to my position as adjutant, and Private Frank J. Deemer, Company K, who had been a clerk in my office, ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... bonds of the Central, a holder of some called one day and said: 'Commodore, glad to see your face on them bonds. It's worth ten per cent. It gives everybody confidence.' The Commodore smiled grimly, the only recognition he ever made of a compliment. ''Cause,' explained the visitor, 'when we see that fine, noble brow, it reminds us that you'll never ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... we apply all the epithets of compliment and commendation which the language yields and cite him as an exemplification of life at high tide, of life in its supreme fullness and splendor. The knowledge of the world comes to his doors to do his bidding; before him the arts and sciences make their ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... the other was entirely the reverse. He might have been drinking—he might have been partially insane—these are charitable suppositions; but at all events, he had the impertinence to address Mrs. Tubbs in a low tone, audible only to herself. He muttered some compliment to her appearance—talked a little nonsense—inoffensive in itself, but intolerable as coming from a stranger. Mrs. Tubbs made no reply, but she was glad to spring from the conveyance when the driver pulled up at the Norfolk House. To her great joy she espied ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... say that his friend had the figure of a boy of twenty, which caused Puffin presently to feel a little cramped and to wander negligently in front of the big looking-glass between the windows, and find this compliment much easier to swallow than the Major's age. For the next half-hour they would chiefly talk about themselves in a pleasant glow of self-satisfaction. Major Flint, looking at the various implements and trophies ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... appeared uncertain as to the possible compliment in this statement, but at last decided to ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... possesses you, and no other house"; "I don't think I've ever seen a faster boy-swimmer"; "You're the best swimmer in the school by a long way." I would turn any conversation with him on to the subject of the race, and suffer a few seconds' acute suspense, while I waited for his compliment. I would depreciate my own swimming to him, feeling in my despair that a murmured contradiction would suffice: but this method I gave up, owing to the horror I experienced ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... this last illustration was of superior excellence, or, in the phrase used by them, "Fust-rate." I acknowledged the compliment, but gently rebuked the expression. "Fust-rate," "prime," "a prime article," "a superior piece of goods," "a handsome garment," "a gent in a flowered vest,"—all such expressions are final. They blast the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... missed something of her meaning, and did not see that her decision to show him the ore was a compliment. He looked honest, and strangers often trusted him. His friends had never known him abuse ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... opportunities afterwards, and it is a compliment that he considers we had better reserve ourselves for scouting, which, after all, is the work we always intended to carry out. Still, though, after what he has said, we cannot absolutely join the cavalry, we will manage somehow to see some ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... been surprised when one has with confidence proposed to me, a grown man, to embark in some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing to do, my life having been a complete failure hitherto. What a doubtful compliment this is to pay me! As if he had met me half-way across the ocean beating up against the wind, but bound nowhere, and proposed to me to go along with him! If I did, what do you think the underwriters would say? No, no! I am not without employment at this stage of the voyage. To tell the truth, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... background, the birds twittering around, while the half-heard sounds of conversation and laughter at a distance announced that their guard was in the vicinity, she could not avoid making the Constable some natural compliment on his happy selection ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... use up more good gray matter trying to dodge paying one a compliment than most men use in thinking up one," ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... to have so fair a child," said I, speaking more in compliment than with a careful ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... cannot compliment them on their enjoyment. Happily, though, I am not a respectable woman, and I can tell you I am tired of living more closely shut up than the wife of a Turk, with your face ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... accuracy the ancient remnants of Zoroaster's doctrine. How that problem was solved is well known to all who take an interest in the advancement of modern scholarship. It was as great an achievement as the deciphering of the cuneiform edicts of Darius; and no greater compliment could have been paid to Burnouf and his fellow-labourers than that scholars, without inclination to test their method, and without leisure to follow these indefatigable pioneers through all the intricate paths of their researches, should ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... had, it was nowhere obtruded for personal aggrandizement, but rather by way of emphasizing the dignity of citizenship, and the value of self-respect. Assuredly, in these Irish tracts, Swift was no violent zealot for truth. Indeed, it is a high compliment to pay him, to say that we wonder he restrained himself as ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... maks a blooming look," says Mattha to the girl. Rotha's face deserves the compliment. To-day it looks as fresh as it is always beautiful. But there is something in it now that we have never before observed. The long dark lashes half hide and half reveal a tenderer light than has hitherto stolen into those deep brown eyes. The general expression of the girl's face is ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... Their harangues of compliment being made and answered, and the inevitable presents given and received, Champlain introduced to the silent conclave the three missionaries, Brbeuf, Daniel, and Davost. To their lot had fallen the honors, dangers, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... comparison with those of our competitors. I could see that the small boy in a jacket, and only two heads higher than the counter, amused the men customers with his brag attempt at being a salesman, and that the women smiled down upon him approvingly—all of which he took as a compliment to his success; for successful he often was, to the surprise of the older clerks. With what pride did I enter my sales on a slate kept for the purpose under the cash drawer. I surmised that the women sometimes bought goods just to encourage the boy. The clerks ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... success. There is evidence, however, that both Meckel and Geoffroy owed a good many of their evolutionary ideas to Lamarck, and Cuvier paid him at least the compliment of criticising his theory,[345] not distinguishing it, however, very clearly from the evolutionary theories of the transcendentalists. But, speaking generally, Lamarck's theory of evolution exercised very ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... we pass the other side, and leave them to their glory, To give new proofs of manliness, new scenes for song and story; These honeyed words of compliment may possibly bamboozle 'em, But ere we intervene, you know, we'll ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... dreadfully heavy, 'ad have thought us downright savages.' But then I must explain to you, that my father has made some 'rule absolute' about visiting when down here. And though I know you'll not consider it a compliment, yet I can assure you there is not another man I know of he would pay attention to, but yourself. He made two efforts to get here this morning, but the gout 'would not be denied,' and so he deputed a most inferior 'diplomate;' and now will you let me return ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... treatment of Captain Baskelett. Cecil had ample reason to suppose his cousin to be friendly with him. He himself had forgotten Dr. Shrapnel, and all other dissensions, in a supremely Christian spirit. He paid his cousin the compliment to think that he had done likewise. At Romfrey and in London he had spoken to Nevil of his designs upon the widow: Nevil said nothing against it and it was under Mrs. Wardour-Devereux's eyes, and before a man named Lydiard, that, never calling to him to put him on his guard, Nevil ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... That's an immense compliment. I've the greatest respect for nonsense, I owe it so much; and I really think if nonsense were banished, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... was still in London, wrote a letter full of tender solicitude and graceful compliment. The Clerk of the Rolls had arranged from the first that two telegrams should be sent to him daily, giving accounts of Philip's condition. At last the Clerk came in person, and threw Auntie Nan into tremors of nervousness by his noise and robustious-ness. He ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... I? Thank you, sir, for the compliment! And you don't know me at all,—don't you? Very well, then I'll say good night, and leave; for it wouldn't be proper to take a young lady you don't know to the theatre,—now, would it? Good by!"—making for ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... dropped to sleep over all this writing of things, and my cheek down on the page has made the paper unwilling to take the ink again:—what a pretty compliment to me: and, if you prefer it, what an easy way of writing to you! I can send you such any day and be as idle as I like. And you will decide about all the above exactly as you and I think best (or should it be "better" again, being only between us two?). When you get this, blow ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... glad to see him, and when she was with him, he was no perplexity, he was only her dear old friend. Well, and one thing besides—a man whom it was rather amusing to try to get a compliment out of, to try to torment into a manifestation of devotion; it was all there; Janie liked to lure it to the surface sometimes. But Bob was not even visibly miserable; he was always equable, even jolly, with so much to say about his horses and his farm ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... pleased, if she had leisure, to have her come to his rooms two or three times a week to read with him. This offer, from a person of M. Muller's standing and studious habits, Mr. Lindsay justly took as both a great compliment and a great promise of advantage to Ellen. He at once and with much pleasure accepted it. So the qiestion of school ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... host. Then followed saki in little artistic bottles and saki cups that hold not much more than a double tablespoonful. Saki is the Japanese wine made of rice, and is taken in liberal quantities. At each serving some one drank to some one else, then a return of the compliment was necessary. Having always heard that Orientals turned menus topsy-turvy we were not at all surprised when the little serving women brought to each of us two silver plates and set them on our trays. These plates contained what appeared to be cake, one seeming to be angel ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... charge of the rehearsals. Mr. Innes had told Evelyn that Ulick had displayed an unselfish devotion, and she added that he had been to her father what Liszt had been to Wagner, and while paying this compliment she looked at him in admiration, thanking him with her eyes. Had it not been for him, her father might have died of want of appreciation, killed ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... "We have got him here," wrote Mrs. Piozzi in a letter from Bath, dated January, 1799, published by Mr. Hayward, "and his uncle will take him to school next week." "As he was by a lucky chance baptized, in compliment to me, John Salusbury, [Salusbury was her family name,] he will be known in England by no other, and it will be forgotten he is a foreigner." "My poor little boy from Lombardy said, as I walked with him across our market, 'These are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... situation in my play and got a man to make a new one out of it that is—is vulgar enough to appeal to the New York theater-goers. He let everybody put in anything they wanted to, instead of what I wrote. He left in a little of mine to compliment me. It's all right, because nobody would have gone to see my play if anybody goes to see—see his." Miss Adair went on calmly with the fifty-third stroke on her raven tresses, but her eyes were beginning ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... man marred, but in you I see an exception. Were I a few years younger I should have ventured to enter the lists against you. I have knocked about the world, and I can pay Miss Hatherton no higher compliment than to say that she is equally fitted to be queen of a London drawing room or mistress of a factor's humble house. But enough. I wish you every prosperity and happiness, and a long career in ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... said the gentleman, raising his hat in compliment to Mrs Chuzzlewit, 'I ask your pardon twenty thousand times. I am most unwilling to interfere between you and a domestic trip of this nature (always so very charming and refreshing, I know, although I have not the happiness to be a domestic man myself, which is ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Yat Huang went to each in turn protesting vehemently that the honour of covering such pure-minded and distinguished persons was more than his badly designed roof could reasonably bear, and wittingly giving an entrancing air of reality to the spoken compliment by begging them to move somewhat to one side so that they might escape the heavy central beam if the event which he alluded to chanced to take place. After several hours had been spent in this congenial occupation, Yat Huang proceeded to read ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... Mucklewheel answered, that he was glad to hear such a compliment was intended; "No man," said he, "more richly deserves a handsome token of public respect, and I will surely give the proposal all the countenance and support in ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... stranger came forward, and, removing his own cap, made a bow even more courtly than that of Big Pete, as he thus replied: "Sir, I feel highly honored at this flattering expression of commendation. I can honestly say that it is the greatest compliment I have ever received from a stranger, and," he added with another winning smile, "you are the first stranger with whom I have held converse in nearly twenty years. That I am not unfriendly I have already proved by some trifling services, but the ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... number of galleries was discovered, so that, in fact, the interior of the mountain was like a vast bee-hive perforated with innumerable cells; and in compliment to the little Italian it was unanimously voted by the colony that their new home ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... half-insulting compliment was pouring upon her; but she, with head erect, and steady foot, still quietly moved on, taking no notice, till a hand ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seems gradually to increase. The actors are to give him a "funcin extraordinaria," in the theatre—the matadors a bull-fight extraordinary, with fireworks. ... But in all this you must not suppose there is any personal compliment. It is merely intended as a mark of good will towards the first representative of the Spanish monarchy who brings from the mother-country the formal acknowledgment of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... suggestion that the Prince of Wales should be created Duke, or rather, as Lord John says, Earl of Dublin—the Queen thinks it is a matter for consideration whether such an act should follow the Queen's visit as a compliment to Ireland, but she is decidedly of opinion that ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... be a cause and to advertise by visible, audible, and often painful proofs the fact of one's presence in the world is also basal. It is the compliment which noisy childhood and industrious boyhood insistently demand from the world about. Even the infant revels in this testimony, preferring crude and noisy playthings of proportion to the innocent nerve-sparing devices which the adult tries to foist upon him. The coal scuttle is made ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... "I cannot compliment you on being a good judge of character, Miss Byrton. It may be perhaps that you have not known Lord Arleigh well enough. But he is the last person in the world to make a good Romeo. I know but one character in Shakespeare's plays that would ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... in recognition of the active part he had taken in this business, was appointed a member of the delegation, the other member being William Crane of Westmorland, a gentleman of experience, wealth and standing in the province. This appointment was the highest compliment that could possibly have been paid to Wilmot's capacity, for the negotiation then to be conducted with the colonial office was of the most important and delicate character, and one which vitally affected the interests of ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... covers its breast. Unlike the eagle of the earlier coins, it is with the right talon now that it grasps the olive-branch, and the left holds three arrows. The quarter-dollar of 1853 has the space above the eagle on the reverse filled with diverging rays. Apollo might not, perhaps, take it as a compliment to be asked to sanction much of ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... Roman, quite astonished, "the day of miracles is not over—most astounding! Bring your book to the desk, Lentz—hem! Everything proper! Profuse apologies, Lentz, profuse ones! The suspicion is the compliment. I'm quite upset, quite so. First time such a thing has happened." He hesitated for a moment, debating whether to allow him to retire with the honors, but his curiosity proving strong he said: "And now, Lentz, third ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... voters, that he should recognise no difference between one section of the people and another. It was for him to represent the town as a whole, which he intended to do faithfully and loyally. He desired, also, to compliment his opponent on the spirit in which he had conducted his part of the battle, and for the straight fight which had been the consequence. He referred to a few of his most prominent supporters, and then, raising ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... to my mind,—" St. Armand paused with a retrospective smile, thinking of the compliment his little friend had paid him,—"to inquire if you know anything about a child who lives not far from the lower citadel, in the care of an Indian woman. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the name," I pointed out, "of the famous whaler owned by Captain Briggs, your wife's father, and it would be a compliment to ...
— The Log of The "Jolly Polly" • Richard Harding Davis
... all this costs so dear," said my friend, "but it is right that the nest be worthy of the bird; but why the devil do you compliment me upon curtains which are not paid for?—You make me remember, just at the time I am digesting lunch, that I still owe two thousand francs to ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... I cannot think of a compliment to pay you—without lying, that is. To judge by your figure and complexion you have lived hard since I saw you last! I cannot surely be QUITE so naked as your ladyship!—I beg your pardon, madam! I trust you will take it I am but jesting in a dream! It is of no consequence, ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... echoing of countless accusations of the foulest nature to which they had been subjected. Not a crime that was known or could be imagined that had not been brought against them; they naturally, therefore, returned the compliment when they could do so with safety, and though in these more peaceful and tolerant days much as we may regret the flinging backwards and forwards of such vile accusations, we may still find some excuse ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... (It was rather a compliment to call it a lake, it being only about twenty yards across and forty long.) "The ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... though she did not quite believe in the adjective; and felt a certain satisfaction in knowing that the title of "Auntie" was a mere compliment. She did not positively dislike children, else she would have been only half a woman, or a woman so detestable as to be an anomaly in creation; but her philoprogenitiveness was, to say the least, dormant at present; and her sense of infantile beauty being founded on Sir Joshua's and Murillo's ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... bread and beer, she might have been persuaded, though my description of the exquisite windows in the courtyard, and the quaint houses of the black and white brethren, left her cold. We all had some of the Dole to-day at the portal; and Mrs. Senter took it as a compliment that each one was given so little. Tourists get tiny bits, you know, and beggars big ones; so she thought it would have been a sign that they disparaged the ladies' hats and frocks if they had been more generous. It would be difficult to disapprove ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... from the compliment and the honor of it, I feel added gratification and added pleasure that I should be invited to write a foreword for the first American edition of Miss Daisy Ashford's second book. You see, I claim the distinction of having been the first person in ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... to you, my dear, I felt all the force of the compliment implied in this speech, and was almost ready to answer, Perhaps, my good friend, they may find me unintelligible too for the same reason. But on asking him whether he had walked over to Weston on purpose to implore the assistance of my muse, and on his replying in the affirmative, ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... think perhaps it was a compliment on Miss Caroline Helstone's part to say you were not sentimental. I thought you appeared confused when my sisters told you the words, as if you felt flattered. You turned red, just like a certain vain little lad at our school, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... represent 'The Lights of Faith driving out Unbelief,' thus they naturally require torches. You know, they are tin tubes with spirits of wine which blazes up. It will be, perhaps, the prettiest tableau of the evening. It is an indirect compliment we wish to pay to the Cardinal's nephew; you know the dark young man with very curly hair and saintly eyes; you saw him last Monday. He is in high favor at court. The Comte de Geloni was kind enough to promise to come this evening, and then ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... pulled the trigger, in the hope perhaps that Fritz might inadvertently sail into the track of his bullets. Unfortunately firing at so perpendicular an angle caused the lead to fall into the adjacent infantry lines and they—they returned the compliment, although neither Battalion inflicted any "Blighty's" on ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... share with the dull old Scotchman beside him, who knew nothing of the world—knew neither how pitilessly selfish, nor how meanly clever a man of this world might be, and bate not a jot of his self admiration! Men who salute a neighbour as a man of the world, paying him the greatest compliment they know in acknowledging him of their kind, recoil with a sort of fear from the man alien to their thoughts, and impracticable for their purposes. They say "He is beyond me," and despise him. So is there a great world beyond ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... return this compliment," came from Jack. "My, wouldn't it be a lark to have the girls in our mess hall ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... a man to be in on his wedding-day," retorted Harry; "and I am sure that I can return you the compliment ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... "I compliment you," said the captain. "You will command a company to-night; for I shall not survive the day. Every time I have been wounded the officer below me has been touched by some spent ball; and," he added, in a lower tone, "all the ...
— How The Redoubt Was Taken - 1896 • Prosper Merimee
... head and shoulders above any other possibility for quarter-back," insisted Greg, with so much conviction that Darrin, with mock politeness, turned and lifted his cap in acknowledgment of the compliment. ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... found himself entrusted with full charge of the vessel ere she had been ten minutes at sea. His gruff commander could have paid him no greater compliment. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... it and place it as required, which he did alone, and with a strength which was not that of a mortal. The Abbot of the Monastery of St. Justin, in the Diocese of Perugia, met him, and alighted from his horse to compliment him, and to speak to him on some matters of conscience. After a conversation replete with unction, the abbot, recommended himself humbly to his prayers. Francis replied: "I will pray with all my heart;" ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... German aeroplanes had dropped bombs on the open town of Luneville, killing many civilians. As a measure of reprisal forty French aeroplanes returned the compliment by making another air raid on Saarbruecken, where they bombarded the station, factories, and military establishments. A squadron of thirty or forty vessels of the British Fleet bombarded the whole of the Belgian coast in German possession as far as Ostend. French ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... of Walter Mapes, then Walter Mapes is one of the great novelists of the word, and one of the greatest of them. If it was some unknown person (it could hardly be Chrestien, for in Chrestien's form the Graal interest belongs to Percevale, not to Lancelot or Galahad), then the same compliment must be paid to that person unknown. Meanwhile the conception and execution of Lancelot, to whomsoever they may be due, are things most happy. Entirely free from the faultlessness which is the curse of the classical hero; his unequalled ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... it, which he immediately put on his finger with as much glee and pride as the gayest Parisian coquette. Yusuf and the Sfaxee, being present, swore it was diamanti; but I am quite sure the old Sheikh understood the compliment. I also gave him a pair of bellows, a basin, and a pint bottle with a little oil it; with all these things he was greatly delighted, continually admiring and trying the bellows. When he went out of the tent he himself carried all these articles away ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... justice—upon the typographical execution of M. Brunet's Manuel du Libraire. No printer in our own country, could have executed it more perfectly. "What might have been the charge per sheet?" My host received the compliment very soberly and properly; and gave me a general item about the expense of printing and paper, &c., which really surprised me; and returned it with a warm eulogy upon the paper and press-work of a recent publication from the Shakspeare press—which, said he, "I despair of excelling." "And ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... paying him the compliment of her full attention; he felt the dubious flattery, although it slightly ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... quartered in the library. The hour for sailing had been fixed at three o'clock; and just before that time the Cherub, Captain O'Flaherty, appeared, having on board a regimental band and the friends of Lord Tremlyn, Sir Modava, and Dr. Ferrolan, who extended to them the compliment of an escort, and, incidentally, to the commander and ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... don't? That's a nice compliment, missy. No, he and I are about of an age, and went to school together in the little, old, red schoolhouse that was burned down some years ago. It is ill health and trouble that makes him look so old, I suppose. Poor old chap, he has lost most ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... my lady," said the young parson, bowing and smiling, "is, I will be judged by the company, the more flattering compliment of the two—We shall be jealous of this ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... fact, that there are some in it published elsewhere. According to the English, all classics printed in Germany, and all the adjacent countries, in all times, are to be found in the catalogue. I pass over the implied compliment to this country, namely, that while a true description is required in Germany, a puff both in time and space is wanted for England. I dwell on the injurious effect of such alterations to literature, and on the trouble they give to those ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... herself, and to hear of it from others. She will not, therefore, be very solicitous for the confirmation of a truth so self-evident; but she suspects, that her pretensions to understanding are more likely to be disputed, and, for that reason, greedily devours every compliment offered to those perfections, which are less obvious and more refined. She is persuaded, that men need only open their eyes to decide on her beauty, while it will be the most convincing proof of the taste, sense, and elegance of her admirer, that he can discern and flatter those qualities in her. ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... blood; I bear a name which is old among the hills; I have carved my way to a colonelcy under the Stuart flag, where promotion, like kissing, has often gone by favour, yet sometimes by merit. The Prince himself, when he gave me my rank, called me the Black Colonel in compliment to my beard, which nobody has ever singed. The Black Colonel I remained when the Stuart army melted in the bloody furrows of Culloden, and in truth I have, and need not deny it, left my name in many quarters. I took it with me ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... mates called him—did not intend this for a compliment by any means, though it may sound like one. Being an irreligious as well as a stupid man, he held that all who professed religion were hypocritical and silly. Manliness, in poor Jo's mind, consisted of swagger, quiet insolence, cool cursing, and general ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... knows how to go to work. If you believe in a doctor, you ought to make him believe in you. And if you are in bed, he will believe in you, and if you are out of it, he is apt not to. More than that, Mrs. Tolbridge, there is no greater compliment that you can pay to a physician you have sent for, than to have him ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... of North's Plutarch and paid it the compliment of following its thought more closely than that of any ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... a force she had encountered so seldom as to forget its being. Breitmann, in his capacity of secretary, was not so often in her company as Fitzgerald; nevertheless she was subtly attracted toward him. When he was of the mind he could invent a happy compliment with a felicity no less facile than Fitzgerald. And the puzzling thing of it all was, both men she knew from their histories had never been ornaments at garden-parties where compliments are current coin. She liked Fitzgerald, but she admired Breitmann, a differentiation which she had no inclination ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... Jaxon. I can't say I luved him, for he never yoosed us rite. He hated the Whigs ez bad ez we did, but after we beat em and elevated him to the Presidency, the stealins didn't come in ez fast ez we expected. Never shel I forgit the compliment he paid me. Jest after his election I presented myself afore him with my papers, an applicant for a place. He read em, and scanned ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... Constantinople. Clever Lady Mary, however, entirely declined to be subjugated by the pathetic fallacy, and sent back a matter-of-fact epitaph for John Hewet and Sarah Drew, which, though it wound up with a compliment to her correspondent, can hardly have gratified him. But there is one letter of this time the sincerity of which is undoubted. It is Pope's announcement to Martha Blount of his father's death. "My poor Father dyed last night," it says. "Believe, since I don't forget you this moment, I never ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... like the spirit of a youth That means to be of note, begins betimes.— So, so; come, give me that: this way; well said.— Fare thee well, dame, whate'er becomes of me: [Kisses her.] This is a soldier's kiss: rebukeable, And worthy shameful check it were, to stand On more mechanic compliment; I'll leave thee Now like a man of steel.—You that will fight, Follow me close; I'll bring ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... understood as spoken ironically, and indeed to have been the greatest sarcasm imaginable upon them; especially, when we consider the insolent treatment given to her Majesty in the very same address; for immediately after they pass this compliment upon themselves, they tell her Majesty, they deeply regret the Sacramental Test; and frankly declared, that neither the gentlemen, nor people of their persuasion, could (they must mean would) serve her, whatever exigencies might arise, unless that ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... rescue? You know we must have been sunk or captured half an hour ago if she had not turned up so opportunely, in spite of your so happily coming fifty miles this side of the rendezvous. I should like to return the compliment by delivering ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... proposed, and Mr Cobden seconded, a vote of thanks to the chairman, who briefly acknowledged the compliment, and three cheers having been given for free trade the meeting separated, ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... from a reverend minister, who was his chaplain at that time, and took freedom to advise my lord not to adventure on it; yet this excellent person, having the glory of God and the honour of religion more in his eyes than his own safety, went on in his designed reproof, and would not for a compliment, quit the peace he expected in his own conscience, be the event what it would, by disburthening himself; he got a great many fair words, and all was pretended to be taken well from my lord register; but, as he was told by his well-wishers, it was never forgot[129]." For, in compliance with Cromwel, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible. And at a feast he shall have more to eat; we have the authority of Homer for honouring brave men with 'long chines,' which is an appropriate compliment, because meat is a very strengthening thing. Fill the bowl then, and give the best seats and meats to the brave—may they do them good! And he who dies in battle will be at once declared to be of the golden race, and will, as we believe, become one of Hesiod's ...
— The Republic • Plato
... VMS fans sometimes refer to Unix as 'Runix'; Unix fans return the compliment by expanding VMS to 'Very Messy Syntax' or 'Vachement Mauvais Syst'eme' (French idiom, "Hugely ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... This sudden compliment—for it was nothing short—staggered Ludar for a moment, and he looked quickly up to see if the Don were not trifling with him. But Don Alonzo was ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... 1518. If it be true, as is, indeed, most apparent, that it was painted by order of Maximilian nearly forty years after the loss of the young wife he so tenderly loved, and only one year before his own death, there is something very touching in it as a memorial. The ingenious and tender compliment implied by making Mary of Burgundy the real object of those mystic texts consecrated to the glory of the MATER DEI, verges, perhaps, on the profane; but it was not so intended; it was merely that combination of the pious, and the poetical, and the sentimental, ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... Nepaul. He knew all about England, our army, our mode of government, our parliament, and our Queen; whenever he alluded to Her Majesty he salaamed profoundly, whether as a tribute of respect to her, or in compliment to us as loyal subjects, we could not quite make out. He described to us the route home by the Suez canal, and the fun of his talk was much heightened by his applying the native names to everything; London was Shuhur, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... scarcely a woman to be met with in society, who does not know, from experience, what a painful thing it is to crush the hopes of a man who is paying her the high compliment of wishing to place the happiness of his life in her keeping; and when to this source of embarrassment is added the consciousness of having culpably raised expectations that she shrinks from realising, the situation becomes doubly distressing. On the present occasion, agitated, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... to the architectural improvements in France under the Third Napoleon, by Mr. George Edmund Street, by Prof. Kerr, Mr. Digby Wyatt, and others. The President then proposed a vote of thanks to Mr. Ruskin, who, in acknowledging the high compliment paid him, said he would detain the meeting but a few minutes, but he felt he ought to make some attempt to explain what he had inefficiently stated in his paper; and there was hardly anything said in the discussion ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... old hunter, and by right should have carried the gun; but it was arranged differently, out of compliment to me—the stranger, he held in one hand the huge frying-pan, while in a bag over his shoulder was a bushel or more ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... Grand Duke rode up to the carriage, and for some seconds the two chiefs gazed into each other's faces without the utterance of a word. Then the Grand Duke stretched out his hand and shook the hand of Osman Pasha heartily and said: "I compliment you on your defence of Plevna; it is one of the most splendid military feats in history." Osman Pasha smiled sadly, rose painfully to his feet in spite of his wound, said something which I could not hear, and ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... inexorable. Mr. Plausaby complained that the fat gentleman was hard, and the fat gentleman was pleased with the compliment. Having been frequently lectured by his wife for being so easy and gullible, he was now eager to believe himself a very Shylock. Did not like to rob little Kate of her marriage portion, he said, but he must have the best or none. He wanted the whole ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... shortening sail as she did so to permit a barque to run up with her for the purpose of ascertaining her nationality. The barque, which proved to be English, dipped her ensign as she passed to the Stars and Stripes which were flying from the peak of the Alabama; but the compliment not being really intended for the Confederate vessel, but for her enemies, was, of ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... thoughtfullest characters in his works—talk. If his words be "light as air," they vent "truths deep as the centre." If the Fool in "Lear" had written letters to his friends and acquaintances, I think they would have marvellously resembled this epistle to Patmore; and if, in saying this, I compliment the Fool, I hope I do not derogate from the genius of Elia. Jaques, it will be remembered, after hearing the "motley fool" moral on the time, declared that "motley's the only wear"; and I opine that Lamb would consider ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Walter Scott and Byron are but unaesthetic judges of the poet, there is Wordsworth who was sufficiently exclusive in admitting any to the sacred brotherhood in which he still reigns, and far too honest to make any exception out of compliment to any one on any occasion—he did nevertheless thus write to the poet's son and biographer in 1834: 'Any testimony to the merit of your revered father's works would, I feel, be superfluous, if not impertinent. They will last from ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... can return the compliment; for a blue, with chased buttons and silk lining, you beat anything I ever had the honour of meeting. But I suppose, as you are here, you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... given in the memoirs of Arnault. At first she plied her suit with fulsome compliment. Bonaparte listened coldly, and the conversation flagged. In despair she blurted out, "General, what woman could you love the most?" "My own," was the stinging reply. ("Quelle femme?" "La mienne.") Woman and wife being the same ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... publicly that "the capture of Valdivia was the happy result of an admirably-arranged plan and of the most daring execution," they refused to award either to him or to his comrades any other recompense than was contained in the verbal compliment; and, on his refusing to give up his prizes until the seamen had been paid their arrears of wages, he was threatened with prosecution for ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... never use in our part of the state any fertilizer that will come in contact with the stems except leaves. When the streets are cleaned in the fall I pile the leaves on the back lot. I have fourteen or fifteen loads hauled in. This is scattered over the peonies. I want to compliment you on having very fine peonies, some of them finer than I have ever seen, and I hope you will all be as enthusiastic about raising peonies as I am. Is it necessary to burn the tops when they are cut off? I consider that the ashes from the tops aid in fertilizing. I pile them ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... was no violation of principle whatever to establish a new Church in Ireland, and add thereby to the monstrous evils which exist there now from the establishment of one in connection with the State. The right hon. Baronet has paid no great compliment to the Irish Catholics in the possession of means and property, when he has said that the 9,000l. now voted is just sufficient to damp the generosity of the people of that country. If 9,000l. were enough in some degree to check ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... incessantly, and in such quantities, that their lips become quite red, and their teeth black—showing that it has affected their whole systems. They carry it about them in boxes, and offer it to each other in compliment, as the Europeans do snuff; and it is considered uncivil and unkind to refuse to accept and chew it. This is done by the women as well as by the men. Were we disposed, we might draw from this fact many important lessons ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... being domineered by a wholesome and handsome woman, and Mr. James North had by this time made up his mind that she was both. Once or twice he found himself contemplating her splendid figure with a recollection of the doctor's compliment, and later, emulating her own ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... Thoracic is inclined to betray his aversions. He occasionally delights to put people he dislikes at a disadvantage by his wit or satire. The stony individual who walks through life like an Ionian pillar is a complete mystery to the Thoracic; and the pillar returns the compliment. We do not like anything we do not understand and we seldom understand anything that differs ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... regulate the sun?" replied Master Zacharius eagerly, without wincing. "I can scarcely compliment you upon it. Your sun goes badly, and in order to make ourselves agree with it, we have to keep putting our clocks forward so much ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... Plattenberg, who expressed the deepest regret to hear of the loss of Cook, and requested that he should be sent a portrait of the Captain to place in a blank space he pointed out between two portraits of De Ruyter and Van Tromp—a gracious compliment. Sailing from Simon's Bay on 9th May, the trades were picked up on the 14th, and on 13th June the line was crossed in longitude 26 degrees 16 minutes West. The coast of Ireland was sighted on 12th August, and ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... adorned with prints of American origin, among which were portraits of all the Presidents of the United States, previous to General Harrison. These, perhaps, were the gift of some merchant-captain to his hospitable landlady; or, more probably, they had been hung up in compliment to the national sensibilities of Madam Domingo's most frequent guests. Tawdry mirrors and chandeliers completed the decoration of the apartment. A supper of coffee and hard-boiled eggs, beds harder ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... well got to an anchor, I dispatched an officer to acquaint the governor with our arrival, and to request the necessary stores and refreshments; which were readily granted. As soon as the officer came back, we saluted the garrison with thirteen guns, which compliment was immediately returned with ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... her side I feel more defenseless than when I am alone. While we watch the festival, the shining hurly-burly, murmuring and eulogistic, the Baroness espies me, smiles and signs to me to go to her. So I go, and in the presence of all she pays me some compliment or other on my service at the front. She is dressed in black velvet and wears her white hair like a diadem. Twenty-five years of vassalage bow me before her and fill me with silence. And I salute the Gozlans also, in a way which I feel is humble in spite of myself, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... It intoxicated me, so that I hardly knew what I stammered out—something about working men having very few opportunities of indulging the taste for—I forget what. I believe I was on the point of running off into some absurd compliment, but I caught the dark lady's warning eye ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... again re-elected to Congress, his national services, as well as his fidelity to the local interests of his constituents, having secured for him that distinguished compliment. In this Congress he continued to occupy a prominent position, and was recognized as one of the leading men on the Republican side, though not so thoroughly partizan as to accept all the measures proposed in the name of the Republican ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... she said, making a mock courtesy; "but the compliment is made a little anxious for me by your evident implication that I didn't look so beautiful this morning. You laid such ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... I was comparatively obscure, and to find myself remembered and written of by such a man gave me a thrill of pleasure I can never forget. I put down the book, and lay there thinking how proud I was, and ought to be, at the revelation of this compliment. What an incentive to a youngster like me to ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... the precaution was superfluous, and everything proceeded with the utmost smoothness and politeness. Four shallops came off with very little noise alongside the lugger, which, no doubt, in acknowledgement of the compliment, lowered her own shallop into the sea, and the five boats worked so well that by two o'clock in the morning all the cargo was out of The Young Amelia and on terra firma. The same night, such a man of regularity ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... suggested some Southern or Eastern, some remotely foreign, woman. She had a large collection of ear-rings, and wore them in alternation; and they seemed to give a point to her Oriental or exotic aspect. A compliment had once been paid her, which, being repeated to her, gave her greater pleasure than anything she had ever heard. "A pretty woman?" some one had said. "Why, her features are very bad." "I don't ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... United Nations have paid us the high compliment of choosing the United States as the site of the United Nations headquarters. We shall be host in spirit as well as in fact, for nowhere does there abide a fiercer determination that this peace shall live than in the hearts ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... in praise of a gallant foe, and the chief of the Weedsport department acknowledged the compliment with a salute. ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... that now!" cried Mrs. Vrain, with a liveliness rather subdued in compliment to her apparel; "and his real name was Mark Vrain. Well, I guess he won't need no name now, poor man," and the widow touched her bright eyes carefully with a doll's pocket-handkerchief, which Lucian noted, ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... never be selfish, miss," said Milburn, without any of the suavity of a compliment, still carrying that wild, regarding gaze, like the eyes of ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... as we rode out of the village. Malak and his guard still sat motionless, the weird dancers and crowd of onlookers were still there, the huge bonfire blazing as brightly as ever, though the Eastern sky was lightening. As we passed within a hundred yards, I waved my hand, but the compliment was not returned. Some of the crowd looked up at the caravan; all must have seen it, but averted their faces till we had passed. I was not, on the whole, ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... particular. Mr. Gladstone joined us, and Sir Henry Irving came over to speak to Eve. She told him I had just said that England had a mold for handsome men. Irving was interesting and striking, though certainly not handsome; but he took the compliment to himself, smiled, ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... for one of my old customers. I chanced to meet him, when I was starting on my trip, at the very time when he was making his maiden effort at selling a bill to the man for whom he had been working. Of course this was a push-over for him because his old employer gave him an order as a compliment. ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... is pleased to flatter me," he said, bowing low; "but flattery is not good for either grown-up children or younger ones, and I must beg leave to decline the compliment, as I cannot see that Elsie bears the slightest resemblance to me or any of my family. She is very like her mother, though," he added, with a half sigh and a tender, loving glance at his little girl, "and that is just what I would have her. But I am forgetting my errand, Miss Stevens; ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... his performance was superlatively great. So great indeed, that if all the other parts had been nearly equal to it, we should not at all hesitate to put it in competition with the Othello of any man now living. As it was, we pay it no compliment in saying that it was in every part much superior to that of Pope, the quondam Othello ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... should say so! Barring the costume, which I supposed you to have assumed out of compliment to the art—or for vraisemblance, so to say—and the no mustache, that portrait is you in every feature, line, ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... My Lady Longblower was seen to cool away like liquid tallow, while not a few who had been equally fervent just before, said it was a very impertinent thing in Mr. Bolt. But as that gentleman took a more philosophical view of the matter he returned the compliment by introducing his lady to several of those damsels who had but a few days before themselves hoped to win his heart. Indeed the arrival of Mrs. Bolt, though it brought things to a more legitimate platform, did not in the ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... sermon, condemns very properly the practice of gross, adulatory addresses to kings. Instead of this fulsome style, he proposes that his majesty should be told, on occasions of congratulation, that "he is to consider himself as more properly the servant than the sovereign of his people." For a compliment, this new form of address does not seem to be very soothing. Those who are servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty and their obligations. The slave, in the old play, tells his master, "Haec commemoratio est ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... personal attendants, and sent orders to the Hellenic generals to bring up a body of hoplites. These troops were to take up a position round his tent. This the generals did; bringing up about three thousand hoplites. Clearchus was also invited inside, to assist at the court-martial; a compliment due to the position he held among the other generals, in the opinion not only of Cyrus, but also of the rest of the court. When he came out, he reported the circumstances of the trial (as to which, indeed, there was no mystery) to his friends. He said that ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... swifter of wing, stronger, and even fiercer than the males. It may be inferred, that in the social life of "eagle-dom" the fair sex have their "rights," and perhaps a little more. One thing is certain, and it seems to be a consequence of this (in compliment to the sex I say it) that nothing like polygamy is known amongst them. Woe to the eagle husband that would even ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... the highest compliment I have ever received." I bared my head at the word and then ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... His voice was strong and full, and the sweet old-fashioned courtesy of compliment suited him exactly. The last word had scarcely left his lips when the door opened, and Emma showed in Mr. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... thanked us, and one of them said, "You Americans have taught us a lesson; for, instead of a mere display of fireworks to the rabble of a single city, or a ball or concert to a few officials, you have, in this solemn recognition of Grotius, paid the highest compliment possible to the entire people of the Netherlands, past, present, and ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... a watering-place, or the bustle of a crowded sea-port. But generally, its landscapes are more distinguished for beauty than sublimity, and hence the very appropriate designation of "THE GARDEN OF ENGLAND!" an emphatic compliment cheerfully paid by the thousands annually visiting its shores for pleasure or for health: and perhaps there is scarcely another spot in the kingdom, of the same narrow limits, which can concentrate more of those qualities that at once charm the eye and animate the soul. Nor should ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... all from your unholy and sinful lusts. Death must strike at your heart to awaken it from voluptuous sleep and cause you to look within. In these coffins we will soon rest, and all earthly vanity and glory will be at an end. No one will fear my glance or my crutch; no one will compliment the beautiful toilet of the queen, or admire her diamonds; dust will return to dust, and the king and the queen be nothing more than food ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... suggested by something closely personal, branch off into more general considerations; or else begin with general considerations, and end with a case in point. Thus, for instance, a fragment of three pages begins: 'A compliment which is only made to gild the pill is a positive impertinence, and Monsieur Bailli is nothing but a charlatan; the monarch ought to have spit in his face, but the monarch trembled with fear.' A manuscript entitled Essai d'Egoisme, dated, 'Dux, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... mark or badge. His highly-decorated shield was borne behind him, the three garbs and the lions being chiefly conspicuous in the marshalling: the former, the original bearing of Hugh Lupus, was often used by the constables of Chester, in compliment to their chief lord. Its shape was angular, and suspended from the neck by a strap called guige or gige, a Norman custom of great antiquity. A huge broadsword was carried by his armour-bearer, the person of the chief being without any further means of impediment or defence than a French stabbing ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the poem to Mr. Gifford purchases the copyright 'The [Greek: anax] of publishers' recommended by Lord Byron to Mr. Moore as 'among the first of the trade,' offers 1000 guineas for the 'Giaour' and 'Bride of Abydos,' Lord Byron's high compliment to pays 1000 guineas for the 'Siege of Corinth' and 'Parisina' the 'Mokanna' of publishers' offers 1500 guineas for the 4th canto of 'Childe Harold' poetical epistle to 'Strahan, Tonson, Lintot, of the times' conduct to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Story attended a public dinner in Boston at which Edward Everett was present. Desiring to pay a delicate compliment to the latter, the learned judge proposed as ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... allied Grand Army suffered from no lack of advisers. The Czar, the Emperor Francis, and the King of Prussia were there; as a compliment to Austria, the command was intrusted to Field-Marshal Schwarzenberg, a man of diplomatic ability rather than of military genius. By his side were the Russians, Wittgenstein, Barclay, and Toll, the Prussian Knesebeck, the Swiss ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Pitt at Downing Street—the only occasion, I believe, on which they met—and found in the ante-room Sir Arthur Wellesley, just returned from India. At the end of the interview Pitt flattered the great seaman by an act of attention which he thus described: "Mr. Pitt paid me a compliment, which, I believe, he would not have paid to a Prince of the Blood. When I rose to go, he left the room with me and attended me to the carriage." By attentions such as these Chatham was wont to stimulate the patriotism of our warriors; and on this occasion his son played an equally ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... lead the Goddess of Song to my poor table for refreshment.' So saying, his Highness offered his hand and led her to his table. He presented her to Madame de Geyling, who gave her a bitter-sweet smile and paid her the compliment of turning her back upon her. The Duke plied his guest with food and wine, declaring that ambrosia and nectar were better fitted for her; he toasted her; he praised her; he exhausted his knowledge of mythology in her honour, calling her ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... Mr. Moore. Their house was one of his homes, and he was a frequent guest at our own. He petted and spoiled my two children: he was very soft and kind to me, whom he called "Mamma," after Wyn's example, and he considered that my husband "understood good manners"—a compliment which he did not pay to ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... them they shared the responsibility for all good and evil. So far, good. But this was clearly saving the goodness of God at the expense of his omnipotence. Moreover, if God was to be thought of as the creator of the universe, the theory, as Mill said, paid him the doubtful compliment of making him the creator of Satan, and, therefore, the creator of evil once removed. Or, if not, God and the devil were left as rival monarchs quarrelling over a territory that appeared to exist apart from ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... with it alone....The musical sense implies the intelligence....The theory...applies to a great number of sonorous sensations, and not at all to any musical perceptions." Mr. W.H. Hadow tells us that it is the duty of the musician not to flatter the sense with an empty compliment of sound, but to reach through sensation to the mental faculties within. And again we read "the art of the composer is in a sense the discovery and exposition of the INTELLIGIBLE relations in the ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... I found Coleman come again to my house, and with my wife in our great chamber, which vexed me, there being a bed therein. I staid there awhile, and then to my study vexed, showing no civility to the man. But he comes on a compliment to receive my wife's commands into the country, whither he is going, and it being Saturday my wife told me there was no other room for her to bring him in, and so much is truth. But I staid vexed in my closet till by and by my cozen Thomas Pepys, of Hatcham, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... de Aguirre. Castillo subjected the Guarpes, the ancient inhabitants of that province, to the Spanish dominion, and founded two cities on the eastern skirts of the Andes, which he named San Juan and Mendoza, the latter in compliment to the family name of the governor Don Garcia. The extensive and fertile province of Cujo remained for a considerable time dependent on the government of Chili, but has been since transferred to the vice-royalty of Buenos Ayres, to which it seems more properly to appertain ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... be changed into living protoplasm, and thus I would transubstantiate sheep into man; and were I to return to my own place by sea and undergo shipwreck, the crustacean might and probably would return the compliment, and demonstrate our common nature by turning my protoplasm into living lobster." As has been said before, where there are life manifestations there is protoplasm. Life is regarded by one class of thinkers as the principle or cause of organization; ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... better critic than Giallo is not to be found in all Italy, though I say it who shouldn't. An approving wag of his tail is worth all the praise of all the Quarterlies published in the United Kingdom." Hereupon Giallo, apparently delighted at this compliment, barked and frisked about like a creature bewitched, jumped into his master's lap, and did not return to a quiescent state until he had kissed his master's face. "Down, Giallo, down!" finally cried Landor. "Where are your manners, sir? Don't you know it is very uncivil ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... like the oils, you will never run.' You all look perfect pictures, and everybody must admire your well-knit frames. Gentlemen, I do not know whether you will take my concluding observation as a compliment or not, but I need hardly say that it is meant to be both truthful and complimentary, and it is this, that though you are all Artists, you ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... Elsie said, with a gratified look; "I appreciate the compliment; but if I had the naming of my little granddaughter, she should be another Violet; there is already an Elsie in the family besides myself, you know, and it makes a little confusion to have too many of the ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... And after that came the Italian national air, which isn't an anthem, but a quick march, and so lacks dignity. The "Wacht am Rhein" made a half-hearted effort to be present, but in the night we had the Emperor's own "Sang an Aegir," stuck in the middle of a Wagner programme. Beyond this, compliment ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... acts above suggested. A mountain is commonly a stationary and reliable object which it is not necessary to chain up at night like a dog. And it is not easy at first sight to see that a man pays a very high compliment to the Holy City by setting out for it under conditions which render it to the last degree improbable that he will ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... boy of eighteen with awkward mien and clumsy hands. I wrote in pencil on my card a gallant compliment to the actress, begging her to receive me. Perhaps, if she knew my name, she would open her door ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... she now asked L'Isle's opinion of her dress, seeing him eye it with some surprise. Turning gracefully about and showing it off to him from different points of view, she told him that, as a last compliment to her Elvas friends, she had, for once, ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... her mistress, gaily; "don't you see how the young lady is blushing, while it is the poor, faded woman here in the chair who ought to blush at such a compliment?" ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... Master does not seem to like him much, for some reason or other,—perhaps he has a special aversion to the odor of tobacco. As his forefinger shows a little too distinctly that he uses a pen, I shall compliment him by calling him the Man of Letters, until I find out more ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... more formal vein, "I am sure, underestimates my capacity for appreciation. May one venture to compliment mademoiselle, who is marvellous in ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... combination of those inexplicable grooves and twists in his mind, that any discipline would curb it to mediocrity. Probably more than any concrete vice or failing Amory despised his own personality—he loathed knowing that to-morrow and the thousand days after he would swell pompously at a compliment and sulk at an ill word like a third-rate musician or a first-class actor. He was ashamed of the fact that very simple and honest people usually distrusted him; that he had been cruel, often, to those who had sunk their personalities in him—several girls, and a man here and ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... hardness vanished. He smiled as she had never seen him smile. In that and his speechless delight she read his estimate of her appearance; and, notwithstanding the unwomanliness of her costume, and the fact of his notorious character, she knew she had never received so great a compliment. Finally he ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... "It's a compliment, anyway," said Jessie, philosophically. "They were so eager for our society that they even ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... picayune in these degenerate days what Dr. Warburton said pro or con a book? It was Warburton (then Bishop of Gloucester) who remarked of Granger's "Biographical History of England" that it was "an odd one." This was as high a compliment as he ever paid a book; those which he did not like he called sad books, and those which he fancied he called ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... was some very good ranting-ground in Frederick, he professed an equal willingness for that. Henry Crawford was ready to take either. Whichever Mr. Yates did not chuse would perfectly satisfy him, and a short parley of compliment ensued. Miss Bertram, feeling all the interest of an Agatha in the question, took on her to decide it, by observing to Mr. Yates that this was a point in which height and figure ought to be considered, and that his being the tallest, seemed to fit him peculiarly ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... copy of the Helena paper that gives an account of the ball, in which you will read that "Mrs. Rae was inimitable—the best sustained character in the rooms." I have thought this over some, and I consider the compliment doubtful. ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... answered gayly. Judith ran down stairs. At the door she encountered Lydia and eyed her with lofty disapproval. It did not seem to trouble Miss Bryant much. She knew Miss Lisle disliked her, and took it as an inevitable fact, if not an indirect compliment to her conquering charms. So she smiled and wished Judith good-morning. But she had a sweeter smile for Bertie when, a little later, carefully dressed, radiant, handsome, with her violets in his coat, he too went on his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... to correct your writings?" "We correct one another's." "But do they give satisfaction?" "Yes." "What, in their corrections?" "Yes, but not as much as you; your corrections were better than theirs." "Well, that is what I am trying to get out of you." "In other words, George, you wanted a compliment from me." "Oh, bosh, you ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... was far from as ignorant of these processes as he led his visitors to suppose. "Boys, I wish to compliment you very highly upon this piece of work. When I first looked at the schedule and saw that an airplane meeting its requirements would make this trip squarely around the world in seven and a half hours less than ten days I could scarcely credit my senses, and I figured it all over to make sure ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... it to account,' rejoined Jack; 'we can turn it to account—at least I can; but then you must do it. He wouldn't take it as any compliment from me. It's the stranger that sees all things in their true lights. D'ye ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... said Lucie, "cannot fail of seeming very foolish, till you leave off this annoying habit of turning every word into a compliment:—nay, do not look displeased," she added, gaily; "you know that you deserve reproof, occasionally, and there is no one who will administer it to you, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... respecting the then Mayor, upon whom there was some hesitation as to whether the honour of knighthood should be conferred. Mr. Cox suggested, in reply, that the honour, although of course nominally given to the Mayor, would really be granted as a compliment to the town, which had chosen him as the chief magistrate. Acting on this suggestion, the Government of the day, as is well known, decided ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... I can return your compliment, Nancy," said Bob, laughing. "You saved me from drowning, and if you hang on long enough I'll manage to save ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... friendly, impudent smile beamed upon the superintendent. "I thank you for the compliment, Mr. Elder. Honest, I didn't know how smart a haid I had in my hat ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... very thin and straggly, and she could not help coloring at this left-handed compliment; but at that moment Alice appeared on the balcony to tell the other two girls that the rules were ready, and that they might return to the house. They did so, and the rules were then read carefully over (by Elma on this occasion), ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... they are liable to receive attentions that indicate a particular regard, and, long before they are really old enough to form any such ties, they often receive matrimonial overtures; it is therefore highly necessary to know how to treat them. The offer of a man's heart and hand is the greatest compliment he can pay you, and, however undesirable to you those gifts may be, they should be courteously and kindly declined; and since a refusal is, to most men, not only a disappointment, but a mortification, it should always be prevented, if possible. Men have various ways of cherishing and declaring ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... take it as a compliment, if you like—a national compliment. We do not at the present moment desire war with England. Our plan of campaign, for its speedy and successful accomplishment, demands your neutrality. The North Sea must be free to us. Our fleet must be in a ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and begun to study the wild folk that live in holes and thickets. He had a fine face. You would have called him handsome, but not they among whom he lived. With them handsome was as handsome did, and the face of a man, if it were cleanly, was never a proper cause of blame or compliment. But there was that in his soul, which even now had waked the mother's wonder and set forth a riddle ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... character he had given him by so beautiful a gentleman, and one who appeared of so much quality, being alone, and knowing he was so also, sent a Spanish page, that spoke very good French, and had a handsome address, and quick wit, to make his compliment to the young Monsieur; which was to beg to be admitted to sup with him; who readily accepted the honour, as she called it; and the young Governor, whom we must call Alonzo, for a reason or two, immediately after entered her chamber, with an admirable address, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... to take several more cups, and his humor reached its height. Many poems, both in Chinese and Japanese, were composed by those present, most of whom paid high compliment to Genji. He felt proud, and unconsciously exclaimed, "The son of King Yuen, the brother of King Mu;" and would have added, "the King Ching's ——"[104] but ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... and the captain spoke decisively. "We're overloaded, and you'll not find a spot vacant. I'll fare very well with the mate. I can use the cabin daytimes, when necessary. You must have done the handsome thing by Crosby, and I'll return the compliment as far as possible. The steward will have your luggage stowed away, and show ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... take that," said Walter, returning the compliment with as much energy as if he had been playing at the game ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... leaving my father's house for a long absence, he told me that I should find, as I got acquainted with new people, that I had been taught many things which youths of my age did not commonly know; and that many persons would be disposed to talk to me of this, and to compliment me upon it. What other things he said on this topic I remember very imperfectly; but he wound up by saying, that whatever I knew more than others, could not be ascribed to any merit in me, but to the very unusual advantage which had fallen to my lot, of having a ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... "Remember, Jasperson, that a burning black eye indicates jealousy, which you must beware of arousing. Don't praise too wantonly the beauty of Miss Dutton's sisters and cousins; but if the father is well-looking, pay your mistress the compliment of saying that the children of true lovers always take after the father. In turning the leaves of the album you might touch her hand, quite accidentally. No less an authority than Mr. Pickwick commends ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... po' compliment to me, Mrs. Hosrma. Can't you stan' my company for that li'le distance?" returned Gregoire gallantly. "Mr. Hosma had a good deal to do w'en he got back, that's w'y he sent me. An' we betta hurry up if we expec' to ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... certainly was, particularly the last Act. But tho' the order of time in which the several pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there are passages in some few of them which seem to fix their dates. So the Chorus in the beginning of the fifth Act of Henry V. by a compliment very handsomly turn'd to the Earl of Essex, shews the Play to have been written when that Lord was General for the Queen in Ireland: And his Elogy upon Q. Elizabeth, and her successor K. James, in the latter end of his Henry VIII. is a proof of that Play's ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... and forefinger of each hand into a whisker fluff and twisted a couple of spills, squinting at them. "The compliment is esteemed, boys. But the previousness is perplexing. This is February, and the ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... to his credit, and shows that he knew how to take advantage of the occasion, and how much he had improved in the course of a very few years' experience. His courage and ingenuity were vastly admired by his friends; so much so, that, one day, the captain of the band thought fit to compliment him, and vowed that when he (the captain) died, Cartouche should infallibly be called to the command-in-chief. This conversation, so flattering to Cartouche, was carried on between the two gentlemen, as they were walking, one night, on the quays by the side of the Seine. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... war, sir," one of them said, "and certainly we could not have anticipated that you would be so wonderfully placed for defence. I agree with you that our case was hopeless from the first, and I compliment you upon your dispositions, which were ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... [analogy with 'trufan' from SF fandom] One who exemplifies the primary values of hacker culture, esp. competence and helpfulness to other hackers. A high compliment. "He spent 6 hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on my FOOBAR 4000 last week — manifestly the act of a true-hacker." Compare ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... enough about it; your son dared to lift a hand to mine, and—and I'll have no tenant on my estate that will ever venture upon such an outrage as that;—it was a great compliment to you for my son to admire your bantams, or anything on your farm, without his being subjected to such ...
— The One Moss-Rose • P. B. Power
... am unaccountably in receipt by post of two vols. containing the Life of C. Bronte. I have pleasure in attributing this compliment to you; I beg, therefore, to thank you for them. The book is a perfect success, in giving a true picture of a melancholy life, and you have practically answered my puzzle as to how you would give an account ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... episode took Thorpe by surprise. As it seemed, in passing, to involve a compliment to his own strategic powers, he accepted it without comment. "Well—it is twenty-five, anyway," he told ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... replied, "we may take it as a great compliment to ourselves, for it shows that we have found out ways of doing things which cannot be improved ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... appealing to chance came up in conversation? It "was an excellent good word before it was ill-sorted," and we were fortunate in having a minister who was scholar enough to know what it meant. The language used by Mr. Motley conveyed the idea of his instructions plainly enough, and threw in a compliment to their author which should have saved this passage at least from the wringing process. The example just given is, like the concession of belligerency to the insurgents by Great Britain, chiefly ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and in my hand I Held my 'Doctrina Placitandi,' And though I never read a page in't, Thanks to that shrewd, well-judging agent, My sister's husband, Mr. Shark, Soon got six pupils and a clerk. Five pupils were my stint, the other I took to compliment ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... her gravely under the chin. I heard her soft, gratified cooing in answer to the compliment; the streak of light flashed on the polished shaft of a pillar; and Castro went on, going round to the staircase, evidently so as not to pass again before ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... down I considered that, something pretty was always said to ladies, and resolved to recover my credit by some elegant observation or graceful compliment. I applied myself to the recollection of all that I had read or heard in praise of beauty, and endeavoured to accommodate some classical compliment to the present occasion. I sunk into profound meditation, revolved the characters of the heroines ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... he, "take care you do not put your compliment just exactly that way to them; you might as well tell Dr. Colin he was a surprisingly ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... the purpose of tempting the Master.[1000] Jesus said: "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." This remark was no denial of sinlessness on the Savior's part; the young man had called Him "good" by way of polite compliment rather than in recognition of His Godship, and Jesus declined to acknowledge the distinction when applied in that sense. The Lord's remark must have deepened the young man's conception as to the seriousness of his question. Then said Jesus: "If thou wilt ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... of the autumn before last an announcement was made of this work in some of the public journals, the compliment was paid to me in one of the most enlightened of them, the Daily News, by a brilliant and learned writer, who was a perfect master of his subject, questioning whether it could be possible that Bracciolini had forged the Annals, on account of his mode of composition being so ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... not usually black, the prevailing colour being a mixture of black and red, the most common shade being chocolate. Dark complexions, as being most common, are naturally held in the highest esteem. To be told that he is light- coloured, or like a white man, would be deemed a very poor compliment by a Kaffir. I have heard of one unfortunate man who was so very fair that no girl would marry him." One of the titles of the Zulu king is, "You who are black." (61. Mungo Park's 'Travels in Africa,' 4to. 1816, pp. 53, 131. Burton's statement is quoted by Schaaffhausen, 'Archiv. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... when the court rose, to see the gentlemen of the country gathering about my old friend, and striving who should compliment him most; at the same time that the ordinary people gazed upon him at a distance, not a little admiring his courage, that was not afraid ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... unexpected number of galleries was discovered, so that, in fact, the interior of the mountain was like a vast bee-hive perforated with innumerable cells; and in compliment to the little Italian it was unanimously voted by the colony that their new home should be called ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... Helen looked troubled, even though it was a compliment to her skill; and for a few moments there was a painful silence ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... acknowledgment of the compliment, and Mr. Brassfield took himself gracefully from their presence. In the fashion of one pressed for ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... The day's experiences were reviewed, and, as the appetizing courses were served, the conversation drifted back to the World's Columbian Fair which all had attended. Many of the wonders of the "White City" were recounted, and Henley in his off-hand manner repeated a compliment which was paid by a cultivated Parisian who visited the Fair. The Frenchman said that at the last Paris Exposition, he saw immense and unsightly structures, such as one might expect to find in far-off Chicago, but ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... the Treaty of Amiens, the influence of their parents in the Cabinet of St. Cloud is as great as ever: I say their parents, because the crafty ex-Bishop, Talleyrand, foreseeing the short existence of these bastard diplomatic acts, took care to compliment the innocent Joseph Bonaparte with a share in the parentage, although they were his own ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... I would if I could. Shouldn't be surprised if you did some day, you want such funny things," answered Ben, appeased by the compliment. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... scanning my appearance, I could but return the compliment. She was very tall, almost as tall as I was myself; you would choose to call her stately, rather than slender. She was very fair, with large lazy blue eyes and a lazy smile to match. In all respects she was the greatest contrast to ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... to the end that I could set back in a rocking-chair and fan myself and tell a nigger cook to rake any old scraps together and not bother me with the details, while he saw me with my sleeves rolled up humped over a hot stove, or in a cloud of steam at a wash-tub. He said he could pay me the compliment of being the only girl who loved hard work as much as his mother had till it killed her—loved it, mind you! Think of drudging all your life for a man that thought you loved dirty work and was granting you a favor by keeping it piled up around you while he was lying around ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... Beauchamp?' he said heartily, using the nom de plume with an air of implied compliment; 'and so you've made up your mind to entrust yourself to us, have you? That's right. I don't think you'll find any reason to regret ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... exertions, or rather by my precautions, they suffered but little damage, and all my neighbours looked upon me as their deliverer and friend; they loaded me with presents, and offered more, indeed, than I would accept. All repeated that I was Saladin the Lucky. This compliment I disclaimed, feeling more ambitious of being called Saladin the Prudent. It is thus that what we call modesty is often only a more refined species of pride. But to proceed ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... the word, and the angel retired, smiling with mundane satisfaction over the compliment ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... most gracefully turned compliment, more grateful than the most admiring glance, was the sight of those rows of faces, all strange to me a little while ago, now lighting up with smiles of welcome as I came among them, enjoying that moment ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... but Aunt Kathryn scrambled out of her low chair also, and snatched my dress. "No, I'm not going to have you insult him," she exclaimed. "You shan't talk to him without me. He's my friend, not yours, and if I choose to consider this wild trick he's playing more a—a compliment than anything else, why, it won't hurt you. As for Beechy, ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... honor), but a very remarkable baby in the nursery; and it was Mr. Brooke's continual regret that he had not insisted on naming his son and heir Macclesfield, after the workmen's buildings, instead of the more commonplace Maurice, after Maurice Kenyon. But Maurice and Lesley returned the compliment by calling their eldest child Caspar, although Lesley did say saucily that she thought it a ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... of the speakers' room and hastily ran to the city to purchase a pistol. Having secured it, he came walking back at a furious pace. By this time the exercises were over and friends were returning to town. They desired to approach Belton and compliment him, and urge him to look lightly on his humorous finale; but he looked so desperate that none dared ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... opened on our backs. In addition to this we were being subjected to very heavy fire on our left flank, which was now completely in the air, and we could actually see their gun teams working the 77's on the crest of the ridge. The Bosche had paid us the compliment of rushing up his best troops to meet our Division, and certainly the Alpini Corps were most gallant fighters. To advance unsupported was out of the question, and our casualties were by now very heavy, so there was nothing left but to withdraw to the west side ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... he is ever of opinion that all such things as offences and services, crimes and virtues, are soup prepared from the bones of great-grandfathers, and served in painted pots to Arcadians. All this was concluded with a compliment which was smooth, rounded, exquisite as ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... as a final compliment, King pulled off her hair-ribbon and handed it to her with ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... a scarcely-expected compliment. The surprise restored her balance. With a sudden flash of her eyes and teeth at Trent over her shoulder, the lady's maid opened ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... themselves? And, if fortune favours, who gains the glory? I myself, Vespasian, call you to the throne. How much that may benefit the country and make you famous it lies with you—under Providence—to decide. You need not be afraid that I may seem to flatter you. It is more of an insult than a compliment to be chosen to succeed Vitellius. It is not against the powerful intellect of the sainted Augustus that we are in revolt; not against the cautious prudence of the old Tiberius; nor even against a long-established imperial ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... reception the hour is often prolonged to seven so as to allow more men to be present than would be the case if the time were restricted to the early afternoon. In these busy days few men are at liberty to make afternoon calls, and it is always a compliment to a girl if her tea includes a sprinkling of black coats. Whatever hours are decided on, they should be engraved on the cards sent out two weeks before the tea. These are of the form and size of an ordinary visiting-card and include the daughter's name below that of her mother's. If she ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... my father would say," returned John, taking this as a high compliment; "it would be very foolish of Lucas to give up a certainty for this just because of his Skipjack element, which doesn't want to get into routine harness. Now, don't ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for the compliment," said the doctor, dryly; "but I ha'e my doubts they'd think it ane, and they're crusty carls that's no' ower safe to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... chemistry, and expended all his wealth in the purchase of drugs and metals. He was also a poet, but of less merit than pretensions. His Chrysopeia, in which he pretended to teach the art of making gold, he dedicated to Pope Leo X., in the hope that the pontiff would reward him handsomely for the compliment; but the pope was too good a judge of poetry to be pleased with the worse than mediocrity of his poem, and too good a philosopher to approve of the strange doctrines which it inculcated; he was, therefore, far from gratified at the dedication. It is said, that when Augurello applied to him for ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... struggled forward, he remembered that the days were rapidly shortening, and he shrank from the prospect of retracing his way to camp in the dark. It occurred to him that it was a compliment and a mark of very fine courtesy that Lisle had left the first shot to him. In return for this, he must endeavor to be present to ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... easily to the fascination of a melodious and sympathetic eloquence, he wrote the History of the Girondins. The success was the most instantaneous and splendid ever obtained by a historical work. People could read nothing else; and Alexandre Dumas paid him the shrewd compliment of saying that he had lifted history to the level of romance. Lamartine gained his purpose. He contributed to institute a Republic that was pacific and humane, responsive to the charm of phrase, and obedient to the master hand that wrote the glories ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... usually a great compliment, disappointed Eleonora, as she answered, rather frigidly, "So ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... goes into the pulpit every one instantly blows his or her nose, and coughs his or her loudest before the text is given out, under a mistaken impression that they can get it all over at once, and not have to do it at intervals further on. This is a compliment to the clergyman, expressing their intention of hearing him undisturbed to the end, and, I suppose, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... fragrance to shatter the fast of a Pope; and without, a brown-edged white layer, so firm that the lieutenant's deft carving knife, passing through, gave no hint to the eye that it was delicious fat. There had been merry jest and laughter and banter and gallant compliment before, but it was Richard Hunt's turn now, and story after story he told, as the rose-flakes dropped under his knife in such thin slices that their edges coiled. It was full half an hour before the carver and story-teller ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... melody. Psyche, which first appeared in 1795, had a wonderful vogue, running rapidly through edition after edition. Among others to whom it appealed and who were influenced by it was Keats. Mrs. Tighe's talent drew from Moore a delicate compliment in "Tell me the witching tale again"; and in "The Grave of a Poetess" and "I stood where the life of song lay low", Mrs. Hemans bewailed ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... returned home to dinner, in compliment to me, though much pressed to dine with Lady Jones, as he was, also, by Sir Simon, to dine with him. But Mr. Peters could not conveniently provide a preacher for his own church tomorrow morning, at so short a notice; Mr. Williams being gone, as I said, to his new living; but ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... cities one after the other by capitulation. Then, disposing garrisons in the towns which they had taken, they departed to Rome to a triumph universally admitted to be due to them. To the triumph was added the honour of having equestrian statues erected to them in the forum, a compliment very unusual at that period. Before they commenced holding the meeting for the election of the consuls for the ensuing year, Camillus moved the senate concerning the Latin states, and spoke thus: "Conscript fathers, that which was to be done by war and arms in Latium has ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... but it's a strain. In Italy it will probably slacken somewhat and get better. We are lodging at the 'Four Seasons,' which fact gave Geert occasion to remark to me, that 'outside it was autumn, but in me he was having spring.' I consider that a very graceful compliment. He is really very attentive. To be sure, I have to be attentive, too, especially when he says something or is giving me an explanation. Besides, he knows everything so well that he doesn't even need to consult a guide ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... Tennyson lay dying in the white moonlight, his son tells how he held the play of Cymbeline in his dying hands, as was fitting, seeing he had held it in his living hands through many golden years. Than this dying tribute, Shakespeare never had more gracious compliment paid his genius. Who passes Shakespeare in his library without a caress of eye or hand? I would apologize if I were guilty of such a breach of literary etiquette. Boswell's Johnson edited Shakespeare; and Charles Lamb and Goethe ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... thank you, Captain Battleton, for the compliment, if I were not under suspicion of being some other person. May I ask when it will be convenient for you to settle the question, for it is not pleasant for me to feel that I am looked upon as even ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... mild radiance of the social virtues, instead of rushing into the fierce struggles of political life. I admit, sir, that it is their duty to attend to these things. I subscribe fully, to the elegant compliment, passed by him upon those members of the female sex who devote their time to these duties. But I say that the correct principle is, that women are not only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do depart ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... that he heard perfectly, trod on D'Harmental's foot under the table, to hint that this was an opportunity for paying a compliment. ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... an Alsacian, who talked to me in German—perhaps with the notion of paying me a compliment—informed me that he was entirely at my own service. He showed me a beautiful escritoire in the work-room, with everything ready for writing purposes, and told me that, in the reading-room attached, I should find an assortment ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... family expect the compliment of you?" asked Miss Incledon, looking at her in surprise; "I did not know that you were ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... accounts for Hoskins by putting another German completely out of commission. A prompt return compliment knocked Jerry's revolver out of his hand. At this juncture Slim played a heroic part by ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... us both the compliment of thinking us too old to have eyes, ears or brains—a common delusion among boys in love. No, he's told me nothing, but he's visibly wearing himself out in adoration of a very fascinating young woman; so, as he won't go away, she shall. There's ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... mention this because there are some Americans here who declare themselves ashamed of their country because of the meagerness of its share in the Exhibition. I do not suppose their country will deem it worth while to return the compliment; but I should have been far more ashamed of the prodigality and want of sense evinced in sending an indiscriminate profusion of American products here than I am of the actual state of the case. It is true, as I have already ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... the most fulsome strain. "Spare me, I beseech you, dear Madam," was his reply. She still laid it on. "Pray, Madam, let us have no more of this;" he rejoined. Not paying any attention to these warnings, she continued still her eulogy. At length, provoked by this indelicate and vain obtrusion of compliment, he exclaimed, "Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is worth, before you bestow it ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... welcome him—the little boy's name was Laurie, he had been given the name out of compliment to Aunt Laura; somehow or other it was almost like "coming home" instead of "going away" he thought, it was so home-like; perhaps it was because everything was so very, very old, that their newness and strangeness had entirely worn off. Perhaps it was because ...
— The Pigeon Tale • Virginia Bennett
... If I had not felt it my duty to preach the Gospel, I would have studied law myself." I remarked that I had read articles in the Christian Guardian, attributed to him, which I had heard people say exhibited a great deal of legal knowledge. He seemed pleased by the compliment, but did not acknowledge the paternity of the articles. After some further conversation as to my studies, etc., he recommended me to begin at once to read Latin, and promised to speak to my father and advise him to let me ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... the corners of Nancy's mouth at the compliment, and she let it rest there a few minutes ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... comes in contact with no other woman beyond you and his landlady, who, I understand, is over sixty and weighs fifteen stone—so it must be you if it's anybody.' (This is a Scotsman's way of paying a compliment; if you can follow the workings of his mind up to the source of the idea you will see ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... who showed the picture informed us that it was painted by order of the stadtholder, and presented to Leicester; if so, there would have been a jussu provinciarum foederatarum depictus, or something of that sort; but no such compliment was to be expected from the Dutch, for they hated him, complained of his conduct, memorialised the queen against him: see the pamphlets in the British Museum, 4to. 1587, C. 32. a. 2. But though it was most unlikely ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... in the Tenasserim division of Lower Burma. The town is situated about 30 m. S. of Moulmein. It was founded by the British in 1826 on the restoration of the town of Martaban to the Burmese, and named in compliment to the governor- general of India of that day; but in 1827 the headquarters were transferred to Moulmein. Amherst has been eclipsed in prosperity by the latter city, and is now merely a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Hentzner and other authorities, wore false hair. We are told that ladies, in compliment to her, dyed their hair a sandy hue, the natural colour of the ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... were stationed to act as occasion might require. The dispositions were made in so masterly a manner, as to draw forth a hearty eulogium from old Carbajal, who exclaimed, "Surely the Devil or Valdivia must be among them!" an undeniable compliment to the latter, since the speaker was ignorant of that commander's ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... may have long outgrown the characteristic jealousies and morbid sensibilities of their craft, and have found out the little value, (probably not amounting to sixpence in immortal currency) of the posthumous renown which they once aspired to win. It would be a poor compliment to a dead poet to fancy him leaning out of the sky and snuffing up the impure breath ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... pleasantly, "I do not wish to under-rate your genius in the least, but I should like to pay a compliment ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... a specimen of "inverted speech" (vol. ii. 265); abusive epithets intended for a high compliment, signifying that the man was a tyrant over rebels and a froward devil to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... would permit no gibes to be cast at either myself or my chimney; and never again did my visitor refer to it in my hearing, without coupling some compliment with the mention. It well deserves a respectful consideration. There it stands, solitary and alone—not a council—of ten flues, but, like his sacred majesty of Russia, a ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... how much he had improved in the course of a very few years' experience. His courage and ingenuity were vastly admired by his friends; so much so, that, one day, the captain of the band thought fit to compliment him, and vowed that when he (the captain) died, Cartouche should infallibly be called to the command-in-chief. This conversation, so flattering to Cartouche, was carried on between the two gentlemen, as they were walking, one night, on the quays by the side of the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lady, vivaciously, "I do not take your praise for a compliment. I protest I am acquainted with no young gentleman who would not defer his enjoyment of heaven to ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... and try to get through one more set of Lancers; my partner seemed so grateful, that the demon of vanity, or coquetry, or whatever it is that prompts one to say absurd things induced me to fish for a compliment, and to observe, "It was not worth while taking all the trouble of riding such a distance to dance only with me, was it?" Whereupon my poor, doleful friend answered, with a deep sigh, and an accent of profound conviction, "No, indeed it was not!" I leave ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... had also risen to go. But no: she was giving her hand to her companion, bidding him good-bye. Now she had resumed her seat, continuing the busy movement of her fan that annoyed Rafael so. Thanks for the compliment, my fair one I Though as far as he was concerned, the whole audience might have gone, leaving only the president and the mace-bearers. Then he could speak without any fear at all! The public galleries, especially, unnerved him. Nobody had moved there. Those workingmen were without doubt waiting for ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and political economists, the early governors and burgomasters, were so blind to the necessities and interests of a new and sparsely populated country, as to forbid bundling within their borders? Indeed, it would be but a sorry compliment to the wisdom of that sagacious and far-sighted body of merchants comprised in the High and Mighty West India Company, to believe that they were unwilling to introduce under their benign auspices, a custom so intimately ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... fin-spine—most primitive of spear-heads—Ulysses was slain; and again, he may learn not a little about that ναρκη {narkê}, or torpedo, to which Meno compared his master Socrates, in a somewhat ambiguous compliment. ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... 1875, the nomination for Mayor of Bridgeport was offered Barnum, but he refused it, until assured that the nomination was intended as a compliment, and that both parties would sustain it. Politically the city is largely Democratic, but Barnum led the Republican ticket, ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... work he did that winter was the address at Cooper Institute, New York, on February 27. He had received an invitation in the fall of 1859 to lecture at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. To his friends it was evident that he was greatly pleased by the compliment, but that he feared that he was not equal to an Eastern audience. After some hesitation he accepted, provided they would take a political speech if he could find time to get up no other. When he reached New York he found that he was to speak there instead of Brooklyn, and that he was certain to ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... supposing I had one old enough to require such a service. To suppose that I could gravely take upon myself the responsibility of withdrawing you from pursuits you have already undertaken, or urging you on in a most uncertain and hazardous course of life, is really a compliment to my judgment and inflexibility which I cannot recognize and do not deserve (or desire). I hoped that a little reflection would show you how impossible it is that I could be expected to enter upon a task of so much delicacy, but as you ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... that, a cataract and a cascade being practically the same thing, it was impossible that the former could manage to bound down the latter. My practical moral, as addressed to the Laureate, was, "Be just to yourself, and the public will be just to you," and the compliment implied in one part of this criticism did much to mitigate the unwelcome tenor of ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... each other their names, provinces, and even prospects; it is not so usual as is generally supposed to inquire a person's age. It is always a compliment to an old man, who is justly proud of his years, and takes the curious form of "your venerable teeth?" but middle-aged men do not as a rule care about the question and their answers can rarely be depended upon. A man may be asked the number and sex of his children; ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... well, Christian," observed the lady, smiling faintly at the compliment conveyed by the words of Alessandro, but ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... fine compliment to the patience and forbearance of the mass of the negroes. The majority see the minority emancipated two years before them, and that, too, upon the ground of an odious distinction which makes the domestic more worthy than they who "bear the heat and burthen of the day," ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... flourished in the reign of Charles I. but of whose birth and life we can recover no particulars. He was highly esteemed by some wits in that reign, as appears from a Poem called Steps to Parnassus, which pays him the following well turned compliment. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... little eyes, a faint smile upon his lips, as though to say that it was impossible he should be convinced that he had not found precisely what he was seeking, and insisting, as it were, that his hostess take his words as the compliment ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... and let them shake their learned curls at each other in legal rivalry; talent sees its way clearly, but tact is first at its journey's end. Talent has many a compliment from the bench, but tact touches fees. Talent makes the world wonder that it gets on no faster, tact arouses astonishment that it gets on so fast. And the secret is, that it has no weight to carry; it ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... argued, understood forms of speech, which every well-bred person practises—some of the 'sweet small courtesies of life, which help to smooth its road.' When walking with a friend, should he raise his hat to an acquaintance whom you never even saw before, you are bound to pay the same compliment; and this idea is so much de rigueur, that formerly very polite persons would rather affect not to see their friends than force their companions to salute them also. Now, however, the proper style is to say: 'I take the liberty to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... condescended to honour me if I withheld such trifling aid as mine, when it might in the least tend to adorn your lordship's administration. From me, my lord, permit me to say these are not words of course, or of compliment, this is not the language of flattery: your lordship knows I have no views; perhaps knows that, insignificant as it is, my praise is never detached from my esteem: and when you have raised, as I ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... effect of his last compliment, he said: "If you ever become a widow, I have put in my application!" Then he left the room hastily in order not to allow her time to ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... possesses more dramatic power than any other play-writer of our day." When we remember that, in France alone, Augier and Dumas fils and Hugo, Halevy and Meilhac and Labiche, were all of them alive, the compliment, though a sound, was a vivid one. Sooner or later, everything that was said about Ibsen, though it were whispered in Choctaw behind the altar of a Burmese temple, came round to Ibsen's ears, and ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... silks are the sellers, for these are nearly all girls and women, sweet and fresh in their white jackets, with flowers in their hair. And they are all delighted to talk to you and show you their goods, even if you do not buy; and they will take a compliment sedately, as a girl should, and they will probably charge you an extra rupee for it when you come to pay for your purchases. So it is never wise for a man, unless he have a heart of stone, to go marketing for silks. He should always ask a lady friend to go ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... most excellent canines, it should be recorded that they recovered a certain proportion of their nerve after a rifle had been fired. They then returned warily to the—not attack—reconnaissance. This trait showed touching faith, and was a real compliment to the marksmanship of their masters. Some day it will be misplaced. A little cautious scouting on their part located the wounded beast; whereupon, at a respectful distance, they lifted their voices. As a large element of danger in case of a wounded ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand on the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... that he arrived at Bayonne, and the sorrowful impression he had experienced on passing the frontier increased as he drew nigh to the end of his journey. There was no one on his road to meet him or compliment him, save the three Spanish noblemen whom he had himself sent to Napoleon, and who returned to their prince troubled with the gloomiest presentiments. Marshals Duroc and Berthier received him, however, with courtesy when he arrived at Bayonne, and the emperor soon had ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... given by Rolfganger to Athelstan, and the alliance between the English King and the Norman founder. He dexterously introduced into the song praises of the English, and the value of their friendship; and the Countess significantly applauded each gallant compliment to the land of the famous guest. If Harold was pleased by such poetic courtesies, he was yet more surprised by the high honour in which Duke, baron, and prelate evidently held the Poet: for it was among the worst signs of that sordid spirit, honouring only wealth, which had crept over ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Mr. John Effingham coldly answered. "All the state-rooms are in common, and I propose to seize an early occasion to return this compliment, by making myself at home in the apartment which has the honour to lodge Mr. ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... much the politic woman of the world to say that the dimity gown was the same one that she had worn for the two or three days previous; besides, the fact would have cast a doubt upon their judgment, and she was particular in all such little details of good breeding; so she parried the compliment deftly, and straightway fell to pondering as to what circumstance the remark might refer. Glancing toward the open window, she caught a reflection of herself where the glass, backed by the dark green curtain, made a mirror. She had forgotten to rearrange her hair, and her burnished silver-shot ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... of us," hastily assured Hippy. "We wouldn't listen to you if you tried to tell us. We understand. All the more credit to you for behaving like a clam. That's a compliment. Perhaps I had better explain. You notice I didn't say you looked like a clam." Hippy tried to infuse a little humor into ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... back into French, which, he assures you, you speak to perfection, "much better than the Canadians; the French of Paris in short—M'sieu' has been in Paris?" Such courtesy is born in the blood, and is irresistible. You cannot help returning the compliment and assuring him that his English is remarkable, good enough for all practical purposes, better than any of the other guides can speak. And so ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... more serious employments, if they still persisted in that course, it would look as if they minded not the way to any better; whereupon I stood corrected as long as I had the honour to wait upon him.' This is a strong instance of his duty to the King; but no great compliment to his Majesty's taste: nor was the public much obliged to the Monarch for this admonition ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... so. There's no necessity to say anything at present. He associates with men who are classed as dangerous. He was made a delegate of the Red Committee less than a year after his release on licence. A sort of compliment, I suppose." ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... turn the leaves of the music, but in reality to feast his eyes on beauty which daily bound him in stronger chains of fascination. Her head drooped under his words, but only as the flowers bend under the dew and rain that give them life. His passing compliment was a trifle, but it seemed like the delicate touch to which the subtle electric current responds. From a credulous, joyous heart a crimson tide welled up into her face and neck; she could not repress a smile, though she bowed her head in girlish shame to hide ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... of his cobbler's shop, Fox beheld with righteous indignation the extravagant and insincere courtesies of the gentlefolk, and heard their exaggerated phrases of compliment. In protest against the unmeaning courtesies, he wore his hat in the presence of no matter whom, taking it off only in time of prayer. In protest against the unmeaning compliments, he addressed no man by any artificial title, calling all his neighbors, without distinction of persons, ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... to me this morning by an intimate friend of General Trochu. There is a tunnel which connects Paris with the provinces, and through it flocks and herds are entering the town." This news cheered us up amazingly. My bootmaker's wife came in to help him off with his military accoutrements; so, with a compliment about Venus disarming Mars, I withdrew in company with an American, who had gone into the shop with me. This American is a sort of transatlantic Bunsby. He talks little, but thinks much. His sole observation to me as we walked away was this, "They will squat, sir, mark my words, they will squat." ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... The result of the division took both parties somewhat by surprise. The astonishment was heightened when her Majesty sent for Lord Granville, an action which, to say the least, was a left-handed compliment to old and distinguished advisers of the Crown. Happily, though the sovereign may in such high affairs of State propose, it is the country which must finally dispose, and Lord Granville swiftly found that in the exuberance of political ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... fear are wings," remarked Sir William. "But this rogue has given us an alert, and I have a notion to return the compliment.—What say you, gentlemen, shall ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... next new book found vent, The Devil to all the first Reviews A copy of it slyly sent, 465 With five-pound note as compliment, And ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... kissed her on the forehead. In my case she put both her hands on my shoulders, raised herself on tiptoe, and saluted me briskly on both checks in the foreign way. She never differed in opinion with Owen without propitiating him first by some little artful compliment in the way of excuse. She argued boldly with me on every subject under the sun, law and politics included; and, when I got the better of her, never hesitated to stop me by putting her hand on my lips, or by dragging me out into the garden in ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... it sounds wonderful. (Leaning over her, confidentially) I never saw my mam, and I never had a dad, and the first thing I remember is ... Cardiff Docks. And you're the first 'oman I ever told that, so you can compliment yourself. Or the drink. (Laughing) I think it's ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... it is usual to refer to books. Thus two pages only are appropriated to fractures of the body and neck of the femur! and twenty-six for the whole subject of fractures, wounds, and six or eight of the most important diseases, of bones! Yet all this criticism is not without a compliment, well-merited at least by the former productions of the same author, to ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... not good cooks like you, Chris," said Charley soothingly, and the vain little darky grinned at the compliment. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... "Sire, a compliment from Kaunitz is like the flower upon the aloe-it blooms once ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... August 29th and fifteen girls on August 30th. Among the boys we find a son of Ambroise St. Aubin and Anne, his wife, who received the name of Thomas and had as sponsors Pierre Thoma, chief, and his wife Marie Mectilde. The following day the compliment was returned and Ambroise and his wife stood as sponsors at the christening of Marie, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... dispositions, and whispering to myself a kind of tacit vow of incontinency, enters Mr. H... The consciousness of what I had been doing deepened yet the glowing of my cheeks, flushed with the warmth of the late action, which, joined to the piquant air of my dishabile, drew from Mr. H.... a compliment on my looks, which he was proceeding to bask the sincerity of with proofs, and that with so brisk an action, as made me tremble for fear of a discovery from the condition those parts were left in from their late severe handling: the orifice dilated and inflamed, the lips swollen with ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... fools enough to lose our illusions," retorted Wayward sharply, "but you never had any, Malcourt; and that's no compliment from ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... la Eucina, in the dedication to the prince, of his translation of Virgil's Bucolics, pays the following compliment to the enlightened and liberal taste of Prince John. "Favoresceis tanto la sciencia andando acompanado de tantos e tan doctisimos varones, que no menos dejareis perdurable memoria de haber alargado e estendido los limites e terminos de la sciencia que los del imperio." ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... it finding fault to wish you would show more feeling! It's the best sort of compliment, if ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... Morningquest, but occasionally—and always at the most inconvenient times—he would forget it was a cathedral, and imagine it was an opera house he was supporting; and when he went to distribute the prizes in the schools, he would compliment the pretty girls on their good looks, instead of lecturing them on the sin of vanity; and promise that they should sing in the chorus, or dance in the ballet if their legs were good, when he should have been discoursing ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... had some very pretty fighting out there, I understand—oh, pardon me, Miss Minor, permit me to present to you Colonel Curran, of General Halleck's staff. The Colonel, I believe, is as able a dancer as he is a soldier, and no higher compliment to his abilities could possibly be paid. Miss Minor, Colonel, is a native Virginian, who is present under protest, hoping doubtless to capture some young officer, and thus weaken ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... them at Cross Hall that the Dean would come over to them, knowing that his son-in-law was in the country; but the Dean did not come, probably waiting for the same compliment from Lord George. On the Friday Lord George rode into Brotherton early, and was at the Deanery by eleven o'clock. "I thought I should see you," said the Dean, in his pleasantest manner. "Of course, I heard from Mary that you were down ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... be a graceful compliment paid to the country of a visiting stranger, and, in the absence of other foreigners, not discourteous to anybody. I never before or since knew his natural flow of eloquence to waver as in this instance—a rarity that of itself makes the remark worthy ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... bearing, showing himself more able than anxious to rule. A discussion then took place whether the adoption should be announced before the people or in the senate, or in the guards' camp. They decided in favour of the camp, on the ground that it would be a compliment to the troops, whose goodwill was hard to win by flattery or bribes, but was by no means to be despised, if it could be won by good means. Meanwhile the curiosity of the populace, impatient of any important secret, had brought together crowds all round ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... dissemination of American ideas. At last, when the Revolution of February, 1848, broke out, he was chosen, with the greatest unanimity by the Provisional Government, to be the Representative of Republican France near the Government of the United States. It was deemed the highest compliment of which France was capable, that she sent as her minister the citizen most conversant with our affairs, and most eminent for admiration of our institutions. His arrival in this country, and the misunderstanding with the cabinet at Washington, which resulted in his ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... sheets as printed off; I assure you that it will be the HIGHEST satisfaction to me to do so: I look at the request as a high compliment. I shall not, you may depend, forget a request which I look at as a favour. But (and it is a heavy "but" to me) it will be long before I go to press; I can truly say I am NEVER idle; indeed, I work too hard for my much weakened ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... said that if you weren't so much of an angel you'd be a splendid artist or if you weren't so much of an artist you'd be a splendid angel. It sounds queer the way I say it but I know he meant it for a compliment." Mary Rose and Jenny Lind were posing for the jam poster. It was almost finished and Mary Rose ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... would have fluttered at the compliment. In her present preoccupation, it drew from her only a ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... allowance, You saved a little store; And those who save a little Shall get a plenty more." As the lawyer read this compliment, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... sides of the eminence in front grew clearer to the eye and gave ample proof of being able to furnish nooks which would afford them and their horses security, while enabling the friends a good opportunity for returning the compliment to the Boers as far ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... of Quaker cut, with a keen, clean-shaven face, black hair, and vivid black eyes. It was just after his poem, 'Snow Bound', had made its great success, in the modest fashion of those days, and had sold not two hundred thousand but twenty thousand, and I tried to make him my compliment. I contrived to say that I could not tell him how much I liked it; and he received the inadequate expression of my feeling with doubtless as much effusion as he would have met something more explicit and abundant. If he had judged fit to take my contract off ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... you for the double-edged compliment. However what you say is very interesting. Well now, my idea is that David Vavasour Williams did not die in a military hospital; he recovered and returned, firmly resolved to lead a new life.—Is his father living by the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... cultivated his good graces. In the interval between B.C. 11 and B.C. 7, distrustful of his subjects, and fearful of their removing him in order to place one of his sons upon the Parthian throne, he resolved to send these possible rivals out of the country; and on this occasion he paid Augustus the compliment of selecting Rome for his children's residence. The youths were four in number, Vonones, Seraspadanes, Rhodaspes, and Phraates; two of them were married and had children; they resided at Rome during the remainder of their father's ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... to-morrow night" (renewed applause), "in order that every member of this august body may have the opportunity to witness that most classic of histrionic productions, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'." (Loud applause, causing the Speaker to rap sharply.) "That we may show a proper appreciation of this compliment—I move you, Mr. Speaker, that the House adjourn not later than six o'clock to-morrow, Wednesday evening, not to meet ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... since I was seventeen," said Ella Monahan. "I'd hate to tell you how long that is." A murmur from the gallant Irishman. "Thanks, Father, for the compliment I see in your eyes. But what I mean is this: You're right about independence. It is a grand thing. At first. But after a while it begins to pall on you. Don't ask me why. I don't know. I only hope you won't think I'm a wicked woman when I say I could learn ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... Dale," resumed the Parson, not heeding this sarcastic compliment to the sex, but sinking his voice into a whisper, and looking round cautiously—"there's my dear Mrs. Dale, the best woman in the world—an angel I would say, if the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... purely out of compliment to one another, kept up a good-natured and urbane controversy as to which should marry first, had been overtaken by old age before they had got the question settled; here was a little young wife with a great old husband; there, on the other hand, was a dapper ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... subjects agreeable enough to decorate the palace of the Queen of Heaven; and that they were right, any one must feel, who compares these two windows with subjects of dogma. Saint James, better known as Santiago of Compostella, was a compliment to the young Dauphine— before Dauphines existed—the Princess Blanche of Castile, whose arms, or castles, are on the grisaille window next to it. Perhaps she chose him to stand there. Certainly her hand is ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... light infantry, while their cavalry, when we have joined them, will exceed one thousand men. At the date of our departure we left embassies from Athens and Boeotia in Olynthus, and we were told that the Olynthians themselves had passed a formal resolution to return the compliment. They were to send an embassy on their side to the aforesaid states to treat of an alliance. And yet, if the power of the Athenians and the Thebans is to be further increased by such an accession of strength, look to it," the speaker added, "whether hereafter ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... as the sun. In a small frame is the letter from the Goethe Club of New York, making Mrs. Kendal an honorary member. She is the only woman member of this club. And this pretty little doll dressed as a Quakeress—a charming compliment to the recipient—was presented by the Quakeresses of Philadelphia, who never, never, never go the play, yea, verily! So they sent this as a tribute of their admiration for the talents and character of the woman who has been called "The ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... it is adored as a divinity. Almost every house has one such pear-tree. In autumn, on the day of the festival, the tree is carried into the house with great ceremony to the sound of music and amid the joyous cries of all the inmates, who compliment it on its fortunate arrival. It is covered with candles, and a cheese is fastened to its top. Round about it they eat, drink, and sing. Then they bid the tree good-bye and take it back to the courtyard, where it remains for the rest of the year, set ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... details would be unnecessary. Profiting by his growing familiarity as neighbor, he went to school, as it were, at the model farm of the gentleman-farmer, and submitted to him the direction of his own domain. By this quiet compliment, enhanced by his captivating courtesy, he advanced insensibly in the good graces of the old man. But every day, as he grew to know M. de Rameures better, and as he felt more the strength of his character, he began to fear that on essential points he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Mr. Giddings, who was far from as ignorant of these processes as he led his visitors to suppose. "Boys, I wish to compliment you very highly upon this piece of work. When I first looked at the schedule and saw that an airplane meeting its requirements would make this trip squarely around the world in seven and a half hours less than ten days I could scarcely credit my senses, ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... are supposed to have derived the compliment of their name, which means "valiant men," from the Appalachians, who had great trouble in dislodging them. They were very different from the Haytians: they cut their hair very short in front, leaving a tuft upon the crown, bandaged the legs of their children to make a calf that Mr. Thackeray's Jeames ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... day, had to split up each dance several times at a ball, and all that kind of thing. It was a shock to find out why. To her face, they called her 'Princess,' and she was pleased with the nickname at first, poor thing. She took it for a compliment to herself. But she came to know that behind her back it was different; she was the 'Manitou Princess.' You see, the money, or most of it, came because father owned the biggest silver mines in Colorado, and he named the principal one 'Manitou,' ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... in English I can here specify but a few. One of the prettiest is that by Henry Constable ('Saintsbury', p. 113): "My Lady's presence makes the Roses red, Because to see her lips they blush for shame." Carew's compliment is hardly equal to his morals ('Gosse', p. 101): "Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose; For in your beauty's orient deep These flowers, as in their causes, sleep." Few better things have been ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... the state any fertilizer that will come in contact with the stems except leaves. When the streets are cleaned in the fall I pile the leaves on the back lot. I have fourteen or fifteen loads hauled in. This is scattered over the peonies. I want to compliment you on having very fine peonies, some of them finer than I have ever seen, and I hope you will all be as enthusiastic about raising peonies as I am. Is it necessary to burn the tops when they are cut off? I consider that the ashes from the tops aid in fertilizing. ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... at half-past eleven. If by that time—and you will have had heaps of opportunity—you have made an announcement to the House in the terms I wish, I shall hand you back your letter with the prettiest thanks, and the best, or at any rate the most suitable, compliment I can think of. I intend to play quite fairly with you. One should always play fairly . . . when one has the winning cards. The Baron taught me that . . ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde
... regret more deeply than you can understand the occasion of your being here at all. And in this regret I know that you all share. But I am glad that I can say from my heart that I feel honoured by and deeply moved by the compliment you have just paid me through your band. I could wish, indeed, that I was the 'jolly good fellow' you have said, but as I look at you I confess I am anything but 'jolly.' I have been in too many of your homes during the last three weeks to be jolly. The simple ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... wiping his face after a pinch of snuff; the whole air of the shop was snuffy, and no one came in without instantly being tempted to sneeze. Peter sneezed as a matter of course, and Mr. Morgridge, after his usual fashion, replied with a "God bless you!" He seldom got the compliment in return, however, as in his case the blessing would have become so common as to be quite worthless. Mr. Morgridge then inquired into Peter's sales, and with that his regular conversation ended. His mouth shut so closely, with ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... that is all nonsense, boy; and, besides, it is paying a very poor compliment to your mother to rank her with your mulatto mistress. I like Emily very much; she has been kind, affectionate, and faithful to you. Yet I really can't see the propriety of your making a shipwreck of your whole life on her account. Now," continued uncle John, with great earnestness, ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... sacred fountain of Hippocrene, with the nine Muses circling about him. Apollo is always spoken of as playing the lyre, but Raphael gives him a violin, because the action in playing that instrument is so graceful. Some think also he meant to pay a compliment to a famous violinist of ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
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