"Pleasantness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... There is, Secondly, the Land of Having All Things. There is the Traveller's Fortitude most hardly tested. There is, Thirdly, The Land of Losing All Those Things that One Hath Possessed. That is a hard country indeed for the memory of the pleasantness of those earlier joys redoubleth the agony of lacking them. But at the end there is a Land of ice and snow that few travellers have compassed, and that is the Land of Knowing What One Hath Missed.... The Bird was in the hand and one let it go ... that is the hardest agony of all the ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... now 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 he had done, and said what he had said. The changed inscription on the locket, and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... alone. Conversation, as far as Mrs. Starling was concerned, went on the pattern that has been given. Mr. Masters was at the whole expense of the entertainment, mentally; and he talked with the ease and pleasantness that seemed natural to him, of things that could not help interesting the others; even Diana in her deadness of heart, even Mrs. Starling in her perversity, pricked up their ears and listened. I don't believe, either, he even found it a difficult effort; ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... any engagement that chanced to have been made and carry her off for a day up the river, where a quiet little lunch, in the tranquil shade of overhanging trees, and the cosy, intimate talk that was its invariable concomitant, seemed like an oasis of familiar, homely pleasantness in the midst of the gay turmoil of London ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... through his nose. "Verily, we will fatten on the good things of the land, we will spend our days in ease and pleasantness! The Malignants shall work for us. They shall toil in our tobacco fields, their women shall be our handmaidens, we will drink their wines, and wear their rich clothing, and our pockets shall be filled with their gold ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... she feel ashamed of having gone to the circus? How does she explain her going? What can you tell of 'Bijah from what is said of 'Liza's "memories"? Would the circus people have cared to buy the dog? Notice how the author makes you feel the pleasantness of the walk in the woods. Do you know where coons have their dens? How does Isaac show his affection for old Rover? Is it true that "worthless do-nothings" usually have "smart" dogs? Why does the author stop to tell all about 'Liza Jane's arrival? What light is thrown on the old lady's ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... to find them. In places the air was darkened by showers of lobster-patties, white puddings, sausages, tarts, and all sorts of sweetmeats, or with pieces of gold and silver, diamonds and pearls. This unusual kind of rain, and the pleasantness of the whole place, would, no doubt, have attracted numbers of people to it, if the King of the Sheep had been of a more sociable disposition, but from all accounts it is evident that he was as grave ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... 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: tell me the cause ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... constrained to a life of privation, Peter Bines had been strangely happy. Rich and of consequence in a community where the ways were all of pleasantness and peace, Peter Bines became restless, discontented, and, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... be a place charming by reason of its own charms. That it is a very pleasant place when it is full of people and the people are in spirits and happy, I do not doubt. But then the visitors would bring, as far as I am concerned, the pleasantness with them. The coast is not fine. To those who know the best portions of the coast of Wales or Cornwall—or better still, the western coast of Ireland, of Clare and Kerry for instance—it would not be in any way remarkable. It is by no means equal to ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... while her women and attendants waited in the other bower under the pavilion, and never came to her but when she called them. Madam de Martigues having never seen Colomiers was surprised at the extraordinary beauty of it, and particularly with the pleasantness of the pavilion. Madam de Cleves and she usually passed the evenings there. The liberty of being alone in the night in so agreeable a place would not permit the conversation to end soon between two young ladies, whose hearts ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... welled the swift unaccustomed tears, while the robin, with increasing 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 ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... and peacefully as a child, and the next day started on my journey in the brightest of bright summer weather. A friend travelled with me—one of those amiable women to whom life is always pleasant because of the pleasantness in their own natures; she had taken a house for the season in Inverness-shire, and I had arranged to join her there when my trip with the Harlands was over, or rather, I should say, when they had grown weary of me and I of them. The ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... settled again, I think that the change of scene would be good for all of you. Come, Crawley, I'll talk to you every evening about Jerusalem for as long as you please;—and then there will perhaps come back to us something of the pleasantness of old days." As she heard this Mrs Crawley's eyes became full of tears, and she could not altogether hide them. What she had endured during the last four months had almost broken her spirit. The burden had at last been too heavy for her strength. "You ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... passion thrown into the bare recital of an old story by an itinerant player. What is Cicero to us of the nineteenth century that we should care so much for him as to read yet another book? Nevertheless, Hamlet was moved because the tale was well told. There is matter in the earnestness, the pleasantness, the patriotism, and the tragedy of the man's life to move a reader still—if the story could only be written of him as it is felt! The difficulty lies in that, and not in the nature ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... content—now comes under examination. It is a relation to some other person or persons without which life is hardly worth living. Some account for it on the principle of "like to like," others on the opposite theory. Now, lovableness comes of goodness, or pleasantness, or usefulness. Love is not bestowed on the inanimate, and it must be mutual; it is to be distinguished from goodwill or devotion, which need not ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... See the world 230 Such as it is—you made it not, nor I; I mean to take it as it is—and you, Not so you'll take it—though you get naught else. I know the special kind of life I like, What suits the most my idiosyncrasy, Brings out the best of me and bears me fruit In power, peace, pleasantness and length of days. I find that positive belief does this For me, and unbelief, no whit of this. —For you, it does, however?—that, we'll try! 240 'T is clear, I cannot lead my life, at least, ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... "Sugar-plums 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 ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... autumn days and the long, chill evenings passed quickly and pleasantly away. All were busy and happy, and were beginning to find that in spite of conflicts and self-denials "wisdom's ways are pleasantness and all her paths are peace." The preparations for the Thanksgiving festival progressed rapidly, but before the time came to put the plans in execution a very terrible thing happened in Squantown. Faces turned white, voices were hushed, work was suspended at the mill, in the ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... Rob 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 arm with ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... afternoon must have time to dull. He must give her a period when the incident should fade, and then a new period when she should gradually begin to think of him, no matter how dimly, with a true perspective that would remember his pleasantness as well as ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... neighbor at the dinner-table. When the cousin glanced back over her succession of neighbors, she came to the conclusion that they had lost in sprightliness what they had gained in moral worth. Fink was rather profane, but very amusing; Anton had a certain equipoise of goodness and pleasantness; Baumann was the best of them all, but also the most silent. Her conversation with him, though edifying enough, was never exciting. On Mondays, indeed, they had a mutual interest in discussing the Sunday's sermon, but there was another tie between ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... infinite, did pay their Allegiance. One of these Kingdoms was called Magua, signifying a Campaign or open Country; which is very observable, if any place in the Universe deserves taking notice of, and memorable for the pleasantness of its Situation; for it is extended from South to North Eighty Miles, in breadth Five, Eight, and in some parts Ten Miles in length; and is on all sides inclosed with the highest Mountains; above Thirty Thousand Rivers, and Rivulets water her Coasts, Twelve of which prodigious Number ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... added the power of evil habits to the evil tendencies of their fallen nature must expect "to go mourning all the days of their life." It is only to those who have served the Lord from their youth that "wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths peace." To others, though by the grace of God they may be finally saved, there is but a dreary prospect until the end come. They must ever henceforth consult their safety by denying themselves many pleasant things ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... one another there was a singular amenity or pleasantness, and with some who had been prisoners for a long time, a sort of childlikeness. But it was like the childlikeness of a person partly dazed, or recovering from a severe illness or shock. They greeted one another with a covert smile, an unobtrusive ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... 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 ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... mixture of fashionableness and homeliness, such as grey ribbed stockings and shining paste shoe-buckles, rusty velvet small-clothes and a coatee of blue cloth. But the wearer carried off this anomalous costume with an easy, condescending air, full of pleasantness, humour, and grace. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Christmas season, this season of peace and good-will, let all our readers read the essay on Pleasantness. And if they will but take its teachings to heart, we can wish them, with the certainty of the fulfilment of our wish, a merry Christmas and a happy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... start rolling, but it shows no pertinacity in trying to get to the bottom. Any ledge or obstacle will stop it, and it will exhibit no signs of discontent if this happens. It is not attracted by the pleasantness of the valley, as a sheep or cow might be, but propelled by the steepness of the hill at the place where it is. In all this we have characteristic differences between the behaviour of animals and the behaviour of ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... this happiness, dear father,' he would say, 'came from our being religious; for all the ways of religion are ways of pleasantness, and all her ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... shadows, but with a certain wiry nervous strength about the muscles of the mouth and chin: it would have been a womanly, pleasant mouth, had it not been crossed by a white scar, which attracted more of one's attention than either the womanliness or pleasantness. Her eyes had light long lashes, and shone ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... words spoken, my father entered the shop. He embraced me tenderly and confided to me that the house had lost half its pleasantness in consequence of my departure and that of M. Jerome Coignard, who was honest and jovial. He complimented me on my dress and gave me a lesson in deportment, assuring me that trade had accustomed him to easy manners by ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... Byron's taste, and he quizzed it accordingly; but he admitted the kindliness of it, and the amiability which made guests glad to go there and sorry to come away. His special records of Miss Milbanke's good-humor, spirit, and pleasantness indicate the source of subsequent misrepresentations of her. Till he saw it, he could not conceive that order and dutifulness could coexist with liveliness and great charms of mind and manners; and when the fact was out of sight, he went back to his ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... people had awfully good manners—people of that class,—you couldn't tell. These manners were for everybody, and it might be drearily unavailing for any poor particular body to be overworked and unusual. What he did take for granted was all sorts of facility; and his high pleasantness, his relighting of cigarettes while he waited, his unconscious bestowal of opportunities, of boons, of blessings, were all a part of his splendid security, the instinct that told him there was nothing such an ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... 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
... his life wholly in his garden: there he studied, there he exercised, there he taught his philosophy; and, indeed, no other sort of abode seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking, but, above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at the lad, as if trying to make up his mind whether or not Phil was making sport of him. But there was only pleasantness in the face of ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... in trees and fruits 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 Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... to say whether she was happy or sorrowful. She sat in her low chair and thought of yesterday, of the night and her dream, of old Mr. Leigh sitting alone in his dreary house so many hours each day, of his pleasure at seeing her, of Mr. Percy's absence; finally, of the comfort and pleasantness of sitting there undisturbed and hearing the voices of her mother and Maurice gradually subsiding into a drowsy hum. The next thing she knew Maurice was saying softly, "She is asleep. Don't wake her, Mrs. Costello. Good-night." And she woke just in time to catch ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... moment during which he might have been appreciating her raciness—"when I talk of life I think I 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
... Pain is, he has been—so that of the Spirit of Wisdom (who is called God's Helper, as Satan His Adversary) it is written, not only that by her Kings reign, and Princes decree justice, but also that her ways are ways of Pleasantness, ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... a war-time flavour. The old Hamburg-American line piers are used by the Army Transport Service, and in the sunshine a number of soldiers, off duty, were happily drowsing on a row of two-tiered beds set outdoors in the April pleasantness. There was a racket of bugles, and a squad seemed to be drilling in the courtyard. Endymion and the Secretary, after sitting on a pier-end watching some barges, and airing their nautical views in a way they would never have done had any pukka seafaring men been along, were stricken with ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... 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
... fact that he was encountered by Indians, professed great joy at meeting with them, and declared that he was then on his way to their towns. They were not deceived by the artifice; for although he assumed an air of pleasantness and gaity, calculated to win upon their confidence, yet the woful countenance and rueful expression of poor Petro, convinced them that White's conduct was feigned, that he might lull them into inattention, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... had left them to him. To the last Gervase would aim at keeping up the place, to his mother's drawing-room, his father's study, Miles's pantry and cellar, even the modern housekeeper's room, and the maids' gallery, in comfort and pleasantness. Only his own rooms—dining-room, smoking-room, bedroom—had been suffered to show traces of many a brawl and fray. It was as if he had deemed anything good enough for a scapegrace and beast like him, and thought to pay the whole price in ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... exceedingly sweet in smell, and tasting like unto anise seeds. This root is much used among the Dutch people in a kind of loblolly or hotchpot, which they do eat, calling it warmus. The seeds taken as a salad whilst they are yet green, exceed all other salads by many degrees in pleasantness of taste, sweetness of smell, and wholesomeness for the cold and feeble stomach." In common with other camphoraceous and strongly aromatic herbs, by reason of its volatile oil and its terebinthine properties, the Scandix, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... 