"Agreeableness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and orgies. Augustin, who after his conversion had only sarcasms for the carnival of Madaura, doubtless went with the crowd, like many other Christians. Rich and influential people gave the example. There was danger of annoying them by making a group apart. And then, there was no resisting the agreeableness ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... respected by the bar and the court, and standing at the head of his profession. He had a great love of conversation. He took pleasure in hearing others talk, and gave an additional charm by the freshness, agreeableness, and originality of his own observations. His warm hospitality left him never alone, and his usefulness was felt as much within the walls of the homes, as of the tribunals, of Portsmouth. There are yet many in that town who love him and his; many who witnessed, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... a the may be considered as a substitute for a supper, it cannot, in point of agreeableness, be compared to a petit souper. If a man must sup, and I am no advocate for regular suppers, these were the suppers to my fancy. A select number of persons, well assorted, assembled at ten o'clock, after the opera was concluded, and spent a couple of hours in a rational manner. Sometimes ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... him a long time, and so greatly impaired all his faculties, as well as person, that he was scarce to be known, either by behaviour, or looks, for the man who, before that accident, had been infinitely regarded and esteemed for the politeness of the one, and the agreeableness ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Near to this is the little city Seplasium, which admits of no tradesmen but perfumers. It is a town of great commerce with the people of Viraginia, especially the Locanians, who use to change their looking-glass with them for oils and pastils. The agreeableness of the place, and the bounty of the heavens, is favourable to their art; for the whole track of land, at certain seasons, is covered with aromatic comfits, that fall like hail-stones: which Anathumiasis I take to be essentially the same as that ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... known in the world for the agreeableness of her superior wit and her charms of face and person. When Madame de Maintenon, after the loss of her father, arrived from Martinique, she had occasion to make her acquaintance; and it seems that it was Ninon who, ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... I, (the son of Lucius) was certainly superior, not only to his predecessors, but to all his cotemporaries, in wit and humour: he was not, indeed, a nervous and striking Orator, but, in the elegance, the pleasantry, and the agreeableness of his manner, he has not been excelled by any man. There are some Orations of his still extant, in which, as well as in his Tragedies, we may discover a pleasing tranquillity of expression with very ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the awkward man is awkward, and these characteristics are defects. The demeanour merely expresses them. The two men would be better if, while conserving their good qualities, they had the superficial attributes of smoothness and agreeableness possessed by the gentleman who is unpleasant to you. And as regards this latter, it is not his superficial attributes which are unpleasant to you; but his other qualities. In the end the character is shown in the demeanour; and ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... class. He is considered one of the best conversationists at present in society: it may very well be so; his style of talking being very simple and natural, anything but obtrusive, so that you might enjoy its agreeableness without suspecting it. He introduced me to his wife (a daughter of Lord Crewe), with whom and himself I had a good deal of talk. Mr. Milnes told me that he owns the land in Yorkshire, whence some of the pilgrims of the Mayflower ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which, in short, is, her face is not so exact as to be called a beauty, though her eyes are excellent good, and not anything in her face that in the least degree can shock one: on the contrary, she hath as much agreeableness in her looks altogether as ever I saw; and if I have any skill in physiognomy, which I think I have, she must be as good a woman as ever was born. Her conversation, as much as I can perceive, is very good, for she has wit enough, and a most agreeable voice. You would wonder to see ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... Mohammedans despise an eater of pork, our love for ham and eggs alienates us from both these classes; what beasts we must be! The Hindoos and the Bengal Mussulmans are characterized by cringing servility, open insolence, or rude indifference. Contrast with this the Burmese agreeableness and affability, or the bearing of the Rajput and the Sikh. In those days the natives cringed before the Sahib Log much more than they do now. Then all had to put their umbrellas down on passing a ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... [Adam Smith], arise partly "from certain circumstances in the employments themselves, which either really, or at least in the imaginations of men, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some, and counterbalance a great one in others." These circumstances he considers to be: "First, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them; thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them; fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... wines, and twenty of bottled beer. All this means that a pint of claret, or two glasses of champagne, or a bottle of beer, or a glass of whiskey with some aerated water during the day will not hurt a man, and adds perhaps to the "agreeableness of life," as Matthew Arnold phrases it. At any rate, this table of contents is a much safer standard of comparison, in judging the eating and drinking habits of other people, than either your ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... was not very religious myself, and being come abroad into the world young enough, might easily have been drawn into evils that had recommended themselves with any tolerable agreeableness to nature and common manners; but when wickedness presented itself full-grown in its grossest freedoms and liberties, it quite took away all the gust to vice that the devil ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... think young men are just as extravagant. Look at the sums they spend for cigars and pipes,—an expense which hasn't even the pretence of usefulness in any way; it's a purely selfish, nonsensical indulgence. When a girl spends money in making herself look pretty, she contributes something to the agreeableness of society; but a man's cigars and pipes ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... eyes widened at these words, so unlike his father, and soon she was acutely aware of her husband's marked agreeableness whenever he directed his conversation toward Rose. He even tried to include his son and herself in this new atmosphere, but with each remark in their direction his manner changed subtly. Toward herself, in particular, ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... us, in proportion to its extent, than our trade with the continent of Europe. We mean in respect to the mere amount of the return to the labour and capital of the country; considered abstractedly from the usefulness or agreeableness of the particular articles on which the receivers may choose ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... a pure election of his company, which he chose by other rules than were prescribed to the young nobility of that time. And it cannot be denied, though he admitted some few to his friendship for the agreeableness of their natures, and their undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity and friendship for the most part was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts, and of untouched reputation in point of integrity; and such had ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... that something was the matter, and that he was very much disturbed. He hardly attended to Mrs. Gibson's fluent opening of conversation, for she had already determined to make a favourable impression on the father of the handsome young man who was heir to an estate, besides his own personal agreeableness; but he turned to Molly, and, addressing her, said—almost in a low voice, as if he was making a confidence to her that he did not intend ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... hand sat Amelie de Repentigny and the Count de la Galissoniere. The Governor, charmed with the beauty and agreeableness of the young chatelaine, had led her in to dinner, and devoted himself to her and the Lady de Tilly with the perfection of gallantry of a gentleman of the politest court in Europe. On his left sat the radiant, dark-eyed Hortense de Beauharnais. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... levity, boundless vanity, and an utter want of heart. But what a contrast if we look further! In France the absence of all morality and honesty was in some degree atoned for by the most refined courtesy, the poverty of soul by agreeableness and wit. What of all this has the English dandy to offer? His highest triumph is to appear with the most wooden manners, as little polished as will suffice to avoid castigation; nay, to contrive even his civilities so that they are as near as may be to affronts—this is the style of deportment ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... think, upsets the worker, and makes him bilious; wine will not cure this, nor will abstaining from wine prevent it. But, in general, wine used in moderation seems to add to the agreeableness of life—for adults, at any rate; and whatever adds to the agreeableness of life adds ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... the sea likewise administers to maritime cities a multitude of pernicious incentives to luxury, which are either acquired by victory or imported by commerce; and the very agreeableness of their position nourishes many expensive and deceitful gratifications of the passions. And what I have spoken of Corinth may be applied, for aught I know, without incorrectness to the whole of Greece. For the Peloponnesus itself is almost wholly on the sea-coast; nor, besides the ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... passion for me and I for her, but I was not her first lover nor her last. She was in another world from Marion. She had a queer, delightful nature; I've no memory of ever seeing her sullen or malicious. She was—indeed she was magnificently—eupeptic. That, I think, was the central secret of her agreeableness, and, moreover, that she was infinitely kind-hearted. I helped her at last into an opening she coveted, and she amazed me by a sudden display of business capacity. She has now a typewriting bureau in Riffle's Inn, and she runs it with a brisk vigour and considerable success, albeit a certain plumpness ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... towards agreeableness, one step at any rate consists in wearing a becoming fashion of the hair and dress? (92) ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... her cheeks, it was no hard matter for the Prince to comprehend what happiness she meant. He presently considered that the Princess Nouronnihar could never be his and that the Fairy Paribanou excelled her infinitely in beauty, agreeableness, wit, and, as much as he could conjecture by the magnificence of the palace, in immense riches. He blessed the moment that he thought of seeking after his arrow a second time, and, yielding to his love, "Madam," replied ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... entered by the other, after passing through the small reception-room where they left their things, and the larger reception-room intervening between this and the drawing-room. Charlie Hunt, talking with Mrs. Satterlee, let a casual eye roll away from her middle-aged agreeableness to see who was entering by that different door from the one which had given him ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... third Reason may be, because, supposing they should have found some one Example from whence to enforce strongly any particular Point of Morality, yet it would have miss'd those other Characters of Epic, most of its Agreeableness, and all its Power to raise Admiration. A chast Historian must not go about to amuse his Reader with Machines; and a Poet that would imitate him, must have been forc'd to thin his Stage accordingly, and disband all his glorious ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley
... and to change it as often as he thought proper" five circumstances would explain "a small pecuniary gain in some employments, and counter balance a great one in others." These in his words were: "First, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them; thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them; fourthly, the small or great trust which ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... the principal component part of lemon-juice, which, in addition to the agreeableness of its flavour, is also particularly cooling and grateful. It is likewise an antiscorbutic; and this quality enhances its value. In order to combat the fatal effects of scurvy amongst the crews of ships at ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Circumstances and Persons, beguile the gravest Mind into a Consent to be as humourous as himself. Add to this, that when a Man is in his good Grace, he has a Mimickry that does not debase the Person he represents; but which, taking from the Gravity of the Character, adds to the Agreeableness of it. This pleasant Fellow gives one some Idea of the ancient Pantomime, who is said to have given the Audience, in Dumb-show, an exact Idea of any Character or Passion, or an intelligible Relation of any publick Occurrence, with no other Expression than that of his Looks and Gestures. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... pleasure; cause or source of pleasure.] Pleasurableness. — N. pleasurableness, pleasantness, agreeableness &c. adj.; pleasure giving, jucundity[obs3], delectability; amusement &c. 840. attraction &c. (motive) 615; attractiveness, attractability[obs3]; invitingness &c. adj[obs3].; harm, fascination, enchantment, witchery, seduction, winning ways, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... rightfully be chased to be slain, or slain, unless it be for the venison or the hides. Now, I find it hard to suppose that blessed spirits can be put to chasing game without an object, tormenting the dumb animals just for the pleasure and agreeableness of their own amusements. I never yet pulled a trigger on buck or doe, Judith, unless when food or ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... exceed the agreeableness of the life we led at Tixall. We breakfasted about twelve or later, dined at seven, played at whist and macao the whole evening, and went to bed at different hours between two and four. 'Nous faisions la bonne chere, ce qui ajoute ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... in London circles. He threw a gentle expression of interest into his face and voice, he listened with deference to Hazlet's remarks, he addressed several questions to him, thanked him politely for all his information, and then adroitly introduced some delicate compliments on the agreeableness of Hazlet's society. His bait took completely; Hazlet, whom most men snubbed, was quite flustered with gratified vanity at the condescending notice of so unexceptionable a man of fashion as the handsome and noted Vyvyan Bruce. "At last," thought Hazlet, "men ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... deprecatingly that it might be supposed she were the rejected party. It is bad enough to be refused when she expresses the hope that you will always be friends, and shows a disposition to make profuse amends in general agreeableness for the consummate favor which she is forced to decline you. Not to put too fine a point upon it, it is bad enough to be refused anyhow you can arrange the circumstances, but to be refused as Lombard had been, with a petulance as wounding to his dignity as was the refusal itself to his ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... regions kept groups of audience for many an hour. The Rev. Arthur Cleveland Cox, of Hartford, favorably known as the author of some pleasant rhymes and sonnets, Mr. Cunningham, a southern editor, and several retired sea captains, all contributed to enhance the agreeableness of the voyage. I am sorry to tell you that, three days out, we had a sad occurrence in our little world. Just as we were sitting down to lunch at eight bells, the machinery stopped for a moment, and we were informed that William Irwin, one of the assistant engineers, was crushed to ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... having the use of my friend's books, as well as of my own, I spent my leisure hours much in reading, not without some improvement to myself in my private studies, which (with the good success of my labours bestowed on the children, and the agreeableness of conversation which I found in the family) rendered my undertaking more satisfactory, and my stay there more ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... an extent as to be allowed to exercise in the palaestra, but not to be entitled to the crown at the Olympic games. For the athletes, who are free from defects, are not content as it were with good health, but seek to produce strength and muscles and blood, and a certain agreeableness of complexion; let us imitate them, if we can; and if we cannot do so wholly, at least let us select as our models those who enjoy unimpaired health, (which is peculiar to the Attic orators,) rather than those whose abundance is vicious, of whom ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... comeliness than for its utility, as one esteeming the lily, say, to be a more applaudable bulb than the onion. He will prink; and he will be at his best after sunset. He will dare to acknowledge the shapeliness of a thief's leg, to contend that the commission of murder does not necessarily impair the agreeableness of the assassin's conversation; and to insist that at bottom God is kindlier than the genteel would regard as rational. He will, in fine, sin on sufficient provocation, and repent within the moment, quite sincerely, and be not unconscionably ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... in an elegant and beautiful manner, the present conveniences and advantages of virtue, and the satisfaction which attends it, but especially they insisted upon its intrinsic excellency, its dignity and beauty, and agreeableness to reason and nature, and its self sufficiency to happiness, which many of them, especially the stoics,—the most rigid moralists among them,—carried to a very high degree. Cicero, in his Offices, and those ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... cordiality which he probably thought of as the American way. He went up, at all events, and for the twentieth time admired the dainty chic of the little apartment, telling himself, also for the twentieth time, that it was extraordinary how agreeable it was to be there —agreeable with a distinctly local agreeableness whether its owner happened to be also there or not. In this he was altogether sincere, and only properly discriminating. He spent fifteen minutes wondering at her whimsical interest, and when she suddenly asked him if he really thought the race had outgrown its physical ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... respectable one; let them feel, in the mistress of the family, the charm of unvarying consideration and good manners; let their work- rooms be made convenient and comfortable, and their private apartments bear some reasonable comparison in point of agreeableness to those of other members of the family, and domestic service will be more frequently sought by a superior and self-respecting class. There are families in which such a state of things prevails; and such families, amid the many causes ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... feeling, of the appliance of a military feature to a church, ought long ago to have determined its rejection. Still (for the question of its picturesque value is here so closely connected with that of its practical use, that it is vain to endeavor to discuss it separately) there is a certain agreeableness in the way in which the jagged outline dovetails the shadow of the slated or leaded roof into the top of the wall, which may make the use of the battlement excusable where there is a difficulty in managing some unvaried line, and where the expense of a pierced parapet cannot be encountered: but ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... awaken tender and agreeable feelings in her behalf; it will disarm the stranger of the peculiar prejudices he often has toward those he knows not; it will pave the way to esteem; it will weave the links to friendship's chain; it will throw an air of agreeableness into the manners of all who approach her. All this her Beauty will do for her before she puts forth a single effort of her own to win the esteem and love of her fellows. All this is the direct, immediate, and agreeable result ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... with engaging agreeableness. "Subway it is," he said. "Your presence would turn even a Bronx ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... opposite preference; but he must be conscious that he does so under the influence of feelings quite different from those with which he would admire (if he ever does admire) a picture or statue; and that if he could free himself from those associations, his judgment of the relative agreeableness of the forms would be altered. He may rest assured that, by the natural instinct of the eye and thought, the preference is given instantly, and always, to the curved form; and that no human being of unprejudiced perceptions ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... she had at first felt to be wrong, had dulled any emotions about his conduct. She was thinking of him, whatever he might be, as a man over whom she was going to have indefinite power; and her loving him having never been a question with her, any agreeableness he had was so much gain. Poor Gwendolen had no awe of unmanageable forces in the state of matrimony, but regarded it as altogether a matter of management, in which she would know how to act. In relation to Grandcourt's ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... educative in effect, and cooperative associations which give information in a social setting are provided. In short, the grounds for assigning to play and active work a definite place in the curriculum are intellectual and social, not matters of temporary expediency and momentary agreeableness. Without something of the kind, it is not possible to secure the normal estate of effective learning; namely, that knowledge-getting be an outgrowth of activities having their own end, instead of a school task. More specifically, play and work ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... those of naturally evil temper. Often under his sway the somber and the stoical become gay and impulsive, while the joyful sink into despondency. But with Robert Wharton, liquor intensified a natural agreeableness until it cloyed. His amenities were monstrously magnified; he became convivial to the point of offensiveness. In the course of this metamorphosis he was many things, and through such a cycle he worked to-night ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... this argument, he confines himself to the case of Justice. To be morally approved, a just action must in itself be peculiarly pleasant or agreeable, irrespective of its other effects, which are left out: for on no theory can pleasantness or agreeableness be dissociated from moral approbation. Now, as Happiness is but a general appellation for all the agreeable affections of our nature, and unable to exist except in the shape of some agreeable emotion or combinations of agreeable emotions; the just action that is morally commendable, as giving ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... and undeveloped character. Detail that is neglected really acquires a greater prominence than detail that is carried too far, because it is sensuously disagreeable. But when an artist like M. Rodin conceives his spiritual subject so largely and with so much intensity that mere sensuous agreeableness seems too insignificant to him even to be treated with contempt, he treats his detail solely with reference to its centripetal and organic value, which immediately becomes immensely enhanced, and the detail itself, dropping thus into its proper place, takes on a beauty wholly transcending ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... travelled from other Countries into Italy, of which Siena never wanted store, being a Town most delightfully Situate, upon a Noble Hill, and very well suiting with Strangers at first, by reason of the agreeableness and purity of the Air: There also is the quaintness and delicacy of the Italian Tongue most likely to be learned, there being many publick Professors of it in that place; and indeed the very Vulgar of Siena do express themselves with an easiness and sweetness surprizing, and even ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... furniture sold; enchanted with Pitt's speech; motion concerning American war; auction at his house; gaming; and Selwyn; has a cockpit; flattery of; speech; first figure in all places; loses heavily at races; agreeableness of; Selwyn's admiration of his talents; arrogance of; the new administration; as Secretary for Foreign Affairs; takes a house in Pall Mall; coalition with North; Selwyn, relations with Fox, Henry Edward, youngest son of first ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness' sake just felt like asking him whether it was for a marksmanship ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... of Xenophon's unaffected agreeableness, so unattainable by any imitation that the Graces themselves seem to have composed his language? The testimony of the ancient comedy concerning Pericles, is very justly applicable to him, "That the Goddess of Persuasion had seated ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... upon her, and the other followed after, and lifted up her large train [which swept along the ground] with the extremities of her fingers. And thus she came to the king, having a blushing redness in her countenance, with a pleasant agreeableness in her behavior; yet did she go in to him with fear; and as soon as she was come over against him, as he was sitting on his throne, in his royal apparel, which was a garment interwoven with gold and precious stones, which made him seem to her more terrible, especially when ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Mrs. Powle could not have used; that was certain. But then the bread, and the mutton chops, and the butter, and even the tea, were such as Mrs. Powle's china was never privileged to bear. And though Mrs. Caxton left in the background every topic of doubtful agreeableness, the talk flowed steadily with abundance of material and animation, during the whole supper-time. Mrs. Caxton was the chief talker. She had plenty to tell Eleanor of the country and people in the neighbourhood; of things to be seen and things to ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... should resolve not to lose his poise and agreeableness under any circumstances. Irritability never attracts business. To say the right thing in the right place is desirable, but it is quite as important, though more difficult, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... feel that this is pleasure which moves the senses when they receive it, and which has a certain agreeableness pervading it throughout. What then, said he, is Epicurus ignorant of that kind of pleasure? Not always, I replied; for sometimes he is even too well acquainted with it, inasmuch as he declares that he is unable even to understand where it is, or what any good is, except that which is ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... desirable by man, more especially good belonging to his moral nature, there will be a corresponding agreeableness in whatever external object reminds him of such good, whether it remind him by arbitrary association, by typical resemblance, or by awakening intuitions of the divine attributes, which he was created to glorify and to enjoy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... young girls often attain thorough agreeableness. Look at lazy little Jane: she has acquired the highest charm of repose. Look at Sally, who used to be such an angular and hurried little girl: she is all quips and cranks and wreathed smiles now. And meek, humble-minded Martha, in former days so diffident, blushing and taciturn, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... slim, well-clad gentleman with a pointed and slightly effeminate grey beard, unimpeachable gloves, and formal but agreeable manners. He was the type of the over-civilized, as Professor Chadd was of the uncivilized pedant. His formality and agreeableness did him some credit under the circumstances. He had a vast experience of books and a considerable experience of the more dilettante fashionable salons. But neither branch of knowledge had accustomed him ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... irritable, and often lost his good humour and agreeableness. He came to the cabinet meetings in a rage and he, too, poured invectives upon General Debonnaire—a brave man under fire but a lax disciplinarian—and launched his sarcasms at against the venerable admiral Vivier des Murenes ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... conversation and her singing, and her cousin, Miss Twiss, who, with a face of uncommon plainness and the voice of a man, is sensible and well informed. Then they both liked to have me, and that is a great charm; a little agreeableness goes a great way in the Peak, and it is not difficult to procure a triumph to one's vanity from people who, with a good deal of power of appreciation, have very little opportunity for comparison, and are therefore easily satisfied. Arkwright told me that it was reported by those who were ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... concede what life with others may hourly demand;" and with such success, that, in an age which made much of the finer points of that intercourse, it was felt that the mere honesty of his conversation was more pleasing than other men's flattery. His agreeableness to his young visitor to-day was, in truth, a blossom of the same wisdom which had made of Lucius Verus really a brother—the wisdom of not being exigent with men, any more than with fruit-trees (it is his own favourite figure) beyond their nature. And ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... worth of an action does not lie in the effect expected from it, nor in any principle of action which requires to borrow its motive from this expected effeet. For all these effects— agreeableness of one's condition, and even the promotion of the happiness of others—could have been also brought about by other causes, so that for this there would have been no need of the will of a rational being; whereas it is in this alone ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... on Roan was of less annoyance by reason of the delightful company assembled at the hotel, which was in a manner at home there, and, thrown upon its own resources, came out uncommonly strong in agreeableness. There was a fiddle in the house, which had some of the virtues of that celebrated in the history of old Mark Langston; the Professor was enabled to produce anything desired out of the literature of the eighteenth century; and what with the repartee of bright women, big ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Banou pronounced these words Prince Ahmed began to consider that the Princess Nouronnihar could never be his, and that the fairy Pari Banou excelled her infinitely in beauty and agreeableness, and, so far as he could judge from the magnificence of the palace where she resided, in immense riches. 'Madam,' replied he, 'should I, all my life, have had the happiness of being your slave, I should think myself the ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... The Rector's corpulent agreeableness saw nothing wrong with that name. Spit-Fire! What pride it would be for him to command a boat that, faithful to such a christening, would go saucily crashing through the storms with the untamed arrogance of a Portuguese! It was the women who objected. ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... strikes so lively on the fancy, and therefore is so acceptable to all people, because its beauty appears at first sight, and there is required no labour of thought to examine what truth or reason there is in it. The mind, without looking any further, rests satisfied with the agreeableness of the picture and the gaiety of the fancy. And it is a kind of affront to go about to examine it, by the severe rules of truth and good reason; whereby it appears that it consists in something that is not perfectly conformable ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... generally an obvious bias in favour of one form rather than the other. Dr. Johnson says, "The comparison of adjectives is very uncertain; and being much regulated by commodiousness of utterance, or agreeableness of sound, is not easily reduced to rules. Monosyllables are commonly compared. Polysyllables, or words of more than two syllables, are seldom compared otherwise than by more and most. Dissyllables are seldom compared if they terminate in full, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Symmetry, what and how found in organic nature. 72 Sec. 2. How necessary in art. 72 Sec. 3. To what its agreeableness is referable. Various instances. 73 Sec. 4. Especially in religious ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... highly instrumental in bringing about the Revolution, in which service he freely exposed his life and fortune. He has ever been the favourite of the nation, being possessed of all the amiable qualities that can accomplish a great man; but in the agreeableness and fragrancy of his person, and the profoundness of his politics, must be allowed to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... manners without an acute sense of equity. Accustom yourself to a sacred regard for the rights of others, even in the minutest matters, and in the most familiar intercourse of the family or social circle. In a similar manner cultivate Benevolence, Veneration, Adhesiveness, Agreeableness, Ideality, and the moral, social, and esthetic faculties in general. Go out of your way, if necessary, to perform acts of kindness and friendship; never omit the "thank you" which is due for the slightest possible favor, whether rendered by the highest or the lowest; be always bland and ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... while the band of green-blue round the plate's edge, and the spots of gold, pretend to no graphic power at all, but are meaningless spaces of colour or metal. Still less have they any mechanical office: they add nowise to the serviceableness of the plate; and their agreeableness, if they possess any, depends, therefore, neither on any imitative, nor any structural, character; but on some inherent pleasantness in themselves, either of mere colours to the eye (as of taste to the tongue), or in the placing of those colours ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... originate from a church built here by the Duns in 646, and in Flemish its name signifies the church of the Duns. There is much similarity between many words in the English and Flemish, but the latter cannot claim the praise of agreeableness. ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... de Bourgogne. They sat at right angles to one another, close to one another, with brains aswing; full of good nature and quick sympathy; their flesh content and yet expectant. In a pause of the conversation (which, entirely banal and fragmentary, had seemed to reach the acme of agreeableness), Chirac put his hand on the hand of Sophia as it rested limp on the littered table. Accidentally she caught his eye; she had not meant to do so. They both became self-conscious. His thin, bearded face had more than ever that wistfulness which always ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... breezes of the ocean seemed to clear up that hatred as if it had been a curtain. They seemed to give him back admiration for her, and respect. The agreeableness of having money lavishly at command, the fact that it had bought for him the companionship of Maisie Maidan—these things began to make him see that his wife might have been right in the starving and scraping upon which she had insisted. He was at ease; he was even radiantly happy ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... I remember what happened during that awful pause? It was spent, I suppose, in a hand-to-hand conflict with the Prince of Darkness; the agreeableness of which was not enhanced by my vivid recollection of the 'bit of a discooshin' between Christian and Apollyon depicted in the old family Pilgrim's Progress. We are truly 'the stuff that dreams are made ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... Demonstrations that the Hermaphrodite has the privy Parts of a Man in a more predominant manner than those of the other Sex; and contrarywise, if an Hermaphrodite has good Breasts, Skin smooth and soft; if the Terms appear at their due Intervals; if there be a sparkling and agreeableness in the Eyes; and if other Signs are observ'd, that commonly distinguish a Woman from a Man, these are Arguments that the Hermaphrodite has the Privities of the Female Sex of a good Conformation; and if the Vagina is ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... in energy and height and majesty Milton and Burke have no masters. But besides its great men of this loftier sort, France has a long list of authors who have produced a literature whose chief mark is its agreeableness. As has been so often said, the genius of the French language is its clearness, firmness, and order; to this clearness certain circumstances in the history of French society have added the delightful qualities of liveliness in union with urbanity. Now as one of the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley
... the french? Are you too learned now? I could to tell some word's that I know by heart. Not apprehend you, the french language is not difficult. I know it, and she have great deal of agreeableness. Who I would be. If I was know it! It must to study for to learn it. How long there is it what you learn it? It is not yet a month. How is called your master? It is called N*** I know him it is long; he has ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... which I could see a multitude with as bad a share as mine, who, instead of getting their corresponding compensation, were getting beyond the reach of it in old age? What could be more contemptible than the mood of mind which makes a man measure the justice of divine or human law by the agreeableness of his own shadow and the ample satisfaction of his ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... Presbyterian Church, two merchants, Messrs. Brevoort and Goodhue, and I have the honor to represent the medical faculty. Our twelfth associate was Mr. Morse, of the National Academy of Design, of which he was president, and his departure for Europe has caused a vacancy. For agreeableness of conversation there is nothing in New York at all comparable to our institution. We meet once a week; no officers, no formalities; invitations, when in case of intelligent and distinguished strangers, and after a plain and light repast, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... after meeting her, he writes: "Mme. du Deffand is now very old and stone blind, but retains all her vivacity, wit, memory, judgment, passion, and agreeableness. She goes to operas, plays, suppers, Versailles; gives supper twice a week; has everything new read to her; makes new songs and epigrams—aye, admirably—and remembers every one that has been made these fourscore years. She corresponds with Voltaire, dictates charming letters to him, contradicts ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... statute was passed in that time, entitled, 'An act for the true making of pins;' so I suppose they were then articles of some importance. But the box may be trusted, Miss Haye, for strength, if not for agreeableness. A quarter of agreeableness with a remainder of strength, is a fair proportion, as ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... particularly spick and span; the long catalogue of folly into which our high-geared, modern civilization has led our women, and through no fault of theirs—"all these," said an eminent neurologist, in talking of this absorbing topic, "are impairing the agreeableness and curtailing the usefulness of our women, and will in the end destroy our ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... find you alone, Mees Teesdale, I lak have leetle talk with you." There was a purposeful look behind his set smile of agreeableness. ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... knows the "fool," with his poor judgment, his unwise confidence in himself and others, his lack of restraint. There is the tactful man, conciliating, pliant, seeking his purposes through the good will of others which he obtains by "oil" and agreeableness, and there is the aggressive man, preferring to fight, energetic, at times rash, apt to be domineering, and crashing on to victory or defeat according to the caliber of his opponents and the nature ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... which the school has to do, and by far the most important. Its supreme importance is due to the fact that all the pupils expect to live in a democracy, and, unless they learn democracy, life cannot attain to its maximum of agreeableness for them nor can they make the largest possible contributions to the well-being of society. It has been said that the seventeenth century saw Versailles; the eighteenth century saw the Earth; and the nineteenth century saw Humanity. Then the very pertinent question is asked, "Which century ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... road leads from Bow-Bridge to Danett's Hall, the seat of Edward Alexander, M.D. The ground here rising in a gentle slope obtains a command of the town, and that the dryness of the soil and agreeableness of the situation, mark it as a desirable spot for residence, even the taste of the antient Romans may prove; for in the plot of ground known by the name of the "great cherry orchard," remains a relic of one of their houses. This is a fragment ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... No person was more capable of fulfilling it worthily than this officer. He was a true Frenchman, spirited, amiable, and brave. He shone equally in the field of battle, in a diplomatic conference, and in the drawing-room pleasing every where by the agreeableness and firmness ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... lastly," I said, "in my analysis and explication of the agreeableness of those same parlors, comes the crowning grace,—their homeliness. By homeliness I mean not ugliness, as the word is apt to be used, but the air that is given to a room by being really at home in it. Not the most skilful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... him to all other writers, for he surpasses even Homer in the sublime; but other critics who require variety, and agreeableness, and a correct regularity of thought and judgment in an epic poem, who can endure no absurdities, no extravagant fictions, would place him ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... literary men and all students of expression, from the infinite variety of turns of style they exhibit. "If you don't want to be tossed by a bull, toss the bull." Here, for instance, the thought is not only spirited, but it is so rendered as to give to the idea both the force of novelty and the agreeableness of wit. The words are as hard and compact, and the thought flies as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... the people of Provence and the declivity of the Apennine." Ibid. c. x. "Each of these three," he observes, "has its own claims to distinction The excellency of the French language consists in its being best adapted, on account of its facility and agreeableness, to prose narration, (quicquid redactum, sive inventum est ad vulgare prosaicum suum est); and he instances the books compiled on the gests of the Trojans and Romans and the delightful adventures ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... illustration, at the head of this chapter, of King John's Castle, Limerick. Stanihurst says that King John "was so pleased with the agreeableness of the city, that he caused a very fine castle and bridge to be built there." This castle has endured for more than six centuries. Richard I. granted this city a charter to elect a Mayor before London ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack |
