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Civil   /sˈɪvəl/   Listen
Civil

adjective
1.
Applying to ordinary citizens as contrasted with the military.
2.
Not rude; marked by satisfactory (or especially minimal) adherence to social usages and sufficient but not noteworthy consideration for others.  Synonym: polite.
3.
Of or occurring within the state or between or among citizens of the state.  "Civil strife" , "Civil disobedience" , "Civil branches of government"
4.
Of or relating to or befitting citizens as individuals.  Synonym: civic.  "Civil liberty" , "Civic duties" , "Civic pride"
5.
(of divisions of time) legally recognized in ordinary affairs of life.  "A civil day begins at mean midnight"
6.
Of or in a condition of social order.



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"Civil" Quotes from Famous Books



... than faithfully yours, for an hour or so. But when you get 'em for breakfast and lunch and dinner. And they even insist upon trifling with the holies of your smoking times, trying to light up cigarettes themselves, and jabbering all the time, why then you seize on a civil offer to risk your neck in a racing car as a drowning man would catch at a torpedo if he ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... said Grandfather, "did not keep possession of the chair a great while. His opinions of civil and religious matters differed, in many respects, from those of the rulers and clergymen of Massachusetts. Now, the wise men of those days believed that the country could not be safe unless all the inhabitants thought ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... sofa unoccupied, and had made our beds and had stowed our baggage. We rushed to the place, and just as the train was ready to pull out and the porters were slamming the doors to, all down the line, an officer of the Indian Civil Service, a good friend of ours, put his head in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... splits with both, he could then get some ambitious leader (one with more self-love than patriotism) just to tip him the wink, and invite him to become the champion of the strongest faction; he could then, being careful to let the cause of humanity and the spread of civil liberty be his watchword, go out with his sword sharpened, and after cutting down the existing powers, snatch up the diadem and place it upon his own head. Glanmoregain explained his various plans with such minuteness that ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... that event, McBride can call in the civil authorities of Cape Town, to remove Peasley ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others. Fighting subsequently continued among the various mujahidin factions, but the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban movement has been able to seize most of the country. In addition to the continuing civil strife, the country suffers from enormous poverty, a crumbling infrastructure, and widespread ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... if you'd been properly and thoroughly spanked in your babyhood, you'd be a much more civil person now. I decline your ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... where he was surrounded by a large circle of intimate acquaintances, with whom much of his time was spent. In the office he had risen in the estimation of the clerks. Williams and Lawson, finding that opposition was unavailing, altered their conduct towards him, and became as civil and obliging as they had before been insulting and disagreeable. George began to think he had belied their characters from not having known sufficient of them; and instead of shunning them, as he had hitherto ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder

... Colonel" and "The Civil Surgeon," p. 123, are both types of characters that have since practically ceased to exist in India, although fairly numerous in ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... invade the rights of the South, are guilty of not only a civil, but also of a moral trespass. The primitive church was subordinate to the civil authorities. Language of Christ ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward

... arrived a couple of hours too soon, and patiently wandered about the station. Now and then he stopped before the engines of trains at rest, fascinated, as he always was, by perfect mechanism. A driver, dismounting from the cab, and seeing him lost in admiration of the engine, passed him a civil word, to which Septimus, always ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... whom he had kicked from the sacking platform of his harvester for gross negligence. At college, he had specialised on finance, political economy, and scientific agriculture. After his graduation (he stood almost at the very top of his class) he had returned and obtained the degree of civil engineer. Then suddenly he had taken a notion that a practical knowledge of law was indispensable to a modern farmer. In eight months he did the work of three years, studying for his bar examinations. His method of study was characteristic. He reduced ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... routine, the spy system stood out in relief, although, at the same time, it was so dovetailed into the civil administration as to be frequently indistinguishable. Like a typical Yankee Gard, always greatly impressed by the general emphasis everywhere laid on the perfection of the Germans and their methods in everything, had regarded Anderson's remarks ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... Americans knew the Civil War only by school history, as they knew the story of Cromwell or Cicero, and were as familiar with political assassination as though they had lived under Nero. The climax of empire could be seen approaching, ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... was a proper Christian cognomen, suitable to a woman, they yielded the point, and Joyce Early was made Joyce Lavillotte by due process of law before old enough to know, much less to speak, her name. That this property was largely lost during the civil war, leaving the Earlys almost destitute at the time that broken-spirited lady died, had never altered this fact; nor was it changed when, later, after the death of both uncles, the property in partially restored shape came to ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... that I talked to you very nicely, and let you bore me for a long time; I think I have now done the thing handsomely, so you'll be good enough to score me one and let me go." But I soon found out that it was quite a friendly and civil ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... the sonnet, as poets are apt to be who have once yielded to its attraction, and he used it with much effect. But chiefly his poems of the Civil War will make his name remembered. His lyre responded sympathetically to the heroic deeds which characterized that conflict—not always with the smoothness and polish of his more studied work, but worthily, and in the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... would be willing to listen to every note the song contained if it were not quite so much trouble to do so. Some were so interested that, instead of continuing their conversation, they remained in silent consideration of how they would continue it when she had finished; while the particularly civil people arranged their countenances into every attentive form that the mind could devise. One emotional gentleman looked at the corner of a chair as if, till that moment, such an object had never crossed his vision before; the movement of his finger to the imagined tune was, for a ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... seen with. I have my own belief; so has Jack Roper." The Major underwent a perfect convulsion of nods, winks, and acquiescence. "Well, she went away, and was married to this young shaver, who was very little over twenty. He wasn't in the service—civil appointment, I think. How long was it, Major, before they parted? ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... the Austrian government no longer felt it necessary to observe any appearances in regard to Hungary; and when war had been virtually declared against that country by the Imperial proclamation of Oct. 3rd, which appointed Jellachich Royal Commissary in Hungary, with full powers civil and military, Mr. Pulszky was dismissed ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... Allen savagely. "I'll teach you, sir, to keep a civil tongue in your head when you address an officer of ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... women, rhyming, dancing, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. Blest madman! who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy! Railing and praising were his usual themes; And both, to show his judgement, in extremes: So over violent, or over civil, That every man with him was god or devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; Nothing went unrewarded, but desert. Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late, He had his jest, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... two is enough. Ordinarily the driver sits in front, and the "fare" in the more luxurious seat behind. Thus weighted the country-breds go at a very smart pace; nor is there any complaint to be made in respect of the drivers. They are generally very civil, and ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... stand upon them with a wetherbeaten face; and y^e whole countrie, full of woods & thickets, represented a wild & savage view. If they looked behind them, ther was y^e mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a maine barr & goulfe to seperate them from all y^e civil parts of y^e world. If it be said they had a ship to sucour them, it is trew; but what heard they daly from y^e m^r. & company? but y^e with speede they should looke out a place with their shallop, wher they would be at some near distance; for y^e season was shuch as he ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... quantity was examined in a cup or plate, and if it appeared curdled or coagulated, strongly impregnated lime-water was gradually added, not only with a view to promote separation, but to prevent decomposition. Browne remarks ("Civil and Nat. Hist. of Jamaica," art. "Indigo"), the planters "must carefully distinguish the different stages of this part of the operation also, and attentively examine the appearance and color as the work advances,—for the grain passes gradually from a greenish to a fine purple, which is the proper ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... of the possible reality of this state, is the only thing that can reconcile man with all the evils to which he is exposed in the path of civilization; and if this idea were only a chimera, the complaints of those who accuse civil life and the culture of the intelligence as an evil for which there is no compensation, and who represent this primitive state of nature that we have renounced as the real end of humanity—their complaints, I say, would have a perfectly just foundation. It is, therefore, of infinite importance ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... received a very pleasant civil greeting from a much younger man than she had expected to see, looking perhaps more stern about the mouth and sharp about the eye than his elder brother, and his clerical dress very precise; but somehow he was so curiously like his niece, Elizabeth, ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... leaders whose heads fall upon the block. I think that there are troubles in store for England. The Duke of Gloucester overshadows the boy king, but as the latter grows older he will probably shake off his tutelage, though it may be at the cost of a civil war. ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... keep your distance so far as I am concerned and keep a civil tongue in your head," ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)

... in his pocket; i.e. he has no money: the cross on our ancient coins being jocularly supposed to prevent him from visiting that place, for fear, as it is said, of breaking his shins against it. To hold a candle to the Devil; to be civil to any one out of fear: in allusion to the story of the old woman, who set a wax taper before the image of St. Michael, and another before the Devil, whom that saint is commonly represented as trampling under his feet: ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... perpetually listening and taking notes. It had appeared to me that these aggravating notes related to the jolts and bumps of the carriage, and I should have resigned myself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he was in the civil-engineering way of life, if he had not sat staring straight over my head whenever he listened. He was a goggle-eyed gentleman of a perplexed aspect, and ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... like he has; and he likes to talk about it; and he has a pleasant tongue; and he is a civil man. But there's one thing he hain't seen, and that is the light; and one thing he don't know, and that is happiness. And he may have plenty of money—I dare say he has; but he's what I call a poor man. I don't want you ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... further than a reserv'd Complaisance; and after being a full Hour by themselves, upon the Prince's signifying that he would be alone, she left him, having only receiv'd eight or ten Answers, and those rather civil than gallant. Who can conceive the Anguish of Liamil, when she return'd to Jeflur? Wretch that I am, cried she, throwing herself upon a Sopha, here her Sighs stopp'd her Voice, that she could not proceed. Jeflur was struck with Amazement, and knew not ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon

... In 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union was founded by Felix Frankfurter, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, William Z. Foster, then head of the U.S. Communist Party; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a top communist party official; Dr. Harry F. Ward, of Union Theological Seminary, a notorious ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot

... sine concubitu. The most recent and most scholarly discussion of all questions involved in "mother-right" will be found people in the world; for it stands on record that the five companies (five hundred men) recruited from the Iroquois of New York and Canada during our civil war stood first on the list among all the recruits of our army for height, vigour, and corporeal symmetry" (412. 82). And it was this people too who produced Hiawatha, a philosophic legislator and reformer, worthy to rank with Solon and Lycurgus, and the founder of ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... innocent pleasures. The heat of the climate inflames the blood of the Arabs; and their libidinous complexion has been noticed by the writers of antiquity. [159] Their incontinence was regulated by the civil and religious laws of the Koran: their incestuous alliances were blamed; the boundless license of polygamy was reduced to four legitimate wives or concubines; their rights both of bed and of dowry ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... other cigars, some standing in knots, others taking chairs about the guards. Almost every one had related himself to some other one or more as somehow his or their guest and host combined, and had taken his turn or was watching his chance to recognize the captain as social and civil autocrat and guardian angel over all. The conspicuousness of the twins led to stories, in undertone, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... friend—says she's a beauty. But if you don't mind, Penelope, I was going to ask you to be a little civil to them." ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... first lessons which they have to learn is, that freedom does not mean license and discord—does not mean every one doing that which is right in the sight of his own eyes. From that springs self-will, division, quarrels, revolt, civil war, weakness, profligacy, and ruin to the whole people. Without order, discipline, obedience to law, there can be no true and lasting freedom; and, therefore, order must be kept at all risks, the ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley

... the sin of Nekhludov in Resurrection. His passions are such as come before the criminal rather than the civil courts. His people are possessed with devils as the people in all but religious fiction have long ceased to be. "This is a madhouse," cries some one in The Idiot. The cry is, I fancy, repeated in others of Dostoevsky's novels. His ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... vital that task is for the future of British rule in India, the conditions should be such as to attract, not average men, but the very best men that we can produce. As it is, the Education Department cannot be said to attract the best men, for these go into the Civil Service, and only those, as a rule, enter the Educational Service who either, having made up their minds early to seek a career in India, have failed to pass the Civil Service examinations, or, having originally intended to take up the teaching profession in England, are ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... Francisco, Mr. Morrison had made the acquaintance of a young civil engineer who was on his way to his home in Tennessee for a visit. He had frank, gentlemanly manners, and the cheerful, self-reliant air of a trained worker who loves his work, and the travellers were at ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard

... circle turn against him, just when he's doing real good to the town? And it's not only his own circle that's against him. I was matching curtains at Ward's when Sebastian came in to-day, and Luther Ward was barely civil to him—the Colonel's own secretary. What's wrong with the town, Hugh? Can't it be grateful to the Colonel, now when he ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton

... still opposing the whole thing. After this meeting of the Cabinet Northbrook wrote to Gordon a long letter based on the Cabinet decision. He stated that the expedition under Wolseley was not sent for the purpose of defeating the Mahdi, but only of enabling the Egyptian garrison of Khartoum, the civil employees and their families, with Gordon, to return to Egypt. He offered the Grand Cross of the Bath' (to Gordon) 'as from the Queen personally. He explained our refusal of Zebehr, and he suggested the placing at Khartoum of the Mudir of Dongola. It was easy, however, to write to Gordon, but ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... carry his restoration into effect. It would not simply be a question of turning him down on the borders of Zululand, and letting him find his own way back to his throne, for such a proceeding would be the signal for the outbreak of civil war. It is not to be supposed that John Dunn, and those whose interests are identical with Dunn's, would allow the ex-king to reseat himself on the throne without a struggle; indeed the former has openly declared his intention of resisting the attempt by force of arms if ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... destination is Merlini. I've gone out of my way slightly to drop you off here. But I can't afford to take the chance of having my ship tied up for what might be an indefinite period. Evidently, there's considerably civil disorder down there." ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... teach us what expectations to form concerning the state of Christianity in this country, where she has long been embodied in an establishment, which is intimately blended, and is generally and justly believed to have a common interest with our civil institutions; which is liberally, though by no means too liberally, endowed, and, not more favoured in wealth than dignity, has been allowed "to exalt her mitred front in courts and parliaments:" an establishment—the offices in which are extremely numerous, and these, not like ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... is over now. In all Spain no province has profited as have those of the North by the settled advance of the country. Bilbao, once a small trading town, twice devastated during the terrible civil wars, has forged ahead in a manner perhaps only equalled by Liverpool in the days of its first growth, and is now more important and more populous than Barcelona itself; with its charming outlet of Portugalete, it is the most flourishing of ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... had sailed with Frobisher and Drake and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Hawkins, and Sir Richard Granville; had perhaps witnessed the heroic death of Sir Philip Sidney, at Zutphen; had served with Raleigh in Anjou, Picardy, Languedoc, in the Netherlands, in the Irish civil war; had taken part in the dispersion of the Spanish Armada, and in the bombardment of Cadiz; had filled their cups to the union of Scotland with England; had suffered shipwreck on the Barbary Coast, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... movement to the final departure of the French from the island, though the civil and military powers and the whole of the island, save Valetta, were in the hands of the peasantry, not a single act of excess can be charged against the Maltese, if we except the razing of one house at Civita Vecchia belonging to a notorious and abandoned traitor, the creature and ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Prophetess, and Mystery. Enid thought she was like an Irish washerwoman making a face; and Elaine said she was the image of their bulldog at home. Monny (after a sandy introduction) listened to these verbal vandalisms in horrified silence. I could see that she was exerting herself, for my sake, to be civil to my charges (who were more interested in her than they had been in the Sphinx), and that, if she could have done so without hurting their feelings, she would have struck them dead. But my fears that their mental suggestions might obsess her were baseless. She did ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... Rollin might have taken notice of some civil officers who were established at Carthage, with a power like that of the censors of Rome, to inspect the manners of the citizens. The chief of these officers took from Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... employed some leisure hours afforded me in Europe, to detail those parts of the struggle which I witnessed in a civil capacity. The Sketches which follow are entirely personal, and dwell less upon routine incidents, plans, and statistics, than upon those lighter phases of war which fall beneath the dignity of severe history and are seldom related. I have endeavored to reproduce not ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... to discuss "the great points of the question," but "content themselves with exposing some of the crimes and follies to which public commotions necessarily give birth." "Be it so." "Many evils were produced by the Civil War." "It is the character of such revolutions that we always see the worst of them first." Yet "there is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom." "Therefore it is that we decidedly ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... it now, and everything associated with it; the fuss of settling into the place, in a foolish hurry, though the Newport season had not yet begun: Roger's determination to begin with a house-party and a dance; his civil, quiet coldness to her; the strange look she caught in his eyes at times; the mystery of Clo's silence, which deepened day by day; fear of reprisals for loss of the papers; these things seemed harder to bear in Newport ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... communion with Nature when we see her in these great uncultivated wastes; but, whatever the causes of the sympathy, these pictures, of wild untouched Nature, leave an impression and a longing more deep than any experience gained in years of civil life; none will ever regret having seen that sunrise on the plain, though all regretted the cause ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various

... All day, the ship has been thronged with natives. They are civil at first, but almost universally display a bad trait of character, by altering their manners for the worse, in proportion to the kindness shown them. As they acquire confidence, they become importunate, and almost impudent. Every canoe brings something to sell. It is amusing ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... Athenians that they would be forced to recall the exiles, on hearing which, he prayed that God might forbid his return upon such terms. When some one tried to console our own countryman, Rutilius, for his exile, pointing out that civil war was at hand, and that all exiles would soon be restored to Rome, he answered with even greater spirit, "What harm have I done you, that you should wish that I may return to my country more unhappily than I quit it? My wish is, ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... reflected what a great misfortune it is that so many poor creatures live and die without the knowledge of God, and even without any religion or law established among them, whether divine, political, or civil; for they neither worship, nor pray to any object, at least so far as I could perceive from their conversation. But they have, however, some sort of ceremony, which I shall describe in its proper place, in regard ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain

... again!" echoed Mr. Jack, heartily, ignoring the reproof. "A smarter, smilinger pair of beauties never came in my range on sea or land. There's Master Donald, now, with the spirit of a man-o'-war in his boy's hull. My, but he's a fine one! And yet so civil and biddable! Always full set when there's fun in the air. Can't tell you, Mistress Blum, how I dote on that 'ere boy. Then there's Miss Dorothy,—the trimmest, neatest little craft I ever see. It seemed, t'other day, that the deck was slippin' from under ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... Sir Michael was altogether too grand for him, seeing that Tony had no idea of being a humble dependent; but Mr. Webb would occasionally come and dine with him—and often asked him in return. Mrs. Webb too was civil to his wife and the girls—always lent them the Dublin pattern for their frills, frocks, and other frippery—and seldom drove into Drumsna without calling. The consequence was, that the Counsellor was a man after Tony's own ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... own good looks, completed the armoury of weapons Venus had endowed him with for breaking hearts. But Hamilton neglected his vocation: he broke none. He got up early, and slaved away at his duties for the Indian Civil Government in his office all day, and went to bed dead tired at night, with nothing but a dreary consciousness of duty done and more duty waiting for him the following day, ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross

... lady. He walked by the side of her pony, up the avenue; and, while she was receiving the salutations of the rest of the family, he took occasion to notice the fat coachman; to pat the sleek carriage horses, and, above all, to say a civil word to my lady's gentlewoman, the prim, sour-looking vestal in ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... necessary for him to vindicate in person a character which requires no vindication. The people of Melbourne part with the upright and learned judge with infinite regret, softened only by the certain hope they entertain of his immediate return. The resident judge holds civil courts as in England during the several terms, and criminal courts of general jail-delivery every month. The pleadings are conducted by barristers at law, who have been duly admitted in England, Ireland, Scotland, or Isle of Man. The agents or attorneys and solicitors are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... the firm that first employed him, acting as managing clerk at a salary of $600, a part of which he devoted to the support of his widowed mother, who died in 1882. Was appointed assistant district attorney of Erie County January 1, 1863, and held the office for three years. At this time the Civil War was raging. Two of his brothers were in the Army, and his mother and sisters were largely dependent upon him for support. Unable himself to enlist, he borrowed money and sent a substitute to the war, and it was ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... the city. You may be sure that I needed a good nurse to look after so many growing children who had just lost their dear mother, and I was happy enough to light upon a treasure of a woman—she was clean, civil, active, faithful, honest, forbearing, and full of love to the children; in a word, all that I could desire her to be. She took an immense deal of care off my hands, and I could have trusted her with everything I had. Months passed by, and I began to give large dinner- parties—for ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... princess went to meet the Princess Charlotte at Kensington. Lady —— told me that, when the latter arrived, she rushed up to her mother, and said, 'For God's sake, be civil to her,' meaning the Duchess of Leeds, who followed her. Lady —— said she felt sorry for the latter; but when the Princess of Wales talked to her, she soon became so free and easy, that one could not have any FEELING about her FEELINGS. Princess Charlotte, I was told, was looking ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... "those things are not done in a moment like roasting chestnuts. There are banns to be published. There is a civil marriage at ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... state of things attendant upon peace, and an unquestioned dynasty, is good, as it enables men to look more to civil affairs; but it has, perhaps, a drawback in a certain apathy which is wont to accompany it. The ordinary arrangements of social life, for a long time uninterrupted by any large calamity, appear to become hardened into certainties. A similar course of argument would, ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... a preparatory nature in which no distinctively architectural subject is taken up, and in the second year the subjects are those closely related to civil engineering, including a very complete course in higher mathematics. It is in the third year that architectural subjects are brought in, and with studies and lectures on the architectural styles, smaller problems in design, sanitary engineering, and theory ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 10, October 1895. - French Farmhouses. • Various

... only serve to harden him against his fortunate opponents, his incapable lawyers, the corrupt judges and his ignorant and craven-hearted relatives, that this master of procedure is betrayed into the expression of threats or the commitment of some other offense which conveys him summarily from the civil to the criminal courts, and the unrepentant pursuer becomes the defendant, unless, indeed, the insane asylum has become his ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... Morality is thus divorced from Religion there can be no responsibility to a higher Power, and man is not accountable to any one for his belief, his passions, his will, his character or conduct, except in so far as his actions may trench on the rights of others, and render him amenable to civil or criminal law. And Mr. Holyoake, at one time an associate and fellow-laborer of Robert Owen, still cleaves to the doctrine that his belief is entirely dependent on evidence, and that his character is, to a ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... taken out, and sent to the Earl in London' (naming the Earl and his residence in the city). He said, 'Will you see it done?' I said, 'I will do my best to get it done'; and he said, 'Do, and I will trouble the house no longer!' He then walked out of the room and left me. (He seems to have been a very civil spirit, and to have been very careful to affright her as little as possible.) I stepped to the room door, and set up a shout. The steward and his wife, with the other servants, came to me immediately; all clinging together, with ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... not hear me, and repeated his question and whether the second time he heard me or not, I don't know, but he made a little civil inclination of his head, and went back to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... (afterwards Mrs. Lincoln) had a keen sense of the ridiculous, and wrote several articles in the Springfield (Ill.) "Journal" reflecting severely upon General James Shields (who won fame in the Mexican and Civil Wars, and was United States Senator from three ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... surrounded by eager, though not noisy groups. Some in that chamber were waiting on business connected with the civil jurisdiction of the Ephors. Some had gained admittance for the purpose of greeting their brave countryman, and hearing news of the distant camp from one who had so lately quitted the great Pausanias. For men could talk without restraint of their ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... to be civil to one another, Mrs. Jackson. But I don't think you must talk of what ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... days a very profitable article of commerce, and the trade in it was monopolised by the Government officers, civil and military. Like flour in the back settlements of the United States, it was reckoned "ekal to cash," and was made to do the office of the pagoda tree in India, which rained dollars ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... indeed, their mutual positions, civil, commercial, and political, are very different from what they were half a century ago, or even at a more recent period. The progress of science, and the astonishing improvements in steam and machinery, have so completely ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... increased,[898] and there were many hereditary low castes, the members of which were little better than slaves. Only the higher castes could compete in examinations or hold office and there were continual struggles and quarrels between the military and civil classes. Buddhism flourished much as it flourished in the Hei-an period of Japan, but its comparative sterility reflected the inferior social conditions of Korea. Festivals were celebrated by the Court with great splendour: magnificent monasteries were founded: the bonzes kept troops ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... in English to what is meant here by Vyavahara is Law. Three kinds of Vyavahara or Law are here spoken of. The first is the ordinary Law, according to which the disputes of litigants are decided, it includes both civil and criminal law, it is quaintly described here as Vattripratyayalakskana, i.e., 'characterised by a belief in either of two litigant parties.' When a suit, civil or criminal, is instituted, the king or those that act in the king's name must call for Evidence and decide the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the work of the one practising the art conforms. In the successful practice, for example, of the art of composition, there are manifested the principles of rhetoric; in that of housebuilding, the principles of architecture; and in that of government, the principles of civil polity. In practising any such art, moreover, the worker finds that a knowledge of these scientific principles and methods will guide him in the correct practice of the art,—a knowledge of the science of rhetoric assisting in the ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... out by the G.O.C. Infantry Brigades and the C.R.A., who were much assisted by a Civil Staff Captain and a Provost representative, and in the town of Bruhl by the G.O.C. Division, who also generally supervised under the Corps and the Army the work of ...
— A Short History of the 6th Division - Aug. 1914-March 1919 • Thomas Owen Marden

... taken it for granted, in rather a high-handed manner, that Mr. Hand was to make repairs. His manner toward the chauffeur was not pleasant, being a combination of the patron and the bully. It was exactly the sort of manner to precipitate civil war, though diplomacy might serve to cover the breach for ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... dear boy," said Goneril, "and very clever; he is going home for the Indian Civil Service Exam; he has been out to Calcutta to see ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... forests and park, for the enjoyment of the chase, of which he was passionately fond, how capable of defence, and how well adapted for a hunting-seat, he sighed to think it did not belong to the crown. Nor was he wrong in his estimate of its strength, for in after years, during the civil wars, it held out stoutly against the parliamentary forces, and was only reduced at last by treachery, when part of its gate-tower was blown up, destroying an officer and two hundred men, "in that blast ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... majority of men in the West, Jake Studley took the view that all men are equal, and that the interests of one are the concerns of all. A civil answer to what in other climes would be considered impertinent curiosity was the unmistakable shibboleth of the coequal fraternity. Hartwell's manner had been interpreted by Jakey as a declaration of heresy to his orthodox code and the invitation to mind his own business as a breach ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... vow! Surely, madam, it is very sonorous and emphatic; vastly different, I do assure you, from the vowelled idioms of Italy and Spain. Pray, madam, be so civil as to translate the words ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... so far as Coleman and some of his friends had brought it forward, convicted him and them of numerous self-contradictions, of unsoundness in theology, of violating the covenant which they had sworn, and of inculcating opinions fatal to both civil and religious liberty. To this powerful production Coleman attempted no reply; nor have its arguments ever been answered by any subsequent ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... the thane's death acted as the earl's agent in the management of the estate, would instruct him doubtless in his civil duties, while the soldier who rode behind him would teach him how to lead men in battle, and how to make the fighting force of the estate efficient. Beyond these duties his time would be his own. He would have responsibilities, but they would be the responsibilities ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... America Negro soldiers had followed the fortunes of military life, and won the applause of white patriots on two continents. So then all history furnished a precedent for the guidance of the United States Government in the Civil War in America. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... she had decided to soften. She was still very angry with him, but it would not do to repel him from herself, for that might impel him towards another, and spoil two of her plans. Even to that impertinent child's nurse she would be civil. She need have but little to do with the creature, but she must not let any one suppose that she harbored ill feeling towards her, and, with the exception of Mrs. Petter, no one would suppose she had any reason for such feelings. In fact, as Miss Calthea's mind dwelt upon this subject, ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton

... calculate the contraband imports alone at eight, and even as high as ten, millions sterling, it should follow that, at an average rate of duty of twenty per cent, the customs should yield additionally L.1,200,000, or nearly double the amount now received under that head. As, through the cessation of the civil war, a considerable portion of the war expenditure will be, and is being reduced, the additional L.1,200,000 gained, by an equitable adjustment of the tariff, on imports alone, perhaps we should be justified in saying one million and a half, or not far short of two millions sterling, import and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... literary life to write a book about the United States, and I had made up my mind to visit the country with this object before the intestine troubles of the United States government had commenced. I have not allowed the division among the States and the breaking out of civil war to interfere with my intention; but I should not purposely have chosen this period either for my book or for my visit. I say so much, in order that it may not be supposed that it is my special ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... blinds. Next door, the Admiral was fuming nervously up and down his gravel walk. He was debating the propriety of his costume. Even yet there was time to run up-stairs and don his cocked hat and gold-laced coat before the procession arrived. Between the claims of his civil and official positions the poor ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... his brilliant work was by no means encouraging. In 1893 Colonel French was actually retired on half-pay! It is an admirable system which allows the middle-aged officer to make way for youth in the British army; but the spectacle of a French despatched into civil obscurity at the ripe age of forty-one, has its tragic as well as its comic side. That it acutely depressed him we know. For a time he was almost in despair as ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm

... sent away: And now, e'er they had scarce the town's end pass'd, He sent his steward after them in haste, And said, Go, follow them, and ask them why They have dealt by me so ungratefully? And say unto them, You have done great evil To rob my master, who hath been so civil, And steal the cup wherein he drinks his wine; Is it not it whereby he doth divine?[10] Then he pursu'd and quickly overtook Them, and these very words to them he spoke. To whom they said, Why hath my lord such thought? ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... was following it fast—too fast—by other books for which the critics and the publishers clamored. Her last book and her last baby came together, and killed her. She lived one of those rich and piteous lives such as only gifted women know; torn by the civil war of the dual nature which can be given to women only. It was as natural for her daughter to write as to breathe; but it was impossible for her daughter to forget that a woman of intellectual power could be the most ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... gentleman in uniform?" said Sydney. "Eh? That one?" said Terry, looking in another direction. "Oh, that's the purser. You'll have to be very civil to him—ask him to dinner ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... Society's Gardens. The Duke's beautiful little villa, erected by the last Earl of Burlington, is indeed a shrine worthy of deep homage; within its walls both Charles James Fox and George Canning breathed their last; and if, for a moment, we recall the times of Civil War, when each honest English heart fought bravely and openly for what was believed "the right," we may picture the struggle between Prince Rupert and the Earl of Essex, terminating with doubtful success, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... was only a junior lieutenant then, but that was nearly eighteen years before this story opens. She had not seen many colored people while living in the Massachusetts town in which she had been born and her experience with them was limited to the very few who, after the Civil War, had drifted into it. Of the true Southern negro, especially those of the ante-bellum type, she had not the faintest conception. It had all been a revelation to her. The devotion of the house servants to their "white ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... modern times. In the Middle Ages he would have excited no comment at all. Passers-by would simply have said to themselves, "Ah, another of those knights off after the dragons!" and would have gone on their way with a civil greeting. But in the present age it is always somewhat startling to see a helmeted head pop up in front of your automobile. At any rate, it startled Bream. I will go further. It gave Bream the shock of a lifetime. He had had shocks already that ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... is over—it ended at Appomattox. Let us hope that the bitterness born of the conflict died out forever at Riverside. The people are tired almost to death of the old speeches. They have been worn out and patched, and even the patches are threadbare. The Supreme Court decided the Civil Rights Bill to be unconstitutional, and the Republican party submitted. I regarded the decision as monstrous, but the Republican party when in power said nothing and did nothing. I most sincerely hope that the Democratic party will protect the colored people at least as well ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... Next helmets, with their nodding plumes, came up, and next, the shoulders and breasts and limbs of men with weapons, and in time a harvest of armed warriors. Cadmus, alarmed, prepared to encounter a new enemy, but one of them said to him, "Meddle not with our civil war." With that he who had spoken smote one of his earth-born brothers with a sword, and he himself fell pierced with an arrow from another. The latter fell victim to a fourth, and in like manner the whole ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... talent, but also as a statesman, soldier, pirate, lover, and a Roman Catholic possessed of sufficient piety and naked courage to attempt the conversion of Oliver Cromwell. Like his father, who was hanged for participation in the Gunpowder Plot, Digby was a political creature, and during the Civil War he was imprisoned for several years. When freed, Digby left England to settle in France. Spending much time at the court of the Queen Dowager, who had been instrumental in securing his release, and exposed to the vigorous intellectual currents of Paris ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer

... the difference between man and other animals being "not one of degree, but of kind." Such a statement, without the least evidence being adduced to support it, places the Bishop almost outside the pale of civil discussion. When will these lordly ecclesiastics learn that the time for dogmatic assertion is past, and that the intellectual temper of the present age can be satisfied only by proof? We defy the Bishop of Carlisle to indicate a single phase of man's ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... Christmas night, after the Venables' wonderful Christmas dinner, when they all talked of the Civil War as if it were yesterday, and when old laces, old jet and coral jewelry, and frail old silk gowns were much in evidence. They were sitting about the coal fire in the back drawing-room, when Nancy ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris

... Civil War was over and the Yankee soldiers came to our place, dey just took what they wanted to eat, went into de stable and leave their poor, broken-down horses and would ride off with a good horse. They didn't hurt anybody, but ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... in her, then hardly aroused, which made her, as years developed her character and stormy fates thickened around her life, the unflinching comrade of her soldier husband, the passionate adherent of the Church. Through wars, insurrections, revolutions, downfalls, Spanish, Mexican, civil, ecclesiastical, her standpoint, her poise, remained the same. She simply grew more and more proudly, passionately, a Spaniard and a Moreno; more and more stanchly and fierily a Catholic, and ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... adult females, was a "moderate man." Josiah Bailey was the leader of this party, and he appeared well-qualified for this position. He was about twenty-nine years of age, and in no particular physically, did he seem to be deficient. He was likewise civil and polite in his manners, and a man of good common sense. He was held and oppressed by William H. Hughlett, a farmer and dealer in ship timber, who had besides invested in slaves to the number of forty head. In his ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... sure it is. Now that nations can't fight, no two of 'em are on speaking terms. The dread of fighting was the only thing that kept them civil to each other. Let battles be restored and ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... science, true being, the principles of mind, outward nature. The practical subjects relate either to private conduct, and the government of the mind over the whole man; or to his duty towards others in his several relations; or to the government of a civil state, and the public conduct of a whole people. Under these three heads rank in order the particular subjects practical; virtue in general, sanctity, temperance, fortitude, justice, friendship, patriotism, piety; the ruling ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... Pedler, and his eyes twinkled malevolently. "I says it again—I warns you again. You're a nice, civil-spoke young cove, and quiet (though I don't like the cock o' your eye), and, mind, I don't bear you no ill-will—though you did turn me from your door on a cold, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... Now you keep a civil tongue in your head. I'll stand none of your snobbery. I'm just as proud of Tarleton's Underwear as you are of your father's title and his K.C.B., and all the rest of it. My father began in a little hole of a shop in Leeds ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw

... dove!—you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma neni?" he added, turning ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... one person in each. The first was occupied by a boy about fifteen. The gentleman politely asked him if he would sit with another gentleman, that he and the lady who was with him might not be separated. The first impulse of the boy was a civil one, and he started to rise; but the second thought was ungentlemanly, ungenerous, and extremely selfish. "I like my seat very well," he muttered, and drew back to the window and looked out. Perhaps even then he began to ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various



Words linked to "Civil" :   uncivil, citizen, sidereal, state



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