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 gave to their repast the last refinement of rusticity? Hadn't he noticed, ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... dangers of following pleasures that lead away from wisdom's ways. The guide worthy of trust must not fail to point out these dangers; and the prudent youth will listen to the warning voice and walk in Wisdom's ways, for "all her ways are pleasantness, and all her ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... strolled out with Mr. Trundle; the deaf old lady had fallen asleep in her chair; the snoring of the fat boy, penetrated in a low and monotonous sound from the distant kitchen; the buxom servants were lounging at the side door, enjoying the pleasantness of the hour, and the delights of a flirtation, on first principles, with certain unwieldy animals attached to the farm; and there sat the interesting pair, uncared for by all, caring for none, and dreaming only of themselves; there they sat, in short, like a pair of carefully-folded ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... matter, partly, of character and of the soul, of the fair proportion between soul and body, of the soul with itself. Who can doubt it who sees and considers the still irresistible grace, the contagious pleasantness, of the Discobolus, the Diadumenus, and a few other precious survivals from the athletic age which immediately preceded the manhood of Pheidias, between the Persian and the ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... differently from what was anticipated. It is an infinitely higher and holier and happier thing than our childhood fancied. The world that lay before us then was but a tinsel toy to the world which our firm feet tread. We have entered into the undiscovered land. We have explored its ways of pleasantness, its depths of dole, its mountains of difficulty, its valleys of delight, and, behold! it is very good. Storms have swept fiercely, but they swept to purify. We have heard in its thunders the Voice that woke once the echoes of the Garden. Its lightnings have riven ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... 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 ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... old-fashioned taste on the palate, because of their moralizings and avowments of didactic purpose. The advantages and disadvantages of this general attitude can be easily understood: the loss in philosophic grasp is made up in healthiness of tone and pleasantness of appeal. One recognizes such an author as, above all, human and hearty. The reserves and delicacies of Anglo-Saxon fiction are here, of course, in full force: and a doctored view of the Middle Ages is the result, as it is in Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." A sufficient answer is that ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... which were momentarily obscured by the natural differences of colouring and expression. Emmy was less dark, more temperamentally unadventurous, stouter, and possessed of more colour. She was twenty-eight or possibly twenty-nine, and her mouth was rather too hard for pleasantness. It was not peevish, but the lips were set as though she had endured much. Her eyes, also, were hard; although if she cried one saw her face soften remarkably into the semblance of that of a little girl. From an involuntary ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... defined in this chapter, will not only be found 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 many walls, or grape-juice of molecules with so many sides;—we are just as far as ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... smiled benignantly at this remark, and the rest laughed. Mr. Mathers had heard it before, but he would not impair the pleasantness of his relations with a future colleague by hinting that he ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... studied, there he exercised, there he taught his philosophy; and indeed no other sort of abode seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind, and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of air, the pleasantness of smells, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercises of working or walking; but above all, the exemption from cares and solitude, seem equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... could the flatterer insinuate himself by the pleasure he gives, unless he knew that friendship admitted the pleasurable element? It would be impossible to say. But just as spurious and mock gold only imitates the brightness and glitter of real gold, so the flatterer seems to imitate the pleasantness and agreeableness of the real friend, and to exhibit himself ever merry and bright, contradicting and opposing nothing. We must not however on that account suspect all who praise as simple flatterers. For friendship requires praise as much as censure on the proper occasion. Indeed peevishness and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... lines of gardens and villas, occupied 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 ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... 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 to the same reproofs, and toiled ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... 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. These gentlemen, ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... he was conscious of a sudden change in things. The garden smiled about him, the valley below laughed in the breeze, the blackcaps sang, the many windows of the Castle glistened in the sun; but their beauty and their pleasantness had departed, had retired with her into the long, low, white-walled, red-roofed pavilion. He was conscious of a sudden change in things, and of a sudden acute and ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... late years to numerous cheap reprints, but one and all fall very short of the Nelson Library in daintiness, in ease to handle, in pleasantness to read."—PRESS OPINION. ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... functions. The monthly dinners of the Town Crier staff remain in my memory as being among the most delightful and genial evenings I have ever spent in my life. We met at each other's houses, and after a nice satisfying dinner we proceeded to pipes and paths of pleasantness, and to planning the contents for the next ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... to accumulate the necessary force for honest speaking at the expense of pleasantness. 'It was the telegram that began it ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... always said," exclaimed Grandma Johnson; "that the pleasant things come to the people who are looking for pleasant things but, land! see what's happened to her and if anyone ever looked for pleasantness it was Mary Rose. Why she even looked for it in us!" And she ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... she was presently assuring him, in all pleasantness, that the seed of Cain, descended through Ham, would, by reason of the curse of God, be a "servant of servants" unto the end; while Solon was assuring her, with equal good nature, that this scriptural law had been repealed ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... rather curious air, as of a highly 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 old Jones ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... 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
... the roost rising higher and moaning more uneasily; and then above both he saw a pair of dark blue eyes, and heard a voice with just a touch of raillery in it. As he bent his head and entered his cell, he smiled to himself at the pleasantness ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... with the minds and hearts of children; to sympathize with their little joys and sorrows; to feel for their temptations. She is a safe guide for the little pilgrims; for her paths, though 'paths of pleasantness,' lead straight upward."—Grace Greenwood in "The ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... of Freedom 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 ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... grapes," says Guibert of Nogent, "were still hanging on the branches of the vines; on all sides discoveries were made of grain shut up, not in barns, but in subterranean vaults; and the trees were laden with fruit." These facilities of existence, the softness of the climate, the pleasantness of the places, the frequency of leisure, partly pleasure and partly care-for-nothingness, caused amongst the crusaders irregularity, license, indiscipline, carelessness, and often perils and reverses. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... its shores, however, the people whom he had sent there came to meet him with music, song, and great joy. They made him a prince among them, and he lived with them ever after in pleasantness and peace. ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... the meantime, left unnoticed to his own reflections. While the old gentleman was absorbed in the folio, the clerk gave a glance round at the young stranger, and the expression conveyed in that glance did not add pleasantness to the lad's feelings, as he stood clutching his crape-bound hat. Leaving the two old men engaged in their books and papers, a fuller account must be given of the boy than he was ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... gay and flaunting world. Little does ostentation know, as it flashes by in satined arrogance and jeweled pride, of the sorrow it may jostle from its path; and perhaps it is happy for us as we move along in smiles and pleasantness, not to comprehend that the glance which meets our own comes from the bleakness of a withered ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... meaning thereby Shakspeare's habit of complaisant observation from outside of theory, and his keen enjoyment of the unexplained facts of life. He did not pour himself out in every strife. We have but little of this negative capability. The ruddy qualities of delightfulness, of pleasantness, are all 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' The varied ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... ever been able to break up the feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness into anything simpler. "Pleasure" and "displeasure" are not always so simple; they are names for whole states of mind which may be very complex, including sensations and thoughts in addition to the feelings ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... wonder, then, that they seized the fruit so "pleasant to the eye," and as it seemed to them "desirable to make one wise." Thus the poor girls were lured from the plain homely path, which, plain and homely as it is, always proves at last the way of pleasantness and the path of peace. They knew that people called them odd, and in this they gloried. Fanny Brighton they regarded as a rude girl, who, though she vexed them, never put them out of humor with themselves. But now, strange as it may appear, the quiet Christian words ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... himself as though he was much younger, spare, below the middle height, with dark brown hair which would have shown a tinge of grey but for the dyer's art, with well-cut features, with a smile constantly on his mouth the pleasantness of which was always belied by the sharp severity of his eyes. He dressed with the utmost simplicity, but also with the utmost care. He was unmarried, had a small house of his own close to Berkeley Square at which he gave remarkable dinner parties, kept four or five ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... were set for the desolate island. When he approached its shores, however, the people whom he had sent there came to meet him with music, song, and great joy. They made him a prince among them, and he lived ever after in pleasantness and peace. ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... be said in favor of our own day, and the men and women of our own time, that a plea for a recognition of the quaintness and pleasantness of village life in the old days cannot seem unwelcome, or without deference to all that has come with the later years of ease and comfort, or of discovery in the realms of mind or matter. We are beginning to cling to the elderly people who are so different from ourselves, ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... therefore they have seven crimson crested heads, for the seven mortal sins; of which they are proud: and these, and the memory and report of them, are the chief causes of temptation to others, as showing the pleasantness and absolving power of riches; so that thus they are singing serpents. And the worms are the souls of the common money getters and traffickers, who do nothing but eat and spin: and who gain habitually by the distress ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... be very particularly meritorious. A bit of a pharisee you will think—but not the least of that, I assure you. Only people, at their first trying of such paths, do often find them most peculiarly paths of pleasantness and ways of peace; and, this sort of peace, this being at ease with the conscience, is, to be sure, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... pole. He was a good-tempered man, somewhat adventurous, with plenty of information, and a full-flavoured local accent which often gave to what he said a point of humour that was not intended. The voyage, therefore, commenced under circumstances that promised nothing but pleasantness. It was a perfectly beautiful May afternoon, with a fresh north breeze blowing that tempered the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... made it ugly, not Crystalman. These are Crystalman's thoughts, which you see around you. He is nothing but Beauty and Pleasantness. Even Krag won't have the ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... 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
... 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, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... look, as she turned it full upon him, nobody could see; but there was a quieter earnest in it, certainly, when she turned back; and the young man had responded to her salutation with a relaxing glance of friendly pleasantness that seemed more native to his face than the frown of a ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... theatres, and the uncouth glory of the Globe theatre, associated with the poet of all time—Shakspeare. Southwark was, therefore, a fitting site for a royal palace for occasional retirement, and its contiguity to the Thames must have enhanced its pleasantness. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... said that the one thing to be sought after on earth, more precious than all treasure, she who has length of days in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour, whose ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace, who is a tree of life to all who lay hold on her, and makes happy every one who retains her, is—as you will see if you will yourselves consult the passage—that very Wisdom—by which God has founded the earth; and that very Understanding—by ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... the mobs have broke in and tore down the fences, and snapped off the branches, and scattered all the leaves about, and it looks no better than a gallows tree. I am afeared,' said he, 'I tremble to think on it, but I am afeared our ways will no longer be ways of pleasantness, nor our paths, paths of peace; I am, indeed, I vow, Mr. Slick.' He looked so streaked and so chop-fallen, that I felt kinder sorry for him; I actilly thought he'd a ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... should have induced Mr. Newton to come to him for money he could not guess;—but he did know that, of all the young men who came into his back shop to be measured, there was no one whose looks and manners and cheery voice had created so strong a feeling of pleasantness as had those of Mr. Ralph Newton. Mr. Neefit could not analyse it, but there was a kind of sunshine about the young man which would have made him very unwilling to press hard for payment, or to stop the supply of breeches. He had taken a liking to Ralph, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... them. The most ineffective use is the making of motions that are so violent or extravagant that they attract the listeners' attention to themselves and away from your ideas. Remember that the expression of your face is most important of all gestures. Earnest interest, pleasantness, fairness, and vigor expressed in the speaker's face at the right times have done more to win debates than other ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... between "sensation" and "perception." "Sensation," he says, "is simply the activity of a sense, but perception is the pleasantness or unpleasantness of this sensation," "perceived by its being propagated and becoming active throughout the entire system." I have therefore several times, when translating from Buffon, rendered the word "sentiment" by "perception," ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... perfeckly, Marthy," answered Sam, with a suspicious pleasantness in his tone. "At first I was about ter be a little reckless and kick 'cause ther buttons was all off, but since I diskiver that the button holes is all busted out, why, I wouldn't go so fur as to say the buttons is any ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... ignorance of human nature. Henrietta heard all about Socialism, Land Taxes, and Adult Suffrage too, and the more cross she became the more kindly and patiently Agatha shouted, greeting any specially absurd ebullition with imperturbable pleasantness, and "how interesting, I am so anxious to get exactly at your point of view." That niece was not ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... 