"Urbane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would cause a loss of considerable time and a deflection from the intended route, was declined in courteous terms by Marcoy through the interpretation of Pepe Garcia. Among civilized folk this urbane refusal would have sufficed, but the savages, taking such a reply as a challenge to verbal warfare, returned to the charge with increased tenacity. It were hard to say what natural logic they put in practice or what sylvan persuasions they wrought by, but their peculiar mode ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... world, for China cropped up here, as it had at brigade headquarters. The major had been in garrison at Peking when the war began. If my shipmate on a long battleship cruise, Lt.-Col. Dion Williams, U.S.M.C, reads this out in Peking let it tell him that the major is just as urbane in the cellar of a second-rate farmhouse on the outskirts of Neuve Chapelle as he would be in a ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... years. Of course he thought that all these good things had been the results of his own peculiar merits. Of course he felt that he was different from other parsons,—more fitted by nature for intimacy with great persons, more urbane, more polished, and more richly endowed with modern clerical well-to-do aptitudes. He was grateful to Lady Lufton for what she had done for him; but perhaps not so grateful ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... Joseph; when the latter was there, which he was every Saturday till Monday, he would stroll over the stable with Squires—that was the hostler's name—joking incessantly, and treating the latter to an occasional cigar. Urbane Mr. Joseph would joke with anybody, Mr. George was more severe and had according to the landlady, the most ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... the Gadarene story, "Everything I know of law and justice convinces me that the wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of evil example." On this, Mr. Gladstone, continuing his candid and urbane observations, remarks ("Impregnable Rock," p. 273) that, "Exercising his rapid judgment on the text," and "not inquiring what anybody else had known or said about it," I had missed a point in support of that "accusation against ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... door, and smiling an urbane mayoral "Good afternoon," that all in the main office could hear, he ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... is the thing he does, and yet it is done. Let us hope that some sense of this tardy appreciation may soothe his spirit beyond the grave. On the present occasion there was nothing to soothe his spirit. The Speaker sat, urbane and courteous, with his eyes turned towards the unfortunate orator; but no other ears in the House seemed to listen to him. The corps of reporters had dwindled down to two, and they used their pens very listlessly, taking down here a sentence and there a sentence, knowing that ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... ease under circumstances and conditions which he began to comprehend and have an amiable contempt for, he became urbane and conversational, and a little amused to find navigation so simple, even when out ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... fixed keenly and unwaveringly on Mr. Jocelyn's urbane countenance, as if he would detect the cause of such unlooked-for words, but at the mention of Mildred's name his brow and even neck was suffused. "She must have spoken of me kindly," he thought, "or her father would not be so friendly." But when a swift glance around ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... electric wire filled the silence of the room with the palpitations of its mysterious life. The bland Chief was no longer occupied with his guests. They conjectured that he was behind them, his mouth at the telephone, conversing with various officials some distance off. Yet the urbane and well-spoken hero was not abandoning for one moment his ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... very little more; he took the keys of the house out of his bureau, gave them to me—and, thanking him cordially for his frankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, I carried off ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING PAID,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... at an end, Ocock mentioned, in his frigidly urbane way, that he had recently been informed there was an excellent opening for a firm of solicitors in Ballarat: could Mr. Mahony, as a resident, confirm the report? Mahony regretted his ignorance, but spoke in praise of the Golden City and its assured future.—"This would be most ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... fathers thousands ten or more Indited not as wont on palimpsest, 5 But paper-royal, brand-new boards, and best Fresh bosses, crimson ribbands, sheets with lead Ruled, and with pumice-powder all well polished. These as thou readest, seem that fine, urbane Suffenus, goat-herd mere, or ditcher-swain 10 Once more, such horrid change is there, so vile. What must we wot thereof? a Droll erst while, Or (if aught) cleverer, he with converse meets, He now in dullness, dullest villain beats ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... amenities of life or to social intercourse, but fond of spending his leisure moments at his own temporary home, which a devoted wife made to him a paradise. His manners to strangers were very stiff; his friendship, once gained, was earnest and unchangeable. Dr. Gamble, surgeon of the post, was an urbane, kindly gentleman. Business claimed his entire time also, and he was seldom seen outside of his office. The ladies of our little circle have been already mentioned, as well as most of the surgeons. Dr. Bemiss, of all others, was a general ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... Bishop, Julian's godfather, a curious blend of the fashionable and the devout, the anchorite and the man of the people; Lord and Lady Shervinton, elderly connections of the nondescript variety; Mr. Hannaway Wells, reserved yet, urbane, a wonderful type of the supreme success of mediocrity; a couple of young soldiers, light-hearted and out for a good time, of whom Julian took charge; an Oxford don, who had once been Lord Maltenby's tutor; and last of ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a good fellow, but he seems to me a little—what shall I say?—too elaborate. Too urbane; too ornate. He expresses himself so dreadfully well! I don't believe he ever uses a shorter ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... to Hertford Tarling analysed that urbane man, and found him deficient in certain essential qualities; weighed him and found him wanting in elements which should certainly form part of the equipment of ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... it otherwise, the spectacle of a toad going through the motor-car craft would be merely incomprehensible and exasperating. The superficial scheme of the story is so childishly naive, or so daringly naive, that only a genius could have preserved it from the ridiculous. The book is an urbane exercise in irony at the expense of the English character and of mankind. It is entirely successful. Whatever may happen to it in the esteem of mandarins and professors, it will beyond doubt be considered by authentic experts as a work highly distinguished, ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... "Urbane" on the lips of Jacob had mysteriously all the shapeliness of a character which Bonamy thought daily more sublime, devastating, terrific than ever, though he was still, and perhaps would be for ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... and urbane gentleman of Castilian courtesy and debonnaire manners, came to Coralio with the task before him of striking upon the cold trail of the lost money. There he conferred with the military authorities, who had received instructions to co-operate with ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... Turk had given but few lessons, as, soon after making his engagement, he had been obliged to go to New York to join a tobacconist's firm. Mr. Peterkin had not regretted his payment for instruction in advance; for the Turk had been very urbane in his manners, and had always assented to whatever the little boys or any of the family ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... of its brightest ornaments. Colonel Barney of the Sixth was one of Vermont's best men. A kind yet faithful commander in camp, gallant and fearless on the field. He was the highest type of a man; a christian gentleman. Colonel Stone had been killed instantly on the 5th. His urbane manners were remembered by all who frequented our division head-quarters, and his bravery had endeared him to his men. Colonel Tyler, too, of the Second was among the mortally wounded, and all felt ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... Mr. Crawford wanted, before him before the older man had realized that he wanted it. His attitude toward Argyl was at all times deferential, eloquent of respectful admiration. Hapgood was nothing if not urbane. Toward Conniston, however, he did not once glance. To his way of thinking, evidently, there were but three people in the room—the wonderfully masterful Mr. Crawford, the radiantly beautiful Argyl, the deeply appreciative Hapgood—and certain ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... our Western art, philosophy, letters; and not only the rudiments but the continuing inspiration, so that—though entirely superseded in worship, as even in the Athens of Pericles they were worshipped only by an easy, urbane, more than half humorous tolerance—Apollo and the Muses, Zeus and the great ones of Olympus, Hermes and Hephaestus, Athene in her armour, with her vanquisher the foam-born irresistible Aphrodite, these remain the authentic gods of our literature, beside whom the gods of northern Europe—Odin, Thor, ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... table with approval, for her house had always prided itself upon its good fare. The Cluniac's urbane composure was stirred to enthusiasm. He said a Confiteor tibi Domine, rolling the words on his tongue as if in anticipation of the solider mouthfuls awaiting him. The keen weather had whetted his appetite and he thanked God that his northern peregrinations ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... skipper in the blandest and most urbane humour. He received me with a courtesy that almost made me feel affection for him. We found Mr Farmer, the first-lieutenant, with him, and had it not been for a sly twinkling of the eye of the captain, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... overmastering preoccupation, and moved past her to the fireplace and stood with his elbow on one end of the mantelpiece, listening to the sounds that came in from the parlour through the half-open door: Marion's urbane voice, thin and smooth like a stretched membrane, the click of the front-door handle, the last mounting squeal from Roger, which was cut short by a gruff whine from Poppy, and, loudest of all, the silence that fell after the banging of the door. They heard the turn ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Epernay, and asked how things were going in Paris. He was, says Barnet, a round-faced man, dressed very neatly in black—so neatly that it was amazing to discover he was living close at hand in a tent made of carpets—and he had 'an urbane but insistent manner,' a carefully trimmed moustache and beard, expressive eyebrows, and hair very ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... urbane Frenchman in charge. "You understand, you will not be able to get near her? It will be rather like interviewing a prisoner, for she will be behind one set of bars ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... life as if she were a horse under him, to whom he must give way just so far as was necessary to keep mastery of her. A man to whom ideas were of no value, except when wedded to immediate action; essentially neat; demanding to be 'done well,' but capable of stoicism if necessary; urbane, yet always in readiness to thrust; able only to condone the failings and to compassionate the kinds of distress which his own experience had taught him to understand. Such was Miltoun's younger brother at the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... air of mystery. He swelled his chest and strutted a step or two nearer. Urbane condescension oozed ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... the steps before the door every trace of disturbance had vanished, and he was once more the urbane, handsome, debonair gentleman who played such ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... plastered hair and curled mustaches, redolent of cheap perfumes. Sarria arrived, his smooth, shiny face glistening with perspiration. He wore a new cassock and carried his broad-brimmed hat under his arm. His appearance made quite a stir. He passed from group to group, urbane, affable, shaking hands right and left; he assumed a set smile of amiability which never left ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... sometimes surprised to find Picasso now in a comfortable flat or staying at the Savoy. I should not be surprised to hear of him in a Kaffir kraal or at Buckingham Palace, and wherever he might be I should know that under that urbane and slightly quizzical surface still would be kicking and struggling the tireless problem. That problem his circumstances cannot touch. It has nothing to do with Life; for not only was Picasso never satisfied with a line that did ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... torrential rain they have to face, many a time have their beards been shaken by the hurricanes of the Minch. If you speak to a ship-captain, you are certain to get the utmost civility and politeness. It is true that most of them have several sets of vocabularies: to passengers they are urbane and choice of speech; but they have, within easy reach, another set of phrases, which they find of service ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... been obeyed with urbane alacrity, Sam called out again, very much as if he were piping all hands to osculation: 'Rev. Mr. Rippledean, step ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... my eye. "It is a handsome machine, a full dress concern with all its plating and brown leather, and in use it is as willing and quiet as any tricycle could be, a most urbane and gentlemanly affair—if you will pardon the adjective. I am glad these things have not come too late for me. Frankly, the bicycle is altogether too flippant for a man of my age, and the tricycle hitherto, ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... companion which took in everything. The tall man in glasses looked too human for a lawyer, too intelligent for a schoolmaster, and too well-dressed for an ordinary medical man. Colwyn, versed in judging men swiftly from externals, noting the urbane, somewhat pompous face, the authoritative, professional pose, the well-shaped, plump white hands, and the general air of well-being and prosperity which exuded from the whole man, placed him as a successful ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... what had happened, for Canon Spratte was immediately announced. Lady Kelsey had heard that he was to be offered a vacant bishopric, and she mourned over his disappearance from London. He was a spiritual mentor who exactly suited her, handsome, urbane, attentive notwithstanding her mature age, and well-connected. He was just the man to be a bishop. Then Mrs. Crowley appeared. They waited a little, and presently Dick was announced. He sauntered in jauntily, unaware that he had ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... put in the rector with urbane haste, before his spouse could recover breath to rebuke the blasphemer or return to the attack. "You see, it's this way: You consulted Mr. Grimm's lawyer. And ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... to the front hall to meet them, and put his arms round Nuttie tenderly, saying, 'My poor dear child!' then as he saw he had frightened them, 'No, no! She is alive—conscious they say, only so very weak.' Then with something of his usual urbane grace, he held out his hand, 'Miss Headworth, it is very good in you to come. You have a great deal ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Isaacs' charm of manner, I had certainly speculated on his reasons for suddenly telling an entire stranger his whole story. My southern birth had not modified the northern character born in me, though it gave me the more urbane veneer of the Italian; and the early study of Larochefoucauld and his school had not predisposed me to an unlimited belief in the disinterestedness of mankind. Still there was something about the man which seemed to sweep away unbelief and cynicism and ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... to the charm of the book. They have an unction which never, as it so often does in the case of Mr Arnold's dangerous master and model Renan, degenerates into unctuosity; they are nobly serious, but without being in the least dull; they contain some exceedingly just and at the same time perfectly urbane criticism of the ordinary reviewing kind, and though they are not without instances of the author's by-blows of slightly unproved opinion, yet these are by no means eminent in them, and are not of a provocative nature. And I do not think it fanciful to suppose ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... made the trips to England; but on this occasion Fields got no farther than the wharf, where the last object visible was his comely and smiling countenance as he waved his adieux. Conspicuous among the group on the after-deck, as we glided out of the smooth harbor of Boston, was an urbane and dignified gentleman of perhaps sixty years of age, with a clean-shaven mouth and chin, finely moulded, and with what Tennyson would call an educated whisker, short and gray, defining the region in front of and ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... when he found himself, as it were, segregated, and he sulked openly; but Hicks, on the contrary, was so urbane and respectful that everyone remarked his changed manner, and Mrs. Stott triumphantly demanded to know if it were not proof of her contention that servants were the better for being ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... it be acquired by effort. Vigour we may cultivate, and clearness we must; it is essential. On a level with these I should place propriety. Propriety teaches us to regulate our speech by the occasion; to be incisive at times and at times urbane; to adapt the 'how' to the 'when,' as I might put it. I do not think—I really do not think—that Christmas Eve is a happily chosen moment for calling Mr. Disraeli 'a ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... man and take refuge in the quiet haven of the Oratory at Birmingham, with his great Protagonist, who, throughout an equally long life spent in painful controversy, and wielding weapons as terrible as Carlyle's own, has rarely forgotten to be urbane, and whose every sentence is a 'thing of beauty.' It must, then, be owned that too many of Carlyle's literary achievements 'lack a gracious somewhat.' By force of his genius he 'smites the rock and spreads the water;' but then, like ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... Mr. Lucas's fourth novel, or 'Entertainment' as he prefers to call his stories; and readers of the preceding three may find some old acquaintances. The scene is again laid principally in London, and again an odd company of types converse and have urbane adventures. ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... Ursula Winwood was law for miles around. Dr. Fuller, rosy, fat and fifty, obeyed, like everyone else; but during the process of law-making he had often, before now, played the part of an urbane and gently satirical ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... responded but dully to her animated chat. He is never less urbane than when hungry, and I took pains to have his favourite soup served quite almost at once. This he fell upon. I may say that he has always a hearty manner of attacking his soup. Not infrequently he ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... "My dear lady," urbane William rose and bowed. "If Robert Burroughs is elected to the United States Senate, the judge shall be Minister to Berlin. It is practically arranged already. Bob's a big man in his party. What he asks for he'll get, never ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... the precisest of English. We sat next each other at the same table, came and went at much the same hour; and for a long while our intercourse was restricted to formal courtesies; mutual inquiries after each other's health, a few urbane strictures on the climate. The little old gentleman in spite of his aspect of shabby gentility,—for his coat was sadly inefficient, and the nap of his carefully brushed hat did not indicate prosperity—perhaps even because of this suggestion of fallen fortunes, bore himself with pathetic ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... after a temporary separation; when about pistol—shot asunder, both would begin to tug and rug at the right—hand glove, but it is frequently a mighty serious affair in that hissing hot climate to get the gauntlet off; they approach,—one, a smart urbane little man, who would not disgrace St James's Street, being more kiln—dried and less moist in his corporeals than his country friend, has contrived to extract his paw, and holds it out in act ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... said to the endless flow of taxicabs, the elevators and subways, the telephones, and telegraph offices, the newsstands and especially the plate-glass windows of florists. He would have had some urbane, cynical and delightfully disillusioning remarks to offer. And, as Mr. Weaver so shrewdly says, how he would enjoy "The Way of ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... was far more affable and urbane with her than any one whom Pollyooly had ever met. He was careful to ask her whether she disliked the smell of tobacco smoke before taking her into the smoking-room, where he made a light meal on whiskey and soda ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... that, most likely, she had never before been spoken to by a strange man adding to my assurance. I don't know why an emotional tenseness should have crept into the situation. But it did. And just as I was becoming aware of it a slight scream cut short my flow of urbane speech. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... room with the Duc de Grandlieu. Both were men of fifty-six or thereabouts, and still hale; both were short, corpulent, flourishing, somewhat florid-complexioned men with jaded eyes, and lower lips that had begun to hang already. But for an exquisite refinement of accent, an urbane courtesy, and an ease of manner that could change in a moment to insolence, a superficial observer might have taken them for a couple of bankers. Any such mistake would have been impossible, however, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... passes—she is kneeling by Sir Victor Catheron's side. "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" say the urbane tones of the rector of Chesholm, and the Right Honorable the Earl of Wroatmore comes forward on two rickety old legs and gives her. "If any one here present knows any just cause or impediment why this man should not be married to this woman, I charge him," etc., but no one knows. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... mouth as smooth as butter and as neatly dovetailed as a parquet floor. He had a sort of man-of-the-world manner, treating his opponents with condescending geniality, deprecating all passion and exaggeration and making you feel that his urbane statement must be right, for if he had wanted he could have put the case so much higher. I watched him, fascinated, studying his face carefully; and the thing that struck me was that there was nothing in it—nothing, that is to say, to ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... looking about her again—might pull off and cast aside an oppression of muffling crape. This admirable power still temperamentally to react and take notice lurks in all her darkness and dirt and decay—a something more careless and hopeless than our thrifty northern cheer, and yet more genial and urbane than the Parisian spirit of blague. The collective Roman nature is a healthy and hearty one, and you feel it abroad in the streets even when the sirocco blows and the medium of life seems to proceed more or less from the mouth of a furnace. But who shall analyse ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... voice and urbane manners and on a finger of his plump clean hand he displayed at moments a ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... How reconcile that urbane gunner-general, a genius among experts you were told, as the master of a thunderous magic which shot its deadly lightnings over the German area! Let him move a red pin on the map and a tractor was towing a nine-inch gun to a new position; a black pin and a battery of eighteen pounders took ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... with lips apart, had about it an air of immobility and quiet scorn, which was not the effect of muscular action, but of nature in repose. And in his whole appearance, features, attitude and look, there was a conscious pride and superiority over his opponents, which, though unpresuming and urbane, seemed to speak louder than words—"I ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... perfect net-work of lines about a mouth whose predominant expression was one of mingled cynicism and suspicion. There was suspicion, too, in his small black eyes, as well as a sort of lurking fierceness which not even his most urbane and elaborate smile could altogether eliminate. In person he was very thin and somewhat under the middle height, and had all the air of a confirmed valetudinarian. He was dressed as no English gentleman would care to be seen dressed in public. A long brown velvet coat trimmed ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... rather a good-looking fellow, a well-built, sound, red-bearded Englishman. His ears were not quite so close against his head as they should be; his lips might have had a more urbane expression; his hand might have been a trifle less weighty; but when he stood up with his back to the fire and looked musingly along the cornice of the room, one felt that his appearance on a platform ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... was depressing.' Among the neighbouring families, with whom he made acquaintance while at Wilmslow, were the Gregs of Quarry Bank, a refined and philanthropic household, including among the sons William R. Greg (born in the same year as Mr. Gladstone), that ingenious, urbane, interesting, and independent mind, whose speculations, dissolvent and other, were afterwards to take an effective place in the writings of the time. 'I fear he is a unitarian,' the young churchman mentions to his father, and gives sundry reasons for that sombre ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... of Pope Urbane And Valmond, emperor of Allemaine, Apparelled in magnificent attire, With retinue of many a knight and squire, On Saint John's eve, at vespers, proudly sat And heard the priests chant the Magnificat. And as he listened o'er and o'er again Repeated, like a burden or ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... and urbane fair-mindedness is called irony. Now irony is seriousness without solemnity. It assumes that man is a serio-comic animal, and that no treatment of his affairs can be appropriate which gives him a consistency ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... that Christian ministers are never called on by God's word to insult the convictions, or even the prejudices of their brethren, and that religion is at any rate not less susceptible of urbane and courteous conduct among men than any other study which men may take up. I am sorry to say that I cannot defend Mr. Slope's sermon in the cathedral. But come, my dear, put on your bonnet and let us walk round the dear old ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... unanimous; for everybody that had seen him appear (and he had been all over the town appearing to 'em, and endearin' himself to 'em, cleer out beyond Jonesville as far as Spoon Settlement and Loontown), why, they jest thought their eyes of him, he wus so thoughtful and urbane and helpful. Why, there hain't no tellin' how much helpfuler he wuz ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... a diplomatist in mind, moving in an entourage of state and worldly circumstance, occupied in the arts, constructing the grandest building of his time, learned without pedantry, agreeably cultivated in knowledge, urbane in his judgment of mankind, a power in the councils of his country, a voice in the destinies of the world—so we see him moving in a large and splendid orbit, complete in fine activities, dominant in his assured position, almost superhuman in success. And ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... pledge to any party issues, and so in his suave, affable fashion he went his way, liked by all men who knew him slightly, counted on by the few men who believed they knew him well, and hugely admired by that vast congregation of starers and gapers who passionately display their approval of an urbane, ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... hand in other ways. She would not let him be bearish and laughed at him when he was out of temper. She made him more urbane. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... was published. It is one of the primary social documents of America. It is as much Davy Crockett, whether going ahead after bears in a Tennessee canebrake or going ahead after General Andrew Jackson in Congress, as the equally plain but also urbane Autobiography of Franklin is Benjamin Franklin. It is undiluted regionalism. It is provincial not only in subject but ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... urbane and spent nearly half an hour of his valuable time with the principal. When the latter rose to go they shook hands. The two understood each ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... over this problem of a final separation from his kindred. It seems probable that it was, on the whole, the deepest emotional one that he had to solve. Both filial duty and natural affection were strong sentiments with him. One notices in these letters how courteous and urbane is the tone he uses, even when insisting most on the necessity which lies upon him to cut all the ties which bind him. This was a family trait. In a letter written to us last September in answer to a question, Mr. Charles A. Dana incidentally refers to a visit he ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... the Federal Court on the ground that he had induced Dodge to attempt to jump his bond. In place of the blustering Kaffenburgh was sent another member of the famous law firm of Howe and Hummel, David May, an entirely different type of man. May was as mild as a day in June—as urbane as Kaffenburgh had been insolent. He fluttered into Houston like a white dove of peace with the proverbial olive branch in his mouth. From now on the tactics employed by the representatives of Hummel were conciliatory in the ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... comfort." Leaning against the wall near the doorway, he contemplated with grave interest the striking countenance of his distinguished host. He detected beneath that courteous smile and that urbane manner the signs of care. The eye was absent, the cheek pinched, the brow furrowed. Kenelm turned away his looks, and glanced over the animated countenances of the idle loungers along commoner thoroughfares in life. Their eyes were not absent; their brows ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an afternoon in January, the usual routine had been preserved. The last of the callers, carrying off Mrs. Marshall-Smith with her, had taken an urbane, fair-spoken departure. Sylvia turned back from the door of the salon, feeling a fine glow of conscious amenity, and found that Austin Page's mood differed notably from her own. He had lingered for a tete-a-tete, as was so frequently his ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the urbane Trenta, remembering Nobili's liberal politics—"I mean no society. Society, as a system, has ceased to exist in Italy. But we must think of the cotillon. It is now twelve o'clock. There will be supper. Then we must soon begin. You, count, are to dance with Nera Boccarini. You came ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... Janot where the illustrious painter called us his children and handed us the sacred torch of his art for us to transmit, could we but keep it aflame, to succeeding generations; the Cafe Delphine, with Madame Boin, fat, pink, urbane, her hair a miracle of perrukery, enthroned behind the counter; my dear Master, Paragot, himself! How far away! It is not good to live to a hundred and fifty. The backward vista down the years is ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... children his native city will cherish him, and gratefully recall the unbending Puritan soul that dwelt in a form so gracious and urbane. The plain house in which he lived—severely plain, because the welfare of the suffering and the slave were preferred to books and pictures and every fair device of art; the house to which the north star led the trembling fugitive, and which the unfortunate ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... by those who aspire to urbane and liberal judgments because they think it can be defended on humanistic grounds. But, as a matter of fact, it is as offensive to the thoroughgoing humanist as it is to the sincere religionist. They have a common quarrel with it. Take, for example, the notorious naturalistic ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... difference in the Greek, since he talked on in his usual urbane way, and made no allusion of any sort the whole evening, either to the floral tribute he had sent, to his letter to Sir James, or to the little ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... his excuses with a tact and politeness which spoke of a time when he mixed freely with the world, and old Flood was so astonished by the ease and good-breeding of his visitor that his own manner became at once courteous and urbane. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... been persecuted by callers of many nationalities; a strange grey-haired woman with the inspired eyes of a Sita who had addressed him as Master and acclaimed him one long expected, and a party of little brown men, turbaned and urbane, from India, who spoke of the Vishnu-Purana, hailing him as a brother, and whose presence had conjured up pictures of the forests of Hindustan. A dignified Chinaman, too, armed with letters of introduction, had presented him with a wonderful ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... Tagals after they were deprived of their houses in Manila, among whom were the families of Raja Matanda and Raja Soliman. San Augustin says that even in his day many of the ancient nobility dwelt there, and that they where very urbane and cultured. "The Men hold various positions in Manila, and certain occupations in some of the local public functions. The women make excellent lace, in which they are so skilfull that the Dutch women cannot surpass them." This is still ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... genteel, urbane, civil, cultivated, gracious, well-behaved, complaisant, cultured, obliging, well-bred, courteous, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... claimed us as salvage, and we were soon enjoying his generous hospitality. In this isolated town, once a busy cotton-shipping port, there was a population of about one thousand souls, among whom, conspicuous for his urbane manners and scientific ability, lived Dr. A. W. Chapman, the author of the "Flora of the ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... tried to make the lot of the captive Israelites easier; but the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and God Himself must intervene before he would let the people go. Nor does it help that the slaves themselves are grateful for hard-won privileges, and that we read urbane descriptions of smiling and rosy felons working on state roads in "Don't Worry" camps. Is it ground for congratulation that the very victims of the specious pretense of the eternal right and necessity of prisons should have ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... Percy Draymore, overgroomed for a gentleman, fat, good-humoured, and fashionable—one of the famous Draymore family noted solely for their money and their tight grip on it; then came Sanxon Orchil, the famous banker and promoter, small, urbane, dark, with that rich almost oriental coloring which he may have inherited from his Cordova ancestors who found it necessary to dehumanise their names when Rome offered them the choice with ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... before a blazing sea-coal fire, in his cozy study, in comfortable, after-dinner mood. He lay back in his cushioned and carved arm-chair, a florid, portly, urbane prelate, with iron-gray hair and patriarchal whiskers, a steaming glass of wine punch at his elbow, that day's paper open upon his lap, an overfed pussy purring at his knee, the genius of comfort personified in ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... obvious that they must walk in couples. Arrived at its edge, the princess stopped and looked round with an urbane smile. "My dear child," she said to Anna, taking her arm, "we have been keeping Herr von Treumann from his mother regardless of his feelings. I beg you to pardon my thoughtlessness," she added, turning to him, "but my interest in hearing of my old friends' sons has made me quite forget ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... the Palace in the morning at eleven, and the Inglesi, as they had named David, at ten. But they declared to all who crowded upon their words that the Inglesi left the Palace with a face frozen white, as though it was he that had met debacle, while Nahoum had been as urbane and cynical as though he had come to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... He was civil and urbane in the entertainment of his guests, and requested them to consider themselves as his children. It was on this occasion he told Lord Byron, that he discovered his noble blood by the smallness of his hands and ears: a remark which has become proverbial, and is acknowledged not to be without ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... aspects of the urban activity of vast multitudes of industrials combining to assist each one in his fellow in the struggle for existence and fullness of life. The forces revealed are full of danger, the temper is ugly, the manners are always urbane, the judgment not always well informed, the range of knowledge often limited; but there is wondrous power, vigor, and the chaotic promise of a better and larger morality than anything the churches yet have taught, or the mere book students have ever dreamed. Miss Jane Addams has discovered this ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... they are excellent company, pleasant companions, good-natured, easy-going, and urbane. Their self-conceit is inordinate, and remains undiminished in spite of repeated failures in the most important affairs of life. They see themselves fall immeasurably behind those who are admittedly their inferiors ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... city in the world? . . . Oh, yes, you use it, fast enough, whenever you go back to Cambridge and play the condescending metropolitan in Combination Room. There, seventy minutes from Liverpool Street, you pose—yes, pose, Jack—as the urbane man, Horatius Flaccus life-size; whereas your job as a citizen is confined to cursing the rates, swearing if a pit in the wood pavement jolts you on the way home from the theatre, supposing it's somebody's business, supposing ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... laughter. Yet he was as witty as anyone of whom we have record, and some of the best epigrams in English are his. "The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" is better than the best of La Rochefoucauld, as good as the best of Vauvenargues or Joubert. He was as wittily urbane as Congreve. But all the witty things that one man can say may be numbered on one's fingers. It was through his humour that Wilde reigned supreme. It was his humour that lent his talk its singular attraction. He was the only man I have ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... first; the directors rose as one man, urbane, sprightly, and gallant. She was exceedingly pretty; they recognised ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... the easy grace and native harmony of his verse he outsings all the tragedians, even that Aeschylus whom he praised as the man who had written the most exquisite songs of any poet of the time. In his blank verse he easily strikes every note, from that of the urbane, unaffected, colloquial Attic, to parody of high or subtle tragic diction hardly distinguishable from its model. He can adapt his metres to the expression of every shade of feeling. He has short, snapping, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... find them in town that afternoon. This led to a little homily from Mr. Carteret which made him feel quite guilty; there was such an implication of neglected duty in the way the old man said, "You won't do them justice—you won't do them justice." He talked for ten minutes, in his rich, simple, urbane way, about the fatal consequences of getting behind. It was his favourite doctrine that one should always be a little before, and his own eminently regular respiration seemed to illustrate the idea. A man was certainly before who had ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... was editor of Putnam's Magazine at the time of its failure in 1857, and undertook to pay up every creditor, a task which consumed sixteen years. He wrote the Easy Chair papers in Harper's Monthly. A volume of these essays contains some of his easiest, most urbane, and humorous writings. They are light and in the vein of Addison's Spectator. In Orations and Addresses are to be found some of his strongest and most polished speeches on moral, historical, and ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... said Mr Dorrit, 'I took the liberty' (he laid an emphasis on the phrase and repeated it, as though he stipulated, with urbane firmness, that he must not be contradicted again), 'I took the liberty of requesting this interview, in order that I might mention the topic to you, and inquire how you ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... partner, was the youngest in the firm. He was a good-looking, urbane, well-mannered man, who, if not always loved by those under him, was much liked and respected in the social circle in which he moved, he being also one of the magnates of Liverpool. For my own part, I had reason to like and be grateful to Mr Swab, the junior ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... contented nature, and bear their poverty with cheerfulness and even dignity. While they partake of the ardour and strong temper which characterize the inhabitants of the South of France, they are probably, on the whole, more grave and staid than Frenchmen generally, and are thought to be more urbane and intelligent; and though they are unmanageable by force, they are remarkably accessible to kindness ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... a small restaurant of foreign appearance. The outside, which had once been painted white, was now more than a little dingy. Greyish-colored muslin blinds were stretched across the front windows. Within, the smell of cooking was all-pervading. A short dark man, with black moustache and urbane smile, greeted us at the door, and led us ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... amused to hear a major called "Meejor," but was unaware that the sound arose from Pat's affection of English softness of speech. The expression natural to the unadulterated Irishman would rather be "Ma-ajor." He discovers his own provincialism, and trying to be polite and urbane, he says "Meejor." In one of the lines I have quoted there occurs the word "troat." Such a sound never came naturally from the mouth of an Irishman. He puts in an h instead of omitting it, and says "dhrink." He comes to London, and finding out that ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... urbane African—naturally called Delmonico by the habitues of the Nocturnal Club—found his time crowded in serving bottled beer, sandwiches, or boiled eggs to the groups ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... and self-possession were unequalled, and approached, as nearly as possible, to perfection. Amidst all the distracting multiplicity of his engagements—the sudden and harassing emergencies arising incessantly out of his prodigious practice—he preserved an urbane tranquillity which gave him on all occasions the full possession of his extraordinary faculties, enabled him to concentrate them instantly upon whatever was submitted to his attention, however suddenly—and to conquer without irritating or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... Augustus Sala, and I know not how many others, from abroad. No catalogue of them, but only types can be given here. He was almost never without people who made no claim to distinction; and to them, too, he was the genial, urbane, and entertaining host. ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... the meanwhile put his crumpled toilet in order and now turned with an urbane smile to ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... trace of the wistful melancholy of his verse. It is almost always urbane, vivacious, light-hearted. The classical bent of his mind shows itself here, unmixed with the inheritance of romantic feeling which colors his poetry. Not only is his prose classical in quality, by virtue of its restraint, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... his lips, the warm, cheering light in his bright blue eyes, won the perfect trust, the profound respect, the lasting love and veneration of those who entered the charmed circle of his influence. Learned without pedantry, dignified but not pompous, genial and urbane; never forgetting the sanctity of his mission, though never thrusting its credentials into notice; judging the actions of all with a leniency which he denied to his own; zealous without bigotry, charitable yet rigidly ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... rose without apparent embarrassment to meet the gentleman who entered, though I knew she could not help but feel keenly the niggardly appearance of the board she left with such grace. The stranger—he was certainly a stranger; this I could see by the formality of her manner—was a gentleman of urbane bearing and a ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... new departure in Negro journalism. If ever persuaded to forget for a moment, and be drawn from his business cares, you will find him a pleasant entertainer, both in music and conversation, for beneath his seeming austere countenance there lies an urbane streak of humor, piquant with wit and pleasant cynicisms, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... surgeon by much in the north of England. He had by one whole generation run before the phrenologists and craniologists,—having already measured innumerable skulls amongst the omnigenous seafaring population of Liverpool, illustrating all the races of men,—and was in society a most urbane and pleasant companion. On my mother's suggestion, he had been summoned to Laxton, in the hope that he might mitigate the torments of Mrs. Schreiber's malady. If I am right in supposing that to have been cancer, I presume that he could ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Clark in point of business importance, among the first men in the city. His stock consists of Jewelry and Silver Wares, and consequently, are always valuable, requiring a heavy capital to keep up business. His name and paper, has a respectable credit, even among the urbane denizens ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... is an agonizing task. In all mental suffering the sufferer longs for solitude,—for permission to cast himself loose along the ground, so that every limb and every feature of his person may faint in sympathy with his heart. A grandly urbane deportment over a crushed spirit and ruined hopes is beyond the physical strength of most men;—but there have been men so strong. Melmotte very nearly accomplished it. It was only to the eyes of such a one as Herr Croll ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... the bear-skin in her canoe, with her hat over her face, declaring it too hot to eat, but consuming, under protest, a croquette occasionally tossed in for her sustenance. Miss Prosody, quite genial and urbane after luncheon, was deep in consultation with the boatman as to the locality of certain ferns she proposed spudding up for her pet rockery at "The Maples," where her lighter hours were diurnally spent in ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... perfect on you," she remarked in honied accents. "It was one of my best models last season, and as I said before, Madame, you are so fortunate as to wear your clothes with a grace." She was urbane, but she was anxious to be rid of her, this young Mrs. Fowler could see at a glance. "Your head is well set on your shoulders, and that is rare—very rare! It would surprise you to know how few women have heads that are well set on their shoulders. Yes, I understand. You wish ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... taking some notes about civic pride," said the urbane stranger, as he wandered into the up-to-date community. "I suppose ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... Government received it next year in exchange for a valuable French manuscript which was in the Royal Library at Copenhagen. This little national treasure, the only piece of contemporary writing of the History, has been carefully photographed and edited by that enthusiastic and urbane scholar, Christian Bruun. In the opinion both of Dr. Vigfusson and M. Paris, the writing dates from about 1200; and this date, though difficult to determine, owing to the paucity of Danish MSS. of the 12th and early ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... give me any news of my friend Thrackles?" asked Darrow lightly. "Or the esteemed Pulz? Or the scholarly and urbane Robinson of ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was Barry Creston himself: a new type, and a disconcerting one. He was not at all the "gilded youth" whom Thyrsis had expected to find; he was a man of about thirty, widely cultured, urbane and gracious in his manner, and quite evidently a man of force. He was altogether free from that crude egotism which Thyrsis had found to be the most prominent characteristic of the American man of wealth. He spoke in French with Armand and in Italian ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... appetite was not unusual among these South Sea giants. I noticed that he ate more than three pounds of pig and a quart of poi after all his previous devastation of shellfish, feis, chicken, and taro, besides two fish as big as both my hands. My right-hand neighbor was Mr. Davey, an urbane and unreserved American, who informed me in a breath that he was a dentist, a graduate of Harvard University, seventy-two years old, and had been in Tahiti forty-two years. He called his granddaughter of eighteen to meet me, and she brought her infant. Only he of his tribe could speak English, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... William, surnamed Rufus or William the Red, second sonne to William Conqueror, began his reigne ouer England the ninth of September, in the yeare 1087. about the 31. yeare of the emperour Henrie the fourth, and the 37. of Philip the first, king of France, Urbane the second then gouerning the see of Rome, and Malcolme Cammoir reigning in Scotland. [Sidenote: Polydor. Sim. Dunel. Matth. Paris.] Immediatlie after his fathers deceasse, and before the solemnitie ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (2 of 12) - William Rufus • Raphael Holinshed
... verse, and during his whole life he wrote practically no other kind. Long practice gave him an easy command of rhythm, and a careful training added delicacy to his diction. He became remarkably dexterous in rhyme, and grew to be the recognized celebrant of class reunions and public dinners. Urbane, felicitous and possessing an unflagging humor, he was the prince of after-dinner poets—not a lofty position, be it observed, nor one making for immortal fame. His highwater mark was reached in three poems, "The Chambered Nautilus," "The Deacon's Masterpiece," and that faultless ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... years of age, a tall, stately, handsome man, of noble presence and urbane manner. Born of the patrician house of Sandoval, he possessed, on the accession of Philip, an inherited income of ten or twelve thousand dollars. He had now, including what he had bestowed on his son, a funded revenue of seven hundred ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... day of Sir Marmaduke's martyrdom. He was first requested, with most urbane politeness, to explain the exact nature of the government which he exercised in the Mandarins. Now it certainly was the case that the manner in which the legislative and executive authorities were intermingled in the affairs of these islands, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... disfeaturing him; and the mysterious visitor to the palatial mansion in Holywell Street indicates possibilities in the Oriental imagination of the eminent statesman who stooped to conquer fact through fiction. Thackeray's attitude in his great novels is that of the composedly urbane lecturer, on a level with a select audience, assured of interesting, above requirements to excite. The slow movement of the narrative has a grace of style to charm like the dance of the Minuet de la Cour: it is the limpidity of Addison flavoured with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ornamented with a carved railing in front, and decorated with grotesque gables and ornaments. The present proprietors are also two maiden ladies, who seem disposed to perpetuate the conventual celebrity of this place; and are certainly not less urbane than the former possessors, in permitting visitors to gratify their taste in the inspection of the beautiful grounds. Attended by my cicerone, the gardener, I passed from one object of natural ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... there, with none so poor to do him reverence! He was a type—and, by reason of his happy temperament, an exceedingly favourable type—of the 'gentleman,' shifting for himself under normal conditions of back-country life. Urbane address, faultless syntax, even that good part which shall not be taken away, namely, the calm consciousness of inherent superiority, are of little use here. And yet your Australian novelist finds no inconsistency in placing the bookish student, or the city dandy, many degrees ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... amused blushes and smiles of her mother. The other young ladies came forward and joined in the conversation, but Miss Carmichael did not show her face until the family was summoned for prayers. The colonel came down in his usual urbane smiling way, saying that he had taken the liberty of looking in upon his dear friend and prisoner, and was rejoiced to find that he had spent a good night. The captain could be heard descending the staircase, and telling somebody ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... to comprehend the position of women in the primitive Church, is strikingly shown in Chalmers' commentary on the fact that Paul used exactly the same title in addressing Priscilla that he uses in greeting Urbane, Although conceding that Priscilla had shared the work of an Apostle in teaching Apollos "the way of God more perfectly," and, although he knows nothing whatever of Urbane's work, yet Chalmers unhesitatingly concludes that Urbane's ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... was a short man, but particularly well set up, and in his wig and gown he carried himself with a dignity which fully made up for the lack of inches. His voice was mellow, and his utterance slightly pompous, so that the lightest word which fell from his lips conveyed a sense of urbane majesty. He looked what he was, and what the traditions of the House required—a country gentleman of the highest type. One of the most noticeable traits was his complexion, fresh and rosy as a boy's. I well remember one day, after a stormy "all-night sitting," saying to his train-bearer, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... them the agent, smiling, urbane, pleasing as to manner—but not too pleasing; urbanity mixed, so to speak, with the ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... is blue, and has an eagle-like expression, when excited by stern or angry emotion; but, in ordinary social intercourse, the whole expression of his countenance is mild and pleasing, and his manners and conversation are unaffected, urbane, and conciliatory, without the slightest exhibition of vanity or egotism. He appears the cool, brave, and energetic soldier; the strict disciplinarian, without tyranny; the man, in short, determined to perform his duty, in whatever situation he may be placed, leaving consequences to follow ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... weddings that occur in this town; we have been using a repressed and obsolete style which is painful to those who enter into the joyous spirit of such occasions, and last night's wedding in the family of the patrician Skinners we assigned to our gentlemanly and urbane Mr. J. Mortimer Montague, late of the publicity department of the world-famed Robinson Circus and Menagerie. The following graceful account from Mr. Montague's facile pen is the most accurate and satisfactory report of a nuptial ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... light-hearted as he generally was, was for one moment also absolutely paralysed with amazement and concern, then saying hurriedly, "Forgive me, Lady Chaloner, I must go and see what has happened," he quickly followed. Lord Stamfordham drew up his chair to the table and sat down. His urbane, genial manner had returned, and he spoke as though nothing had happened; the rest instantly took their ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell |
