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Easiness   Listen
noun
Easiness  n.  
1.
The state or condition of being easy; freedom from distress; rest.
2.
Freedom from difficulty; ease; as, the easiness of a task.
3.
Freedom from emotion; compliance; disposition to yield without opposition; unconcernedness. "Give to him, and he shall but laugh at your easiness."
4.
Freedom from effort, constraint, or formality; said of style, manner, etc. "With painful care, but seeming easiness."
5.
Freedom from jolting, jerking, or straining.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Easiness" Quotes from Famous Books



... greatest benefit of all, according to Dryden, is, that it bounds and circumscribes the fancy. The great easiness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant; he is tempted to say many things which might be better omitted, or at least shut up in fewer words. But when the difficulty of artificial rhyming is interposed; where the poet commonly confines his verse to his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... amputation is best performed by double flap, and is the typical instance which exhibits all the advantages of two equal flaps made by transfixion, without any of the disadvantages of that method. These advantages are, easiness of performance, rapidity, excellent covering for the bone, with as little sacrifice of tissue as is possible, while the fact that the cicatrix is opposite the end of the bone is hardly a disadvantage in the arm (as it certainly is in the ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... were counters, and risked in passing ill-humour the results of weeks of preparation. And I was impatient, and with her. But my resentment fell so far short of the occasion that I wondered uneasily at my own easiness, and felt more annoyed with myself for failing to be properly annoyed with her, than inclined to lay the blame where it was due. It was in vain I told myself contemptuously that she was a woman and that women were not accountable. I felt that the real ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... Jack Piper was here last night; and rather than he should drink all the grog and not find his way home, I drank some myself—he'd been in a bad way if I had not, poor fellow!—and now, you see, I'm suffering all from good nature. Easiness of disposition has been my ruin, and has rounded me into this ball, by wearing away all my sharp ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... in a country, he studied the language of it as if he could not have arrived to the knowledge of it but by his own industry. But the Holy Spirit assisted him after an extraordinary manner, on those occasions, as we have formerly observed. And we may say, that the easiness wherewith he learnt so many tongues, was almost equivalent to the lasting gift ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... things—Italian writers, I say, have tried to turn the Fabre episode into something extremely disgraceful to Mme. d'Albany. Massimo d'Azeglio, partly out of hatred to the Countess, who was rather severe and acrimonious upon his youthful free-and-easiness, partly out of a desire to amuse his readers, has introduced into his autobiography an anecdote told him by Mme. de Prie (the niece of Alfieri's famous Turin mistress, and the lady who took it upon herself to send ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... rather than love; such as fortitude, justice, wisdom, and the like. Never was any man amiable by force of these qualities. Those which engage our hearts, which impress us with a sense of loveliness, are the softer virtues; easiness of temper, compassion, kindness, and liberality; though certainly those latter are of less immediate and momentous concern to society, and of less dignity. But it is for that reason that they are so amiable. The great virtues turn principally ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... that he ran were not from the foreign children with whom he played, fought, loved, and dreamed dreams; but from foreign customs, foreign ways of doing things, foreign comfort, foreign take-the-world-easiness, and all. For they do live well abroad; they do have amusing things to do. They eat well, drink well, smoke well, are better waited on than we are and have more time. So Fitzhugh was in danger of these things ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... nullification. He did not care any more, neither about his body nor about his soul. Only he would preserve intact his own life. Only the simple, superficial fact of living persisted. He was still healthy. He lived. Therefore he would fill each moment. That had always been his creed. It was not instinctive easiness: it was the inevitable outcome of his nature. When he was in the absolute privacy of his own life, he did as he pleased, unscrupulous, without any ulterior thought. He believed neither in good nor evil. Each moment was like a separate ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... common, this is not Macaulay's only sin in the same unfortunate direction. He too frequently resorts to vulgar gaudiness. For example, there is in one place a certain description of an alleged practice of Addison's. Swift had said of Esther Johnson that 'whether from easiness in general, or from her indifference to persons, or from her despair of mending them, or from the same practice which she most liked in Mr. Addison, I cannot determine; but when she saw any of the company very warm in a wrong opinion, she was more inclined to confirm them in ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley

... that our author seemed to pay no regard to any person. Mr. William Budgell was a man of very good sense, extremely steady in his conduct, and an adept in all calculations and mathematical questions; and had besides great good-nature and easiness of temper. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... Prince and cowgirls presently, when the Prince had invited them into the pavilion to chat for a few minutes. They were fine, free and independent girls, who enjoyed the naturalness and easiness of the interview. ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... induced thirst, which, being allayed by a couple of pints at Faircloth's Inn, induced desire for a certain easiness of costume. His waistcoat hung open—he had laid aside his coat—displaying a broad stitched leather belt that covered the junction between buff corduroy trousers and blue-checked cotton shirt. On his head, a high thimble-crowned straw hat, the frayed brim of it pulled out into ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... left alone, at least this evening; grant me that, and I will submit, if you think, after what is past, I ought to see him in your company." "Well, I will grant it," cries the aunt. "Sophy, you know I love you, and can deny you nothing. You know the easiness of my nature; I have not always been so easy. I have been formerly thought cruel; by the men, I mean. I was called the cruel Parthenissa. I have broke many a window that has had verses to the cruel Parthenissa in it. Sophy, I was never so handsome as you, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... bars shining on every hand; and the friends he will make, gay, rich, thoughtless young men like himself—they will laugh at him if he refuses to do as they do; and with my boy's inherited tastes and temperament, his easiness to be led by those he loves, what will hinder him from going to ruin as his poor father did? What will keep him, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... practise them without burdening himself, or others. He never opprest any mans parts, nor ever put any man out of countenance. He never had any emulation for Fame, or contention for Profit with any man. When he was in business he suffer'd others importunities with much easiness: When he was out of it he was never importunate himself. His modesty and humility were so great, that if he had not had many other equal Virtues, they might have been ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... away as it was, until it melted into the light that sparkled from her complexion—the snowy forehead, the flashing eye, in which sat the very soul of love—the lips, blushing of sweets—her whole person breathing the warmth of youth, and feeling, and so characteristic in the easiness of its motions of that gracile flexibility that has never been known to exist separate from the power of receiving varied and profound emotions—all this told the spectator, too truly, that the lovely being before him was not of another ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... the hardiest is Hansa, deep violet red, very large, double and an exceedingly profuse and continuous bloomer, absolutely hardy. These five varieties can be considered as everybody's roses, because of the easiness and sureness with which they can be grown, taking into consideration the elimination of winter protection. Planting, preparation of ground and cultivation are the same as for all other roses. Do not imagine for a minute that they will do well in ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... surreptitious and stolen copies, but 'cured and perfect of their limbs and all the rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them, who as he was a happie imitator of Nature was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together, and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... Todd's party, would not believe that the matter was hopeless. The quarrels of lovers have ever been the renewal of love, since the day when a verb between two nominative cases first became possessed of the power of agreeing with either of them. There is something in this sweet easiness of agreement which seems to tend to such reconciliations. Miss Baker was too good a grammarian ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... life. Caesar was esteemed for his humanity and benevolence; austereness had given dignity to Cato. Caesar acquired renown by giving, relieving, and pardoning; Cato by bestowing nothing. In Caesar, there was a refuge for the unfortunate; in Cato, destruction for the bad. In Caesar, his easiness of temper was admired; in Cato, his firmness. Caesar, in fine, had applied himself to a life of energy and activity; intent upon the interest of his friends, he was neglectful of his own; he refused nothing to others that was worthy of acceptance, while for himself ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... death was now a distinction, an honor for which each almost envied the other. When at ten o'clock in the morning the gathering took place in the large room, the conversation was of the most cheerful and unaffected easiness; they joked, they laughed, they speculated on politics, though it was well known that in a few minutes yonder door was to open, and that on its threshold the jailer would appear, list in hand; that from this list he ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... itself, and it is riot till long afterwards that these improvements extend to the inland parts. It was thus that the earliest civilised nations were grouped round the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea; and the extent and easiness of its inland navigation was probably the chief cause of the early ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... only for the child, but on account of the great happiness that was to come to him also. However, the mother's labor was such as afforded a confirmation to what was foretold by God; for it was not known to those that watched her, by the easiness of her pains, and because the throes of her delivery did not fall upon her with violence. And now they nourished the child at home privately for three months; but after that time Amram, fearing he should be discovered, and, by falling under the king's ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... away. By this means his writings are, like a tailor's cushion of mosaic work, made up of several scraps sewed together. He calls a slovenly, nasty description great Nature, and dull flatness strange easiness. He writes down all that comes in his head, and makes no choice, because he has nothing to do it with that is judgment. He is always repealing the old laws of comedy, and, like the Long Parliament, making ordinances in their stead, although they are perpetually ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... Kofirans, whom his Indolence, and the weak and wicked Ministration of Jeflur had alienated, he caused it to be declared, that he was resolved to head his Army in Person: Surprising Turn, fortunate Instance of the Easiness and Loyalty of his Subjects. All the King's Deviations, though of such bad Consequences, were instantly forgotten. He had now been on the Throne near thirty Years, yet they made this generous Change the AEra of ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon

... himself a sincere adherent. That he was not scrupulously pious in some part of his life is known by many idle and indecent applications of sentences taken from the Scriptures, a mode of merriment which a good man dreads for its profaneness, and a witty man disdains for its easiness and vulgarity. But to whatever levities he has been betrayed, it does not appear that his principles were ever corrupted, or that he ever lost his belief of revelation. The positions which he transmitted from Bolingbroke ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... beauty be not regular; they are of the number of those amiable imperfections which we see in mistresses, and which we pass over without a strict examination, when they are accompanied with greater graces. And such in Almanzor are a frank and noble openness of nature, an easiness to forgive his conquered enemies, and to protect them in distress; and, above all, an ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... afternoon and the advantages of the situation, now followed their comrade's example, coming out from their burrows and squatting on the turf of the sloping glade in a semicircle opposite the children; while, the more poor Puck tried to express his indignation at their free-and- easiness, the more nonchalantly they regarded him, sitting up comfortably and combing away, enjoying themselves as thoroughly as if there was no such thing as a dog in existence, Puck's faint coughing bark being utterly thrown away ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson

... Torquatus, these last were endowed with consummate valour. But he who has to govern subjects such as those of whom Tacitus speaks, to prevent their growing insolent and trampling upon him by reason of his too great easiness, must resort to punishment rather than to compliance. Still, to escape hatred, punishment should be moderate in degree, for to make himself hated is never for the interest of any prince. And to escape hatred, ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... having signified, that the cause being now out of my hands, he might do as he pleased, he generously yielded it. And indeed he could not have bestowed it more properly; for Tommy had the best ear for music I ever knew; and in less than a twelvemonth could far outdo me, his instructor, in softness and easiness of finger; and was also master of every tune I knew, which were neither inconsiderable in number, nor of ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... chief nervous system, by means of both of which qualities we keep our equilibrium. The more massive cerebellum with woman, together with the comparative shortness and tenderness of her bones, explains her comparative quickness and easiness of motion, her quicker and higher co-ordination of the muscles for their functions, and her knack of quickly sizing up a situation, and finding her way in the midst of a confusion of associations. Woman is furthermore aided in the latter faculty ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... you didn't need one to start with," corrected the Idiot. "And I've proved it. I didn't have that story in mind when I started. That's where the easiness of the thing comes in. Why, I didn't even have to think of a name for the heroine. The inspiration for that popped right out of Mr. Brief's mouth as smoothly as though the name Drivelina had been written on ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... "I have no hope of her at all. I once took much pains with her; but I soon found that the easiness with which she hears of her faults, is only another effect of the levity with which she commits them. But if the young are never tired of erring in conduct, neither are the older in erring in judgment; the fallibility of mine I have indeed ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... provide a curate for my new church at Littlemore, I engaged a friend, by no fault of his, who, before he entered into his charge, preached a sermon, either in depreciation of baptismal regeneration, or of Dr. Pusey's view of it. I showed a similar easiness as to the editors who helped me in the separate volumes of Fleury's Church History; they were able, learned, and excellent men, but their after history has shown, how little my choice of them was influenced by any notion I could have had of any intimate agreement ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... full of surprise, and touched with a curious sort of gratification; curious to her, that is, since she could not know how a well-known Labor Commissioner had taxed this man with "easiness." ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... Diamonds, we could do the like. But none of those many that we try'd of all Kinds, were equal to the Diamond on which the Observations were made, not only considering the degree of Light it afforded, but the easiness wherewith it was excited, and the Comparatively great duration of ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... "and that's an achievement. I don't think I could ever be content under a bad-tempered, sentimentalism, strenuous Government. That's why I couldn't stand the Roosevelt REGIME in America. One's chief surprise when one comes across these big people for the first time is their admirable easiness and a real personal modesty. I confess I admire them. Oh! I like them. I wouldn't at all mind, I believe, giving over the ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... more difficult to acquire than French; most of us can name worthy persons who have been assiduously struggling with it from childhood to mature age, and who do not know it now: yet it is treated as something any one can pick up offhand.... French staggers under the fearful burden of apparent easiness." I do not think these words overstate the case. All the more reason, then, to bear in mind that the burden of this accomplishment should not fall on the college course alone, or, I should even say, on the college course at all. For the fact is that a thorough ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... English; but this constraint and this bondage render it more suitable for tragedy and comedy than any language in Europe. The natural order in which one is obliged to express one's thoughts and construct one's phrases, diffuses in this language a sweetness and easiness that is pleasing to all peoples; and the genius of the nation mingling with the genius of the language has produced more agreeably written books than can be seen ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... way as the basis of a poem far Punch. Everybody knows the kind of verses that are contributed to Punch by Sir Owen Seaman and Mr. Charles Graves and men of that sort. And everybody has been struck, as I have, by the extraordinary easiness of the performance. All that one needs is to get some odd little incident, such as the revolt of the Sultan of Kowfat, make up an amusing title, and then string the verses together in such a way as to make rhymes with all the odd words that come into the narrative. ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... few moments I really thought Billy was about to pass through the ordeal with success. He glided down the first twenty yards of the hill in a manner which recalled the impression of 'easiness' which Tom's skill had aroused. Then something happened which inclined our poor William to direct his right snowshoe towards his left one. Instantly the left one, like an angry dog, resented the liberty, and turned upon its companion. They crossed; then ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... what people did everywhere else; they acknowledged by a present the trouble they gave, or the benefit they gained. It may be that Bacon's known difficulties about money, his expensive ways and love of pomp, his easiness of nature, his lax discipline over his servants, encouraged this profuseness of giving. And Bacon let it be. He asked no questions; he knew that he worked hard and well; he knew that it could go on without affecting his purpose to do justice "from the greatest ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... viscountesses of the Restoration period!" Brunetiere accepts this testimony of a contemporary who himself frequented the salons of the great. Some later critics, on the contrary, hold that the novelist has given us stage-dames with heavy graces and a bizarre free-and-easiness as being the nearest equivalent to aristocratic nonchalance. One thing is certain, namely, that Balzac was personally acquainted rather with that side of aristocratic society which was not the better. It was the side bordering on licentiousness, where manners as well as morals are ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... N. facility, ease; easiness &c adj.; capability; feasibility &c (practicability) 470; flexibility, pliancy &c 324; smoothness &c 255. plain sailing, smooth sailing, straight sailing; mere child's play, holiday task; cinch [U.S.]. smooth water, fair wind; smooth royal road; clear ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... meantime, Noor ad Deen's friends were constant guests at his table, and never failed to take advantage of the easiness of his temper. They praised and flattered him, extolling his most indifferent actions; but, above all, they took particular care to commend whatever belonged to him; and in this they found their account. "Sir," said one of them, "I came the other ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.

... My easiness to give credit to what I heard in the course of our Tour was too great. Dr. Johnson's peculiar accuracy of investigation detected much traditional fiction, and many gross mistakes. It is not to be wondered at, that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... not only made the proper use of wit himself, but taught it to others; and, from his time, it has been generally subservient to the cause of reason and truth. He has dissipated the prejudice that had long connected cheerfulness with vice, and easiness of manners with laxity of principles. He has restored virtue to its dignity, and taught innocence not to be ashamed. This is an elevation of literary character above all Greek, above all Roman fame. As a teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently followed. ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... turned from the troughs and ran—anywhere and everywhere—like spilled quicksilver. It was a most extraordinary spectacle, for men and horses were in all stages of easiness, and the carbine-buckets flopping against their sides urged the horses on. Men were shouting and cursing, and trying to pull clear of the Band which was being chased by the Drum-Horse whose rider had fallen forward and seemed to be spurring ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... canoe. Without exception, those three young men were the most symmetrical in form I have ever seen. The unrestrained state of nature in which these Dyaks live, gives to them a natural grace and an easiness of posture, which is their chief characteristic. After the usual greetings and salutations had been passed through, we all sat down on mats and cushions which had been arranged for us; a short conversation with Mr. Brooke, who speaks the language fluently, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... consecrated to the paying off the young gentleman's obligations. At this price, many a worthy youth and respected reader would hand over his correspondence to his parents; and perhaps there is no greater test of a man's regularity and easiness of conscience, than his readiness to face the postman. Blessed is he who is made happy by the sound of the rat-tat! The good are eager for it: but the naughty tremble at the sound thereof. So it was very kind of Mrs. Pendennis doubly to spare Pen ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and told him. "I'm going to buy a rhinoceros." But for all the easiness of it her tongue nearly tripped. "And what are ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... and if there's anything a young man likes—a good, hearty boy—it's to see a brisk play pushed home. I'd called 'em down so their spinal columns shortened, and gagging about my hair, and the style I put on in general, caught their eye. And their own laughing and easiness wasn't so durned abandoned, as Charley Halleck used to say. There was a streak of not liking the job, and everything a little "put on," evident to the ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... more and more stress on Middle-English and Old English writings than on what our nations of England and Scotland have written since they learned to write. I dare to think also that we may attribute to this dread of 'easiness' their practice of cumbering simple texts with philological notes; on which, rather than on the text, we unhappy students were carefully examined. For an example supplied to Dr Corson—I take those three lines of Cowper's "Task" (Bk ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... above all things, manliness, and a becoming confidence to young children, I think it cannot be learned too early, after they are once capable of it. But you must be sure to have a good master, that knows and can teach what is graceful and becoming, and what gives a freedom and easiness to all the motions of the body. One that teaches not this, is worse than none at all; natural awkwardness being much better than apish affected postures: and I think it much more passable, to put off the hat, and make a leg like an honest country-gentleman, than like an ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... of it up to the last moment. He was quite resolved. There was no other escape. And yet—yet—yet, who would say what might not happen? Till the deed should have been done, there would yet be a path open to the sweet easiness of innocence. When it should have been done, there would be a final adieu to innocence. There would be no return to the white way, no possibility of repentance! How could a man repent while he was still holding the guilty ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope

... pens, your quill for essays that are literature. There is a subtle informality, a delightful easiness, perhaps even a faint immorality essentially literary, about the quill. The quill is rich in suggestion and quotation. There are quills that would quote you Montaigne and Horace in the hands of a trades-union delegate. And those quirky, idle noises this pen makes are delightful, and would ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... land, but its characteristic features, as distinguished from Judea, are the easiness of approach through open gateways among the hills, and the fertility of the broad vales and level plains which lie between them. The Kingdom of Israel, in its brief season of prosperity, was richer, more luxurious, and weaker than the Kingdom of Judah. The poet Isaiah touched ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... it so happened that Duncan McKay junior himself entered the room, with that over-done free-and-easiness which sometimes characterises a man who is ill ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... Younger," one by Mr. Hollingshead, and so on. It is a favorite piece for charitable benefits, and a number of well-known performers often volunteer to figure as "Gentlemen of the Jury." Buzfuz has been often played by Mr. Toole, but his too farcical methods scarcely enhanced the part. The easiness of comedy is essential. That sound player Mr. James Fernander is the best ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald

... himself that the editor had to see articles written about every possible subject every evening—from a European convulsion to a fire at a theatre,—and that use must have made it in him a property of easiness. When a man's obliged to work himself up perpetually into a state of artificial excitement about every railway accident, explosion, shipwreck, earthquake, or volcanic eruption, in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... can make out of this tangle," he ordered. But Dane's shoulders went back as if some weight had been lifted from them. The old easiness was still lacking, but he was no longer exiled to the outer darkness of ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... illustrates the advantages of industry, and demonstrates that people feel cheerful and happy whilst they are employed; while "Tarleton" represents "the danger and the folly of that weakness of mind, and that easiness to be led, which too often pass for good nature"; "The False Key" points out some of the evils to which a well-educated boy, on first going to service, is exposed from the profligacy of his fellow-servants; ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... extraneous tags I have fastened round him, and the noble creature is his own sempster and weaver and spinner; nay his own boot-maker, jeweller, and man-milliner; he bounds free through the valleys, with a perennial rain-proof court-suit on his body; wherein warmth and easiness of fit have reached perfection; nay, the graces also have been considered, and frills and fringes, with gay variety of color, featly appended, and ever in the right place, are not wanting. While I—good Heaven!—have thatched myself over with the dead fleeces of ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... leisure to entertain a herd of fools: things who visit you from their excessive idleness, bestowing on your easiness that time which is the incumbrance of their lives. How can you find delight in such society? It is impossible they should admire you; they are not capable; or, if they were, it should be to you as a ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... did rightly love me. He gave me his best as he knew it. Oh, he was ignorant, a savage, I guess, like I was. But he did rightly love me. He was not trying to break my spirit nor to tame me, nor to amuse himself with me, nor to give me a longing for beauty and easiness and then leave me to fight through my own rough life without any of those things. Did you really think, Prosper Gael, that I would stay in your house and live on your money till you should be caring to come back to me—if ever you would care? Did you honestly ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... be much easiness with them, Tom," said Mark, firmly. "They're prisoners, and prisoners they ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... affairs into the hands of his wife, formerly the Lady Michal M'Intosh, a penniless beauty, with the pride of a Scotchwoman and the temper of a Hervey. Her enemies said that my lady had tripped in the merry days of George the Second, and now made up for past easiness by present hardness. Her friends—but it must be confessed ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... of his kind, and even the nearness of a tragedy and the rigidness of the rules that governed his daily life had not crushed out of him that little touch of Nature that makes the whole world kin. Thanks to the easiness of my manner and his own ready stumbling into the trap I had not set for him, he now looked upon me as nothing more than a love-sick youth with no eyes for anyone or anything save the girl who occupied his heart. If the man could only have seen what was in my mind, if by any ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... whether a family by degrees grew up into a common-wealth, and the fatherly authority being continued on to the elder son, every one in his turn growing up under it, tacitly submitted to it, and the easiness and equality of it not offending any one, every one acquiesced, till time seemed to have confirmed it, and settled a right of succession by prescription: or whether several families, or the descendants of several families, whom chance, neighbourhood, or business brought together, ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... handle to his name. But it was a mortal injury to her that Mrs. Lookaloft should be successful in her hunt after such honours. She had abused and ridiculed Mrs. Lookaloft to the extent of her little power. She had pushed against her going out of church, and had excused herself with all the easiness of equality. "Ah, dame, I axes pardon, but you be grown so mortal stout these times." She had inquired with apparent cordiality of Mr. Lookaloft after "the woman that owned him," and had, as she thought, been on the whole able to hold her ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... pair of eyes that providence had been pleased to place in my head. To those who pleased me not, I was little better than a Cerberus whom it was very difficult to pass; whilst to others, I was all easiness and condescension, ushering them straight to the sanctum sanctorum, in which, behind a desk covered with letters and papers, stood—for he never sat down to his desk—the respectable individual whose lawful ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... acts of liberality to the husband, who had, it seems, failed in trade, he also presented to the lady herself a handsome set of diamonds; and there is an anecdote related in reference to this gift, which shows the exceeding easiness and forbearance of his disposition towards those who had acquired any hold on his heart. A casket, which was for sale, being one day offered to him, he was not a little surprised on discovering them to be the same jewels which he had, not long before, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... could meet. But I had witnessed; and therefore supposing that I knew him in spite of his appearance, that I was, so to speak, in his secret and could give him a sort of wink, I adopted at once a method of easiness. It was so pleasant to be easy with a large stranger, who instead of shooting at your heels had very ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... XV. had taken a fresh step in the shameful irregularity of his life; on the 15th of April, 1764, Madame de Pompadour had died, at the age of forty-two, of heart disease. As frivolous as she was deeply depraved and baseminded in her calculating easiness of virtue, she had more ambition than comported with her mental calibre or her force of character; she had taken it into her head to govern, by turns promoting and overthrowing the ministers, herself proffering ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... a piece of tortoise-shell with gleams of gold here and there. A great cushion covered with a piece of a dalmatic of faded colouring—of that peculiar shade which the Florentine silk merchants used to call 'rosa di gruogo,' saffron red, contributed to its inviting easiness. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... be with T. Cholmondeley Frink as a neighbor, as a borrower of lawn-mowers and monkey-wrenches, they knew that he was also a Famous Poet and a distinguished advertising-agent; that behind his easiness were sultry literary mysteries which they could not penetrate. But to-night, in the gin-evolved confidence, he admitted ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... admitted, "only Ruth was a lady. To go on with my story. A hunting coterie, as you fellows know, means lots of liberty, and a general free-and-easiness amongst the sexes, which naturally leads to flirtations more or less serious. Ruth's little affairs were either too cleverly arranged, or too harmless for gossip. Amongst the other women of the hunt, she seemed outwardly almost demure. ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... in good time! I'll learn from him The cause of this.— (Going up to him.) Phidippus, though I own Myself indulgent to my family, Yet my complacency and easiness Runs not to that extreme, that my good-nature Corrupts their morals. Would you act like me, 'Twould be of service to both families. But you, I see, are wholly in ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... that I was but a leisurely wanderer; but now at last the destined road was clear; I was no longer astray; I was no longer inventing duties and acts for myself, but I had in very truth a note of the way. It was not the path I should have chosen in my blindness and easiness. But there could no longer be any doubt about it. How the false ambitions, the comfortable schemes, the trivial hopes melted away for me in that serene certainty! What I had pursued before was the phantom ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... them, with a fulness of knowledge and an independence of judgment unknown in the past, and it has led its votaries to regard in these matters a sceptical and hesitating spirit as a virtue, and credulity and easiness of belief ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... the easiness of secrecy, they seem to have considered it as opposed, not to treachery, but loquacity, and to have conceived the man, whom they thus censured, not frighted by menaces to reveal, or bribed by promises to betray, but incited by the mere pleasure of talking, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... conception of heaven. Their trading on board ships. The smell of India. The Indian "send-off." Use of the plural. Mistakes concerning it. Unappreciated English jocosity. Indian free-and-easiness. ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... the communes and hospitals their former resources, to public works their activity, to commerce its scope, to the university its lustre, to manufactures their prosperity, to the clergy that respect and easiness of circumstances, which it had forfeited through the persecutions, directed by it, at the instigation of the emigrants, against the pretended ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... was akin to his generosity; he gave money (or rather allowed it to be taken) freely when he had it, from indolence and easiness of temper; he hated the sight of distress in any individual, because it occasioned trouble, and was, in short, a bore. He therefore made haste to relieve his sister's alarm by assuring her that these were mere trifles; that, as for Douglas's ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... are changed into harder, as burial into sepulture or interment, drier into desiccative, dryness into siccity or aridity, fit into paroxysm; for the easiest word, whatever it be, can never be translated into one more easy. But easiness and difficulty are merely relative, and if the present prevalence of our language should invite foreigners to this dictionary, many will be assisted by those words which now seem only to increase or produce obscurity. For this reason I have endeavoured frequently to join a Teutonick and Roman interpretation, ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson

... the spacious top of the mountain had lodged me a prisoner in the narrowest of cells. Dismayed but not despairing, I struggled frantically, working with shoulder and arms against the walls of granite. The right foot was firmly fixed, while a sensation of easiness was perceptible with regard to the left. Gently yet firmly, and fearful lest the slight grain of comfort might be fraudulent, I felt the weight of my body on the left foot, while scrutinising in detail the horrible trap into which the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... subtraction of a powerful stimulus will suffice to account for this event. But it is only temporary, and is succeeded by an equable capability for exertion, far surpassing his former various and fluctuating strength. Above all, he will acquire an easiness of breathing, by which such exertion is performed, with a remarkable exemption from that painful and difficult panting now felt by almost every one after hastily climbing an ordinary mountain. He will be equally capable of bodily exertion, or mental application, after as before his simple meal. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... with a Lady, to whom it has given all the Graces, Beauties, and Virtues of her Sex; all the Youth, Sweetness of Nature, of a most illustrious Family; and who is a most rare Example to all Wives of Quality, for her eminent Piety, Easiness, and Condescention; and as absolutely merits Respect from all the World as she does that Passion and Resignation she receives from your Lordship; and which is, on her part, with so much Tenderness return'd. Methinks your tranquil Lives are ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... walls. A good kitchen, therefore, should be erected with a view to the following particulars. 1. Convenience of distribution in its parts, with largeness of dimension. 2. Excellence of light, height of ceiling, and good ventilation. 3. Easiness of access, without passing through the house. 4. Sufficiently remote from the principal apartments of the house, that the members, visitors, or guests of the family, may not perceive the odour incident ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... priest of thirty years' standing, I have seen so much unnecessary misery; and I have in other cases seen similar misery so simply avoided; that the sense of the vastness of the evil is intensified by my sense of the easiness of ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... indignation, topped by this cogent reasoning,—"How could I have got Daniel on my notes, unless you told me so, sir?" Nothing at all was said about it in the Reading; but, again and again, Mr. Winkle, as there impersonated, while endeavouring to feign an easiness of manner, was made to assume, in his then state of confusion, "rather the ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... should lie in the water and she be overset, we lay by and run adrift; that is, in a landloper's phrase, we temporized it. For he assured us that, as these gusts and whirlwinds would not do us much good, so they could not do us much harm, considering their easiness and pleasant strife, as also the clearness of the sky and calmness of the current. So that we were to observe the philosopher's rule, bear and forbear; that is, trim, or ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... plain slipped away beneath the even beat of the steadily cantering hoofs. The creek, forded slowly, sank into the distance behind them; before, the line of timber grew darker and more definite. Jim's pony was not far inferior to Bobs in pace and easiness, and his swinging canter required no effort to sit, but a great weariness began to steal over his rider. Dick Stephenson, glancing at her frequently, saw the pallor creeping ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... to take the water and sprinkle the stone-changed folk, and call them to life again, just as they were before." This the king's children thought no hard task. The brothers, however, were the most outspoken about the easiness of the thing. They thanked the old man much for his story and took ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... take a summary View of the Inhabitants of Ireland, in their respective Ranks: And to begin with the Peers: Are they not such Personages, as, by their Munificence, Affability of Manners, Easiness of Comportment, Propriety of Appearance, and Generosity in dealing, reflect true Honour on Nobility; and, Reality, derive their superior Rank, as much from the Pre-eminence of their Virtues, as from the constitutional ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke

... and mystic thought you must express With painful care, but seeming easiness; For truth shines brightest thro' the plainest dress. Essay on Translated Verse. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... assistance of a little art, seem to have afforded a communication by water-carriage, not only between all the great towns, but between all the considerable villages, and even to many farm-houses in the country, nearly in the same manner as the Rhine and the Maese do in Holland at present. The extent and easiness of this inland navigation was probably one of the principal causes of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... pliable to a degree. He could be talked into almost any concession of interest. He once told Herndon he thanked God that he had not been born a woman because he found it so hard to refuse any request made of him. His outer easiness, his lack of self-assertion,—as most people understand self-assertion,—persist in an amusing group of anecdotes of the circuit. Though he was a favorite with the company at every tavern, those little ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... the designs of my virtuous mistress on me, and by my answers, drawn from pure undissembled nature, she had no reason but to promise herself all imaginable success, so far as it depended on my ignorance, easiness ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... of America that can be found in any book published before the discovery. [3] The well known passage in the tragic Seneca is not to be compared with it. The 'copia verborum' of the mother Florentine tongue, and the easiness of his style, afterwards brought to perfection by Berni, are the chief merits of Pulci; his chief demerit is his heartless spirit of jest and buffoonery, by which sovereigns and their courtiers were flattered by the degradation of nature, and the ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... here alone, the baggage not having yet been heard from. Mr. G., being found in London, confessed that he delayed sending it by the proper train. In short, Mr. G. is what is called an easy man, and one whose easiness makes everybody else un easy. So because he was easy and thought it was no great matter, and things would turn out well enough, without any great care, we have had ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... possesses all the excellences of the most valuable Greek and Roman classics. He has the invention, copiousness, and perspicuity of Cicero; and all the elegance and accuracy of composition which is admired in Isocrates, with much greater variety and freedom. According as his subject requires, he has the easiness and sweetness of Xenophon, and the pathetic force and rapid simplicity of Demosthenes. His judgment is exquisite, his images noble, his morality sensible and beautiful. No man understands human nature to greater perfection, nor has a happier power of ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... coins, as though carefully matched, were new and glittered in the sun. Trying to seem grave and sedate he pursed up his face and puffed out his cheeks, and he smelt of spirits. Probably he had visited the refreshment bar at every station. And again there was a free-and-easiness about the man—something superfluous and out of place. Then Anisim had lunch and drank tea with the old man, and Varvara turned the new coins over in her hand and inquired about villagers who had gone to live in ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... great difference between the easiness of the conquest of Guiana, and the defence of it being conquered, and the West or East Indies. Guiana hath but one entrance by the sea, if it hath that, for any vessels of burden. So as whosoever shall first possess it, it shall be found unaccessible for any enemy, except he come in wherries, barges, ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh

... impediment to the treatment, because no mere technical training will dispense in the nurse any more than in the physician with those finer natural qualifications which make their training available. Over-harshness is in some ways worse than over-easiness, because it makes less pleasant the relation between nurse and patient, and the latter should regard the former as her "next friend." Let the nurse, therefore, place upon the doctor the burden of decision in disputed matters; his position will not be injured with the patient by strict ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell

... nature; but he is not without ambition. There is one thing peculiar in his temper, which I altogether disapprove, and do not remember to have heard or met with in any other man's character: I mean, an easiness and indifference under any imputation, although he be never so innocent, and although the strongest probabilities and appearance are against him; so that I have known him often suspected by his nearest friends, for some months, in points of the highest importance, to a degree, that they were ready ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... had been possessed, however, with the desire to "make good," and so avoided the little group of cynics that, in every class, leave their alma mater with gall and bitterness in their hearts. As it was, he came to admire the happy, well-dressed majority. There was an easiness of manner about them that charmed him. They were reserved and did not dull their palms with entertainment of each new-hatch'd comrade, but when they did accept one it appeared to be a thoroughgoing performance. They were the jeunesse doree; but Tom frankly hoped ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis

... therefore, of ships and boats rudely formed for the neighbouring passages, were collected together; and the Gauls, first beginning the plan, hollowed out some new ones from single trees; and then the soldiers themselves, at once induced by the plenty of materials and the easiness of the work, hastily formed shapeless hulks, in which they could transport themselves and their baggage, caring about nothing else, provided they could ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... not eat, nor sleep, nor pray for any thing but swift and sure Revenge, till I have found Marcella, that false deceiving Beauty, or her Lover, my hated Rival Fillamour; who, wanton in the Arms of the fair Fugitive, laughs at my shameful easiness, and cries, these Joys were never ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... the fading out of the usual dividing lines and the blending into one another of the usual divisions, it requires a tactful and prudent man "to keep the happy mean between too much stiffness in refusing and to much easiness in admitting" variations from conventional standards. His point of view, if he is to have any influence whatever, must not exclude the point of view of the great majority; he must accept the situation in order to have any chance of ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... holding ever a gentle hand over me, concerning other regular studies. For, the chiefest thing my father required at their hands (unto whose charge he had committed me) was a kinde of well conditioned mildnesse and facilitie of complexion. [Footnote: Easiness of disposition.] And, to say truth, mine had no other fault, but a certaine dull languishing and heavie slothfullnesse. The danger was not, I should doe ill, but that I should ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... with an air of courtly politeness, by alleging a business appointment. Very elegantly dressed, tightly buttoned up in clothes of an English cut, he had the carriage of a man about town, relieved by the retention of a touch of artistic free-and-easiness. Immediately on sitting down he grasped his neighbour's hand, affecting ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... eyes of FRANK SWINNERTON, we glimpse ourselves as others see us, and rather pathetically. In days gone by, lured by reports of America's lawless free-and-easiness, Swinnerton says he craved to visit us. But no more. The wish is dead. We have become hopelessly moral and uninviting. "I see that I shall after all have to live quietly in England with my pipe and my abstemious bottle of beer. And yet I should like to visit America, for it has suddenly become ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... cottagers. At last he took out a pedlar's license—perhaps one of the most dangerous permits ever allowed by a government, and which has been the cause of much of the ill-will and discontent fomented among the lower classes. Latterly, the cheapness of printing and easiness of circulation have rendered the profession of less consequence: twenty years ago the village ale-houses were not provided with newspapers; it was an expense never thought of; the men went to drink their beer and talk over the news ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... of CANTERBURY, after renouncing Sir ALFRED MOND and all his works, declared that, so far as religious edifices were concerned, the proposed Committee was a superfluity of naughtiness with which he personally would have nothing to do. Lord LYTTON, with that delightful free-and-easiness which characterises the attitude of our present Ministers towards their colleagues, observed that he could have sympathised with the objectors if it were really intended to place cathedrals under Sir ALFRED'S care; but it wasn't;—so why all this fuss? Lord CRAWFORD, while ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various

... observing what is suitable. Whoever is either too remiss or too strict is no more a king or a governor, but either a demagogue or a despot, and so becomes either odious or contemptible to his subjects. Though certainly the one seems to be the fault of easiness and good-nature, the other ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... full-bottomed periwigs. I could scarce keep him this morning from going out open-breasted." My friend, who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humour, made her sit down with us. She did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep up the good humour she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me. "Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the play-house; suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow night, ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele

... "Free-and-easiness, where there ought to be respect, is always ridiculous. No one would put his hat down when he had scarcely paid the ordinary compliments if he knew how comical ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... work to be noticed, as one of enduring interest on the Deistical controversy. Bishop Berkeley's 'Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher,' is one of the few exceptions to the general dreariness and unreadableness of controversial writings in the dialogistic form. The elegance and easiness of his style, and the freshness and beauty of his descriptions of natural scenery by which the tedium of the controversy is relieved, render this not only a readable, but a fascinating book, even to the modern reader who has no present interest in the controversial question. It is, however, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... matter. If we are right, it is no more than a first furrow in the crust of a soil, which hitherto the historians have been contented to leave in its barrenness. If they are conscientious enough not to trifle with the facts, as they look back on them from the easiness of modern Christianity which has ceased to demand any heavy effort of self-sacrifice, they either revile the superstition or pity the ignorance which made such large mistakes on the nature of religion—and, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... diamonds, rattled continuously for the amusement of the company, giving descriptions of persons and scenes in a racy Western twang, without the slightest scruple as to what she said. In a few years Tahoe will be inundated in summer with similar vulgarity, owing to its easiness of access. I sustained the reputation which our country-women bear in America by looking a "perfect guy"; and feeling that I was a salient point for the speaker's next sally, I was relieved when the ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... British entered Washington. The Capitol, White House, and several public buildings were burned by them; the navy yard and vessels by the American authorities. Ross, accustomed to European warfare, did not feel Drummond's easiness concerning his position, which technically was most insecure as regarded his communications. On the evening of June 25 he withdrew rapidly, and on that of the 26th regained touch with the fleet in the Patuxent, after a separation ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... is the fault of others. His only faults are that he is too kind, not sufficiently reserved, and apt to believe people who have less sense than himself; he is, therefore, often deceived, for the knaves who know his easiness of temper will run all risks with him. All the misfortunes and inconveniences which befall him spring from that cause. His other fault is one not common to Frenchmen, the easiness with which women can ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans

... may have proceeded in a great measure from his jealousy of dictation and impatience of restraint, but was the result also of warm and generous feelings. His greatest faults, arose out of his kindness and easiness of disposition, which rendered it impossible for him to say or do unpleasant things, unless when under the influence of strong prejudice or resentment. This temperament made him a too lax disciplinarian, and caused him to be frequently imposed upon. He was exceedingly ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... been, in a sort of way, right in thinking these people were the handiest instrument to prise open the national conscience with. The shining red faces of the men, the shining white necks and arms of the women, the fearless eyes, the general free-and-easiness and spaciousness, the look of late hours counteracted by fresh air and exercise and the best things to eat and drink—what mightn't be made of these people, if they'd ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... because of their iniquity. He sent fiery flying serpents among them; and after they were bitten he prepared a way that they might be healed; and the labor which they had to perform was to look; and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... this my latest work ('Volpone'), which you, most learned Arbitresses, have seen, judged, and, to my crown, approved; wherein I have laboured for their instruction and amendment, to reduce, not only the ancient forms, but manners of the scene, the easiness, the propriety, the innocence, and last, the doctrine, which is the principal end of poesie, to inform men in the best ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... stall where she was complacently and, as usual, obliviously munching, absolutely dared to toy with a pet lock of hair which she wore over the pretty star on her forehead. "Ye see, captain," he said with jaunty easiness, "hosses is like wimmen; ye don't want ter use any standoffishness or shyness with THEM; a stiddy but keerless sort o' familiarity, a kind o' free but firm handlin', jess like this, to let her see ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... you are of the school of the generous and not the sullen pessimists; and I can feel with you. I used myself to rage when I saw sick folk going by in their Bath-chairs; since I have been sick myself (and always when I was sick myself), I found life, even in its rough places, to have a property of easiness. That which we suffer ourselves has no longer the same air of monstrous injustice and wanton cruelty that suffering wears when we see it in the case of others. So we begin gradually to see that ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the easiness of my disposition, I went to bed for a week, after receiving this letter. During the whole of such time, London was bereft of the usual fruits of my labour. When I resumed it, I found that Henrietta was married to ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens

... airy, sometimes sober and grave. Too proud of living among the great. Probably forward to make acquaintance. No literary man ever talked so much of his fortune. Grotto. Importance. Post-office, letters open. Cant of despising the world. Affectation of despising poetry. His easiness about the critics.. Something of foppery. His letters to the ladies—pretty. Abuse of Scripture—not all early. Thoughts in ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... no small addition to our comforts, we ceased to be incommoded when on shore by the natives following us, and could take our walks almost unnoticed. In any house that we wished to enter we always experienced a kind reception and without officiousness. The Otaheiteans have the most perfect easiness of manners, equally free from forwardness and formality. When they offer refreshments if they are not accepted they do not think of offering them the second time; for they have not the least idea of that ceremonious kind of ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh

... difficult art, and yet the brilliancy of her performance makes it seem as if it were but the experiment of an afternoon, in the out-of-doors. Like all fine artists, she has brushed away from sight all aspects of labour, and presents you, with astounding ease, the apparent easiness of the thing. She is powerfully built, and her muscles are master of coordination, such as would be the envy of multitudes of men, and with all this power, she is as simple in her manner and appearance as is the young debutante at her coming out function. You are impressed ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... that it Bounds and Circumscribes the Fancy. For Imagination in a Poet, is a faculty so wild and lawless, that, like a high ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the Judgement. The great easiness of Blank Verse renders the Poet too luxuriant. He is tempted to say many things, which might better be omitted, or, at least, shut ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... sat in her small and over-furnished living-room in a state of open-eyed amazement. Only five minutes before she had left the room to look for a pair of shoes whose easiness was their sole reason for survival, and as a last hope had looked under Cecilia's bed, and discovered the parcels. Three parcels all done up in brown paper and ready for the post, addressed in Cecilia's ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs



Words linked to "Easiness" :   quietness, ease, languor, difficulty, quietude, effortlessness, simpleness, easy, tranquillity, dreaminess, behavior, tranquility, quality, doings, behaviour



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