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 ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... found; with the dais, the screen, the gallery, and the buttery-hatch all perfect, and all of carved black oak. Modern luxury, and the refined taste of the lady of the late lord, had made Marney Abbey as remarkable for its comfort and pleasantness of accommodation as for its ancient state and splendour. The apartments were in general furnished with all the cheerful ease and brilliancy of the modern mansion of a noble, but the grand gallery of the seventeenth century was still ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... mate of all mates I'm glad to see! Pax vobiscrum, my filly! You look as fresh as an Aperel shad. Praised be the Lord,' continued he, relapsing into Mormon slang, 'who has sent thee again, like a brand from the burning, to fall into paths of pleasantness with the Saints, as they wander from the Promised Land to the mean section where the low-lived Gentiles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... 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 ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... he comes all Beauty dies, And where he halts all Greenery fades. Pleasantness flies where'er he ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... glad that my sufferings have not been in vain," she modestly declared. "May the new light which you so readily notice in my face add to the pleasantness of our journey and the profit of our lives." Their conversation grew more and more pleasant as they passed through a long stretch of woodland. They could see beyond, them, and in the rear, the legions that were traveling the same path ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... passed: "This is not a 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 from her admirably and with power. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... the prairie in the glorious morning 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 life ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... the love, and the dotage of the women, so was he a continued curb to impertinence, and the public censure of folly; never did man stay in his company unentertained, or leave it uninstructed; never was his understanding biassed, or his pleasantness forced; never did he laugh in the wrong place, or prostitute his sense to serve his luxury; never did he stab into the wounds of fallen virtue, with a base and a cowardly insult, or smooth the face of prosperous villany, with the paint and washes of a mercenary wit; never did he spare a sop ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... has been pictured for all time in the speech which Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles, called the Funeral Oration. He contrasts the activity and freedom and pleasantness of Athenian life with the immobility and severe looks and incessant drill of the Spartans. The citizens of no city were more versatile, or more readily changed from land to sea or more quickly moved about from place to place. They 'took their pleasures' merrily, and yet, ...
— Laws • Plato
... this peevish, this fantastic, change? Where is thy wonted pleasantness of face, Thy wonted graces, and thy dimpled smiles? Where hast thou lost thy wit and sportive mirth? That cheerful heart, which us'd to dance for ever, And cast a ray of gladness ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... anything against you." She addressed it as if there were an intelligence back of the vacuous pleasantness of the young face. "It's only that there's not any you and hasn't been for I don't know how long. It's so much deader than death, all ashes to ashes and dust to dust and the spirit turned into something different." And ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... Master Shaw said, he talked "on the other side of his mouth." Most willing was he to help to bring to justice the scoundrels who had deceived him and robbed Mr. Darwin, but he feared they would be difficult to trace. His own feeling was that of wishing for pleasantness among neighbors. The pigeons had been found at the Gardens. That was enough. He would be glad to settle ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... 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 trying scene, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Florentines, 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, and easy ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... the past four days, Elsie acknowledged to herself that they had been days of pleasantness. Once, Francis had openly remarked that he wondered how soon Mrs. Verdon and Wayne would come to an understanding; and Mrs. Lennard had replied that it was only the unexpected that ever came ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... 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 ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... now 'tis Aries: He that's born under that sign has much cattle, much wooll, and to that a jolt-head, a brazen-face, and will be certainly a cuckold: There are many scholars, advocates, and horned beasts, come into the world under this sign. We praised our nativity-caster's pleasantness, and he went on then again: The whole Heaven is Taurus, and wonder it e'er bore foot-ball-players, herds-men, and such as can shift for themselves. Under Gemini are foaled coach-horses, oxen calved, great baubles, and such as can claw ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... rightly appreciate the 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 Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond |
