"Amenities" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... failure of the expedition—would have changed into agonized shrieks over the outrages on its Southern brethren. The experiment of subjecting negroes to military rules and accustoming them to those amenities of civilized warfare which the rebels so uniformly practice would again have been declared to be a hopeless failure; and for the hundredth time the Proclamation and the radicals who advised it would have been pilloried for ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... part of the burden of homesteading, the women inevitably brought one important factor into the homesteaders' lives. They inaugurated some form of social life, and with the exchange of visits, the impromptu parties, the informal gatherings, and the politeness, the amenities they demanded—however modified to meet frontier conditions—civilization ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... take it, and said as much, but offered his own declaration of friendliness to the powers that were. This was declined. Debate followed, ending with a request from the Assembly that the visitor depart from Virginia. Some harshness of speech ensued, but hospitality and the amenities fairly saved the situation. One Thomas Tindall was pilloried for "giving my lord Baltimore the lie and threatening to knock him down." Baltimore thereupon set sail, but not, perhaps, until he had gained that knowledge ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... immeasurably longer than the ancient timekeeper had indicated; but in accordance with usual human experiences, they began to grow shorter. Poignant sorrow cannot maintain its severity, or people could not live. Vines, grasses, and flowers covered the graves in Virginia; the little cares, duties, and amenities of life began to screen at times the sorrows ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... friends of Scott. Mr. Herford calls this period a day of "Specimens" and extracts: "Mediaeval romance was studied in Ellis's Specimens," he says, "the Elizabethan drama in Lamb's, literary history at large in D'Israeli's gently garrulous compilations of its 'quarrels,' 'amenities,' 'calamities,' and 'curiosities.'"[41] But the scholarship of the time on the whole is worthy of respect. In the case of ballads and romances notable work had been done before Scott entered the field,[42] and he and his contemporaries were carrying out the ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... influences which have made the common lot of the seaman so very much better than it was. Another excellent influence is that of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen. This mission sends its missioners afloat in its own steamers to tend the sick and bring some of the amenities of shore life within the reach of those afloat. Religion is among its influences, but only in an unsectarian way. Its work in Canadian waters is directed by two able and self-sacrificing men: Dr Grenfell, whose base is at St Anthony's in North-East Newfoundland, and whose beat goes straight ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... exist in the United States, so all the nice gradations of manner which are elicited by those relations, are wanting also. The social machine rubs on with as little oil as possible—there is but small room for the exercise of the amenities and charities of life. The favours of the great are seldom rewarded by the obsequiousness of the small. No leisure and privileged class exists to set an example of refined and courtly bearing; but there are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... it whether he be afloat or not. But it is in the consideration which he enjoys that the successful author finds his richest reward. He is, if not of equal rank, yet of equal standing with the highest; and if he be open to the amenities of society, may choose his own circles. He without money can enter doors which are closed against almost all but him and the wealthy. I have often heard it said that in this country the man of letters is not recognised. I believe the meaning of this to ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him—its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire—after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... continuing body of opinion cares about something more than strictly functional values along the Potomac and in its Basin. It is a long-settled region, whose natives generally cherish what they have in the way of scenic and historic amenities. It is the part-time home of many influential lawmakers, who concern themselves about its beauty and well-being. And together with the national capital at the core of its metropolis, it is the vacation goal of millions of American ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... which rises from that dung heap opposite,' alluding to another member, who fortunately was well able to return the compliment in kind. Both, however, are amongst the most useful men in the House. Such amenities are mere matters of everyday occurrence, ripples without which the debates would stagnate. The pity of them is that they discourage men of education and position from descending into the political arena, and even ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he ...
— Lost in Translation • Larry M. Harris
... He felt lost, alone there in the room with that pale spirit of a woman. There was no bar-keeper upon whom to call for drinks, no small boy to send around the corner for a can of beer and by means of that social fluid start the amenities of friendship flowing. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... variations of domesticated cats— will affect its prospects in life very little. In the first case, the probability is that the new animal will get on in life, and breed, and multiply above the average; in the second, it is probable that, in the competition for food and other amenities of life, the disadvantage, whatever it is, under which the animal suffers will shorten its career, and abbreviate the tale of its offspring; while, in the third case, an average career may be expected. Hence, disregarding ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... in murder, and these lofty thoughts. But let us learn the lesson that true love to God means hearty hatred of God's enemy, and that it will always have to be militant and sometimes stern and what people call fierce. Amidst the amenities and sentimentalities of modern life there is much necessity for remembering that the Apostle of love was a 'son of thunder,' and that it was the lips which summoned Israel to the fight, and chanted hymns of triumph over the corpses borne down by the rushing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... no!" came from Kenby. He did not care much for society, but he vaguely respected it as the stronghold of the proprieties and the amenities. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... These amenities having reestablished them in their mutual esteem, they chatted lazily and spasmodically till past midnight, with more smoke ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... sighed. "As long as the amenities were preserved! We must be as friendly as possible about that sort of thing, or run the risk of ...
— The Outbreak of Peace • Horace Brown Fyfe
... filled the house with his amenities; but gradually it became apparent that his most dazzling effects were directed exclusively to Jane. Lethbury and his wife held their breath and looked away from each other. They pretended not to notice the frequency ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... number five being still suggestive of the amenities proper to a social function, the sergeant major stepped up to the ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... reminded me of a bust of Achilles at the London Museum. He is indeed a swift-footed Achilles, but in another race, another warfare. Born of a noble family, naturally endowed with sensitiveness and ideality to appreciate all the amenities and suavities of that brilliant sphere, the sacrifice must have been inconceivably great for him to renounce favor and preferment, position in society,—which, here in England, means more than Americans can ever dream of,—to descend from being a ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... the handsome and resentful senoritas were preparing to avenge California with a battery of glance, a melody of tongue, and a witchery of grace that was to wreak havoc among these gallant officers,—and after exchanging amenities over a bowl of punch, went out into the high-walled garden to smoke the cigarito. The perfume of the sweet Castilian roses was about them, the old walls were a riot of pink and green; but the youths had no mind ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... leisure for study, may draw to themselves the results of all past experience; and rendering both attractive and easy to all classes of our people opportunities of turning their thoughts from the sterner features of their daily occupations to the amenities of life as presented by specimens of artistic and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... with the minor amenities of Western civilisation" has taught me to respect my national costume, and it may interest Mr. Irwin to know that the dress I wear in Champaran is the dress I have always worn in India except that for a very short period in India I fell an easy prey in common with the ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi
... assure you that when I received your invitation, having heard so much of the literary, artistic and social amenities of your famous Club, I resembled in feelings, not in feature, the beautiful bride of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... pups,' said young Daniel, emboldened by observing the gentleman's amenities towards Bessie. 'Shall I show 'em yer? One's ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... contrivances which facilitate labor, increase production, lessen distance, and raise man from the degradation of an existence wholly occupied with providing for his physical wants. Under these elastic laws, religion, philanthropy, art, learning, the social amenities, the domestic influences, all humanizing agents, will have opportunity and work harmoniously for the advancement ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... As a "monodramatic Idyll," a romance in many rich lyric measures, Maud was at first excessively unpopular. "Tennyson's Maud is Tennyson's Maudlin," said a satirist, and "morbid," "mad," "rampant," and "rabid bloodthirstiness of soul," were among the amenities of criticism. Tennyson hated war, but his hero, at least, hopes that national union in a national struggle will awake a nobler than the commercial spirit. Into the rights and wrongs of our quarrel with Russia we are not to go. Tennyson, rightly or wrongly, took ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... done a couple of years ago, with bright intelligence, with natural enjoyment of the hour. It was greatly his charm in such conversation that had made him a favourite with pleasant people of the world. In withdrawing himself from the sphere of these amenities he was opposing the free growth of his character, which in consequence suffered. He was cognisant of that; he knew that he was more himself to-night than he had been for some months. But the fixed idea waited in ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... The Russian amenities concluded, we left the ladies still under the comfortable cool dome of the Russian consulate, and went to see our own representative. The streets of the little town are neither agreeable to horse nor ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... brother apologist, Tischendorf, whose rendering, as he so much insists upon it, I merely reproduce. The manner in which Tischendorf attacks Volkmar in connection with this passage forcibly reminds me of the amenities addressed to myself by Dr. Lightfoot, who seems unconsciously to have caught the trick of his precursor's scolding. Volkmar had paraphrased Origen's words in a way of which his critic disapproved, and Tischendorf comments as follows: "But here ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... that of unauthorized guardian and counsellor to this young girl who had come into her life by such an odd chance, but Mrs. Harold seemed to be born to mother all the world, and subtly Harrison recognized the fact that Peggy was growing beyond her care and guidance, and the thousand little amenities of the social world in which she would so soon move and have her being. For more than a year this knowledge had been a source of disquietude to the good soul who for eight years had guarded her little charge so faithfully, and she had ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... done in a pleasing way; not only that no pill should be sugar-coated, but that the bitterest ingredient should be placed on the outside. In repudiating attractive vices the Puritans had rejected also those amenities which might have decently concealed or even mildly decorated the forbidding angularities of a naked Virtue which certainly did not imitate the form of any goddess who had ever before attracted followers. Mr. Adams was a complete and thorough Puritan, wonderfully little modified by times and ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... Disraeli, in his Amenities of Literature, says that, "Tormented by the fate of a collection which had consumed forty years, at every personal sacrifice to form it for 'the use and services of posterity,' he sank at the sudden stroke. In the course of a few weeks he was so worn by injured feelings that, from a ruddy-complexioned ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... Superfluous trouble! Madame de Crequi interrupted him at each sentence by the most disagreeable commentaries, by exclamations such as the following: "Detestable style!" "Confusion worse confounded!" and other similar amenities. Bailly did not succeed in extorting any indulgences from Madame de Crequi, when, fortunately, the arrival of another visitor put an end to this ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... farther coast, it was scarcely a wonder that his eye had failed at first to find it. Here were no pomps of lord or baron; little luxuriance could prevail behind those eyeless gables; there could be no suave pleasance about those walls hanging over the noisy and inhospitable wave. No pomp, no pleasant amenities; the place seemed to jut into the sea, defying man's oldest and most bitter enemy, its gable ends and one crenelated bastion or turret betraying its sinister relation to its age, its whole aspect arrogant and unfriendly, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... that war had its amenities and refinements and that in the nineteenth century it was simply barbarism to talk ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... music, literature, discovery, invention, and pure science; for, if all the workers in all of these branches of human activity got together and demanded of the world the real fruits of their self-sacrifice and labor,—if they demanded all the riches and comforts and amenities of life that have flowed directly or indirectly from their efforts,—there would be little left for the rest of mankind. Each of these activities is represented by a craft spirit that recognizes this great truth. The artist or the scientist who has an itching palm, who prostitutes ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... have said) Amid the waste of savage strife Tends to maintain—what else were dead— The sweet amenities of life; And seeking ends so pure, so good, So innocent, it does surprise her To be so much misunderstood By all—except ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 19, 1917 • Various
... I've tried to puzzle it out, and this is the conclusion I've come to. Is it rather cold-blooded? I know it isn't at all like the lovemaking in the books. I suppose I ought to go and fling myself at her feet, in defiance of all the decencies and amenities and obligations of life, but somehow I can't bring myself to do it. I've thought it all conscientiously over, and I think ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... River. Well, the Senator spent the most of his time in Smelter City forty miles away, and in Washington. Then, there were the Williams of the Mission House with their only boy and eighty or a hundred Indian children; gentlefolk keeping up the amenities of refined life, spreading the contagion of beautiful example like an irrigation plot widening slowly over arid sage brush. Surely her father was held in esteem by them; and they stood for all that ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... surroundings. The struggle between organized life and chaos, the laborious subjugation of nature to the requirements of our complex modern life, for a considerable period absorb the energies of the colonists. The amenities of culture, the higher intellectual life, the refinements of art can, during this period, receive little attention. Meanwhile a new national character is being formed; the people are undergoing the moral training ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... assimilate without discomfort. In his dealings with Nature he is sweet, genial, patient, wise. In his dealings with men he exasperates himself over the least divergence from the desired type. Before any over-tendency to the amenities and luxuries of civilization, in particular, he becomes unreasonable and relentless. Hence there appears something hard and ungenial in his views of life, utterly out of keeping with the delicate tenderness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... in low, dark, smoky huts, with earthen floors,—it is yet wonderful to see how these people preserve not merely the decencies, but even the amenities of life. Their clothes are a chaos of patches, but one sees no rags; all their well-worn white garments are white in the superlative degree; and when their scanty supply of water is at the scantiest, every bare foot on the island is sure to be washed in warm water at night. Certainly there are ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... being rudest to those whom he most disliked. He fancied that he was imitating his great ancestor, and asserting the virtue of good old Roman bluntness against modern Greek affectation; he did not in the least see that he was himself a curious example of Roman affectation, shown up by the real amenities of intercourse, for which Romans ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... fool," comments Konev in an undertone, though the young fellow is too enthralled with the memory of the amenities of his cantonal capital to notice the remark. Next, smacking his lips, and chewing his words, he continues ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... much to be feared that Mr. Humpage was by no means sorry to be entrusted with such a charge. But if he was not naturally kinder hearted, he was more acquainted with the amenities of ordinary society than Mr. Lightowler, and some consideration for Mabel restrained him then from using his triumph as he might have done. He explained briefly the arrangement between Vincent and Mark as he understood it, and the manner in which it had lately been made known. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... amenities of Melbourne and Alvanley and Rogers and Allen, for Lord Holland's genial humour, and for Lady Holland's indiscriminate insolence, we can refer to Lord Macaulay's Life and Charles Greville's Journals, and the ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... necessary, and—as might be conjectured from its other peculiarities as well as this—anything like what the English call "the joys and comforts of the domestic hearth" seemed an impossible attainment in this dreary old palazzo. The social amenities must wither in its desolate atmosphere, and dwindle to chill shadows, like the ghosts that haunt the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... the thinnish oval of her face and the staid splendor of her hair. Here was no vulgar yellow, no crass and hackneyed gold ... and yet there was a clarified and gauzier shade of gold ... the color of the moon by daylight, say.... Then, as the pleasures of digestion lapsed gently into the initial amenities of sleep, she spoke. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... think, to feel, and to express itself. It was a curious stroke of destiny that made Moliere the contemporary of Corneille and Racine. Of him I will venture to say that he was the legislator of life's amenities; of his other merits it is needless ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... low-toned parley with them. Champe yawned with insulting enthusiasm. Presently both girls quietly disappeared. Aunt Missouri never returned to the parlor—evidently thinking that the girls would attend to the final amenities with their callers. They were left alone with old Mr. Claiborne. They sat as though bound in their chairs, while the old man read in silence for a while. Finally he closed his book, glanced ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... He had not understood. They had arranged their lives so much as business partners, friends, fate-linked humans dependent on each other for the daily amenities of a joint existence. He had never suspected; never had cause to suspect, this hidden flood of sentiment. The simple man's heart responded. For such love she must be repaid. In the packed train which sped him towards England he carried with ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... she halted to give and receive the password, then tossed a bunch of letters to the corporal, and spurred forward. Halted by the outer pickets, she exchanged amenities again, rid herself of the remainder of the mail, and rode forward, loosening the revolver in her holster. Then ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... The amenities of trench life depend almost wholly on the enemy and the weather. In both these respects we were fortunate. The Saxons who faced us lived up to their reputation, and apart from some accurate sniping which did more damage to periscopes than to human life, ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... development of this rare plant has been only partial. The soil was unfavorable and the seed was not of the right sort. In Spain, the king stands shrouded in etiquette like a mummy in its wrappings, while a too rigid pride, incapable of yielding to the amenities of the worldly order of things, ends in a sentiment of morbidity and in insane display.[2202] In Italy, under petty despotic sovereigns, and most of them strangers, the constant state of danger and of hereditary distrust, after having tied all tongues, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... forth the frightful dragon. To Siegfried's surprise he can still talk like a man. After a few of the usual amenities, the fight begins. Mindful of his boast, Siegfried skilfully parries every blow, evades the fiery breath, lashing tail, and dangerous claws, and, biding his time, thrusts his sword up to the very hilt in the ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... money had leagued themselves together to stop me from going on. Somehow I beat them, one by one—big engineers, financiers, financiers' syndicates, corporations—working late and working early, sinking every dollar made in another venture, and living any way. There were no amenities in that fight until those we had against us found that it was wiser ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... happiness. There are hundreds of homes in which there is love that would die for its dear ones; and yet hearts are starving there for love's daily bread. There is a tendency in some homes to smother all of love's tenderness, to suppress it, to choke it back. There are homes where the amenities of affection are unknown, and where hearts starve for daily bread. There are husbands and wives between whom love's converse has settled into the baldest conventionalities. There are parents who never kiss their children ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... subject of my wife's family and friends and of the warm-hearted kindness with which they received me, I ought to say something about my father-in-law, Mr. Simpson. Though he had not his wife's charm of manner and delight in all the amenities of life and of social intercourse on its best side, he was to me a very attractive man, as well as one of very great ability. Through his shyness he made all but his intimates regard him as dull. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... German. In blood he was more Slav than Teutonic. He was unrefined, unsympathetic, and overbearing. But as a manager he was splendid. He bought up outlying parts to round off the estate. He paid more attention to the necessaries than to the luxuries and the amenities of life. He was more careful to surround himself with a strong police force than with poets and minstrels. But he was able to keep out the marauders and the poachers. He was able to protect the property against stronger neighbours and ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... emphatic change of places between him and Henchard which this election had established renewed a slight embarrassment in the manner of the modest young man; but Henchard showed the front of one who had overlooked all this; and Farfrae met his amenities ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... worried, and evinced a tendency to irritation that was quite foreign to her natural sweetness of character. Now, when a person on whom one is accustomed to depend for most of that social intercourse and those pleasant little amenities which members of one sex value from another, suddenly cuts off the supply without any apparent rhyme or reason, it is enough to induce a feeling of wonder, not to say of vexation, in the breast. It never occurred to John that the reason might be that Bessie was truly fond of him, and perhaps ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... strength of bone and muscle (admittedly greater than his own); he admired her indomitable courage and self-reliance, while her positive genius in the matters of seamanship and navigation filled him with speechless wonder. The girls he had been used to were clever only in their knowledge of the amenities of an afternoon call or the formalities of a paper german. A girl of two-and-twenty who could calculate longitude from the altitude of a star was outside his experience. The more he saw of her the more he knew himself to have been right ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... you and me, old fellow, it's time to drop these amenities," continued Dolokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of this subject which irritated Denisov. "Now, why have you kept this lad?" he went on, swaying his head. "Because you are sorry for him! Don't we know those 'receipts' of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... structure and situation, are either stifled by that alien incubus, leaving civic life barbarous, or else force their way up, unremarked or not justly honoured as ideals. Industry and science and social amenities, with all the congruous comforts and appurtenances of contemporary life, march on their way, as if they had nothing to say to the spirit, which remains entangled in a cobweb of dead traditions. An idle pottering ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... while it was admitted that the appointee was not a shining credit to his backers, the belief obtained that the control of the party in the State depended upon the result. The two Senators so understood it, and their preparation for the contest omitted all amenities. Fenton, regardless of whom he hit, relied upon carefully drawn charges sustained by affidavits; Conkling trusted to a fire of scathing sarcasm, supported by personal influence with his Democratic colleagues and the President's power in his own party. The result showed the senior Senator's shrewdness, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... introduced her husband. They were all at their ease. Myra glanced once at his face and thereafter looked away. But her flow of small talk, the conversational stop-gap of the woman accustomed to social amenities, went on placidly. They were strangers, meeting for the first time in a ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... himself. His one great object in life was to benefit mankind. He said in an address, delivered just after he had begun the practice of law, speaking of conscience and charity: "They must become a part of us and of our existence, as present, in season and out of season, in all the amenities of life, in those daily offices of conduct and manner which add so much to its charm, as also in those grander duties whose performance evinces an ennobling self-sacrifice." It was his own determined and unfaltering ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... the door on him then. He seemed suddenly sordid. Dinner, I thought! Although, as matter of fact, I made a very fair meal when, Granger's suitcase not having gone, in his coat and some other man's trousers, I was finally fit for the amenities. Alison did not come down to dinner, so it was clear she would not go over to the club-house dance. I pled my injured arm and a ficticious, vaguely located sprain from the wreck, as an excuse for remaining at home. Sam regaled the table with accounts of my distrust of women, my one love affair—with ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... drawing-room, seated himself upon a chair, and surrendered his mind to the thought that he had shown his guest most excellent entertainment. Next, his mind passed imperceptibly to other matters, until at last it lost itself God only knows where. He thought of the amenities of a life, of friendship, and of how nice it would be to live with a comrade on, say, the bank of some river, and to span the river with a bridge of his own, and to build an enormous mansion with a facade lofty enough even to afford a view ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... trees. This custom was introduced in royal merriment by Carlo Emmanuele I. He put a sprig in his hat, and was imitated by all his court, and the ladies wore the same in their bosom or in their hair. Assuredly it is one of the wonders of the world to see here, amid the amenities and allurements of the country, especially during the summer season, what a continuous festa or holy fair is maintained. For there come and go torrents of men and women of every nation under heaven. Here you shall ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... which has been the seat of war, what is his opinion of it. He will tell you that he has seen his country ravaged, his home violated, his family —— But no! the tongue recoils from speaking the horrors and atrocities of war thus brought into the bosom of a peaceful home. All the amenities and charities of domestic life are outraged, are annihilated. All that is dearest to man; all that tends to refine, to soften him—to make him a noble and a better being—all these are trampled under foot by a brutal soldiery—all these are torn from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... These journalistic amenities were accorded serious attention by the society of Bowen, which, by reason of the many Government officials established there, considered itself very exclusive. The majority of these officials were connected with the law, ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... won't get the chance," rejoined our sister, claiming her right of the last word. There was no heat about these little amenities, which made up—as we understood it—the ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... his teacher, and the influence of her beauty, began to mould him, in his kind and degree, after her likeness, so that he grew nice in his person and dress, and smoothed the roughness and moderated the broadness of his speech with the amenities of the English which she made so sweet upon her tongue. He became still more obedient to his grandmother, and more diligent at school; gathered to himself golden opinions without knowing it, and was gradually developing into a ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Frenchwomen—they all seemed clever—turn their backs to their partners to get a good look at the strange American whom Claire de Cintre was to marry, and reward the object of the exhibition with a charming smile. At last, as he turned away from a battery of smiles and other amenities, Newman caught the eye of the marquis looking at him heavily; and thereupon, for a single instant, he checked himself. "Am I behaving like a d—d fool?" he asked himself. "Am I stepping about like a terrier on his hind legs?" At this moment he perceived Mrs. Tristram ...
— The American • Henry James
... had not yet done with the amenities of the Stympsons. The morning's post brought letters to Lady Diana and Lord Erymanth, which were swallowed by the lady with only a flush on her brow, but which provoked from ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mo'n you overtake." Likewise painstaking was reckoned painful; and tomorrow was always waiting for today's work, while today was ready for tomorrow's share of play. On the other hand it was a satisfaction to work sturdily for a hard boss, and so be able to say in an interchange of amenities: "Go long, half-priced nigger! You wouldn't fotch fifty dollars, an' I'm wuth ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... These amenities, carefully observed at all levels, contribute more directly to a spiritual uniting of American fighting forces than all of the policies which have been promulgated toward the serving of ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... interview. We all became so fond of him, he was a loyal, faithful friend, was always ready to help me in any small difficulties, and I went to him for everything—visits, servants, horses, etc. W. had no time for any details or amenities of life. We moved over just before New Year's day. As the gros mobilier was already there, we only took over personal things, grand piano, screens, tables, easy chairs, and small ornaments and bibelots. These were all ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... any rate too much even for an Italian passenger; for—well, well! their way had been a hot and a dusty one, poor fellows. So the guard was summoned, and came with all the implicit powers of an uniform and, I believe, a sword. The boots were strained on sufficiently to preserve the amenities of the way: they could not, of course, be what they had been; the carriage was by this a forcing- house. And through the long night we ached away an intolerable span of time with, for under-current, for sinister ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... as Tom Verity had rightly divined, a doubtfully wholesome spirit! Over Damaris it exercised an unwilling fascination, as of some haunting refrain ending each verse of her personal experience. Even when, as a little girl of eight, fresh from the gentle restraints and rare religious and social amenities of an aristocratic convent school in Paris, she had first encountered it, it struck her as strangely familiar—a thing given back rather than newly discovered, making her mind and innocent body alike eager with absorbed yet half-shuddering recognition. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... bearing the name of freeman, be legally subjected to all the oppressive features of serfdom, peonage, and feudalism combined, without possessing the right to claim, much less the power to exact, any of the prerogatives and amenities belonging to either of those systems of human bondage. All this could be done without violating the letter of the emancipation proclamation; no argument is necessary to prove that it would be a total submission of its spirit. Even upon the presumption ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... forgotten the amenities of life in the excitement. Professor Gurlone and his son, still clad in their black suits, but with their helmets off, were standing beside him, clutching ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... amenities, Paris in the early 'thirties was not altogether a suitable resort for British visitors. The political atmosphere was distinctly ruffled. Revolution was in the air. Sir Jasper sniffed the coming ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... interested," said Lady Mary. The two women were alone now, and the hostess, released after three hours of stereotyped amenities, surrendered herself to the charm of natural intercourse with one of her own sort, and rang for tea. "I always liked politics, and I feel quite sure that my husband will achieve his high ambitions. It interests ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... to which they devote their lives; people, as a rule, are most interesting on the subject of their own particular business in life. Talk about the affairs of the theatre within reason, and with due regard to the amenities of polite conversation, but do not confuse the affairs of the theatre, broadly speaking, with your own. The one is lasting, general; the other particular and fleeting. "Il n'y a pas de l'homme necessaire" [No man is indispensable]. ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... that while living abroad she had often met American girls—intelligent women, well bred, the finest stuff in the world—who suffered under a disadvantage, because they lacked a little training in the social amenities. ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... but in every other respect I felt extremely unwell. We reached Karachi on the Thursday morning and stayed there all day. It is a vile spot, combining the architectural features of a dock with the natural amenities of a desert. The only decent spot was a Zoo and even that ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... cheap as dirt, and the only use for it was to make mud pies. The damned cynical villain! "Always reflect," said he, on another occasion, "that although a man may be as ugly as sin, the probability is that he is just as pleasant. Beauties will find hitherto unsuspected amenities in Beasts till the end of time." But I am such a poor and sorry Beast, without the chance of a transformation; a commonplace Beast, dull and didactic; a besotted, purblind, despicable Beast! Yet Judith loved me. Instead of thanking ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... off at a brisk pace with Mr. Brown, a pace moderated to one of almost funeral solemnity as they approached the residence of Mrs. Gibbs. To their relief she was alone, and after the usual amenities thanked them warmly for all they had done ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... do. Even in your cities I observe a feverish excitement, and a demnable race for what the Scriptures aptly call 'filthy lucre'; and the pastoral regions are—well—rough indeed. Your colonies are too young. In time to come, no doubt, the amenities of life will appear—for you have some magnificent private fortunes; but in the meantime one hears of nothing but work—business—and so forth. Cultivated leisure is a thing practically unknown. However, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... collections of dust, or fragments of meals, or dirty plates. There was neither a Winged Victory, a Venus de Milo, nor a Hermes after Praxiteles. And except for the bust of Bubbles there was no example of Barbara's own work by which to fish for stray compliments from the casual visitor. Of the amenities the studio had but a thick carpet, an open fireplace, and a pair of plain but easy chairs. Upon a strong tremorless table placed near the one great window, a huge lump of clay, swathed in damp cloths, alone served to denote ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... truth, that Mr. Carnegie gave me due credit, although if he had not mentioned my name I would have been complimented to know that he had read the Good Stuff closely and pondered it well. As brother authors, you will please take notice that we observe the amenities. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... they sound! Nobody worried then about diphtheria; they only died of it. Mimic frigates, too! What patriotism! These gardens are as much lost as those of the Hesperides. A cemetery swallowed them up—the cemetery which adjoins the old St. Pancras Churchyard. The Tavern, shorn of its amenities, a mere drink-shop, survived as far down the century as 1874, soon after which date it also disappeared. Hornsey Wood House has a name not unknown in the simple annals of tea-drinking. It is now part of ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... side, the austere Dorian, whom ten centuries could not teach that human life brought with it any pleasure, or any business, or any holiness of duty, other or loftier than that of war. If it were possible that, under the amenities of a Grecian sky, too fierce a memento could whisper itself of torrid zones, under the stern discipline of the Doric Spartan it was that you looked for it; or, on the other hand, if the lute might, at intervals, be heard or fancied warbling too effeminately for the martial ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Meg's voice in round altercation with Jock Gordon, the privileged "natural" or innocent fool of the parish, interrupted this interchange of amenities, which was indeed as friendly and as much looked for between lads and lasses as the ordinary greeting of "Weel, hoo's a' wi' ye the nicht?" which began every conversation between ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... it was to Mr. Boyce's dislike of himself, and to the wilful fancy for Wharton's society which this dislike had promoted, that Wharton's long stay at Mellor was largely owing—did Aldous subdue himself to propitiations and amenities wholly foreign to a strong character long accustomed to rule without thinking about it. Mr. Boyce showed himself not a whit less partial to Wharton than before; pressed him at least twice in Raeburn's hearing to make Mellor his head-quarters so long as ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... amount despatched would be merely two or three. The indignation of these disappointed beggars and their recriminations were then most amusing: "From the time when my father and thine entered into friendly relations, they loaded each other with presents, and never waited to be asked to exchange amenities;* and now my brother sends me two minas of gold as a gift! Send me abundance of gold, as much as thy father sent, and even, for so it must be, more than thy father."** Pretexts were never wanting to give reasonable weight to such demands: one correspondent had begun to build a ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... her mother, which had certainly not grown less since I saw her last, and to turn into something like a joke her valetudinarian austerities of sentiment and opinion. She made a pleasant mock of the amenities which passed between her mother and Glendenning, whose gingerliness in the acceptance of the old lady's condescension would, I confess, have been notably comical without this gloss. It was perfectly evident that Mrs. ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... was declaiming violently, "You have all the vices of the last century, and none of its amenities. Honor is a mere name. Love is a farce. You ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... discussion takes this turn, then there is an end to the amenities suited to a more quiet time. It is no longer a question as to which is the better cause, but as to which ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... a length of thick cable. Once on the ground he became quite agile, moving with a sort of oddly graceful prance on his powerful legs. He approached, his attention centered on Kieran. But he observed the amenities, placing one delicate hand on his breast and making ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... this fact my wonder bred (Though known by all the nobly wise), It was the mountain stream that fed That fair green plain's amenities." ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... just be possible," he said, in his old half-pedantic, half-ironic intonation, "to find a locality less exposed to the roar of traffic and the rude jostling of pedestrians and the inclemency of the elements, in which we can enjoy the amenities ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... those we have passed through. In all, however, there dwell the good old honest labouring folk, toiling hard day by day at "the trivial round, the common task," just earning enough to scrape up a livelihood, but enjoying few of the amenities of life. The village parsons—good, pious men—share in the quiet, uneventful life of their flock. And who shall contemn their lot? As Horace ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... with smiling composure to shake hands with Mrs. Tom O'Hara, a tall, olive-tinted, black-haired beauty; presented Hamil to his hostess, and left him planted, to exchange impulsive amenities with little ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... inexhaustible Jack! It was delightful to our traveller to find Jack Senhouse thus verifying himself at every turn. He was for the steerage, it appears—and of course he was!—where depressed foreigners share with bicycles, motor cars, and newly boiled pigs the amenities of economical travel. In this malodorous and slippery well his interested friend saw him sit down upon his bundle, roll a cigarette, and fall into easy conversation with an Italian voyager who, having shaved, was now putting on a clean collar and a ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... Frankish hat was sent rolling by contact with the turban of Islam. The Kadee of Keneh is the real original Kadee of our early days; sleek, rubicund, polite—a puisne judge and a dean rolled into one, combining the amenities of the law and the church—with an orthodox stomach and an orthodox turban, both round and stately. I was taken into the hareem, welcomed and regaled, and invited to the festival of Seyd Abd er-Racheem, the great saint of Keneh. I hesitated, and said there were great crowds, and some might be ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon |
