"Complimentary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the deck of the Seamew, had come to a conclusion which was by no means complimentary to his own self-respect. During his manifold duties and the business bothers connected with the sailing of the undermanned schooner, his mind had seized upon and grappled with a train of ideas which brought him logically to the decision that ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... the audience—for whom she was more than a match—while the sculptor and I looked on and grinned and resisted her blandishments to make speeches. When at last the lecturer came he sat down informally on the table with one foot hanging in the air and grinned, too, at her bantering but complimentary introduction. It was then I discovered for the first time that he was one of the best educational experts of that interesting branch of the British Government, the Department of Reconstruction, whose business it is to teach the convalescents the elements of social and political science. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the lady's head (the boys called her by a less complimentary name), and she shot into the air with her back humped till she shaped like an inverted U with its extremities narrowed and almost touching. There was no seesaw bucking about her. It was stiff-legged, with her four feet bunched together and her great fiddle-head lost in their midst. ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... confided to his wife as follows: He had seen himself in the ordinary full assembly of councilmen, where all went on just as usual. Suddenly the late /Schoeff/ rose from his seat, descended the steps, pressed him in the most complimentary manner to take the vacant place, and then ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... which worked under it had died out. Its place was taken by the twin schools of Jonson and Donne. Jonson's poetic method is something like his dramatic; he formed himself as exactly as possible on classical models. Horace had written satires and elegies, and epistles and complimentary verses, and Jonson quite consciously and deliberately followed where Horace led. He wrote elegies on the great, letters and courtly compliments and love-lyrics to his friends, satires with an air of general censure. But though he was classical, his style was never latinized. ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... Eagle Typewriting and Phonograph Company, Limited, of New York City, informing them of your desire to open an agency for the sale of their machines in Florence, Italy, and giving them my estimate of your business capacities. I have advised their London house to present you with two complimentary machines for your own use and your partner's, and also to supply a number of others for disposal in the city of Florence. If you would further like to undertake an agency for the development of the trade in salt codfish (large quantities ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... be complimentary," replied the consul, with a bow; "and that emboldens me to observe that a Dey should not retain the services of one who is ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... imposing manner, and most adroitly assumed the authoritative and familiar tone most calculated to impress his man. By way of introduction and recommendation, with a clumsiness which would have aroused the suspicions of a quicker man than M. Jeannin, he produced certain ordinary complimentary letters which he had received from the illustrious persons of his acquaintance, asking him to dinner, or thanking him for some invitation they had received: for it is well known that the French are never ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... It was not complimentary to Eleanor, but Jean's superior beauty was as much an established fact as her age, and she was pacified in some degree, agreeing with the Lady of Glenuskie that Eleanor was bound to take her harp ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a gipsy," interrupted Anne, lest he should say something too complimentary; "a she-Ulysses, who has travelled far and wide. In spite of your preference for my conversation, I wish I ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... arrived at Darminster at half-past eleven, and have been met by the personage whom Dolores recognized as Uncle Alfred. Constance was a little disappointed not to see something more distinguished, and less flashy in style, but he was so polite and complimentary, and made such touching allusions to his misfortunes and his dear sister, that she soon began to think him exceedingly interesting, and pitied him greatly when he said he could not take them to his lodgings—they ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this complimentary close of a remark, which scarcely began with praise, that made itself heard across the table, and was echoed with a heartfelt sigh from the lips ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... the sake of the patriotic task that lightened with its idealism the gathering gloom of his breakdown. But throughout, and this is the important point to note in relating his poetry to his life, his one mode of complimentary address to a woman was in terms ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... could have been more generous in encouragement and praise. It would have amused an onlooker, I am sure, to see him, when I had had the good fortune to tap claret, mopping the injured feature and all the time maintaining a flow of complimentary remarks. ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... complimentary of you to look so taken aback when I offer to carry something for you," he said. "Anyone might think I never ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... something unpleasantly suggestive in her movements: the way in which she walked and held her parasol, and turned her head from side to side, spoke of a desire to attract attention, and a delight in admiration even of the coarsest and least complimentary kind. ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... with his comrades, looking among the bushes to see if any savage yet lay there in ambush, and the two Colonels seized upon him. They could not call him by complimentary names enough, and they told him that he alone had made the victory possible. Henry, blushing, got away from them as quickly as he could, and rejoined ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... city of this name was built by the goddess in memory of him. And they further add that this Maneros is thus honoured by the Egyptians at their feasts because he was the first who invented music. Others again state that Maneros is not the name of any particular person, but a were customary form of complimentary greeting which the Egyptians use towards each other at their more solemn feasts and banquets, meaning no more by it than to wish "that what they were then about might prove fortunate and happy to them." ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... melancholy; the mouth expressive of decision and much character. His whole appearance was so decidedly that of a gentleman that the ladies arose and, together with the master of the house, received anew and returned the complimentary ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... him several times in his life. He exclaimed: 'Bamtz! Mais je ne connais que ca!' And he applied such a contemptuously indecent epithet to Bamtz that when, later, he alluded to him as 'une chiffe' (a mere rag) it sounded quite complimentary. 'We can do with him what we like,' he asserted confidently. 'Oh, yes. Certainly we must hasten to pay a visit to that—' (another awful descriptive epithet quite unfit for repetition). 'Devil take ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... complimentary assertion, for uncle Rik had somewhere read or heard that joy can kill, and he feared to become ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... at this information, placed the letter in my hands; and, leaving me to take a lunch at Garraway's with Mr. Timmis, I eagerly sat about my task—and luckily it was not only plainly written, but the subject-matter by no means difficult, being rather complimentary than technical. By the time they returned, I had not only translated, but made a fair copy of ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... a policy, either domestic or foreign." He then proceeded to offer suggestions for each. For the "policy at home" he proposed, as the "ruling idea:" "Change the question before the public from one upon slavery, or about slavery, for a question upon Union or Disunion." It was odd and not complimentary that he should seem to forget or ignore that precisely this thing had already been attempted by Mr. Lincoln in his inaugural address. Also within a few days, as we all know now, events were to show that the attempt had been successful. Further comment upon the ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... the face at the complimentary manner in which Nebuchadnezzar Cheatum was pleased to review ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... to have said that although these performances were never actually witnessed by Enriquez's sister—for reasons which he and I thought sufficient—the dear girl displayed the greatest interest in them and, perhaps aided by our mutually complimentary accounts of each other, looked upon us both as invincible heroes. It is possible also that she over-estimated our success, for she suddenly demanded that I should ride Chu Chu to her house, that she might ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... Macdonald enclosing one from the Nain Muhan to herself, very complimentary and really pretty. She is to be ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... his were only written in old age. True love for the Greeks was nearly always homosexual. The Ionian lyric poets of early Greece regarded woman as only an instrument of pleasure and the founder of the family. Theognis compares marriage to cattle-breeding; Alcman, when he wishes to be complimentary to the Spartan girls, speaks of them as his "female boy-friends." AEschylus makes even a father assume that his daughters will misbehave if left to themselves. There is no sexual love in Sophocles, and in Euripides it is only the women who fall ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a fine and commanding figure, so remarkable, indeed, that once at a dinner, on a public occasion, at Jefferson Barracks, his health was drunk, with a complimentary allusion to the lines ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... Siva is euphemistic. It means propitious and, like Eumenides, is used as a deprecating and complimentary title for the god of terrors. It is not his earliest designation and does not occur as a proper name in the Rig Veda where he is known as Rudra, a word of disputed derivation, but probably meaning the roarer. Comparatively ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... letter marks, as nearly as need be, the date of publication of Miss Barrett's volumes. The letters which follow deal mainly with their reception, first at the hand of friends, and then by the regular critics. The general verdict of the latter was extremely complimentary. Mr. Chorley, in the 'Athenaeum,'[100] described the volumes as 'extraordinary,' adding that 'between her [Miss Barrett's] poems and the slighter lyrics of most of the sisterhood, there is all the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... such a remarkably fierce-looking creature that it has received many names that are neither complimentary nor beautiful, such as conniption bug, alligator, and dragon, and numerous ...
— The Insect Folk • Margaret Warner Morley
... courteous to me and said many kind and complimentary things, but what seemed to impress them most was that I had won the aid of the fierce Tharks in my campaign for the liberation of Dejah Thoris, and ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... War, General Dix and his military staff gave Mr. Dodge a complimentary dinner at Fortress Monroe. General Dix rapped on the table and said to his brother officers: "Gentlemen, you are aware that our honored guest is a water-drinker. I propose that to-day we join him in his ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... By the way, I saved the class to-day, the school inspector has been this week and examined our class first in History and then in German, and I was the only one who knew all that Frau Doktor M. had told us about the Origin of Fable. The insp. was very complimentary and afterwards Frau Doktor M. said: its quite true one can always depend upon Lainer; she's got a trustworthy memory. When we were walking home she was awfully nice: "Do you know, Lainer, I feel that I really must ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... complimentary a name for such human truck!" cried Dave Darrin angrily. "Their first scheme, to come down here in the night and try to scare us, wasn't so fearfully mean, but ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... to cause surprise; where architectural deceptions, decorations and shifting scenes had been studiously adapted to increase the pleasure of the festival. If any monument or inscription, fitted for the occasion, lay upon the long line of route, from which some complimentary homage might be drawn to the "most valiant or the most beautiful," the honors were gracefully done by the host. The more unexpected the surprises arranged for these excursions, the more imagination evinced in ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... fabrication, and in cruelty of intention, were conspicuous even among the contents of the most discreditable publication that ever issued from the London press. When Queen Caroline landed from the Continent in June 1820 the young Trinity undergraduate greeted her Majesty with a complimentary ode, which certainly little resembled those effusions that, in the old courtly days, an University was accustomed to lay at the feet of its Sovereign. The piece has no literary value, and is curious only as reflecting ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... effected a complete revolution in his habits of life. She, she alone had brought all this about, she had saved the Chevalier from ruin—could anything be more flattering to her woman's vanity? Hence it was that, after Vertua had exchanged the usual complimentary remarks with the Chevalier, Angela asked in a tone of gentle and sympathetic pity, 'What is the matter with you, Chevalier Menars? You are looking very ill and full of trouble. I am sure you ought ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... I guess I'll just let her think they belong to me, and won't tell her that I got soaked in the rain last night. (To her, lifting his hat again.) I'm tickled nearly to death to have you say such complimentary things to me. It makes me glad I came on this ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... sight!" said Mrs. Tillett, as she handed up Baby Tillett to me, with such a beaming countenance that I knew she meant a complimentary construction to be placed upon her words. "Now, just take up them little girls and set 'em down easy, Mr. Bud, on account of their ruffles, and ram the boys in between to hold 'em steady. Now, boys, if you muss up the girls I'll make every one of you wear your shoes all day ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... thinking how much older he looked, and yet how friendly and brotherly he still was. She introduced him to Mrs. Sherman with a proud, grandmotherly air of proprietorship, and took a personal pride in every complimentary thing said about him afterward, as if she were responsible for his good behavior, and was pleased with the way ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... however, arrived; and at last, on seeing a carriage drive up to the abbey, she was emboldened to descend and meet him under the protection of visitors. The breakfast-room was gay with company; and she was named to them by the general as the friend of his daughter, in a complimentary style, which so well concealed his resentful ire, as to make her feel secure at least of life for the present. And Eleanor, with a command of countenance which did honour to her concern for his character, taking an early occasion of saying to her, "My father only wanted me to answer a note," ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... classmate—I will call him Dalton—who is very intimate with a dashing Senior; they room near each other outside the college. You quite envy Dalton, and you come to know him well. He says that you are not a "green-one,"—that you have "cut your eye-teeth"; in return for which complimentary opinions you entertain ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... came crowding round me as I sank upon the sofa, and insisted upon shaking hands with me, saying so many nice and complimentary things to me that I presently began to feel quite ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... the display of learning, which is always pleasant to the man of letters, his essays were arid and tedious. I never heard him lecture, but should imagine that he was an ideal University Extension lecturer. I do not mean this to be in the least complimentary to him as a critic. His book, "Illustrations Tennyson," was an entirely sterile exercise proving on every page that the author had no real perceptions about literature. It simply made creative artists laugh. They knew. His more recent book on modern tendencies displayed ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... complimentary comparison is an expression we often hear, "as stubborn as a mule." Only a few of the people who use this expression can have had any experience of the stubbornness of mules. Sometimes a stubborn person is described quite simply as a "mule." Another compliment of the ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... becoming serious, but she had also perceived that his impulses, however earnest they might have been, were controlled by an extraordinary caution and prudence, which, although it sometimes amused her, was not in the least degree complimentary to her. She could not prevent herself from resenting this somewhat peculiar action of Mr Croft, and this resentment grew into a desire, which gradually became a very strong one, that she might have an opportunity of declining a proposal from him. That opportunity came while ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... public and the press, that I cannot refrain from expressing my gratitude for the kind treatment I have experienced. From many of the criticisms which have appeared respecting "Our Farm of Four Acres," I have received not only complimentary remarks, but likewise some useful hints on the subjects of which I have written. With the praise comes some little censure; and I am charged by more than one friendly critic with stupidity for not ordering ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... enough in Madrid—young men, the "curled darlings" of society, lazily lounging in a Victoria or Berlina in what is known as the "Ladies' Mile." The Madrid pollo is not the most favourable specimen of a Spaniard; the word literally means a "chicken," but applied to a young man it is scarcely a complimentary expression, and has its counterpart with us in the slang terms which from time to time indicate the idle exquisite who thinks as much of his dress and his style as any woman does or more. The Madrid pollo often is, or ought to be, a schoolboy, and the younger he is, naturally, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... informally and know them just as they are, and she was very glad of this opportunity. And there I sat, looking like a kaleidoscope and feeling like a fool, and she taking it for granted that I was being perfectly natural. Complimentary, wasn't it? At this point dinner was announced, and she invited me to stay—quite insisted, in fact, to make up, she said, for the one I had missed when I was ill in the infirmary." Patty looked around the table with ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... to fetch Gourlay. But Gourlay knew his Allardyce, and was cautious. It was well to be on your guard when the Deacon was complimentary. When his language was most flowery there was sure to be a serpent hidden in it somewhere. He would lisp out an innocent remark and toddle away, and Gourlay would think nothing of the matter till a week afterwards, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... goodness to put her name on the title, knowing by golden experience that one stroke of her pen, like the point of a galvanic wire, will turn all the dullness of the dead mass into flame. Lady Barbara is not barbarous enough to refuse so simple and complimentary a request; nay, her benevolence extends on every hand. Distressed authors, male and female, who have not her rank, and, therefore, most clearly not her genius, beg her to take their literary bantlings under her wing; and with a heart, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... bugle blew for everybody to get up and go to the show lot, and put up the tents for the first show of the season. When we got out of the sleeper we asked where we were, and a man told pa we were at Peoria, Ill., and he wanted pa to give him a complimentary ticket for telling what town we were in, but pa looked fierce at the man and asked what kind of an easy mark he took him for, and the man slunk away. You wouldn't think they could unload those two trains of cars, about 80 in all, in a week, but when we got out the horses were hitched on the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... was announced, and with a hurried good-by, she followed her baggage down the stairs, and amid a cloud of dust was driven rapidly away, while Uncle Nat, from his chamber window, sent after her a not very complimentary or affectionate adieu. Arrived at the hotel in Rochester, where Eugenia had once waited in vain for Mr. Hastings, Stephen Grey managed to hear from her again, that she had well founded hopes of being one of the heirs of Nathaniel Deane, who, she said, sent them annually a sum of money varying from ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... sate a man, whose curved nose—black hair—ardent looks—and sallow complexion, at once announced him as a Frenchman: he was occupied in painting a portrait of one actress at the same time that he was making complimentary grimaces to three others. In the chimney-corner, and over against the Dutchman, was seated an elderly man, of short thick-set person, dressed in a shabby grey coat—boots—and a white hat. His features were not in themselves very striking, but had been habitually composed ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... a sort of humming incantation, the others dancing around. In one of their dances they used a sort of small kettle-drum, with a guitar-like handle to it. But after a while, the evening dances seemed to vary from the devotional to the complimentary and to the diverting; but the daylight ones were altogether devotional. Apotheola led one of the less lofty order, and he is one of the most popular and respected of their chiefs. Its music seemed to consist of an exclamation from him of Yo, ho, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... contain no language complimentary to the Administration, little or nothing in defence of the Government—none that can be offensive to Jefferson Davis; and, as a whole, they give the impression that he regards the Confederate position as being quite ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to the complimentary resolutions passed at a meeting in this city some weeks since, Gen. Taylor says, "It is a source of gratulation to me that the meeting refrained from the meditated nomination for the presidency. For the high office in question I have ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... pilot fish conducting an overfed shark to some helpless prey which it had discovered battling with the waters of circumstance; that after all, was only another version of the mongrel and the bloodhound. Also she compared them to other things, even less complimentary. ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... in Section D. He read a very good and important paper, and I got up afterwards and spoke exactly as I thought about it, and praising many parts of it strongly. In his reply he was unco civil and complimentary, so that the people who had come in hopes of a row were (as I intended ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... time to attend to their families. These are left to the mercy of hirelings. The titles of wife and mother are becoming merely complimentary. They are ceasing to suggest the best and purest types of womanhood. That of mother is becoming decidedly old fogyish, and to-day your fine lady takes care that her maternal instincts shall be smothered, and that her family shall ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... ago a fine enough looking young man, a native of Genoa, and a merchant in a small way, came to my mother to get her to wash some very fine cotton stockings which the sea-water had stained. When he saw me he was very complimentary, but in an honest way. I liked him, and, no doubt seeing it, he came and came again every evening. My mother was always present at our interviews, and he looked at me and talked to me, but did not so much as ask to kiss my hand. My mother was very pleased ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... residence on the North Side, for several years prior to her supposed marriage, was discovered and so the whole story was nicely pieced together. It was not the idea of the newspaper editor to be cruel or critical, but rather complimentary. All the bitter things, such as the probable illegitimacy of Vesta, the suspected immorality of Lester and Jennie in residing together as man and wife, the real grounds of the well-known objections of his family to the match, were ignored. The idea was to frame up a Romeo ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... religious topics—such works as we might expect to find on the shelves of a intelligent Virginia planter. It is evident that their owner was no student or specialist. Many of the books were sent to him as presents, with complimentary inscriptions by the donors. The bindings are all in their original condition, and generally of the most common description. The few exceptions were presentation copies. Col. David Humphreys, Washington's aid-de-camp during the revolutionary war, presents ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... assembled, including, in his richly trimmed official robes, the Marquis of Bute, who this year holds office as mayor of Cardiff. At the commencement of the proceedings Sir Frederick Abel took the chair, but this was only pro forma, and in order that he might, after a few complimentary sentences, resign it to the president-elect, Professor Huggins, the eminent astronomer, who at once, amid applause, assumed the presidency and proceeded to deliver the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... pathos of the show away. "Has nobody got a cup of tea?" he asked. "Tea," cried Bond Moore, who had a special mis-liking for him, "tea, you———" (the blank may be filled in according to fancy, on the understanding that it was neither polite nor complimentary) "there's no tea within five hundred miles." "Oh!" said the unhappy man, "I wish I had never come on this campaign, I do so miss my little comforts!" There was nobody there, I am sure, who would have been ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... Zeus's threat, Hermes? most complimentary, wasn't it, and most practicable? 'If I choose,' says he, 'I could let down a cord from Heaven, and all of you might hang on to it and do your very best to pull me down; it would be waste labour; you would never move me. On the other hand, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... complimentary piece of plate, presented by the Committee for managing the Eisteddvod, held at Denbigh, September, 1828, to Dr. Jones, their Honorary Secretary, for his valuable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... appeals to the Prussians, An mein Volk and An mein Kriegesheer, and the city was the centre of the Prussian preparations for the campaign which ended at Leipzig. After the Prussian victory at Sadowa in 1866, William I. made a triumphant and complimentary entry into the city, which since the days of Frederick the Great has been only less loyal to the royal house than ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... be sure! The Foolish Owl must be foolish or she wouldn't be the Foolish Owl. You are very complimentary to my partner, indeed," asserted the donkey, rubbing his front hoofs ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... commander was everywhere received as the representative of a great country by all the governors and topside mandarins along the route. And they haven't our idea of things—a lot of things that seem wrong to us seem all right to them. They mean no harm. They intend only to be courteous and complimentary, and so they strew a fellow's path with the flowers of ease and pleasure—if he forgets himself, there's danger, Colonel,' I said. 'I sail at eight in the morning, sir. I'm to be gone I don't know how long, ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... let in light in dark places, and an "International Housing of the Poor Company," as well as a number of others. Somewhere at the bottom of these seemingly bottomless concerns, the Duc de Mersch was said to be moving, and the Hour certainly contained periodically complimentary allusions to their higher philanthropy and dividend-earning prospects. But that was as much as I knew. The same people—people one met in smoking-rooms—said that the Trans-Greenland Railway was the last card of de Mersch. British investors wouldn't trust the Duc without some ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... room when she found him there alone, of treating him rather as a glorious than as a pernicious influence—a radiant frankness of demeanour in fine, despite an infinite natural reserve, which it seemed at once graceless not to be complimentary about and indelicate not to take for granted. In this way had been wrought in the young man's mind a vague unwonted resonance of soft impressions, as we may call it, which resembled the happy stir of the change from dreaming pleasantly to waking happily. ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... said it complimentary. Lots of times girls have more grit than they are given credit for. You think they're just girls, and then you find out that they are hero-ines! I thought I had some grit, but my own Polly has shamed me. I was just ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Duke was returning from a shooting expedition, and was passing the church on Sunday afternoon while service was going on. The Duke quietly entered the vestry, and signed to the clerk to come to him. The Duke gave the man a hare, and told him to put it into the parson's trap, and give a complimentary message about it at the end of the service. But the clerk, knowing his master would be pleased at the little attention, could not refrain from delivering both hare and message at once before the whole congregation. At the ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... for the note of the 6th. Your pamphlet I have read with satisfaction, as I had your former publication. I have no desire to appear complimentary, but cannot forbear the expression of my admiration of your writings. There is a cogency in your argument that I have seldom met with. Such maturity of judicial learning with so comprehensive and concise ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... After these complimentary speeches, the story became public property, and the whole table was amusing itself with it, when I had the happiness of seeing M.—— and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... him as he was. I remember his telling me a story of Dr. Johnson, how in the course of his last illness, when he could not open his letters, he asked Boswell to read them for him. Boswell opened a letter from some person in the North of England, of a complimentary kind, and thinking it would fatigue Dr. Johnson to have it read aloud, merely observed that it was highly in his praise. Dr. Johnson at once desired it to be read to him, and said with great earnestness, "The applause of a single human being ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Passing over all the complimentary expressions which it contained, his eye rested only on these lines at the end: "During the first three years of your professorship, you will be required to reside in or near Paris nine months out of the year, for the purpose of delivering ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... characters are just as irreproachable as the women of any race, and our men owe it to these women and to the race the duty of defending and protecting them, even to the risk of our own lives. We should always speak of them in complimentary terms, and allow no one to speak otherwise in our presence without ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... a flattering, complimentary phrase which cannot proceed from any one but M. Colbert; but it happens not to be the truth. The king is at home in every man's house when he has driven ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... weeks by Adams & Co., of Boston, in a prettily bound volume of one hundred and six pages, and had, I believe, a large sale. Several long and many short notices of it appeared in papers all over the country, all highly complimentary to the venerable translator. These notices surprised Sarah as much as they delighted her, and she expressed herself as deeply thankful that she had translated ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... the end of the war in making elaborate and international arrangements to run a pleasant and complimentary ambulance to the relief of disease in society that society was deliberately creating every day, instead of taking advantage at the end of the war of the trust all classes had in it, and taking advantage of the attention of forty nations, of society's best ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... space, after my somewhat elaborate exposition of these self-evident analogies. Presently a person turned towards me—I do not choose to designate the individual—and said that he rather expected my pieces had given pretty good "sahtisfahction."—I had, up to this moment, considered this complimentary phrase as sacred to the use of secretaries of lyceums, and, as it has been usually accompanied by a small pecuniary testimonial, have acquired a certain relish for this moderately tepid and unstimulating ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... a happy conclusion. The opposition denied that the successes obtained in America were likely to be decisive, and an amendment was moved in the house of commons by Mr. Thomas Grenvilie, consisting in the omission of several complimentary paragraphs, but it was negatived by two hundred and twelve against one hundred and thirty. In the upper house there was but little debate, and the original address was carried by an equally large majority. The same success ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... conquer, any enemy who might present himself. The fear inspired by Damascus naturally explains the attitude adopted by the Hittite states towards the invader, and the precautions taken by the latter to restrict his operations within somewhat narrow limits. Having accepted the complimentary presents of the Phoenicians, the king again took his way northwards—making a slight detour in order to ascend the Amanos for the purpose of erecting there a stele commemorating his exploits, and of cutting pines, cedars, and larches for his buildings—and then returned to Nineveh amid ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... think this association of ideas very complimentary to myself, I thanked her for her good advice. I nevertheless took away as a souvenir a flower and one of the thorny apples, seeing which the peasant trudged on her way, saying no doubt that it was wasting time and words to give ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... to the effect that though The Billow carried no free-list, it took great pleasure in sending him a complimentary subscription for ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... of the long ride to Hanson's northerly camp was made in silence, for both men were occupied with their own thoughts, most of which were far from being either complimentary or loyal to the other. As they rode through the wood the sounds of their careless passage came to the ears of another jungle wayfarer. The Killer had determined to come back to the place where he had seen the white girl who took to the trees with the ability of long habitude. There was a compelling ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... by Hugo was the same in whose album, in 1844, Balzac wrote a couple of complimentary verses. He happened to come across the album at his sister's, and, after inserting his poetry, took the book to Pongerville's house without finding him at home. He had certainly reckoned, at the close of the preceding year, on having this Academician's vote, as well as Dupaty's, Hugo's, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... pseudo-religiosity, bears bravely the disappointment he is sure to experience, and with undaunted heart urges the cause that, as he sees it, stands for the enlightenment and happiness of man. The vegetarian in the West (Europe, America, etc.) is often ridiculed and spoken of by appellations neither complimentary nor kind, but this should deter no honorable man or woman from entering the ranks of the vegetarian movement as soon as he or she perceives the moral obligation to do so. It may be hard, perhaps impossible, to convert others to the same views, but ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... complimentary speeches had been made, Thurston, who had been whispering to Savine, claimed attention. He cast a searching glance round the assembly. "Any sensible man could see that the opposition scheme is impracticable," ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... day of July, 1827, was read, which was succeeded by the reading of the Declaration of Independence and delivery of an oration by Mr. Steward. We have heard but one opinion from several gentlemen who were present, and that was highly complimentary to the composition ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... Torry, who walked up a second time to try and persuade her. She warned him that she could not dance anything but a country-dance; but he, of course, was willing to wait for that high felicity, meaning only to be complimentary when he assured her at several intervals that it was a "great bore" that she couldn't waltz, he would have liked so much to waltz with her. But at last it was the turn of the good old-fashioned dance which has the least of vanity and the most of merriment in it, and Maggie quite ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... describes meeting him at a small semi-private dinner in a Canadian city. The ostensible occasion was a mere complimentary affair to his lordship. The psychological objective was—something else. There began the conjecture. What ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... gratification increased on the occasion of each lecture, as the audiences grew in numbers and distinction. Many leading jurists and statesmen took more than a mere complimentary interest, and some of them, although pressed with social and public duties, honoured me with their attendance at all three lectures. How can I adequately express my appreciation of the great honour thus done me by the Earl of Balfour, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Justice Atkin, ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... little doubtful at first as to whether the bees might not consider this exchange in the light of an attempt to defraud them of their just due; but after some consideration she assented, and departed in search of the mark of complimentary mourning. At the door she paused, and looking back, she said with a low ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... suggested is that this was originally said to a questioner who asked for unattainable information, and that 'Mr Able' meant anyone able to furnish it. It is not exactly a satisfactory solution, and as to the reference to Tiverton, though it may be complimentary, one doubts whether it does not carry more than a suspicion ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... times and had a look at my fly. Didn't flick it, or do anything as complimentary as that. Just yawned and ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... Complimentary Close and the Signature. The forms of the Complimentary Close are many, and are determined by the relations of the writer to the one addressed. In letters of friendship you may use Your sincere friend; Yours affectionately ; Your loving son or daughter, etc. In business letters, you may ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... next-door neighbour, will gather instruction as well as pleasure from the glimpses which John Jones's history and lucubrations afford of the interior machinery of life in a yet unsophisticated region of the country. His little complimentary stanzas on the birthdays, and such other festivals of the family—his inscriptions to their neighbour Mrs. Laurence, of Studley Park, and the like, are equally honourable to himself and his benevolent superiors; and the simple purity of his verses of love or gallantry, inspired by village beauties ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... In this connection I have heard him sometimes called "Crookshanks," which is taking, I apprehend, even a grosser liberty with his name than in the case of the additional c,—"Crookshanks" having seemingly a reference, and not a complimentary one, to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... "Complimentary, papa. But 'I told you so.' You just quit the antique, and take to studying Harper's Bazar for effects; then your women will ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... ancient domestic what lady was in the habit of rambling about this part of the chateau at night. The old valet shrugged his shoulders as high as his head, laid one hand on his bosom, threw open the other with every finger extended; made a most whimsical grimace, which he meant to be complimentary: ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... words on the card and devoted the brief period of waiting to a careful scrutiny of his surroundings. He looked out into the court and he looked as far as he could down the dingy passage; and the conclusions he drew from what he saw were complimentary to ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... office of Sheriff's or private Chaplain or to some similar position of confidence, by which he gained the poet's respect and gratitude. The whole allusion, however, might, without straining be regarded as a merely complimentary one. The tone of the passage affords at any rate a very pleasing glimpse of the mutual regard entertained by the poet and ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... we get aground upon the Reformation, we shall never push off again—else would I say something far from complimentary to those Protestant proceedings which we may rather hope were ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... then they all set out for the office to get their money, cracking jokes as they went along. Harlow and Easton enlivened the journey by coughing significantly whenever they met a young woman, and audibly making some complimentary remark about her personal appearance. If the girl smiled, each of them eagerly claimed to have 'seen her first', but if she appeared offended or 'stuck up', they suggested that she was cross-cut or that ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... sorts of Pharisees (T. Yerush, Berachoth, fol. 13, Soteh, fol. 20, T. Babli, fol. 22, col. 2, and elsewhere); but Rabbi Nathan, as above, adds a new species to the genus. The freehand sketches of Pharisees given in the Talmud are the reverse of complimentary. In the words of the late E. Deutsch, who was a Talmudist of no mean repute, "the Talmud inveighs even more bitterly and caustically than the New Testament against what it calls the plague of Pharisaism, 'the dyed ones,' 'who do evil deeds like Zimri, and require a goodly reward like Phinehas,' ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... from America and the islands of the Pacific. Indeed, had I fulfilled my promises to the letter, I could pretty well have loaded a ship with my intended gifts. My father said nothing, and we all went home together at the usual time. At the end of this half, a very complimentary letter had ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... of several honourable Families of the Right Honourable Name of Scot, in the Shires of Roxburgh and Selkirk, and others adjacent, gathered out of Ancient Chronicles, Histories, and Traditions of our Fathers, includes, among other things, a string of complimentary rhymes addressed to the first Laird of Raeburn; and the copy which had belonged to that gentleman was in all likelihood about the first book of verses that fell into the poet's hand.[36] How continually its wild ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... of the warriors glanced at the pale face with some curiosity, and probably a few comments were made upon the performance of the youth. Their precise tenor, as a matter of course, can only be conjectured, but Jack was confident they were of a complimentary character, for the heartiness which he ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... aside, and entertained ourselves with quiet remarks to each other, not always complimentary to the company. He thought Miss Pie the prettiest of the dancers, and certainly she was sweetly dressed, and looked very well. Her partner, Sir Hector, was, without doubt, the handsomest of the gentlemen, though he appeared to me to give himself airs, like an overfed spaniel that has been too much ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... refused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's request, first Brutus and then Cassias begged for the return of the banished Publius; but Caesar still refused. He said he could not be moved; that he was as fixed as the North Star, and proceeded to speak in the most complimentary terms of the firmness of that star and its steady character. Then he said he was like it, and he believed he was the only man in the country that was; therefore, since he was "constant" that Cimber should be banished, he was also ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... dowry, the names and position of her parents, the extent and situation of her property—in short, every particular likely to be useful in arranging a marriage for Mademoiselle de Sainfoy. It was all highly complimentary, and it was supposed to be a confidential communication from the Prefect to Savary, Duc de Rovigo, the Minister of Police. But it was not pleasant reading for Mademoiselle de Sainfoy's brother, however devotedly imperialist he ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... received with distinguished honors at the meeting of the British Association in Montreal. A complimentary luncheon was tendered him by the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at the Windsor Hotel. General Sir Henry Lefroy presided. In response to the toast "Our Distinguished Guests," coupling the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... went down the dark staircase and out at the private door he said to himself some words the reverse of complimentary to ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann |
