"Pleasantness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... departed; for would we not wish to meet them there, when, ere long, this mortal shall have put on immortality? Grieve not because that gentle one has passed away! say not that she met with an untimely end, when in her summer of life all was pleasantness before her. Think of her not as one gone far away, never to be on earth more; cast her not from your heart, where, during her little day here, in innocence she entwined herself within its recesses. Oh, ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... of the book I held in my hand, of the views on the river, of the pleasantness of country life. I fancy I did not say much, though I never am able to remember what I said when talking to him. Whatever I said was a mere involuntary accord with him. I never recollect to have felt that I did not agree with and ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... mean more than anything else the beautiful show of it, in its freshness, made by young persons of your age. So go on as you are. I see more and more how you are. You can't," he went so far as to say for pleasantness, "better it." ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... subjugated Porus, his master Aristotle gave him the advice to seek after the island producing aloes; after his conquest of India, Alexander remembered the advice, and on his return journey from the Sea of India to the Sea of Oman, he stopped at Socotra, which he greatly admired for its fertility and the pleasantness of its climate. Acting on the advice of Aristotle, Alexander removed the inhabitants from their island, and established in their place a colony of Ionians, to whom he entrusted the care of cultivating aloes. These Greeks were converted when the Christian religion was preached to them, and their ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... expect any pleasantness where Lord Loudwater is concerned," said Olivia, with a sudden almost petulant impatience, for this inquisition was a much more severe strain on her than Mr. Flexen perceived. "Do you mean now, or before ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... cares about what I want,' she added to herself, with the discontented look on her face which so spoilt its round rosy pleasantness. ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... The pleasantness of his humour, and the manner in which he had gained upon me, were sufficient to insure him a compliance with this request. I had the money in my pocket, gave it him, and we bade each other adieu; with a promise on his part that 'he would soon be in town again, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... out of the window, breathing in the tonic smell of the oak leaves on the grass beneath her, and the freshness of the mountain air. Then, as she turned back to the white-walled raftered room with its bright fire, she was seized with the pleasantness of this place which was now her home. Insensibly it had captured her heart, and her senses. And who was it—what contriving brain—had designed and built it up, out of the rough and primitive dwelling ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... them. The suburban houses, even the suburban street-cars, seemed part of one great universal plan of enjoyment. Pleasantness so radiated from the boys' faces and from their general appearance of clean white flannel trousers and soft clean shirts of pink and blue that a driver on a passing car leaned to look after them with a smile and a butcher hailed them with loud brotherhood ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister
... that Kohl wear; her side face shows the Anemones of Nu'uman, her mouth is like a seal of cornelian and flashing teeth that lure and stand one in stead of cup and ewer. She is cast in the mould of pleasantness and between her thighs is the throne of the Caliphate, there is no such sanctuary among the Holy Places; as saith in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... pattern one for February, and I went out before the brightness was passed, and had several turns in the walled garden. I am afraid you will never be able to understand the pleasantness of such a morning. Perhaps you will say the very description makes you shiver, but I must tell you how beautiful it was. The frost last night was not sharp, but just sufficient to detain the dew till the sun could turn it into diamonds. There were some so brilliant, glancing ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that men and women do so much to destroy the pleasantness of their days,' said she, interrupting him. 'It is a pity that there should ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... trusted; for the boat, never of the best material, was often sadly out of repair, and the boatmen were ready, when danger appeared, to throw themselves into the water and make for the shore, leaving the passengers to shift for themselves. There was, indeed, the pleasantness of sailing on a broad river; the air was very fresh; there was no leaving of the temporary abode from day to day; the trouble of a shifting camp was escaped, though occasionally there was inconvenience from the indispensable cook-boat not keeping sufficiently ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... I know it. I have been young myself, and I remember well how pleasant revenge was to me, but I soon found that the pleasure of revenge did not last. It soon passed away, yet the deed of revenge did not pass away, and sometimes the deed became to my memory very bitter—insomuch that the pleasantness was entirely swallowed up and forgotten in the bitterness. My young braves will not believe this, I know. They go on feeling; they think on feeling; they reason on feeling; they trust to feeling. It is foolish, for the brain was given to enable man to think and judge and plan. You are as foolish ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... excitement of preparing for the journey I didn't feel any very deep regret myself. But when the moment came for leaving, and I saw my small trunk lashed up behind the carriage, then the pleasantness of the old life and a vague dread of the new came over me, and a mist filled my eyes, shutting out the group of schoolfellows, including all the members of the Centipede Club, who had come down to the house to see ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of God had been long entirely neglected. Mrs. Mason perceived that I was affected, and moving towards the door, said, "Yes, James, it is a slippery, down-hill path that leads to ruin, and many there be that walk therein. Heaven may be said to lie upward, yet 'its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace.' But come, it is broad daylight, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... the mind from work consists in playful words or deeds. Therefore it becomes a wise and virtuous man to have recourse to such things at times. Moreover the Philosopher [*Ethic. ii, 7; iv, 8] assigns to games the virtue of eutrapelia, which we may call "pleasantness." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... wit, Shuaaeh, Queen of the Fourth Sea, who is vice-queen of my kingdom. When she was present at the wedding and saw thee and heard thy singing, she sent to me, giving me to know of thee and setting forth to me thine elegance and pleasantness and the goodliness of thy breeding and thy singing. So I am come to thee, for that which I have heard of thy charms, and this shall bring thee great worship in the eyes ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... chairs, delicate china, and silver coffee-pot gave the place a luxurious look, and though Miss Fuller was, so to speak, outside the circle, the presence of a well-dressed, attractive girl had its charm. Indeed, Dick felt half embarrassed by the pleasantness of his surroundings. They were unusual and reminded him poignantly of the privileges he ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... in his moments of effusion and abandonment (then so full of pleasantness), had said more than once: "If I have any physical beauty, I owe it to the Queen, my mother; if my daughters have any beauty, they owe it to me: it is only fine couples ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... members to reciprocate each other's affections, hushes the voice of recrimination, and exerts a softening and harmonizing influence over each heart. The dew of Hermon falls upon the home where prayer is wont to be made. Its members enjoy the good and the pleasantness of dwelling together in unity. It gives tone and intensity to their affections and sympathies: it throws a sunshine around their hopes and interests: it increases their happiness, and takes away the poignancy of ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... nearest elm. The song was more elaborate for the perfect morning. It was so joyous that it choked me—in the sunlight and elm-leaves. It stood out from all the songs of the morning because it was so near—every note so finished and perfect, and we were each in the pleasantness of our tasks. The little girl leaned over to the window. I was already watching. We heard the answer from the distance. The song was repeated, and again. In the hushes, we sipped the ecstasy from the Old Mother—that the sparrow knew and expressed. Like a flicker, ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... of Speech.—In no place is there more need of kindliness of speech and manner than in the home, yet in no other place is there more plain speaking. The mask of pleasantness, which may be worn all day in business or social relations, may be in the home laid aside; and the character revealed and the vigour of language used may easily drive away every vestige of happiness. When people live together under the same roof the feelings become ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... every other love, except the love of two conjugial partners whose hearts are as one: but we have besought you to investigate this love, because it is new and unknown to you; and since it is essential pleasantness, we in heaven call it heavenly sweetness." They then began the investigation; and those spoke first who were unable to think chastely of marriages. They said, "What man when he beholds a beautiful and lovely virgin or wife, can so correct or purify the ideas of his thought from concupiscence, ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... room. The Turk was waiting for him. Carl cut short the Turk's apologies for not having supported Frazer, with the dreadful curt pleasantness of an alienated friend, and, as he began packing his clothes in two old suit-cases, insisted, "It's all right—was your biz whether you stood up in chapel or not." He hunted diligently through the back of the closet for a non-existent shoe, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... down, a rule, with Master Herbert, that he was not to go to the apple stand with her unless he had first put by a penny for a purchase. And so unflinchingly she adhered to this determination, that sometimes weeks went by—hard, weary weeks, without a bit of pleasantness for her; weeks of sore pining for a morsel of heart food—before she was free of her own conscience ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... was now long since dead. He wanted to ask him questions, that so he might make up for omitted kindnesses; but he was restrained when he looked upon the grey dreamy countenance, for it was evident that le Pere was wandering in the idealised meadows of a bygone pleasantness—a country which was known only to himself. So Granger returned his eyes to the portrait which he had taken from the dead man's hand, and, gazing upon it, tried his best to fill in the blanks in his little knowledge of the woman ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... undying affection. Oh, how happy religion makes us! Did it make you gloomy and sad? Did you go with your head cast down? I do not think you got religion, my brother. That is not the effect of religion. True religion is a joy. "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... enough and the cottages stood far enough apart to let the sky look in. Here, in these streets, houses and people seemed to be packed. There was a bare look of want; a forlorn abandonment of every sort of pleasantness; what must it be to go in at one of those doors? Matilda thought; and to live there?—the idea was too disagreeable to dwell upon. Yet people lived there. What sort? Dingy people, as far as Matilda could see; dirty people, and as hopeless looking as the houses. It ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... fell slantingly across the room, gleaming in James Mandeville's short curls and emphasizing all the cosiness and pleasantness of her surroundings. The spirit of friendliness grew strong in Miss Virginia. She felt in no haste ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... tenderness, but perhaps more often shrewdly discerning or cynically speculative. One felt that the present expression of genial friendliness was unfamiliar to the face, though it by no means failed in pleasantness. The lips had the look of being frequently gnawed in intense thought or strong feeling. In the cheeks no healthy colour, but an extreme sallowness on all the features. Smiling, he showed imperfect teeth. Altogether, a young man upon whom one felt it difficult ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... her neck was slung an amulet of red gold that fell down between her breasts, and on the plain of her forehead were browlocks like jet.[FN157] Her eyebrows joined and her eyes were like lakes; she had an aquiline nose and thereunder shell like lips showing teeth like pearls. Pleasantness prevailed in every part of her; but she seemed dejected, disturbed, distracted and in the vestibule came and went, walking upon the hearts of her lovers, whilst her legs[FN158] made mute the voices of their ankle rings; and indeed she was ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... we have only been considering the use and pleasantness of iron in the common earth of clay. But there are three kinds of earth which in mixed mass and prevalent quantity, form the world. Those are, in common language, the earths of clay, of lime, and of flint. Many other elements are mingled with these ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... or suddenly bursting over your heads, rend the vault above and shake the ground below with a hideous and horrid crack!" In the evening the weather began to clear up, which induced me to walk out, when taking two peons as a guard, I proceeded south of the town, on a beautiful plain: the pleasantness of the weather, and the stillness of the evening, tempted me to prolong my walk, and inspired my mind to contemplate on the wonderful works of Providence, who had so lately showered down his blessings upon me, in preserving me from want in the ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... Raffles overtook him in the street, and appearing either to have forgotten the roughness of his former reception or to intend avenging it by a forgiving familiarity, greeted him jovially and walked by his side, remarking at first on the pleasantness of the town and neighborhood. Will suspected that the man had been drinking and was considering how to shake ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... days to give our animals rest after their trying marches, and to refresh ourselves with the indescribable charms of this country, which surpassed in pleasantness and tropical splendour, as well as in the grandeur of the mountain-ranges, anything we had hitherto seen. We wished also, with the assistance of the German agents settled here and in the neighbouring Moshi, to complete our equipment for the rest of the journey. ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... two thirds of the people shedding tears,—genuine wet tears of sorrow. And there was good reason for their grief. In such communities as the diplomatic colony in Pera, people understand the value of those who not only do more than their share in contributing to the pleasantness of life, but who possess in an abundant degree those talents which delight us in individuals, and those qualities which are dear to us in friends. It would be easy to write a book about society in Pera, and it would be a pleasant book. But these are not the days of Samuel Pepys; we have ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... of a good friend, this wise man has very justly singled out constancy and faithfulness as the principal: to these, others have added virtue, knowledge, discretion, equality in age and fortune, and, as Cicero calls it, Morum comitas, "a pleasantness of temper." If I were to give my opinion upon such an exhausted subject, I should join to these other qualifications a certain equability or evenness of behaviour. A man often contracts a friendship with one whom ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... early in March, 1914, that the Grand Duchess sent out an invitation to the Diplomatic Corps to attend a court function. We all went gladly because of the pleasantness of the land and the good hospitality of the palace. There were separate audiences with Her Royal Highness in the morning, a big luncheon given by the Cabinet and the city authorities at noon, a state dinner in the old Spanish palace at night, and after that a gala concert. It ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... and the wounded; no shouts of victory, or processions of triumph, would mingle with the recollections of the multitude who welcomed him. They would mourn over no common dangers, trials, and calamities; for the road of duty has been to them the path of pleasantness, the way of peace. Their memory of the past would be rich in gratitude to God, and love to man; their enjoyment of the present would be a prelude to heavenly bliss; their prospects of the future, bright and glorious as faith ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... its lament over death, there is much also of a gentle beauty, a childlike saying over of wind and wave and the brightness in the tops of green things, as a child counts over its toys. In the 'Song of Pleasant Things' there is no distinction between the pleasantness of sea-gulls playing, of summer and slow long days, of the heath when it is green, of a horse with a thick mane in a tangle, and of 'the word that utters the Trinity.' 'The beautiful I sang of, I will sing,' says Taliesin; and with him the ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... reason, have prescribed so just a term of life that they would not suffer men to exceed it; and yet I have some intermissions, though short and inconstant, so clean and sound as to be little inferior to the health and pleasantness of my youth. I do not speak of vigour and sprightliness; 'tis not reason they should ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... to see the Strid again—not seen these many years. It is curious that life is embittered to me, now, by its former pleasantness; while you have of these same places painful recollections, but you could enjoy them now ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... increasingly, as another excellence of his verse, how truthful, how close it is to the minute fact of the scene around; as there are pleasant wines which, expressing the peculiar quality of their native soil, lose their special pleasantness away from home. The physiognomy of the scene was changed; the plain of La Beauce had ruffled itself into low green hills and gently winding valleys, with clear, quick water, and fanciful patches of heath and wood-land. Here and there a secular oak ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... begun that voyage in the tenth hour, as you do remember; and surely it to have been a sweet and peaceful water-journey; and I to have been happy, if that all that did be yet before us, to hold so much of pleasantness and safe goings. But, indeed, there to be much danger yet to come, as you do know; and we to have our hearts set in courage, and to go forward to conquer; for surely, if that we to conquer, and to come safe into our Mighty Home, there to be then that we have all our lives ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... certain academic convention which, however pronounced or meagre the personalities are, leave those personalities in the category of "safe" painters. They do not disturb by an excessively intimate point of view toward art or toward nature. They come up to gallery requirements by their "pleasantness" or the inoffensiveness of their style. They offer little in the way of interpretive power or synthetic understanding. It is the tendency to keep on the comfortable side in American art. Doubtless ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... man—seemed to have travelled a great deal in foreign countries. I can tell you this much, though," he went on, as if a sudden recollection had come to him; "I gathered that he'd only just arrived in England—in fact, now I come to think of it, he said as much. Made some remark in the train about the pleasantness of the English landscape, don't you know?—I got an idea that he'd recently come from some country where trees and hedges and green fields aren't much in evidence. But—if you want to know who he is, officer, why don't you search him? He's sure to have papers, cards, ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... character wanted back-bone; his will, not a strong one, was likely to be dominated by a stronger. With all his pleasantness and natural good qualities he was vacillating and weak; if any pressure or difficulty should come into his life, it would be likely for him to be weighed in the balance and ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... over the Random River, flowing smooth and peaceful through its great ox-bow. He recognized Dannie Snow, scuffling through the dust with his bare feet, as he drove home his father's great, placid, full-uddered cow. The comfort of the scene, the cosy pleasantness of the place among the close-coming hills, struck him, in his relieved mood, as it had never done before. Even though disappointed in political ambition, a man might ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... Pleasantness is the soft note of this generation, just as scientific assassination is the harsh note of it. The age is compounded of the two. Half of it is chloroform; the other ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... it not perhaps to satisfy expectation that one falls into the tragic key in writing of desertness? The more you wish of it the more you get, and in the mean time lose much of pleasantness. In that country which begins at the foot of the east slope of the Sierras and spreads out by less and less lofty hill ranges toward the Great Basin, it is possible to live with great zest, to have red blood and delicate ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... the ties of financial interest. They sat behind mahogany desks and set the price of salmon to the fishermen and very largely the price of canned fish to the consumer, and their most arduous labor had been to tot up the comfortable balance after each season's operations. All this pleasantness was to be done away with, they mourned. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry was to be turned loose on the salmon with deadly gear and greedy intent to exterminate a valuable species of fish and wipe out a thriving industry. The salmon would all be killed off, so did the packers cry. What ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... much as a man should do. I am utterly indifferent to the opinion of the world at large, and would never object to the company of a pleasant person because the pleasant person abused me behind my back. What I value is the pleasantness of the man and not his liking or disliking for myself. But here the dearest aim of my life is concerned, and I might be guided either this way or that, to my great advantage, by knowing whether I stand well or ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... it was no extravagance. Think merely how one's view of common things is affected by literary association. What were honey to me if I knew nothing of Hymettus and Hybla?—if my mind had no stores of poetry, no memories of romance? Suppose me town-pent, the name might bring with it some pleasantness of rustic odour; but of what poor significance even that, if the country were to me mere grass and corn and vegetables, as to the man who has never read nor wished to read. For the Poet is indeed a Maker: above the world of sense, trodden by hidebound humanity, he builds that ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... this farm-house, there is a very good barn and a granary. The convicts houses form a line at some distance, in front of the barracks, with very good gardens before and behind each house: indeed, the whole, joined to the pleasantness of the situation, ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... largely by foreigners, to the Piazzale, whence Michelangelo's boyish colossus gazes with a slight frown across Florence, outspread at his feet. Mr. Foss, as he mounted the easy grade, and noted with a liking unabated after years the pleasantness of each habitation glimpsed through iron railings and embowering green, thought how privileged a person should feel, after all, whose affairs involved residence ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... adventure it was just as much in its place as in the evocation of great perspectives of feeling. For her, as he again perceived when they were seated at their table in a low window above the Seine, Paris was "Paris" by virtue of all its entertaining details, its endless ingenuities of pleasantness. Where else, for instance, could one find the dear little dishes of hors d'oeuvre, the symmetrically-laid anchovies and radishes, the thin golden shells of butter, or the wood strawberries and brown jars of cream that ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... being taken away, Assad having occasion to go out, took an opportunity when the queen did not observe him. He descended into the court, and seeing the garden-door open, went into it. Being tempted by the pleasantness of the place, he walked there for some time. At last he came to a fountain, where he washed his face and hands to refresh himself, and lying down on the turf by the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... contracted view it seems almost as clear as light, still he will never find the heart to reduce it to practice. You might almost as well expect to transform an incarnate fiend into an angel of light, by demonstrating that "Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness," while "the path of the transgressor is hard," as to attempt to stamp upon a heart encrusted with the adamant of selfishness, the noble impress of ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... strengthening support I humbly solicit, and whom I fervently pray to look down upon us all. May it be among the dispensations of His providence to bless our beloved country with honors and with length of days. May her ways be ways of pleasantness and all ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... cringed beside him along the journey of life; and it would be pitiful to think that she had not long ago entered, in way of remuneration, upon paths of pleasantness beyond the grave. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... impress upon you all, as you go hence, is this—it is always safe to do right. Carry away with you from this Convention, my friends, this one thought—God is wiser than man. What He has made right, He has also made safe. His paths are paths of pleasantness, and all His ways are peace. And to those who go forward, bearing this great cause in their hands, to work for themselves, for their sisters, for their mothers—to them I would say, "Be not discouraged at any obstacles that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... into ease and pleasantness. Mrs. Gwynne had the gift of talking well—a rare quality among women, whose conversation mostly consists of disjointed chatter, long-winded repetitions, or a commonplace remark, and—silence. ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... misfortunes. The eighth is Affability, which makes us live on good terms with other men. The ninth is called Truth, which makes us moderate in boasting ourselves over and above what we are, and in depreciating ourselves below what we are in our speech. The tenth is called Eutrapelia, pleasantness of intercourse, which makes us moderate in joys or pleasures, causing us to use them in due measure. The eleventh is Justice, which teaches us to love and to act with ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... practically more convenient than the phrases in common use, but will more securely fix in the student's mind a true conception of {231} the essential differences in substance, which, ultimately, depend wholly on their pleasantness to human perception, and offices for human good; and not at all on any otherwise explicable structure or faculty. It is of no use to determine, by microscope or retort, that cinnamon is made of cells with so ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... duty to go, if it were only for our sakes." With these zealous promises, Katy was forced to be content. Indeed, contentment was not difficult with such a prospect of delight before her. When once her little anxieties had been laid aside, the idea of the coming journey grew in pleasantness every moment. Night after night she and papa and the children pored over maps and made out schemes for travel and sight-seeing, every one of which was likely to be discarded as soon as the real journey began. But they didn't know that, and it made no real difference. Such schemes are ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... fifth round the thing became a certainty. Like the month of March, the Cyclone, who had come in like a lion, was going out like a lamb. A slight decrease in the pleasantness of the Kid's smile was noticeable. His expression began to resemble more nearly the gloomy importance of the Peaceful Moments photographs. Yells of agony from panic-stricken speculators around the ring began to smite the rafters. ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... of patriotism! What philippics, levelled in the very name of liberty, against her sacred self! What orations on the benefit of starvation—on the comeliness of rags! Have we not heard selfishness speaking with a syren voice? Have we not seen the haggard face of state-craft rouged up into a look of pleasantness and innocence? Have we not, night after night, seen the national Jonathan Wilds meet to plan a robbery, and—the purse taken—have they not rolled in their carriages home, with their fingers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... was a member; the late Colonel William N. Kennedy, of distinguished Nile memory, who was also a member of the choir. The late Mrs. Chambers, formerly of Peterboro', was the organist. I can say with much delight that my acquaintances and associations during the two years were fraught with much pleasantness and reciprocated kindness. ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... not been effaced by anxiety and disappointment, he adorned it with all that is most lovely and delightful in the physical and in the moral world. Neither Theocritus nor Ariosto had a finer or a more healthful sense of the pleasantness of external objects, or loved better to luxuriate amidst sunbeams and flowers, the songs of nightingales, the juice of summer fruits, and the coolness of shady fountains. His conception of love unites all the voluptuousness of the Oriental haram, and all ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hall, staircase and landing his eyes were almost dazzled by the unexpected brightness and pleasantness of the long room, lit at the street end by the three deep-seated windows. Everywhere were evidences of occupation by refined women. The street below was hot and squalid and dusty, but the room with its shaded wide-open ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... next Morning early we pursu'd our Voyage, finding the Land to improve it self in Pleasantness and Richness of Soil. When we had gone about ten Miles, one of our Company tir'd, being not able to travel any farther; so we went forward, leaving the poor dejected Traveller with Tears in his Eyes, to return to Charles-Town, and travel back again over so much bad ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... light is not Rembrandtesque on the current, or banks, of a river; but it is on those of a drain. Color is not Rembrandtesque, usually, in a clean house; but is presently obtainable of that quality in a dirty one. And without denying the pleasantness of the mode of progression which Mr. Hazlitt, perhaps too enthusiastically, describes as attainable in a background of Rembrandt's—"You stagger from one abyss of obscurity to another"—I cannot feel it an entirely glorious speciality to be distinguished, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... any way useful to you." Instead of returning a direct answer, "Would," said they, "we had never seen or known you! Several gentlemen have honoured us with their company before you; but never one of them had that comeliness, that sweetness, that pleasantness of humour, and that merit which you possess; we know not how to live without you." After they had spoken these words, they began to weep bitterly. "My dear ladies," said I, "have the kindness not to keep me any longer in suspense: ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... using pure gold, and thin, can strike their coin anywhere, with only a wooden anvil, and their engraver is ready on the instant to make such change in the stamp as may record any new triumph. Consider the vigour, popularity, pleasantness of an art of coinage thus ductile to events, ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... sacrifice of inclination, make peace with the gracious God she had offended. Petty trials were welcome then, for if she met them with a Christian temper, a Christian spirit, she might hope that, whatever she might endure, she was progressing in His paths, "whose ways are pleasantness, and whose paths are peace;" could she but remove the lingering displeasure and distrust of her aunt and uncle, she ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... the French window, and entered the dim, flower-scented drawing-room side by side. The young man threw off his hat, and she saw the silky ripple of his nut-brown hair, his smooth forehead, his bright-glancing hazel eyes, all the happy pleasantness of his countenance. Before she had had time to reconsider her dislike of him, he had caught her in his arms and kissed her hair and face, whispering little words of love between the kisses. For one paralyzed moment Milly ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... a confession he would be in good company. Even Shakespeare, with all his dramatic genius, confessed that he could not avoid monotony in his praise of true love. Its ways were ways of pleasantness, but did not ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... it without generalizing, even to herself, on the state of the family. The English comfort which she brought into the Limenian household was one element of peace; and her brisk, energetic habits produced an air of ease and pleasantness that did much to make home agreeable to her father, and removed many cares which oppressed her mother. To her, Mary was all the world-daughter, comforter, friend, and nurse, unfailing in deeds of love or words of cheer, and removing all sense of dreariness and solitude. And Mary had found ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cut for the time being at least, advancing with dire intent of obliging a recognition), may be, especially upon old and provincial friends, practised ad libitum, without the slightest danger of your character for etiquette, politeness, suavity, and general pleasantness, being impeached. Indeed it is not incompatible with the highest breeding, to allow your slighted and amazed acquaintance to hear you quizzing, and see you laughing at, him heartily, should it be your interest so to do; and then next day, to walk boldly up to him, protest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... described the advantages of it, that it would be injustice to communicate his ideas in any words but his own. "No other sort of abode," says he, "seems to contribute so much both to tranquillity of mind and indolence of body. The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of the smell, the verdure of plants, the clearness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking; but above all, the exemption from care and solicitude, seem equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... I could hold on to you," said the doctor huskily; "I wish I could lead you by loving force into the paths of pleasantness and peace. But what I can't do, God can. Good-by, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... witchcraft in that word TEXAS. It has been stirring me up morning and night like the voice o' the charmer, and I be to follow it though I ken well enough it isna leading me in the paths o' peace and pleasantness!'" ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... transcendental Cremorne. There could be no doubt, however, that the Faithful were enjoying themselves amazingly—"right lucky fellows," as we read in the new translation of the Koran. Yet even here all was not peace and pleasantness, for I heard my name called by a small voice, in a tone of patient subdued querulousness. Looking hastily round, I with some difficulty recognized, in a green turban and silk gown to match, my old college tutor and professor of Arabic. Poor ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... drink at all times, but referred unto the delicate sorts of drink, as metheglin is in Wales, whereof the Welshmen make no less account (and not without cause, if it be well handled) than the Greeks did of their ambrosia or nectar, which for the pleasantness thereof was supposed to be such as the gods themselves did delight in. There is a kind of swish-swash made also in Essex, and divers other places, with honeycombs and water, which the homely country wives, putting some pepper ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... psychological findings we stated that the girl has both strong emotions and strong convictions, together with her other qualities. She expressed herself with considerable vehemence, and under observation we noted changes from pleasantness to extremely ugly looks when her relatives were mentioned. It was true that she had seen immorality in other households than that of her mother, and this, of course, rendered her even more skeptical about true ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... old vagrant—for so I deemed him. The smile seemed stereotyped, for it never faded. His face, when one regarded it attentively, had a quite attractive pleasantness. ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... faced the beach, and bare All manner of delicious fruit and rare, Such as in gardens of kings' palaces Trembles upon the sultry-scented trees, The soul of many sunbeams at its core. Well-pleased the wanderer landed on this shore, Beholding all its pleasantness, how sweet And soft, to the tired soul, to the tired feet. And so he sat him down beneath the boughs, And there a low wind seemed to drone and drowse Among the leaves as it were gone astray And like to faint forwearied ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... psychologists call Einfuehlung, or "Infeeling"—which Prof. Titchener has translated Empathy. Now this new, and comparatively newly discovered element in our perception of shape is the one to which, leaving out of account the pleasantness of mere colour and sound sensations as such, we probably owe the bulk of whatever satisfaction we connect with the word Beautiful. And I have already given the Reader an example of such Empathy when I described the landscape seen by the man on the hill as consisting ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... horizon, the idea that at death one dies utterly and is buried in the earth, were patterns cut from the stuff of reality. They were relevant to fate, typical of life, in a way that gayer things, like the song of girls or the field-checked pleasantness of plains or the dream of a soul's holiday in eternity, were not; And in the bitter eloquence of this pale woman she rapturously recognised that ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... expressed the doctrine in a more extreme form than the others. Will, according to him, is a modification of the brain by which it is disposed, or prepared, to set our other organs in motion. The will is necessarily determined by the quality and pleasantness of the ideas which act upon it. Deliberation is the oscillation of the will when moved in different directions by opposing forces; determination is the final prevalence of one force over the other. There is no difference between the man who throws himself out of a window ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... quickening impulse of vague expectancy within her which led her to move about the house with a light step and a smiling face. Her father was much pleased, as he too had not outlived the effect produced upon him by the visit of Bouchette. Furthermore, the weather may have contributed to the pleasantness that reigned in the house. The sun was shining brightly, the wind had fallen, and the snow lay crisp upon the streets inviting to ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... value of such hours as these?—hours spent in learning the ways of holy pleasantness and the paths of heavenly peace—hours devoted to the service of God and of souls; in warning the sinner to flee from the wrath to come; in teaching the ignorant how to live and die; in preaching the gospel to the poor; in healing the broken- hearted; in declaring "deliverance ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... embarked with everything in their favor. The boatmen calculated on reaching Bute in a few hours; but ere they had been half an hour at sea, the wind, veering about, obliged them to woo its breezes by a traversing motion, which, though it lengthened their voyage, increased its pleasantness by carrying them often within near views of the ever-varying shores. Sailing under a side-wind, they beheld the huge irregular rocks of Dunoon, overhanging the ocean; while from their projecting brows hung every shrub which can live in ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... and paradise of pain! Bodies and souls therein indeed are born again. I marvel at a house, whose pleasantness for aye Doth flourish, though the flames beneath it rage amain. A sojourn of delight to those who visit it It is; the pools on them their tears ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... a scientific nomenclature, ordinary language has likewise a terminology for describing things according to their qualities and structure. Such is the function of all the names of colours, sounds, tastes, contrasts of temperature, of hardness, of pleasantness; in short, of all descriptive adjectives, and all names for the parts and processes of things. Any word connoting a quality may be used to describe many very different things, as long as they ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... which made him the most easily amused of men, ready to pour out his stores of anecdote to old and young—to discuss opinions on a level with the most humble of interlocutors, and take pleasure in the commonest forms of pleasantness—a fine day, a bright flower. Nor do I think that the outside world understood from what depth of feeling the tears rose to his eyes when tales of noble conduct or any high sentiment touched some responsive chord—nor how much "poetic fire" lay under ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... is compatible with the monstrous presentments of meat and drink which constitute the modern company dinner. It would be practically a revival of those nice supper-parties which our grandfathers indulged in after the hours of business, and of the pleasantness of which ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... Ambulinia had a confidence that was, indeed, as firm and as resolute as she was beautiful and interesting. He hastened to the cottage of Louisa, who received him in her usual mode of pleasantness, and informed him that Ambulinia had just that moment left. "Is it possible?" said Elfonzo. "Oh, murdered hours! Why did she not remain and be the guardian of my secrets? But hasten and tell me how she has stood this ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... woman; rather she is one of the most beautiful angels of heaven." And others said: "She is a marvel. Blessed be the Lord who can work thus admirably!" I say that she showed herself so gentle and so full of all pleasantness, that those who looked on her comprehended in themselves a pure and sweet delight, such as they could not after tell in words; nor was there any who might look upon her but that at first he needs must sigh. These and more admirable things proceeded ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... terribly late?" said the girl with great pleasantness, and arched brows of surprise at the two other places at the table before which used tea things ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Sir George bore all the weight of public abuse, and it was heavy. Now it is divided among many Ministers, each of whom carries his share with much patience, while our Governor's days in the "Sunny South" are "days of pleasantness, and all his paths ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... confess that this love she spoke of never came to me. I tried to do my duty, and I endured all the hardships of my life in, I hope, a cheerful spirit. But the dry monotony of the studies had no element of pleasantness, and I used to wonder how Miss Susan could derive pleasure—as it was evident she did—from the exercise of her authority over those hapless scholars who had the misfortune to belong to her class. Day after day they heard the same lectures, listened submissively ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... his manliness of character, for the extreme pleasantness of his conversation, and his good-nature towards myself, personally. May he prosper!—for he deserves it. I know no reading to which I fall with such alacrity as a work of W. Scott's. I shall give the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... alive to all aspects of beauty, luxuriated in the view of this garden. Its pleasantness had a charm that stole him from his anxious fear and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... she came; and then again and again, in spite of him. And her comings now were preceded by a strange little perturbation. A strange little vague feeling of pleasantness, as if something good had happened to him would begin, and well up, and grow within him, penetrating and intensifying his sense of the summer sweetness round about, till it distracted his attention, and he must suspend his occupation of the moment, to ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... together," said she, and started gayly through the green trees and the garden. He followed her, two paces behind, half ashamed, and gazing at her red handkerchief, and the black hair blowing a little; thus did they cross the tiny cool home acre through the twinkling pleasantness of the leaves, and pass at once outside the magic circle of irrigation into Arizona's domain, among a prone herd of carcasses upon the ground—dead cattle, two seasons dead now, hunted to this sanctuary by the drought, killed in the sanctuary ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... the weak tears filled my eyes, the first I had shed in many years. Then I thought of sitting in quiet thickets in old fence corners, the wood behind me rising still, cool, mysterious, and the fields in front stretching away in illimitable pleasantness. I thought of the good smell of cows at milking—you do not know, if you do not know!—I thought of the sights and sounds, the heat and sweat of the hay fields. I thought of a certain brook I knew when a boy ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... was very much added to by the size and extent of the barns and out-houses; and the impression of age and stability was enhanced by the fine old trees which surrounded the yards and added so much to the pleasantness of the situation. From her old memory of the place, and of conversations during previous visits when she had no interest whatever in the inmates, Josephine Harris had an impression that this house was the abode of the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... time," said Jess. "We've ha'en a pleasantness in oor lives 'at comes to few. I ken naebody 'at's ha'en sae muckle happiness one ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... faded winter overcoats and clumsy caps all ready to be pulled down over their ears if the wind should change; and their wives were also warmly wrapped, with great shawls over their rounded, hard-worked shoulders; yet they took the best warmth and pleasantness into their hearts, and watched the sad proceedings of the afternoon with deepest interest. The doctor came hurrying toward home just as the long procession was going down the pasture, and he saw it crossing a low hill; a dark and slender column ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... turned and grew paler than before; and then, as if moved by a sudden impulse, she swung the door wide open, and, coming out, said quite collectedly and with apparent pleasantness, 'O yes; you are my Bob's brother! I didn't, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... back again at the first hint of trouble, the old Rob, with no trace of the laboured pleasantness of the past weeks, but with eyes full of faithful friendship. Peggy gave a gasp of relief, and clutched his ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... complete the pleasantness and enjoyment of the dessert, and serve, as it were, to satisfy pleasure. They are brought, while the table is still laid, in a handsome box on a salver, like those given by the ancients to be carried home.[1] Sometimes, also, they are handed round after the hands have been washed in rose ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... on to accompany Mrs. Ellison to the masquerade. Here, I must confess, the pleasantness of the place, the variety of the dresses, and the novelty of the thing, gave me much delight, and raised my fancy to the highest pitch. As I was entirely void of all suspicion, my mind threw off all reserve, and pleasure only filled my thoughts. Innocence, it is true, possessed my heart; but ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... air, the sunshine, the lowing of the cattle on the hills, and the songs of the birds in the trees along the Sweetwater had banished all depressing thoughts, and her mind dwelt on her love for Jack and the pleasantness of the lines in which her ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... these regions, which combine facility of defence with pleasantness of climate, that the principal cities of the district have at all times been placed. The earliest known capital of the region was Pasargadae, or Persagadae, as the name is sometimes written, of which the ruins still exist near Murgab, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... nose on his paws and one eye open just enough to show any stray flies that he was not to be trifled with—and far away to the North and East one could catch glimpses—if he had eyes for such things—of the wide-stretching pleasantness ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... He smiled, a smile of unexpected pleasantness, and an interest was coming into his eyes. "I've been a little preoccupied with my own internal sensations. I remark an extraordinary brightness ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... Essex County are not distinguished for fine carving or other ornamentation, and still less by the costliness of their material, for they are mostly built of white pine, but they have an indefinable air of pleasantness about them, as if they graced the ground they stand on, and their steeples seem to float in the air above us. If we enter them on a Sunday forenoon—for on week-days they are like a sheepfold without its occupants—we meet with much the same kind of pleasantness in the ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... and herbs, but he let no merchant pass without robbing him of his monies and his merchandise; and the traders endured this with patience, by reason of their profit from the fatness of the earth in the means of life and its pleasantness, more by token that it was renowned for its richness in precious stones and gems. Now the just King, who loved jewels, heard of this land and sent one of his subjects thither, giving him much specie and bidding him pass with it into the other's realm and buy jewels therefrom. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... as much power as that bath of Aix, or Venus' enchanted girdle, in which, saith Natales Comes, "Love toys and dalliance, pleasantness, sweetness, persuasions, subtleties, gentle speeches, and all witchcraft to enforce love, was contained." Read more of these in Agrippa de occult. Philos. lib. 1. cap. 50. et 45. Malleus malefic. part. 1. quaest. 7. Delrio tom. 2. quest. 3. lib. 3. Wierus, Pomponatis, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... it? Then you two go and sit on the next seat while I talk to him," said the majestic lady in a voice which lost in pleasantness what it gained in loudness; and she came to the seat on which Tinker and Elsie sat, while her attendants ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... is easy to imagine that by this speech Mrs. Rogers was greatly embarrassed. Dr. Priestley, observing this, instantly relieved her by saying, and with all that benevolent expression of countenance and pleasantness of manner for which he was remarkable, 'Well, well, Madam, you and I can be cordial; and Dr. Rogers will soon be with us, Mr. —— and he can converse together, so that we shall all be very comfortable.' Thus encouraged, Mrs. Rogers asked Dr. Priestley some questions relative ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... Tom, you will indeed be a happy man, for the ways of wisdom are ways of pleasantness;—but it must be ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... down-stairs; where little Mary had placed her chair just at the right angle, and arranged the little table, on which there were so many little necessaries and conveniences, and was standing smiling, the prettiest object of all, the climax of the gentle luxury and pleasantness, to receive her godmother, who had been ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... had a very courteous and friendly circle,—rather peculiarly so for such a rough kind of life and surroundings,—and the loss of so many as will go will probably rob the work here of much of its pleasantness. ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... left this world, which he had found pleasant and had filled with pleasantness for others, after an illness that was happily brief. He passed, in the words of that great physician, Sir Thomas Browne, "in drowsy approaches of sleep;... believing with those resolved Christians who, looking on the death of this world ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... English accent. Even the most fluent of the Welshmen speak with a certain hesitation, betraying their bilingual infancy and youth. The Irish have as many accents nearly as there are members. The Northumbrian burr, however, is a tongue apart. It has the pleasantness of every foreign tongue, and since Mr. Joseph Cowen left Parliamentary life, Mr. Burt is the only member who speaks it in its pristine purity. The Tories were closured finally, though they had their revenge by preventing the Bill from going to the Grand Committee, and the work of justice is a little ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... with the most impudent or importunate petitioner. Nor was there any thing in the whole course of her reign that more won the hearts of the people than this her wonderful facility, condescension, and the sweetness and pleasantness with which she entertained all that came ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... famous Puss of fairy-tale memory, and biting her tongue to keep it from the epithet. After Hilliard gave her the black horse and she began to explore the mountain game trails, her life seemed as full of pleasantness as it could hold. And yet ... with just that gift of Hilliard's, the overshadowing of her joy began. No, really before that, ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... though the progressive modification, which is the consequence of the struggle for existence in the state of nature, is at an end, such modification may still be effected [34] by that selection, in view of an ideal of usefulness, or of pleasantness, to man, of which the ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... well ahead. At first I was too much horrified by what I considered his barbarities, too much puzzled by his shifting humours, and too frequently annoyed by his small vanities, to regard him otherwise than as the cross of my existence. It was only by degrees, in his rare hours of pleasantness, when he forgot (and made me forget) the weaknesses to which he was so prone, that he won me to a kind of unconsenting fondness. Lastly, the faults were all embraced in a more generous view; I saw them in their place, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in that state of mind when the pleasantness of a contemplated object excludes any inquiry whether it is true or false, good or evil; and, in spite of Paul's fatalism, she was satisfied that it was with Walter's own free will that he had done what ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... through the door of intemperance. Ah! is not the name of the evil that comes in through this door Legion? and we throw it wide open and invite both young and old to enter. We draw them by various allurements. We make the way of this door broad and smooth and flowery, full of pleasantness and enticement. We hold out our hands, we smile with encouragement, we step inside of the door to ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... his work is pleasure; His days are pleasantness, his nights are peace; He drinks of joys that neither cloy, nor cease, A well that gushes blessings without measure; Yea, and to crown the cup of peace with praise, Both God and man approve his works and ways. —Martin ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... up in the midst of this town a most famous and stately palace; for strength, it might be called a castle; for pleasantness, a paradise; for largeness, a place so copious as to contain all the world. This place the King Shaddai intended but for himself alone, and not another with him; partly because of his own delights, and partly because he would not that the terror ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... exclaimed. "But how is one to get the diamond leaf if he doesn't? Mammy Eastah told my fortune in a teacup, and she said: 'I see a risin' sun, and a row of lovahs, but I don't see you a-takin' any of 'em, honey. Yo' ways am ways of pleasantness, and all yo' paths is peace, but I'se powahful skeered you'se goin' to be an ole maid. I sholy is, if ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... catalogues; and Whitman was a great poet. The effort (even without the reward of this not-always-desired label) is worth making, because (and this is where the poetry comes in) it forces one to visit the past and dwell again in the ways of pleasantness before the world was too much with us and life's hand had begun to press heavily: most of such loves as Rupert Brooke recalls having their roots in our childhood. Hence such poetry as we shall make cannot be ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... enthusiasm, continued his song. His theme, doubtless, was of the flicker of sunlit shrubberies, the warmth of summer, the glory of spring, the sweetness of the revolving seasons. For cure of heart-ache, he suggested the pleasantness of garden nooks, and the repose that lingers about a dew-sprinkled lawn. All these things were warmly commended to the human being whose song of life ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... served, became custom; and custom not resisted, became necessity. By which links, as it were, joined together (whence I called it a chain) a hard bondage held me enthralled. But that new will which had begun to be in me, freely to serve Thee, and to wish to enjoy Thee, O God, the only assured pleasantness, was not yet able to overcome my former wilfulness, strengthened by age. Thus did my two wills, one new, and the other old, one carnal, the other spiritual, struggle within me; and by their discord, undid ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... of their hearts Daphne and Barty squeezed each other's hand to express the joy and elation they felt at the pleasantness of everything. She was his little sister once more, from whom he had so long been parted, and they loved ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... governed is intolerable. Nobody is secure in his property longer than the Director pleases, who is generally strongly inclined to confiscating. A good population would be the consequence of a good government. Many would be allured here by the pleasantness, situation, salubrity and fruitfulness of the ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott |
