"Amenity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your heart up. It is damnable that a man in an office up in London should have to decide on such a matter, and should be able to take his own time about it!' The grievance was still at the old squire's heart in spite of the amenity of Mr. Brown's letter; but John Caldigate, who was approaching his house and his wife, and to whom, after his imprisonment even the flat fields and dykes were beautiful, did not at the moment much regard the anomaly of the machinery by which he had ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... caricatured in a comic paper in the guise of a juggler keeping three balls in the air at once, the said balls being each of them legibly inscribed with one of the three words, "Gas—Gabble—Grab." Such a straining of the usual amenity of controversy witnesses to grave apprehension. Miss Quisante in her pension ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... wheels of human intercourse run smoothly—the arts of tact and temper, of frankness and sympathy, of delicate compliment and exquisite self-abnegation—with the result that a condition of living was produced which, in all its superficial and obvious qualities, was one of unparalleled amenity. Indeed, those persons who were privileged to enjoy it showed their appreciation of it in an unequivocal way—by the tenacity with which they clung to the scene of such delights and graces. They refused to ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... with the angels and devils of Milton. The style of the Athenian had, as we have remarked, something of the Oriental character; and the same peculiarity may be traced in his mythology. It has nothing of the amenity and elegance which we generally find in the superstitions of Greece. All is rugged, barbaric, and colossal. The legends of Aeschylus seem to harmonize less with the fragrant groves and graceful porticos in which his countrymen paid their vows to the God of Light and Goddess of Desire than ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... lone complain, Swoon'd, murmuring of love, and pale with pain. The cruel lady, without any show 290 Of sorrow for her tender favourite's woe, But rather, if her eyes could brighter be, With brighter eyes and slow amenity, Put her new lips to his, and gave afresh The life she had so tangled in her mesh: And as he from one trance was wakening Into another, she began to sing, Happy in beauty, life, and love, and every thing, A song of love, too sweet for earthly lyres, While, like held ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... you use the privilege of your profession to speak recklessly, and are insulting outsiders in a way that exhausts my patience. You are in my house, and it is a customary social amenity to respect the domicile ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... explored, and the neat and beautiful gardens were traversed, and the glebe surveyed, and the "bonny burnside" visited, and the water laved from its channel. It was, in truth, a new world to its young visitants—and appeared, in the superior house accommodation and rural amenity around, a terrestrial paradise, contrasted with the circumscribed dwelling on the rocky shore of the German Ocean in the north, or in the hamlet of Muirden amid the wilderness on the southern border of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... appealed to an element of romance in his character, which was strongly emotional though extremely reticent. Only an artist would have recognized beauty in those scenes, for in all Ireland it would be difficult to find a landscape with less amenity; the hill shapes are featureless, without boldness or intricacy of line. Redmond, a born artist in words, possessing strongly the sense of form, was sensitive to beauty in all kinds—yet rather to the beauty ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... so striking in this man's attitude at a moment of deadly peril that Brackenbury was overcome with respectful admiration; nor was he less sensible to the charm of his conversation or the surprising amenity of his address. Every gesture, every intonation, was not only noble in itself, but seemed to ennoble the fortunate mortal for whom it was intended; and Brackenbury confessed to himself with enthusiasm that this was a sovereign for whom a brave man ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... water in the one which they have worn from the previous day, and changing into the other when they come out; long practice enables them to do this in public without any undue exposure of the body. A good tank or a river is a great amenity to a village, especially if it has a ghat or flight of stone steps. Many people will spend an hour or so here daily, disporting themselves in the water or on the bank, and wedding and funeral parties are held by it, owing to ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... rat-trap,—a thing, you see, that might have saved him some labor,—if he persists in disregarding the majesty of Fashion, and continues to move about in society with the same kind of coat on his back as that worn by his first ancestor, hatless, disaffected of shoes, and totally obtuse to the amenity of an umbrella,—if, in fact, his only approach to humanity, as distinguished by apparel, is his occasional adoption of a collar precisely similar in general effect to those in which Fashion, empress of Broadway and of a great many other ways, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... were followed by a momentary silence. Mrs. Trevillian looked dismayed; Miss Cooper evidently concluded that Kosinski must have dined on steak; Dr. Armitage agreed, but seemed to consider that more amenity of language might be compatible with the situation. Nekrovitch laughed heartily, enjoying this psychological sidelight, and I, who ought to have felt crushed, was perhaps the only one who thoroughly endorsed the sentiment expressed, finding therein the solution of ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... everybody, no matter what trouble, anxiety, or fatigue it might cost him, provided only it did not cost him money. Of a cheerful disposition, and fond of fun and joking, he was to be found at every feast and merry-making around, that was not got up by contribution, which he enlivened by the amenity of his manners, and by his discreet although not very Attic conversation. He had never had any tender inclination for any one woman in particular, but, innocently and without malice, he loved them all; and was the most given to complimenting the ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... landscape. The scholar of Spagnoletto, he attached himself to the strong natural style and dark coloring of that master, which well accords with his subjects. In his landscapes, instead of selecting the cultured amenity which captivates in the views of Claude or Poussin, he made choice of the lonely haunts of wolves and robbers; instead of the delightful vistas of Tivoli and the Campagna, he adopted the savage scenery of the Alps, rocky precipices, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... Quincing his face as neatly as a housewife would slice Fruit for a Devonshire Squab Pie,—gained me the notice of some of the Highest Nobility, to whom I was otherwise recommended by the easiness of my Manners, and the amenity of my Language. The young Earl of Modesley did in particular affect me, and I was of Service to his Lordship on many most momentous and delicate Occasions. For upwards of Six Months I was sumptuously entertained in his Lordship's Mansion in Red Lion Square;—a ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... General Scott from command of the army. It was well known that his political opinions were not in harmony with the Administration, while those of his successor were. There had been anything but that amenity which should exist between a commissioner to negotiate a treaty of peace and the commanding general. General Scott did not think that Mr. Trist treated him with the consideration his position required—rejecting all overtures ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... of these unreconciled antipathies lie deep beneath the personal relationship of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert; lie deep beneath their successors, who with more or less of amenity in their manners are still debating the same questions today. The main currents of the nineteenth century, with fluent and refluent tides, clash beneath the controversy; and as soon as one hears its "long withdrawing roar," and thinks it is dying away, and is become a part of ancient ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... modest in personal bearing and intercourse; his mind was more logical than severe in temper, more vigorous than versatile, judicial in taste and tone, with more precision than eagerness; and his temperament united the gravity of a cultivated and thoughtful with the vivacity and amenity of a harmonious and cheerful nature. Like Washington and Morris, he was fond of agricultural pursuits; and like them, his example as a statesman seems to acquire new force and beauty from the long and contented retirement from official life that evinced the plenitude of his own resources, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... will find something to please and pacify him: in the town he will meet pleasant faces of men and women, and see beautiful flowers at a window, or hear a cage-bird singing at the corner of the gloomiest street; and for the country, there is no country without some amenity—let him only look for it in the right spirit, and he will ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... let the clash of interests and the war of jealousies be forgotten; and let us endeavor to persuade ourselves that, as all the conflicting pursuits of life must terminate at this point at last, so should our feelings converge to the one focus of amenity and Christian love. And, after all, how many who have considered themselves to be antagonists must, during a moment of solemn reflection, become convinced that, when toiling in the great workshop of the world, they have been engaged, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... much to say, but when he did speak, spoke to the purpose. They both, through all their roughness and coarseness and evident excitement over starting on their 'permission,' had that French instinctive social tact and amenity (of a sort) which keeps decent women from being afraid of them or from hesitating to talk with them; and they were both very sincere, and desperately trying to express something of the strange confusion that is in everybody's mind ever since the war...what are we ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... where an attack was possible, each of the isolated and weakly garrisoned townlets to which it came, and recruiting its strength from a district which had been hardly touched by the ravages of war, and which by its prosperity alone might have proved the amenity of British military rule. This force seems to have skirted Wepener without attacking a place of such evil omen to their cause. Their subsequent movements are readily traced by ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the scenery, which he could not praise too highly. A warm love of nature is frequently displayed in the description of the country which he wrote out for Ferdinand and Isabella, of Spain. Of one place, named by him Puerto Santo, he said: "The amenity of this river, and the clearness of the water, through which the sand at the bottom may be seen; the multitude of palm-trees of various forms, the highest and most beautiful that I have met with, and an infinity of other great and green trees; the birds in rich plumage, and ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... cried; "it was he who blundered. YOU blundering in a social amenity! Preposterous! No; Mr. Cedarquist forgot that we were dining out ourselves to-night, and when he told me he had asked you here for the same evening, I fell upon the man, my dear, I did actually, tooth and nail. But I wouldn't hear of his ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... certain level of excellence. France has never been without standards. Therefore it has been to France that the rest of Europe has always looked for some measure of fine thinking, delicate feeling, and general amenity. Without her conventionality it may be doubted whether France could have remained so ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... aerial, affability, affidavit, affiliate, affinity, agglomerate, agglutinate, aggrandizement, agnostic, alignment, aliment, allegorical, alleviate, altercation, altruistic, amalgamate, amatory, ambiguity, ambrosial, ameliorate, amenable, amenity, amity, amnesty, amulet, anachronism, analytical, anathema, anatomy, animadversion, annotate, anomalous, anonymous, antediluvian, anterior, anthology, anthropology, antinomy, antiquarianism, antiseptic, aphorism, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... of the righteous man, that is, the man in gray; his inferior, apparently, not more in the social scale than in stature. Like the benign elm again, the good man seemed to wave the canopy of his goodness over that suitor, not in conceited condescension, but with that even amenity of true majesty, which can be kind to any ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... sojourn he call scarcely fail to be impressed by the apparent kindliness and joyousness of the existence about him. In the relations of the people to each other, as well as in all their relations to himself, he will find a constant amenity, a tact, a good-nature such as he will elsewhere have met with only in the friendship of exclusive circles. Everybody greets everybody with happy looks and pleasant words; faces are always smiling; the commonest incidents of everyday life are transfigured by a courtesy at ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... author was John Wilson (Christopher North), revised by Mr. William Blackwood. But Z. resisted more than one vigorous challenge to unmask, and some doubt as to his identity may still remain. Here are some specimens of the amenity with which Keats was treated ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... "counter-jumper," against irascibility, against bigoted ignorance, against an indissoluble assumption, perhaps logical, that he is of inferior mentality, this factotum has no defence. His very business is to meet all with amenity. It is his daily portion, included in the material with which ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... responded sympathetically; and then, by way of making himself pleasant, Mr. Clegg suddenly broke in with such an extraordinary amenity of old-world gallantry that everybody's hair stood ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... looked at him with accusatory affection—a grace on her part not infrequent—could never find a word; but the Master, who was always all amenity and tact, helped him out now as he had often helped him before. 'That's his old idea, you know—on which we've so often differed: his theory that the artist should be all impulse and instinct. I go in of course for a certain ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... domestic gods, "I have had a dream," I think he would say, as he sat up, rubbing his eyes, in the familiar chimney-corner chair, "I have had a dream of a place, and I declare I believe it must be heaven." But to Dodd and his entertainer, all this amenity of the tropic night and all these dainties of the island table, were grown things of custom; and they fell to meat like men who were hungry, and drifted into idle talk like men ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... my brother complained how unpleasant it was to find only cold politeness where he expected affection. This repulsiveness on the part of Napoleon was almost offensive, and must have been sensibly felt by my brother, who was not only remarkable for the mildness of his temper and the amenity and grace of his manner, but whose society was courted in the most distinguished circles of Paris on account of his accomplishments. He perceived in Bonaparte a kind of acerbity and bitter irony, of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... irritating that Mr. Dormer had been unforgettably—Peter particularly noted "unforgettably"—kind to her. She never mentioned Julia's irruption to Julia's brother; she only referred to the portrait, with inscrutable amenity, as a direct consequence of this gentleman's fortunate suggestion that first day at Madame Carre's. Nash showed, however, such a disposition to dwell sociably and luminously on the peculiarly interesting character of what he called Dormer's predicament and on ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... from Florence. He discoursed of Cimabue, Arpino, Carpaccio, and Argostino—of the gloom of Caravaggio, of the amenity of Albano, of the colors of Titian, of the frows of Rubens, and of the waggeries of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... infamy, seemed to reach every branch of this devoted family. After the extinction of the direct male heirs, a brother, who was a captain in the army, came home to take possession of the property. He was a person well-respected in life, and possessed some talent, and much amenity of manners. The country gentlemen, however, shunned and disliked him, on account of the existing prejudice. This person, thus shunned and slighted, seemed to grow desperate, and plunged into the lowest and most abandoned profligacy. It is needless to enter into a detail ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... suffering; for physical suffering there might have been a remedy. She could come and go; she had her liberty; her husband was perfectly polite. He took himself so seriously; it was something appalling. Under all his culture, his cleverness, his amenity, under his good-nature, his facility, his knowledge of life, his egotism lay hidden like a serpent in a bank of flowers. She had taken him seriously, but she had not taken him so seriously as that. How could she—especially when she ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... the very few men who could answer with any plausibility to this last character of Earle's. But the marvellous amenity of his social gifts brings him a little closer to the kindly race of men than Earle thinks is usual with the contemplative student. In every other point it is an accurate piece of portraiture.[R] Nature might well ask approbation of her works and variety from a man who was ever feeding his noble ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... in our rapidly written reflections, urged the policy and propriety of kindness, courtesy, and good-will between man and man. It is so easy for an individual to manifest amenity of spirit, to avoid harshness, and thus to cheer and gladden the paths of all over whom he may have influence or control, that it is really surprising to find any one pursuing the very opposite course. Strange as it may appear, there are among the children of men, ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... everything in short but Mayor—an office which he left to the tradesmen, while taking care to speak of it always with respect, and indeed to see it properly filled. The part of County Magistrate—to which he had been born—he played to perfection, and with a full sense of its dignified amenity. (It was whispered that the Lord Lieutenant himself stood in some awe of him.) His favourite character, however, was that of plain citizen of his native town. "I'm an Axcester man," he would declare in his public ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a veteran cavalryman, was very fond of his men. He has repeatedly paid them the highest compliments, not only for their valor and soldierly qualities, but for their quick intelligence, amenity to discipline, and for the clean living which made them so remarkably free from disease. He has stated that he would not know where to select a better group of men for everything that goes to make up efficient, dependable soldiers. Colonel Roberts received the Croix ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... relegated to the position of an exploded idea, becoming an object of vituperation, witty or obscene according to the humour of the individual critic. As one of the illuminated, Mr. Verity did not escape the prevailing infection, although an inborn amenity of disposition saved him from atheism in its more blatantly offensive forms. The existence of the Supreme Being might be, (probably was) so he feared, but "a fond thing vainly imagined". Yet such is the constitution of the human mind that age confers a certain prestige and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... authority of the Prime Minister became more clearly defined. Not even the favour of the Sovereign could thenceforth uphold a Minister who openly opposed and scorned the head of the Cabinet. The recognition of this fact has undoubtedly conduced to the amenity of parliamentary life; for etiquette has imposed on Ministers the observance of outward signs of deference to their chief, and (save a few times in the breezy careers of Canning and Palmerston) dissensions have been confined to the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... like those of a bird of prey, his big moustaches, his chin almost divided into two parts by a mark which looked very much like a sabre-cut, would have made his face that of a brigand, had not the harshness of his features been tempered by the assumed amenity and the servile smile of a speculator who has many dealings with the public. He was dressed in very cleanly fashion in a cinnamon-coloured jacket embroidered with silk of the same colour, gaiters of the same stuff, a white vest adorned with buttons like chamomile flowers, ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... and antique minds shall we request an interview at every moment; of some one of them shall we ask a friendship which never deceives, which could not fail us; to some one of them shall we appeal for that sensation of serenity and amenity (we have often need of it) which reconciles us with mankind and ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... marching unconcernedly. Of a sudden, without apparent cause, he turned back, took us in possession and led us undissuadably along a by-path to the river's edge. There, in a nook of the most attractive amenity, he bade us to sit down: the stream splashing at our elbow, a shock of nondescript greenery enshrining us from above; and thither, after a brief absence, he brought us a cocoa-nut, a lump of sandal-wood, and a stick he had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Irishman who, speaking of a house which he had to let, said, "It is free from opacity, tenebrosity, fumidity, and injucundity, or translucency. In short, its diaphaneity, even in the crepuscle, makes it a pharos, and without laud, for its agglutination and amenity, it is a most delectable commorance; and whoever lives in it will find that the neighbours have none of the truculence and immanity, the torvity, the spinosity, the putidness, the pugnacity, nor the fugacity observable ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... a fortunate thing, for the application of modern technology to rivers in the past half-century of our national growth has not always had happy results. "A river," Justice Holmes once wrote, "is more than an amenity, it is a treasure." His feeling is shared by thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people who live along the Potomac and its tributaries or who go there to float down them in bass time, to picnic and swim, to hunt, to dig into the region's ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... Rabelais leaves Montpellier, and goes to practise medicine at Narbonne, Castres, and Lyons. In 1540 he tires of it, resumes, as he had authority to do, the habit of a canon of St. Maur, and settles in that residence, "a paradise," as he himself says, "of salubrity, amenity, serenity, convenience, and all the chaste pleasures of agriculture and country-life." Between 1540 and 1551 he is, nevertheless, found once more wandering, far away from this paradise, in France, Italy, and, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... abounding good-humor, his candor, his unclouded frankness, his unfailing impulse to share every emotion and impression with his friend; all this made comradeship a pure felicity, and interfused with a deeper amenity their long evening talks at cafe doors in ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... violated, their children killed, penalties are imposed on districts owing to acts for which the population is not collectively responsible—and nothing said. That each Power is allowed to deal with its own subjects in its own way is becoming an accepted rule of international amenity. It was not the rule of Cromwell, nor of Canning, nor of Gladstone, but it has now been consecrated by the Liberal Government which ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Rishis, or hymn- writers who execrated him, were regarded by his worshippers as a darkened class, foes of enlightenment. They are spoken of as "the stupid party," as "obscurantist," and so forth, with the usual amenity of theological controversy. It would be painful, and is unnecessary, to quote from the curses, whether matins or vespers, of the children of night. Their language is terribly severe, and, doubtless, was regarded as blasphemy ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... hopelessly bourgeois even by the cultivated pressmen. It is a fastidious public, intelligent, learned, and extremely severe: painting it regards as an end in itself, not as a branch of journalism or a superior amenity; and no artist can begin to abuse his talent or play tricks with the currency without getting from this formidable body the sort of frown that makes even a successful portrait-painter wince. Indeed, ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... political opponent a 'Whirling Coxcomb,' or a 'pensioned scribbler,' was a very mild amenity in eighteenth century party warfare; and the abuse of such small fry as these anonymous pamphleteers might be wholly disregarded did it not show Fielding's prominence, during these anxious times, as a strenuous Hanoverian, and also the fact that he had now not only largely abjured party politics, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... it for Hawkins that he managed to stop the affair at Newark in very commendable fashion. It seems so remarkable that one of his contrivances should have exhibited that much amenity to control that it is worthy ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... circumstances, the possessor of a pretty and pampered wife, spends a week in London and returns five days before Christmas, certain things are rightly and properly to be expected from him. It would need an astounding courage, an amazing lack of a sense of the amenity of conjugal existence in such a husband to enable him to disappoint such reasonable expectations. And Cheswardine, though capable of pulling the curb very tight on the caprices of his wife, was a highly ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... with his visit to Virginia. The amenity of the climate, the magnificence of the forest scenery, the abundance of game,—all pointed it out as a favored land. He was pleased, too, with the frank, cordial character of the Virginians, and their independent mode ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... a man somewhat mauled by the world to forget his hard knocks withal; and he forgot them. Looking about him, the length and breadth of his silent and lonely valley, he could see nothing but amenity in the earth which owed man so little. It was so with him at this time that the more he saw to love in Nature the less he could find admirable in man, who denied her at every turn. It was men, not She, who had given him his bruises; it was She, not men, who had taught him how to forget them. When ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... your kindness in connecting the interest you take in the sentiments of an old friend with the able part you take in the service of your country. It is an instance, among many, of that happy temper which has always given a character of amenity to your virtues and a good-natured direction to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... may be found, perhaps, little to find fault with on the score of mere manner and outward demeanour. To use servants with harshness, or to be wanting in that species of consideration for them which consists in a certain mildness and amenity of manner, would ruffle and deform that smooth surface of things which it is agreeable to the taste of people in high life to see around them. Nor do they, perhaps, interfere with the comfort of their dependents, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... to) at the Death of Ananias, we look upon men whom the effusion of the Spirit has equally sublimated above every unholy thought; a common power seems to have invested them all with a preternatural majesty. Yet not an iota of the individual is lost in any one; the gentle bearing and amenity of John still follow him in his office of almoner; nor in Peter does the deep repose of the erect attitude of the Apostle, as he deals the death-stroke to the offender by a simple bend of his finger, subdue the energetic, sanguine temperament of ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate," exercised his curiosity because they appealed to his imagination and moved his spirit. He was eager to plunge into controversy with friends and advisers who challenged or rebuked him, Hodgson, for instance, or Dallas; and he responded with remarkable amenity to the strictures and exhortations of such orthodox professors as Mr. Sheppard and Dr. Kennedy. He was, no doubt, from first to last a heretic, impatient, not to say contemptuous, of authority, but he was ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... best novel Mr. Archibald Marshall has written. Those who remember Exton Manor and the three books dealing with the lives and deeds of the Clintons will consider this to be high praise, as, indeed, it is meant to be. Mr. Marshall preserves the ease and amenity of style which we have learnt to expect of him; he creates his characters—ordinary English men and women, animated by ordinary English motives—with all his old skill, and he sets them to work out their destinies in that pleasant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 27, 1914 • Various
... appreciated the chivalry, generosity and independence for which he was justly renowned, and in the various differences which arose among the restless subjects of Gruyere, advised them to trust to the justice of their ruler. Preserving to his last day the enthusiasm and the frank amenity of a singularly charming and well-balanced character, Count Louis was wise in the management of his estates, encouraged printing at Rougemont, and sharing the love of pomp and beauty of the Savoy court, was an amateur in architecture and as enthusiastic in his religion ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... will not have a single serf whom he has left unpledged; whereas—well, pray look at a fat man's fortunes, and what will you see? First of all a suburban villa, and then a larger suburban villa, and then a villa close to a town, and lastly a country estate which comprises every amenity! That is to say, having served both God and the State, the stout individual has won universal respect, and will end by retiring from business, reordering his mode of life, and becoming a Russian landowner—in other words, a fine gentleman who dispenses hospitality, lives ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... well advanced before I approached the cottage. The amenity of a fine day in its decline surrounded me with a beneficent, a calming influence; I felt it in the silence of the shady lane, in the pure air, in the blue sky. It is difficult to retain the memory of the conflicts, miseries, temptations and crimes of men's self-seeking existence ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... dumpy little fellow, sleek and short, dapple grey, with a good long tail and a mild eye. Preston declared he had no shape at all and was a poor concern of a pony; but to my eyes he was beautiful. He took one or two sugarplums from my hand with as much amenity as if we had been old acquaintances. Then a boy was put on him, who rode him up ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... tending the flocks of Mr Laidlaw at Blackhouse, was not wholly derived from his skill as a versifier, and capabilities as a musician, but, among the fairer portion of the creation, was perhaps scarcely less owing to the amenity of his disposition, combined with the handsomeness of his person. As a candidate for the honour of feminine approbation, he was successful alike in the hall and on the green: the rumour of his approach at any rural assemblage or merry-meeting ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... me first about Cambridge was that it must be the only city of its size and amenity in the United States without an imposing hotel. It is difficult to imagine any city in the United States minus at least two imposing hotels, with a barber's shop in the basement and a world's fair in the hall. But one soon perceives that Cambridge is a city apart. In visual characteristics it ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... smiles into spasms; the anxious days and sleepless nights preying upon his delicate organization, producing that morbid sensitiveness and nervous irritability which at times overlaid the real sweetness and amenity of his nature, and obscured the unbounded generosity of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... of manners, I am struck with the great difference between those of Frenchmen and Englishmen, of the same station in life. The latter treat women with a politeness that seems the result of habitual amenity; the former with a homage that appears to be inspired by the peculiar claims of the sex, particularised in the individual woman, and is consequently ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... Monsieur Mathias," was personally unknown, felt, on first seeing him, a slight inclination to laugh, they were soon touched by the old-fashioned grace with which he greeted them. The words he used were full of that amenity which amiable old men convey as much by the ideas they suggest as by the manner in which they express them. The younger notary, with his flippant tone, seemed on a lower plane. Mathias showed his superior knowledge ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... boasted an entrance so wide that one could have driven a carriage into the hall, a polished marble staircase and twenty large rooms commanding extensive and delightful views. The garden, however, was the principal amenity. Here, in fez and dressing-gown, Burton used to sit and write for hours with nothing to disturb him except the song of birds and the rustle of leaves. In the Palazzo Gosleth he spent the last eight years of his life, and wrote ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... and because of humane sentiments; even wholesome superstitions have safeguarded the robin redbreast and the wren. There were introductions too—the rabbit for utility, the pheasant for sport, and the peacock for amenity. And every introduction, every protection, every killing out ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... the too great ardor," interrupted D'Artagnan, with perfect frankness and much amenity. "The fact is, monseigneur, that hospitality was ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... struck me as a very mild and agreeable race, with a good deal of the natural amenity which, on occasions like this one, the traveler, who is waiting for his horses to be put in or his dinner to be prepared, observes in the charming people who lend themselves to conversation in the hilltowns of Tuscany. The ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... all ranks. The details he has given of the prevailing anarchy and lawlessness throughout the kingdom, would scarcely be believed were they not vouched for by an officer of established reputation and integrity. Firmness united to amenity of manner were indeed the characteristics of Sir William in his important and delicate office at such a Court—a Court where the King, deputing the conduct of business to Ministers influenced by the basest motives, and who constantly sacrificed ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... from the net of crime in which he had involved himself; perhaps he merely thought it would please me, and aid him to thus strengthen our position in the social world before taking our flight to a foreign land; but whatever lay at the bottom of his amenity, he gave me carte blanche that night for an entertainment that should embrace all his friends and mine and some of Mrs. Vandyke's. So I ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... agreeable to me, for every one was certain of a gracious reception from Josephine. I do not recollect which of the ladies in waiting was in attendance when my name was announced; but she immediately retired, and left me alone with Josephine. Her recent elevation had not changed the usual amenity of her disposition. After some conversation respecting the change in her situation, I gave her an account of what had passed ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... D'Alembert replied that the king would judge more favourably of the philosopher's person than of his works; that he would find in Diderot, along with much fecundity, imagination, and knowledge, a gentle heat and a great deal of amenity.[88] Frederick, however, did not send the invitation, and Diderot willingly enough went homeward by the northern route by which he had come. He passed Koenigsberg, where, if he had known it, Kant was ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... Fairfield next spring. Then she got into the carriage, and bowing and smiling in her exquisite way, and Miss Charlotte a little impatient and tired, they drove off. Bessie, exhilarated with her rather remote prospect of the Forest, turned to speak to her grandfather. But, lo! his brief amenity had vanished, and he was ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... dignity derived from the higher branches, which even those who professed them in a superior manner did not always preserve when they delineated individual nature. His portraits reminded the spectator of the invention of history and the amenity of landscape. In painting portraits he appears not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from a higher sphere. His paintings illustrate his lessons, and his lessons seem to be ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... city his tongue was thought to be in his cheek, and London was written on his heart. When Stella was told that Dean Swift had composed a poem, not in honour of her, but of Vanessa, she replied, with exquisite feminine amenity, that it was well known that the Dean could be eloquent over a broomstick. If he that night extolled Bristol above her other rivals, it would be said of him that he was a verbose individual, who had called in past years Leeds a beautiful ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... facts, scientific discoveries, and every kind of information, may be seized by all, but an author's diction cannot be taken from him. Hence very learned writers have been neglected, while their learning has not been lost to the world, by having been given by writers with more amenity. It is therefore the duty of an author to learn to write as well as to learn to think; and this art can only be obtained by the habitual study of his sensations, and an intimate acquaintance with the intellectual faculties. ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... suspicions as he was indifferent to all the other disadvantages of life. He was not the whole Heyst of course; he is only the physical and moral foundation of my Heyst laid on the ground of a short acquaintance. That it was short was certainly not my fault for he had charmed me by the mere amenity of his detachment which, in this case, I cannot help thinking he had carried to excess. He went away from his rooms without leaving a trace. I wondered where he had gone to—but now I know. He vanished from my ken only to drift into this adventure that, unavoidable, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... the amenity of foreign manners in general, and French manners in particular, has been the theme of every tongue; and the bold Briton, who would fain look down upon all other nations, cannot deny the superiority of his continental neighbours in this respect at least. Why this should be, it is difficult to say, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... had delivered a brief talk on God and The Soul, questions were invited—meant only to be politely put, that the speaker might shine. But my question was not put for the sake of social amenity ... though I'll admit, just a little for ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... grant you, Amiet; but prisoner, never! citizen—as they still say sometimes, and I hope they'll not say it much longer. It must be admitted that the whole affair was conducted on both sides with touching amenity. As soon as the conductor saw us he shouted to the postilion to stop; I even believe he added: 'I know what it is.' 'Then,' said I, 'if you know what it is, my dear friend, our explanations needn't ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... mouth, a straight nose, a forehead which has thrust back the hair from the top of his commanding head, although it is thick at the sides over the ears, and repeats in its soft gray the color of his kindly eyes. Before taking in these physical facts one receives an impression of benignity and amenity not often conveyed, even by the most distinguished. And, taking advantage of this amiability, I asked if certain words just used should be followed by a dash, and even boldly added: "Are you not famous, Mr. James, for the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... ladies and gentlemen of the ancien regime wanted one; only their idea of what a background should be is different. The painter of commerce supplies what is wanted and in his simplicity calls it art. That it is not art, that it is not even an amenity, should not blind us to the fact that it is an honest article. I admit that the man who produces it satisfies a vulgar and unprofitable taste; so does the very upright tradesman who forces insipid asparagus for the Christmas market. Sir Georgius Midas will never care ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... Sutherland. Her only sister had been married to William, seventeenth Earl of Sutherland,—'the last of the good Earls;' 'a nobleman,' says the Rev. Dr. Jones, in his Memoir, 'who to the finest person united all the dignity and amenity of manners and character which give lustre to greatness.' But his sun was destined soon to go down. Five years after his marriage, which proved one of the happiest, and was blessed with two children, the elder of the two, the ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... modesty and goodness which may occasionally be perceived in those few favored persons who enhance the gracious sweetness of a disposition more than usually gentle, by the fair ornament of a winning amenity, always ready to conciliate and constantly giving evidence of the most refined consideration for all persons, and under every circumstance. The world received the gift of this artist from the hand of Nature, when, vanquished by Art in the person of Michelangelo, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... trials—a letter written in less than courteous terms, a wrangle at the breakfast table over some arrangement of the day, the rudeness of an acquaintance on the way to the city, an unfriendly act on the part of another firm, a cruel criticism needlessly reported by some meddler, a feline amenity at afternoon tea, the disobedience of one of your children, a social slight by one of your circle, a controversy too hotly conducted. The trials within this class are innumerable, and consider, not one of them is inevitable, not one of them but might have ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... Flaxman are the names that come freshest to memory in this connection. For a period of fifty years Stothard stands pre-eminent in illustrated literature. Measuring time by poets, he may be said to have lent something of his fancy and amenity to most of the writers from Cowper to Rogers. As a draughtsman he is undoubtedly weak: his figures are often limp and invertebrate, and his type of beauty insipid. Still, regarded as groups, the majority of his designs are exquisite, and he possessed one all-pervading and un-English ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... inevitable, for quite apart from the question of religion it would indeed have been impossible to govern Germany according to their principles. We may, however, regret that the quarrel was not conducted with more amenity. These Prussian nobles were of the same race as Bismarck himself; they resembled him in character if not in ability; they believed that they had been betrayed, and they did not easily forgive. They were not ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... intermingled with the gentler inhabitants of France. When they turned their eyes to England they were already guardians of civilization. And we blandly record the Norman conquest of England as an unqualified benefit, as an impetus to social amenity, art, learning, architecture, and religion. Protests are useless. The earth abounds in instances of the spread of knowledge, inventions, culture, through war and subjugation. The "rude" peoples who cried out at the outrage, and who fain would have kept their rudeness, ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... is regarded by the few as very precious and indispensable; by the many as at best an amenity which has little relation to the real purposes and success of life. It is highly traditional and retrospective in the main, concerned with ancient tongues, old and revered books, higher mathematics, somewhat archaic philosophy and ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... give pain to the sensitive; but these things offend the plainest taste. It is a danger which threatens the amenity of the town; and as this eruption keeps spreading on our borders, we have ever the farther to walk among unpleasant sights, before we gain the country air. If the population of Edinburgh were a living, autonomous body, it would arise like one man and make night hideous with arson; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... meanwhile there would be more to come from uncles so attachingly, so almost portentously, discussable. The vision at any rate was to stick by me as through its old-world friendly grace, its light on the elder amenity; the prettier manners, the tender personal note in the good lady's importations and anxieties, that of the hand-made fabric and the discriminating service. Fit to figure as a value anywhere—by which I meant in the right corner of any social ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... boundary which divides the intellectual and moral nature of man from that which characterizes animals. My best feelings were called into play to give fitting responses to the generosity, wisdom, and amenity of my new friend. He, with a noble goodness all his own, took infinite delight in bestowing to prodigality the treasures of his mind and fortune on the long-neglected son of his father's friend, the offspring of that gifted being ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... the guest, she assumed the duty of hostess, watching their plates and keeping them filled. This was the first amenity she had shown them. They were perplexed to reconcile it with ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... this intimacy, then, sprang from the adventitious circumstance of our being more frequently thrown together as officers of the same company,—for we were both attached to the grenadiers,—or that my wild spirit was soothed by the bland amenity of his manners, I know not. The latter, however, is not improbable; for proud, and haughty, and dignified, as the colonel NOW is, such was not THEN the character of the ensign; who seemed thrown ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... is seen from regularity and domestic economy. Mrs. Washington superintends the whole, and joins to the qualities of an excellent housewife that simple dignity which ought to characterize a woman whose husband has acted the greatest part on the theater of human affairs; while she possesses that amenity and manifests that attention to strangers which ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... of disposition, and the utmost amenity of manners, John Mayne was warmly beloved among the circle of his friends. Himself embued with a deep sense of religion, though fond of innocent humour, he preserved in all his writings a becoming respect for sound morals, and is ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... to bid him a friendly good-night. He patted the little hand kindly, and then he and Madame went down-stairs together; she talking in her highest tide of spirits and volubility, he listening with an air of good-natured amenity, dashed with that unconscious roguish archness I find it difficult ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... heart that never rejoices," replied the Master, in what for him was a pleasant voice, although with a suspicious look around, lest anybody should be jeering at his unwonted amenity. ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... power that was about him like an emanation. The difference was that what had been rude strength was now strength polished and restrained. The deeps might hide abrupt and violent things, but the surface had assumed a fine amenity. Where he wished to learn he was the aptest pupil, and from the days of the tobacco-field he had longed for this smooth lustre. Not Gideon, but the mother, spoke in the appreciation and the facility. Manner counted for much ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... other hand I would not have him unduly puffed up with the pride of the exalted association. The grave wisdom, the admirable amenity, the serene grace of the secular patron-saint of all mortals converted to noble visions are not his. Mr. Luffmann has no mission. He is no Knight sublimely Errant. But he is an excellent Vagabond. He is full of merit. That peripatetic guide, philosopher and friend of all nations, ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... it renewed the sense of servitude which the previous night's review of her cheque-book had produced. Everything in her surroundings ministered to feelings of ease and amenity. The windows stood open to the sparkling freshness of the September morning, and between the yellow boughs she caught a perspective of hedges and parterres leading by degrees of lessening formality to the free undulations of the park. Her maid had kindled a little fire on the ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... relieve Cars, how I laid the project before the "Great Eltchee," how it was received with the roughest language and how my first plan was thoroughly "frustrated." I have told a true tale, and no more. "A strange perversion of facts," cries the sapient criticaster, with that normal amenity which has won for him such honour and troops of unfriends: when his name was proposed as secretary to the R. A. S., all prophesied the speediest dissolution ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... of the principal salters on his lips. At the moment he reached the little port of Pirial, five large barges, laden with stone, were leaving it. It appeared strange to D'Artagnan, that stones should be leaving a country where none are found. He had recourse to all the amenity of M. Agnan to learn from the people of the port the cause of this singular arrangement. An old fisherman replied to M. Agnan, that the stones very certainly did not come ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which contrast with the severer manner of Bourdaloue. They are simple in plan; the preacher's art lay in deploying and developing a few ideas, and infusing into them an imaginative sensibility; he is facile and abundant; faultless in amenity, but deficient in force and fire. Yet the opening words of the Funeral Oration on Louis XIV.—"God alone is great, my brethren"—are noble in their simplicity; and the thought of Jesus suddenly appearing in "the most august assembly ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... earth who is the utter contrary of everything that this description implies; whose very existence is an insult to the ideal it realizes; whose eye disparages, whose resonant voice denounces, whose cold shoulder jostles every decency, every delicacy, every amenity, every dignity, every sweet usage of that quiet life of mutual admiration in which perfect Shakespearian appreciation is expected to arise, that man is Frank Harris. Here is one who is extraordinarily qualified, by a range of sympathy and understanding ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... possible those pictures which now hang in many ladies' chambers, in which Jesus is represented exactly as he is represented in the Lourdes cinematograph, by a handsome actor. The only touch of realism which Luke does not instinctively suppress for the sake of producing this kind of amenity is the reproach addressed to Jesus for sitting down to table without washing his hands; and that is retained because an interesting discourse hangs ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... add, lest my observation should appear to be of a sadly superficial character, that the manners and conversation of these gentlemen bore (whenever I had occasion to appreciate them) no relation to the state of their chin and their boots. They were almost always marked by an extreme amenity. At Toulouse there was the strongest temptation to speak to people, simply for the entertainment of hearing them reply with that curious, that fascinating accent of the Languedoc, which appears to abound in final con- sonants, and leads the Toulousains ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... twenty-six to thirty-six pounds a year; beyond the means of artisans and petty insurance agents and rent-collectors. And further, it was well built, generously built; and its architecture, though debased, showed some faint traces of Georgian amenity. It was admittedly the best row of houses in that newly settled quarter of the town. In coming to it out of Freehold Villas Mr. Skellorn obviously came to something superior, wider, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... with the Servian defeat at Djunis, Andreas went back to his headwaitership at the Serbische Krone in Belgrade. Before leaving that capital I had the honour of being present at his nuptials, a ceremony the amenity of which was somewhat disturbed by the violent incursion into the sacred edifice of sundry ladies all claiming to have prior claims on the bridegroom of the hour. They were, however, placated, and subsequently joined the marriage feast in the great arbour behind ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... up with more amenity in his manner than he had yet shown, and laid his hand on Michael's shoulder as he stood in front of him, evidently quite prepared ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... price of wine and spirits is terribly adverse to the sanitary condition of the English soldier. The staunch sobriety of the Turk, his extreme hardihood, which enables him to endure great fatigue upon the most simple fare, and his amenity to discipline, together with an instinctive knowledge of arms and a natural capacity for a military profession, render him a valuable material for our requirements in organising a defensive force in Cyprus. Should it be determined that a certain number of British troops shall be retained, ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Piedmontese ladies, to the great regret of Marie-Louise and their own, were compelled to stop and retrace their steps to Turin. The Spanish dames, appointed by Philip V., replaced them. The young Queen thereupon lost much of her characteristic amenity, and Madame des Ursins gained nothing on the score of benevolence of intention; but the jealousy of the Spanish ladies was ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... not accustomed to respect any amenity of social intercourse and he paid no more attention now to the greeting than if it had never been uttered. He merely glanced sharply at the man and snapped a ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... disdainful, trying all men by his own standard, and intolerant of a rival on the throne. To this result there contributed the bleak though bracing environment of his early years, amid kindred more noted for strength than for amenity, whom he loved, trusted, and revered, but from whose grim creed, formally at least, he had to tear himself with violent wrenches apart; his purgatory among the border-ruffians of Annan school; his teaching drudgeries; his hermit college days; ten years' struggle for a meagre competence; a lifelong ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... portraiture, will present itself only as a caricature to those unacquainted with the original, and that, for all Mr. Browne says to the contrary, many worthy people must go on thinking German life a romantic, Christmas-tree affair, full of pretty amenity, and tender ballads, and bon-bons. But some day, the truth will avenge itself, and without the least air of burlesque show us that often narrow and sordid existence, abounding in sensual appetites, coarse or childish pleasures, and paltry aims, and varnished ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... window had awakened her: surprise and terror had at first kept her silent—a surprise and terror that were by no means diminished by discovering who the intruder was. Although she had always spoken kindly to Karl, and even endeavoured, by the amenity of her manner, to soften his rude nature, she had from the first moment disliked him exceedingly, and felt his countenance most repulsive; so that, when she saw him entering her room through the window, she did not doubt that he ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... home, along the deserted streets as quickly as possible. For a long time neither spoke. Then it was some trivial amenity that she uttered to which he made even shorter reply. Up in the elevator they went, silently watching the floor. At the door of her apartment he inclined his head. "Good-night," he said, ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... who now returned to their capital, for the third time, with the laurel of victory on his brow. Every tongue, says his enthusiastic biographer, was eloquent in his praise; some dwelling on his noble port, and the beauty of his countenance; others on the elegance and amenity of his manners; and all dazzled by a spirit of munificence, which would have ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... the weather since I have been here—from the comfort of the inn—from the extreme civility and attention of the townspeople—and from the yet more interesting society of the Comte de la Fresnaye, the Cures Mouton and Langevin—together with the amenity of the surrounding country, and the interesting and in part magnificent remains of antiquity—can never be erased from my recollection. It is here that the tourist and antiquary may find objects for admiration and materials for recording. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the mongrel pack opened in full cry, with barbarous dissonance, against their supposed whipper-in. Never was there such a senseless yell: for the philosophical treatise "On the Profund" overflows with amenity and good-nature. Pope is all the while at play—diverting himself in innocent recreation; and, of all the satires that ever were indited, it is in spirit the most inoffensive to man, woman, and child. The Dunces, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... to reserve their sternness for themselves, and to be amiable and pleasing in their homes, and see that their neighbors enjoyed themselves. Thus, filled with a sense of duty, and wishing, at all costs, to obey her director, who bade her converse with amenity, the poor soul perspired in her corset when the talk around her languished, so much did she suffer from the effort of emitting ideas in order to revive it. Under such circumstances she would put forth the silliest statements, such as: "No one can be in two places at once—unless ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... his comfort. Brandon followed her into an apartment which his eye knew at a glance had been subjected to that female superintendence which makes such uses from what men reject as insignificant; and he thanked her with more than his usual amenity, for the grace which had presided over, and the kindness which had dictated her preparations. As soon as he was left alone, he wheeled his armchair near the clear, bright fire, and resting his face upon his hand, in the attitude of a man who prepares himself as it were for the indulgence ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pure, his heart honest, his spirit just. When he had finished studying his documents he used to play the violin and cultivate hyacinths. Every Sunday he dined with his neighbours the Mesdemoiselles Helbivore. His old age was cheerful and robust and his friends often praised the amenity of his character. ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... the vulgar coarseness of his style, forms an admirable contrast with the amenity and grace of his son's Spectators. He tells us, in his voyage to Barbary, that "A rabbin once told him, among other heinous stuff, that he did not expect the felicity of the next world on the account of any merits but his own; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... of justice in the Court, and those only in cases where he himself expressed doubt,—with such modesty, that he seemed wholly unconscious of his own gigantic powers,—with such equanimity, such benignity of temper, such amenity of manners, that not only none of the judges, who sat with him on the bench, but no member of the bar, no officer of the court, no juror, no witness, no suitor, in a single instance, ever found or imagined, in any thing said ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... infinitely conscientious endeavour to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. Nor is their history merely the dead bones of analysis and research; it is informed with an untiring sympathy; and—in the case of Renan especially—a suave and lucid style adds the charm and amenity ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... for profit in gardens, and then they are neither so perfect by far, nor so palatable, as they are in New Netherland. In general all kinds of pumpkins and the like are also much drier, sweeter and more delicious, which is caused by the temperateness and amenity of the climate. ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... and swollen; as he sat in the chimney-side with his Latin, he would drop off sleeping and the book roll in the ashes; some days he would drag his foot, others stumble in speaking. The amenity of his behaviour appeared more extreme; full of excuses for the least trouble, very thoughtful for all; to myself, of a most flattering civility. One day, that he had sent for his lawyer, and remained a long while private, he met me as he was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... behind him an unknown history of struggle and humiliation and defeat. The Thesigers stood for the whole world of things that he had missed, the world of admired refinements and beautiful amenities, that, without abating one atom of its refinement and amenity, had persistently kicked him out. Besides—and this was the pathetic part of it—he had an irrepressible affection for the Canterbury Thesigers, and it hungered and thirsted for recognition. It nourished itself in secret on any scraps that came its way. He met tolerance ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair |
