"Amenities" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... touchiness as to points wherein Europe, with its settled and polished civilization, must needs be our superior; and are quite indifferent about those things by which our real strength is constituted. Can we not be content to learn from Europe the graces, the refinements, the amenities of life, so long as we are able to teach her life itself? For my part, I never saw in England any appurtenance of civilization, calculated to add to the convenience and commodiousness of existence, that did not seem to me to surpass ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... minin' sharp," said Dave, turning about and reaching for the shrinking Banker. "Come here, Jim, and say howdy, if you ain't herded with burros so long you've forgotten human amenities that a way. Mad'mo'selle ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... passive than an active character. The affections are strong and their foundations lie deep: but they are not—such affections seldom are—wide-spreading; nor do they show themselves on the surface. Indeed, there is little display of any of the amenities of life among this wild, rough population. Their accost is curt; their accent and tone of speech blunt and harsh. Something of this may, probably, be attributed to the freedom of mountain air and of isolated hill-side life; something be derived ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... The magistrates, hearing of the incident, and not choosing to be outdone in courtesy, sent back a waggon-load of old wine and remarkable confectionary as an offering to Alexander, and with this interchange of dainties led the way to the amenities of diplomacy. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and Moravia. The reign of Vladislav I (as King) is relieved by a certain picturesqueness, by a touch of romance, from the usual sordid course of events in the life of the P[vr]emysl dynasty with its rivalries, treachery, conspiracies and other social amenities of the time. There is even something picturesque in the fact that the Pope had felt obliged to send Cardinal Guido with a special mission to establish order among the Bohemian clergy. These amiable gentlemen would persist in entering the bonds of matrimony; if Bohemian ladies were as attractive ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... Tea is but an attempt to revive an old custom, and for those whom fortune has favored with leisure for social amenities at that hour, it furnishes an agreeable and informal occasion for exchange of courtesies and for harmless gossip or even more ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... steadily for a minute with arching brows. "I wonder why they say of you that you have no social amenities?" she observed mockingly. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... the columned county hall, Mid-most before his eyes, Alerter dog and loitering maid Cross from the sunlight to the shade, And small amenities of trade ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... Dr. Henderson found toiling cheerfully with his beloved parishioners in the hay-harvest of the brief arctic summer, combine with the vigorous diction and robust thought of their predecessors the warm and genial humanity of a religion of love and the graces and amenities of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... radiant enough to transport a phrenologist. His eyes are as dark and fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine-leaves; his mouth generous and good-humored, with dimples." He adds,—"He was lively, polite, bustling, full of amenities and acquiescences, into which he contrived to throw a sort of roughening cordiality, like the crust of old Port. It seemed a happiness to him to say 'Yes.'" Jeffrey, in one of his letters, says of him,—"He is the sweetest-blooded, warmest-hearted, happiest, hopefullest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... fashion that suggested brilliant gymnastic powers. To pass a dish to any one, the governess discovered, was construed as an evidence of mental weakness and eccentricity. The family satisfied its appetite without assistance or amenities, but with the skill of a ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... the thing called a mujlis.[33] In our boyhood we beheld the dying rays of that intimate sociability which was characteristic of the last generation. Neighbourly feelings were then so strong that the mujlis was a necessity, and those who could contribute to its amenities were in great request. People now-a-days call on each other on business, or as a matter of social duty, but not to foregather by way of mujlis. They have not the time, nor are there the same intimate relations! What goings and comings we used to see, how merry were the rooms and verandahs with ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... these graceful amenities we must turn to the lyrical poems. The Satires and Epistles, as their author frequently reminds us, were in prose: the revealed Horatian secret, the condensed expression of the Horatian charm, demanded musical verse; and this we have in the Odes and Epodes. The word Ode is Greek for a Song; ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... escape was possible, for any man of capacity or character at all exceeding the average, into the middle and upper classes, for whom life offered, at a low cost and with the least trouble, conveniences, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages. The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... residences, paying from 50 cents to $2 per week, and find board in families or clubs at a cost of $2 to $3 per week. The students boarding in clubs are comparatively free from restraints, and often fail to cultivate the social amenities and table manners which should characterize a cultivated gentleman. For this reason, boarding in private families, where a woman's presence usually lends grace and dignity to social life at the table, is better for the student. The college student cannot afford, for the ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... that precious pair, Mackenzie thought, and of a sort not likely to turn out of much profit to either them or anybody else. Carlson was a plain human brute without any sense of honor, or any obligation to the amenities of civilized society; Reid was simply ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... Then he discussed the latest novel at dinner with a distinguished personage; and having smoked an invisible cigar, interspersed with such wit as accords with walnuts and wine, after the ladies had retired, he entered the drawing-room, exchanged parting amenities with the guests, bade his hostess good night, and ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... the bitter hostility to refined manners which marks the ignorant "lower classes." On the other hand, there is no more hopeful sign of progress in civilization than the gradual softening of these hard natures under the influence of social amenities. The secret of successful missionary work lies primarily, not in tracts, nor in dogmas, nor in exhortations, but in the subtle attraction of a refined, benevolent spirit, breathing its very self into the lives ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... for months in an Antarctic hut, it is a splendid thing to have more than the mere necessaries of life. Since one is cut off from the ordinary amenities of social existence, it is particularly necessary that equipment and food should be of the very best; in some measure to replace a lack which sooner or later makes itself keenly felt. Explorers, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Roman Catholic, could not take it, and said as much, but offered his own declaration of friendliness to the powers that were. This was declined. Debate followed, ending with a request from the Assembly that the visitor depart from Virginia. Some harshness of speech ensued, but hospitality and the amenities fairly saved the situation. One Thomas Tindall was pilloried for "giving my lord Baltimore the lie and threatening to knock him down." Baltimore thereupon set sail, but not, perhaps, until he had gained that knowledge ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... of natural beauty can have nothing that is acquisitive or reproductive about it. There is no physical instinct to which it can be referred; it arouses no sense of proprietorship; it cannot be connected with any impulse for self-preservation. If it were merely aroused by tranquil, comfortable amenities of scene, it might be referable to the general sense of well-being, and of contented life under pleasant conditions. But it is aroused just as strongly by prospects that are inimical to life and comfort, lashing storms, inaccessible peaks, desolate moors, wild sunsets, foaming seas. It is a sense ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... it, Goggle-eyed-guinea-pig." Grizzel got up and walked off, her sun-bonnet dangling down her back and her red curls waving over her head. No one took any notice of these little amenities. No one remembered that the ointment which ran down Aaron's beard was like brethren dwelling together in unity—a good and pleasant thing. They were all brothers or sisters and accustomed to such mellifluous ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... naturally evil temper. Often under his sway the somber and the stoical become gay and impulsive, while the joyful sink into despondency. But with Robert Wharton, liquor intensified a natural agreeableness until it cloyed. His amenities were monstrously magnified; he became convivial to the point of offensiveness. In the course of this metamorphosis he was many things, and through such a cycle he worked to-night while the girl ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... the cases of those selected it will be seen that the fierce contention has commonly involved the sacrifice of conjugal happiness, the welfare of children, domestic peace, reputation, and all the amenities ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the means, this should absolutely absorb every energy and every thought and every desire of every moment. This world is a bridge of straw over the roaring gulf of eternal fire. Is there leisure for sport and business, or room for science and literature, or mood for pleasures and amenities? No: to get ourselves and our friends into the magic car of salvation, which will waft us up from the ravenous crests of the brimstone lake packed with visages of anguish, to bind around our souls the floating cord of redemption, which ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... sinking and suffering at our very side, and to teach them that there is no natural inalienable connection between labor and coarseness, ignorance and servility; that man, though compelled to win his bread by the sweat of his brow, may still enjoy all those graceful amenities of which woman was the type in Paradise and is the promoter here; that the light of knowledge and the divine light of faith may still cheer him in his pursuits and guide him to his rest. It seems to me that to bring out these principles fairly ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... fond of Esper Indiman, but there are times when he is positively unfit for human society. Last week, for instance, when for three days on end we did not exchange a single word, not even at dinner, where the amenities should come on at least with the walnuts. I grant you that humdrum wears upon the spirit, that the flatness of the daily road may be a harder thing to get over than even Mr. Bunyan's hill Difficulty, but for a man to surrender himself mind ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... go to observe the proprieties and amenities on a fitting occasion—but at present we are in the midst of a pressing engagement. He will have to wait till ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... continued quietly, "with regard to the safe conduct of this country, have been handed over to the military authorities, which in this particular case I represent. We are in no position for amenities or courtesies. Our country is in the gravest danger and nothing else is of the slightest possible significance. The charge which we have accepted we shall carry out with regard to one thing only, and that is our idea of what is ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... labor, the patient pains of science on the edge of great discoveries, the slowly increasing spirit of toleration, pity, and humanity, the gradual spread of education, the widening realms of knowledge, the increasing appreciation of the decencies and amenities of life—all these things make the reign of George the Third the hopeful preface to the reign of greater length, greater glory, greater promise and greater fulfilment that was to dawn when two more sovereigns of the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... won't get the chance," rejoined our sister, claiming her right of the last word. There was no heat about these little amenities, which made up—as we understood it—the art of ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... same kind of reason, it appears to me that we all think that peace is a blessing, and war a curse. For under peace commerce and industry prosper; science and the arts flourish; friendships are made and adorn the amenities of life. Moreover, our religious traditions in all Christian countries, and in some non-Christian ones like China, influence us to believe that war is wrong, indefensible, and, in the present year of our Lord, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... days since I last put a pipe into my mouth. To tell the truth, I shall buy the tobacco without acquainting you with the fact, although I ought not so to do. The pity of it all is that, while you are depriving yourself of everything, I keep solacing myself with various amenities— which is why I am telling you this, that the pangs of conscience may not torment me. Frankly, I confess that I am in desperate straits—in such straits as I have never yet known. My landlady flouts me, and I enjoy the respect ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... which he covers them with praise, commending their courtesy, their humility, their openness and the care with which they bring up their children. A few pieces of political satire show us French and English exchanging amenities on their mutual shortcomings. The Roman des Francais, by Andre de Coutances, was written on the continent, and cannot be quoted as Anglo-Norman although it was composed before 1204 (cf. Gaston Paris: Trois versions rimees de l'evangile de Nicodeme, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... men with money had leagued themselves together to stop me from going on. Somehow I beat them, one by one—big engineers, financiers, financiers' syndicates, corporations—working late and working early, sinking every dollar made in another venture, and living any way. There were no amenities in that fight until those we had against us found that it was wiser to keep ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... was in high spirits when she ensconced herself at the top of Margery's seat—which was a much better observatory than her aunt's pew—where every thing could be seen that was interesting and amusing within the four walls. Besides, there were small amenities connected with a seat in nurse's pew which had great attractions for Grace when she was a little girl, and had still a lingering charm for her. In the pew behind there sat a worthy couple, friends of Margery, who exchanged ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... married women. However, they all seemed to know that I was a desirable match and they gradually transferred their attentions to me, the girls in their own interests and the older matrons in those of their marriageable daughters. Their crude amenities sickened me. One middle-aged woman tried to monopolize me by a confidential talk concerning the ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Woburn's mother and sister, embittered by this final evasion, settled down to a vindictive war with circumstances. They were the kind of women who think that it lightens the burden of life to throw over the amenities, as a reduced housekeeper puts away her knick-knacks to make the dusting easier. They fought mean conditions meanly; but Woburn, in his resentment of their attitude, did not allow for the suffering which had brought it about: his own tendency was to overcome difficulties ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... his revolver, Lord Emsworth said, "Who is there? Speak!" in rather an aggrieved tone, as though he felt he had done his part in breaking the ice, and it was now for the intruder to exert himself and bear his share of the social amenities. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... warm greeting to her sister of the West, feeling not only the strong bonds of the literary amenities, but the far stronger ties of patriotism and loyalty, so ably defined in the opening article of the North Pacific. Loyalty is indeed something more than fidelity to one's country and Government, based upon a sense of interest ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that worthy commission merchant, he did not impart to his ma and the partner of his bosom, but locked up in the vault of his own breast. Mr. Van B. gloried in being what he called a self-made man. He was proud of his nasal twang and his want of grammar, and all amenities and decencies of speech. He regarded them as inseparable from his success. He even affected them in the company of those who were peculiarly elegant, and was secretly suspicious of the mercantile paper of all men who were unusually neat in their appearance, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... while living abroad she had often met American girls—intelligent women, well bred, the finest stuff in the world—who suffered under a disadvantage, because they lacked a little training in the social amenities. ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... bore his teacher, and the influence of her beauty, began to mould him, in his kind and degree, after her likeness, so that he grew nice in his person and dress, and smoothed the roughness and moderated the broadness of his speech with the amenities of the English which she made so sweet upon her tongue. He became still more obedient to his grandmother, and more diligent at school; gathered to himself golden opinions without knowing it, and was gradually developing into ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Clements, I do love you, and your children, and your wife, for there is the charm of heart about you all: in yourself, in your Maria, in that fine frank youth, and those dear warm girls up stairs" (every word was bravoed to the echo), "in every one of you, all the charities and amenities, all the kindnesses and the cheerfulness of life appear to be embodied; you love both God and man; the rich and the poor alike may bless you, Clements, and your admirable Maria; whilst, as for yourselves, you may both well ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... at him a second time she was fully convinced that she loved him. She was, perhaps, carried off her feet a little—metaphorically speaking, of course—by his evident sincerity. At that moment she would have done anything that he had asked her. The pleasures of society, the social amenities of aristocratic life, seemed to have vanished suddenly into thin air, and only love was left. She had always known that Jack Meredith was superior in a thousand ways to all her admirers. More gentlemanly, more truthful, honester, nobler, more worthy of love. Beyond that, ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... of political excitement the social amenities were not forgotten. A brilliant reception[78] and supper were given to the delegates by Mrs. Spofford at the Riggs House. During the evening Mrs. Stanton presented the beautiful life-size photograph of Lucretia Mott which had ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... meshes of the law. Otherwise he may find unpleasant surprises in store for him. Had Mr. Mercer made it his business to acquire some rudiments of this useful knowledge, he would never have undergone that outrageous official ill-treatment which has become a byword in the annals of international amenities. And if these strictures be considered too severe, let us see what Italians themselves have to say. In 1900 was published a book called "La Quistione Meridionale" (What's Wrong with the South), that ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... subsist outside of the system of which it was a part, furnished just the sort of a control—gentle yet resistless—which was needed by the recently emancipated bondsman. On the other hand, the universal education and the refinements and amenities of life which came with the economic welfare presently brought to all alike by the new order, meant for the colored race even more as a civilizing agent than it did to the white population which ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... John Taylor forsook social amenities and pulled himself together. "Well," shortly, "now for that talk—ready?" And quite forgetting Miss Cresswell, he bolted into ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... in her presence—and still ashamed. He had never taken stock of his own deficiencies very particularly. His environment had not prompted it. He had been superior to the men he had ruled. He realized now that the little amenities of life which make for poise and ease must be lived, not simply learned. In taking thought lest he err he found himself proceeding awkwardly. His training in the past had led him to set work and ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... enough for it, and you will perhaps comprehend how it is that I find a great crack in my life. On the farther side are prosperity, science, literature, philosophy, religion, society, all the refinements, and amenities, and benevolences, and purities of life,—in short, all the arts of peace, and civilization, and Christianity,—and on this side—moving. You will also understand why that one word comprises, to my thinking, all the discomforts short of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... vegetables, on acetaria, soups, and sauces; while the closing chapters on dining tables, dining-room decoration, table service, art in eating and on being invited to dine, have, to all who would further the amenities of civilization, a value that needs ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... the colonists manifest themselves at first in curious contrast to the primitive surroundings. The struggle between organized life and chaos, the laborious subjugation of nature to the requirements of our complex modern life, for a considerable period absorb the energies of the colonists. The amenities of culture, the higher intellectual life, the refinements of art can, during this period, receive little attention. Meanwhile a new national character is being formed; the people are undergoing the moral training upon which ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... respects Anson resembles a rough diamond, his brusque manner and impulsive temper needing the keen polish of the refining wheel of the conventional amenities of life to make his inherent worth shine forth in its full brilliancy. Anson, too, reminds one somewhat of that old Western pioneer, Davy Crockett, inasmuch as his practical motto is, 'When you know you're right, go ahead.' This latter ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... growth, when not rather of the arrest, of manners and customs roundabout our birthplace. I think we had never been so much as during these particular months disinherited of the general and public amenities that reinforce for the young private precept and example—disinherited in favour of dust and glare and mosquitoes and pigs and shanties and rumshops, of no walks and scarce more drives, of a repeated no less than of a strong emphasis on the more sordid sides of the Irish aspect in things. ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... atrocious wickedness of a great, big, hearty, huge, hulking, horse-laugh, in an assemblage of ladies and gentlemen, gathered gracefully together to enjoy the courtesies, the amenities, the urbanities, and the humanities of cultivated Christian life! The pagan who perpetrates it should be burnt alive—not at a slow fire—though that would be but justice—but at a quick one—that all remnants of him ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... national shrewd simplicity invincible. There is a story told of her girlhood that, one day playing in the Tuileries gardens, she was approached by a gentleman with a waxed mustache and a still more waxen cheek beneath his heavy-lidded eyes. There was an exchange of polite amenities. ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... almost inconceivable outrage against all right, in moral, social, or even superior animal existence. Few animals or even reptiles devour their kind. It is, therefore, an act repugnant to human nature, and in violation of the amenities even of a nobler animal existence. In a word, it is unmitigated wrong, showing its subjects and votaries to be ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... in the eyes of the more morose English tourist. After many hours spent in the open air most of us prefer the quiet of our own rooms. The country, too, is so fresh and delicious that we want nothing in the shape of social distraction. Drawing-room amenities seem a waste of time under such circumstances. Nevertheless the glimpses of French life thus obtained are pleasant, and make us realize the fact that we are off the beaten track, living among French folks, for the time ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... deal of time spent in the kindergarten on the cultivation of politeness and courtesy; and in the entirely social atmosphere which is one of its principal features, the amenities of polite society can ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... prisoners had been brought from Cholet; they were shut up in the church at St. Laurent, and the officers agreed that they must be put to death. At first, the Convention had not allowed the men whom the royalists released to serve again. But these amenities of civilised war had long been abolished; and the prisoners were sure to be employed against the captors who spared them. Bonchamps gave these men their lives, and on the same day he died. When, at ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... said Kent as he laughingly dodged. "The gentle amenities could not cluster more thickly around our fireside, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... the hand, whilst he was practising all the amenities with his countenance, he opened the parlour-door, where the supposititious visitor was expected to be found, and lo! the room was empty. Mrs Root and the servants were summoned, and they all positively declared, and were willing to swear to the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... disliked. He fancied that he was imitating his great ancestor, and asserting the virtue of good old Roman bluntness against modern Greek affectation; he did not in the least see that he was himself a curious example of Roman affectation, shown up by the real amenities of intercourse, for which Romans had largely ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... poverty,—dwelling in low, dark, smoky huts, with earthen floors,—it is yet wonderful to see how these people preserve not merely the decencies, but even the amenities of life. Their clothes are a chaos of patches, but one sees no rags; all their well-worn white garments are white in the superlative degree; and when their scanty supply of water is at the scantiest, every bare foot on the island is sure to be washed in warm ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Such amenities as these did not increase the popularity of Ernest with the high-spirited Spaniards, nor was it palatable to them that it should be proposed to supersede the old fighting Portuguese, Verdugo, as governor and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the parish of Sorn, Ayrshire. From his mother, a woman of much originality and shrewdness, he inherited a strong inclination towards intellectual culture. His school education was circumscribed, but he experienced delight in improving his mind, by solitary musings amidst the amenities of the vicinity of Galston, a village to which his father had removed. At the age of seven, he began to assist his father in his occupation of a coal driver; and in his thirteenth year he was apprenticed to the loom. His master supplied him with books, which he perused with avidity, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Among the amenities of the old palace were the spacious and lovely gardens on the east, with their clipt hedges, avenues of trees, flower-beds and covered and frescoed walls, all kept fresh and green by channels of water. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... came to know and to exchange occasional social amenities with Adele Millis, a youthful actress, with Rosalie Faithorn, a handsome girl born to a formal social environment, but sufficiently independent to explore outside of it and snap her fingers at the ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... creed but the love of letters, seeking no end but the encouragement of learning, and imposing no conditions, which say lead to jealousy or ambitious strife. In short, we meet for peace and for union; to devote one day in the year to academical intercourse and the amenities of scholars."—p. 4. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... farther in you go, the worse it grows. Why, I pray to know, as the first inquiry suggested by Class-Day, is it necessary for boys' schools to be placed without the pale of civilization? Do boys take so naturally to the amenities of life that they can safely dispense with the conditions of amenity? When I entered those brick boxes, I felt as if I were going into a stable. Wood-work dingy, unpainted, gashed, scratched; windows dingy and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Thomas?" The old scientist's concession to the amenities did not extend to calling ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... brain of the poet. Without, the village street was paved with gold; the river ran red with the reflection of the leaves. Within, the faces of friends brightened the gloomy walls; the returning footsteps of the long-absent gladdened the threshold; and all the sweet amenities of social life again resumed their ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... exempt him from the ordinary amenities of human intercourse. He isn't the only man who has been hurt." And Diana kicked ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... named; and Mr. Barradine expressed the wish that the number should not be increased if, as he hoped, the income of the Trust grew bigger with the passage of time. He desired that extension of revenue should be devoted to improving the comfort and amenities of the fifty occupants, to increasing their dowries, and to assisting them after they had gone ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... Liberal party in the spring of 1881 an ex-Whip of the Liberal party said to a Liberal lady, as he was giving her a cup of tea: "Have you heard how ill old Dizzy is?" "Oh, yes!" replied the lady, with a rapturous wink, "I know—dying!" Such are the amenities of ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... demesnes; so that they are not so interesting as some of those we have passed through. In all, however, there dwell the good old honest labouring folk, toiling hard day by day at "the trivial round, the common task," just earning enough to scrape up a livelihood, but enjoying few of the amenities of life. The village parsons—good, pious men—share in the quiet, uneventful life of their flock. And who shall contemn their lot? As Horace ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... might have been schoolchildren in the same townland we are so cordial. Everything proceeds amid plaudits, and winds up in acclamation. Their Excellencies depart. Great is the no-politics era—you can so quietly spike the guns of many an old politician—and keep him safe. The social amenities do this. Their Excellencies have gone, but they do not forget. There is a warm word of thanks for recent hospitality. Perhaps the mayor has a daughter about to be married, or a son has died; it is remembered, and the cordial congratulation or gracious sympathy comes duly ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... themselves more exclusively to the higher duties of the ball-room. Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, finding their highest enjoyment in the dance, bid farewell to books, to quiet culture, to all the amenities of home. The father will, after a while, go down into lower dissipations. The son will be tossed about in society, a nonentity. The daughter will elope with a French dancing-master. The mother, still trying to stay ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... of that "Golden Age of the Renaissance" in which it took place; when real devotion to all arts, sciences, and amenities of a higher civilisation went hand in hand with crime of the vilest and treachery of the basest description. Well might Barbarossa, and such as he, laugh to scorn the pretension that his Christian enemies were one whit ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... been a hot and a dusty one, poor fellows. So the guard was summoned, and came with all the implicit powers of an uniform and, I believe, a sword. The boots were strained on sufficiently to preserve the amenities of the way: they could not, of course, be what they had been; the carriage was by this a forcing- house. And through the long night we ached away an intolerable span of time with, for under-current, for sinister accompaniment ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... the art of elimination, I want it not. If the farmer and the farmer's family must, by the nature of the occupation, be deprived of reasonable leisure and luxury, if the conveniences and amenities must be shorn close, if comfort must be denied and life be reduced to the elemental necessities of food and shelter, I want it not. But I do not believe that this is the case. The wealth of the world comes from the land, which ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... afterwards embodied in a famous book of travel. Warren treated him with the greatest courtesy and promised that all his collections should be duly forwarded to the Royal Academy of Sciences. Once this exchange of international amenities had been ended, however, the usual systematic search began. The visible cargo was all cocoa. But hidden underneath were layers and layers of shining silver dollars from Peru; and, underneath this double million, another two million dollars' worth of ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... furnish me with this list of moral deficiencies," acknowledged the other with affected carelessness. "But thus far you have failed to tell me anything strikingly new. Am I to understand you have some particular object in this exchange of amenities?" ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... amenities, Mr. Bayley would still be asked to supper, and Laura would still be pelted and ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... get a good look at the strange American whom Claire de Cintre was to marry, and reward the object of the exhibition with a charming smile. At last, as he turned away from a battery of smiles and other amenities, Newman caught the eye of the marquis looking at him heavily; and thereupon, for a single instant, he checked himself. "Am I behaving like a d—d fool?" he asked himself. "Am I stepping about like a terrier on his hind legs?" At this moment he perceived Mrs. Tristram at the other side ...
— The American • Henry James
... the resources which made his victories possible. Frederick William strengthened the government and collected an army nearly as large as that maintained by France or Austria. He had, moreover, by miserly thrift and entire indifference to the amenities and luxuries of life, treasured up a large sum of money. Consequently Frederick, upon his accession, had an admirable army ready for use and an ample supply ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... Meyer introduced them as the captain and first officer of the Titan, and seated themselves. A few moments later brought a shrewd-looking person whom Mr. Meyer addressed as the attorney for the steamship company, but did not introduce; for such are the amenities of the English system ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... women receive, even in Europe, much less in the East, such chivalric deference and respect as are shown to them in America, but the nearer any people imitate us in this respect, the more advanced will they be found in the other refined amenities of social life. ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... incredibly sharp in conversation, in argument; they wait for you in silence at the corner of the road, and then they suddenly discharge their revolver. If you fall, they empty your pockets; the only chance is to shoot them first. With that, no amenities, no preliminaries, no manners, no care for the appearance. I wander about while my brother is occupied; I lounge along the streets; I stop at the corners; I look into the shops; je regarde passer les femmes. It's an easy country to see; one sees everything there is; the ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... slavery. They could, while bearing the name of freeman, be legally subjected to all the oppressive features of serfdom, peonage, and feudalism combined, without possessing the right to claim, much less the power to exact, any of the prerogatives and amenities belonging to either of those systems of human bondage. All this could be done without violating the letter of the emancipation proclamation; no argument is necessary to prove that it would be a total submission of its spirit. Even upon the presumption that the whites, when again clothed ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... amount despatched would be merely two or three. The indignation of these disappointed beggars and their recriminations were then most amusing: "From the time when my father and thine entered into friendly relations, they loaded each other with presents, and never waited to be asked to exchange amenities;* and now my brother sends me two minas of gold as a gift! Send me abundance of gold, as much as thy father sent, and even, for so it must be, more than thy father."** Pretexts were never wanting to give reasonable weight ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the strife which was his daily portion and which ended in the disastrous defeat that cost him his life. The flashes of aroused egotism that sometimes blazed out in red-hot words, were only signs of impatience and regret that he had been deprived of opportunity to cultivate the amenities and graces of life and to gain control of the higher powers he consciously possessed. Any one who will take the trouble to-day to read his later writings, his tribute to old friends and his essays like that on "Growing ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... fond of him, he was a loyal, faithful friend, was always ready to help me in any small difficulties, and I went to him for everything—visits, servants, horses, etc. W. had no time for any details or amenities of life. We moved over just before New Year's day. As the gros mobilier was already there, we only took over personal things, grand piano, screens, tables, easy chairs, and small ornaments and bibelots. These were all sent off in a van early one morning, and after luncheon I went over, ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... without caring if your neighbour hopped about on one foot. The inherent conscience keeps most of us away from jail, from court, from the gallows; the acquired conscience helps us to preserve the little amenities of daily life. So then, the acquired is the livelier phase, being driven into action daily; whereas the inherent may lie ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... time, and was duly taken home with me. "Old man," I said, "welcome back to the amenities of life; to the tender charities of man and woman; to the ties, too long neglected, which bind your being to the world's glad heart. You are the prodigal returning from sowing his wild oats in the backwoods: the fatted calf shall be ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... it exercised an unwilling fascination, as of some haunting refrain ending each verse of her personal experience. Even when, as a little girl of eight, fresh from the gentle restraints and rare religious and social amenities of an aristocratic convent school in Paris, she had first encountered it, it struck her as strangely familiar—a thing given back rather than newly discovered, making her mind and innocent body alike ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... The exchange of amenities was as brief as it was cordial, but as Mr. David Vandeford and Mr. Jonathan Farraday passed on to a table which the discreet head waiter had reserved in case of the unexpected and tardy arrival of just such personages as Mr. Godfrey Vandeford and his friend, Mr. Farraday, Miss Hawtry had answered ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... think that men and women should never talk in public or private about the thing to which they devote their lives; people, as a rule, are most interesting on the subject of their own particular business in life. Talk about the affairs of the theatre within reason, and with due regard to the amenities of polite conversation, but do not confuse the affairs of the theatre, broadly speaking, with your own. The one is lasting, general; the other particular and fleeting. "Il n'y a pas de l'homme necessaire" [No man is indispensable]. Many persons would be strangely surprised if they could see ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... ordering this one to find him "Graubunden fleisch," the next to get him some good bread, and not to attempt to palm off "cow-cake" upon honest soldiers on pain of getting his stomach cut open—together with other amenities which occur easily to a seasoned man-at-arms ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... of manners in the past, and (2) its indiscretions of publicity about foreign affairs. We ostentatiously stand aloof from their polite ways and courteous manners in many of the every-day, ordinary, unimportant dealings with them—aloof from the common amenities of long-organized political ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... and boil with the passions of the very refuse of humanity. Intricate and unclean intrigues ended, by a curious turn of the wheel, in the election of a grotesque divine, whom Pattison, with an energy of phrase that recalls the amenities of ecclesiastical controversy in the sixteenth century, roundly designates in so many words as a satyr, a ruffian, and a wild beast. The poor man was certainly illiterate and boorish to a degree that was a standing marvel to all ingenuous ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... truly says: 'Each of us here, let the world go how it will, and be victorious or not victorious, has he not a little life of his own to lead? One life—a little gleam of life between two eternities—no second chance to us for evermore.' Let us not forget the loves, the amenities and charities of social life. Let us not forget that the education of the world must go on as ever, that the great virtues of charity and self-denial must more than ever be exercised, and that the discipline and perfection of our own characters is as ever our grand life-work. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... whose daily toil leaves them little leisure for study, may draw to themselves the results of all past experience; and rendering both attractive and easy to all classes of our people opportunities of turning their thoughts from the sterner features of their daily occupations to the amenities of life as presented by specimens of artistic ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... to go back for generations, and tell you of family feuds as old as the families themselves, a Montague and Capulet state of affairs, although each family had so much respect for the golden amenities of life that its possession by the other would have softened the asperity of feeling. But each was poor,—poor, I mean, for people ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... and different from all the rest. Few of the houses are large; on the other hand, none of them is small: this is the region of the solid middle class, the class which loves comfort and piques itself on its amenities, but is a little ashamed or too timid to ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... personal matter between himself and each individual supporter of the Government who contradicted him. Through the columns of his paper he poured out much bitter invective. What he said was for the most part undeniably true, but he had such an offensive way of expressing himself that the amenities of journalism were constantly violated. By this means he brought down upon his head the rancorous hatred of those whom he made the objects ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... amenities, the doctor had a low opinion of ballads and ballad collectors. In the Rambler (No. 177) he made merry over one Cantilenus, who "turned all his thoughts upon old ballads, for he considered them as the genuine records of the natural taste. He offered to show me a copy of 'The Children in the Wood,' ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... said the boy, striving to make the introduction easily, though one could see that such social amenities were not a matter of ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs |
