"Amiability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... destroying the trees and bushes that crown it. What person who has known it and has often sought that spot for the sake of its ancient associations, and of the sweet solace they have found in the solitude, or for the noble view of the sacred city from its summit, will not deplore this fatal amiability of the authorities, this weak desire to please every one and inability to say no ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... her, "looked more like a goddess than a woman." Her student life has been marked by seriousness and deep religious feeling. She is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo. She was deeply loved by her teachers, more for her solidity of character and amiability of disposition than for exceptionally brilliant intellectual traits, though her average of scholarship ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... sisters or wives. No man who is engaged in the serious work of the world, in the effort to purify public opinion and direct it aright, but is helped or hindered by the women of his household. Few men can stand the depressing and degrading influence of the uninterested and placid amiability of women incapable of the true public spirit, incapable of a generous or noble aim—whose whole sphere of ideas is petty and personal. It is not only that such women do nothing themselves—they slowly asphyxiate their friends, their brothers, or their husbands. These are the unawakened ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... duets, and Vixen produced her small stock of vocal music. They tried one or two of Mendelssohn's, "I would that my love," and "Greeting," and discovered that they got on wonderfully well together. Vixen fell asleep that night wondering at her own amiability. ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... madame?" said Adrienne, with a smile. "You may now at least speak frankly all that you feel, which must for you have the charm of novelty! Confess that you are obliged to me for enabling you, even for a moment, to lay aside that mask of piety, amiability, and goodness, which must be ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... withal indignant, Peggy could not help retorting. "Will thee pardon me, Truelove, if I say that thy amiability lacks somewhat ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... of what Sommers was saying on the way to the cabin. His very amiability jarred upon her nervous depression. She had always liked him, and respected his vast learning, but to-day she certainly did not get much comfort out of his converse. She wondered why she had been ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... gymnastic exercise, fencing, cold shower and hot baths give a nervous, artificial strength. He was known by his marriage as well as by his wit, his fortune, his connections, and by that sociability, amiability, and fashionable gallantry peculiar to ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... Eberbach merrily. "The commands of conscience should be obeyed, even when, by way of exception, it requires something pleasant. But how grave you look, sir. No offence! You are one of the rare specimens of featherless birds endowed with reason, who unite to the austerity of Cato the amiability ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... house of Pepita Ximenez, which I mentioned to you, took place three days ago. As she leads so retired a life, I had not met her before; she seemed to me, in truth, as beautiful as she is said to be; and I noticed that her amiability with my father was such as to give him reason to hope, at least judging superficially, that she will yield to his wishes in the end, and ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... have passed in your society have left an impression on my mind that is altogether indelible, and cannot be effaced even by time itself. The frequent opportunities I have possessed, of observing the thousand acts of amiability and kindness which mark the daily tenor of your life, have ripened my feelings of affectionate regard into a passion at once ardent and sincere until I have at length associated my hopes of future happiness with the idea of you as a life partner, in them. Believe me, dearest Etta, this is ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... on this line, when a quarter of a mile from Little Deeping they came upon Tom Cobb leaning over a gate surveying a field of mangel-wurzel with vacant amiability. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... her. "We three grew up together. The girl is beautiful—you've probably noticed that—and amiable. The one thing I admire in a young woman is amiability. It would not, for instance, have occurred to her to isolate an entire party on the bosom of a northern and treacherous river out of ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... His amiability was immediately restored, but his gaiety was somewhat forced. "You are looking charming this morning, Miss Ogden. I wished last night that there was a guitar or even a banjo in the camp, that I might serenade beneath ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... friendship.... But when you take up your pen to write to headquarters, you may put in a word for me, if you like.... I'll make no objection, he he! Adieu, though; I've stayed too long and there was no need to gossip so much!" he added with some amiability, and he got up ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... pleased, with the most perfect innocence. And now—what am I? Are you so blind and wooden that you do not see the loathing you inspire me with? Is it possible you can suppose me willing to continue to exist upon such terms? To think,' he cried, 'that a young man, guilty of no fault on earth but amiability, should find himself involved in such a damned imbroglio!' And placing his knuckles in his eyes, Somerset rolled upon ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... who was listening with an interest and animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was holding forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. "Is this yer a d—-d picnic?" said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... wedded, Mr. Thome and his wife were overwhelmed with sorrow by the sudden death, on the last day of April, 1869, of their second daughter, Mrs. Maria E. Murphy, wife of Mr. Thos. Murphy, of Detroit. A lady of singular amiability, purity, and Christian excellence, she was endeared by her sweet graces to rich and poor, to young and old, throughout the circle of ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... Antonia. Even in the fantastic oddities of his expression there was such a marvellous power of description that I am unable to give even so much as a faint indication of it. Antonia inherited all her mother's amiability and all her mother's charms, but not the repellent reverse of the medal. There was no chronic moral ulcer, which might break out from time to time. Antonia's betrothed put in an appearance, whilst Antonia herself, fathoming with happy instinct the deeper-lying character of her wonderful ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... strictest etiquette. The next day was the one fixed for the departure; it was but proper that the guests should thank their host, and should show him a little attention in return for the expenditure of his twelve millions. The only remark, approaching to amiability, which the king could find to say to M. Fouquet, as he took leave of him, was in these words, "Monsieur Fouquet, you shall hear from me. Be good enough to desire M. d'Artagnan ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... isn't necessary," said Marlow, feeling the check to his eloquence but with a great effort at amiability. "You need not even understand it. I continue: with such disposition what prevents women— to use the phrase an old boatswain of my acquaintance applied descriptively to his captain—what prevents them from 'coming on deck and playing hell with ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... the brilliant and jovial Shenbok called at the aunts for Nekhludoff, and completely charmed them with his elegance, amiability, cheerfulness, liberality, and his love for Dmitri. Though his liberality pleased the aunts, they were somewhat perplexed by the excess to which he carried it. He gave a ruble to a blind beggar; the servants received as tips fifteen rubles, and when Sophia Ivanovna's lap-dog, Suzette, hurt ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... at all sure that it was only that. This fatal amiability might have raised quite different expectations in Adair. Like her two latest husbands, he might take a notion to hang his hat in her hall. If he did, would she abate her amiability sufficiently to tell him to hang it ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... would lean upon him, and thank God that only his son had been snatched from him, not his friend, his favorite; and my mother would weep for me, and yet go about in mourning which he had presented to her, and she would esteem it a peculiar act of amiability if he should exert himself to divert her mind and raise her spirits. No voice would be raised against him, and no one would venture to accuse him, for my father himself would protect him, and the grace ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... Conti, and of the gay Duke of Orleans, the latter of whom was destined afterwards to exercise so much influence over his fate. The Duke of Orleans was pleased with the vivacity and good sense of the Scottish adventurer, while the latter was no less pleased with the wit and amiability of a prince who promised to become his patron. They were often thrown into each other's society, and Law seized every opportunity to instil his financial doctrines into the mind of one whose proximity to the throne pointed him out as destined, at no very distant date, to play ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... practically no process is more involved, or more tedious, than to find actual means to accomplish this end. It is much easier to say what one shall not do than what one must do to change self-will into strength of character, slyness into prudence, the desire to please into amiability, restlessness into personal initiative. It can only be brought about by recognising that evil, in so far as it is not atavistic or perverse, is as natural and indispensable as the good, and that it becomes a permanent evil only through its ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... a prolonged "Y-ah!"—not the howl of a spoiled child, nor the protest of a captive gorilla, but the whole-souled utterance of a mighty son of Anak, whose amiability is invulnerable to weapons of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... are merry company, Eccellenza!—" suggested the driver, wishing to make up for his previous sulkiness by an excess of amiability—"And for a night, the albergo is a pleasant resting place on the way to Frascati, for even the brigands who sup there ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... know whether his wife went to Mass or no. On Sundays, with very natural amiability, he accompanied her to church to make up to her, as it were, for sometimes giving up vespers in favor of his company; he could not at first fully enter into the strictness of his wife's religious views. The theatres being impossible in summer by reason of the heat, Granville had not even ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... 'majestic and awful voice of God's thunder' was in fact the voice of its Creator. Thunder and lightning, we know, suggested characteristically different contemplations to Franklin. Edwards' utterances are as remarkable for their amiability as for their non-scientific character. We see in him the gentle mystic rather than the stern divine who consigned helpless infants to eternal torture without a question of the goodness of their Creator. This vein of meditation, however, continued to be familiar to him. He spent most ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... fastened it behind the saddle. The remainder of his belongings had been left with Pop Daggett, who lounged in the doorway fingering a roll of bills in his trousers pocket and watching his new acquaintance with smiling amiability. ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... looked puzzled, but presently answered, "Possibly we may have called attention to some neglected truths; but, after all, I fear we must go to the old school, if we want to get at the root of the matter. I know there is an outward amiability about many young persons, some young girls especially, that seems like genuine goodness; but I have been disposed of late to lean toward your view, that these human affections, as we see them in our children,—ours, I say, though ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... forth-coming play. The dramatist was willing, but unfortunately all the major characters had been provided for, and he was able to offer her only the minor one of the Princesse Negroni. The charming deference with which she accepted the offered part attracted Hugo's attention. Such amiability is very rare in actresses who have had engagements at the best theaters. He resolved to see her again; and he did so, time after time, until he was thoroughly captivated ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... and stern, but it was the expression of a man of integrity and responsibility. Muller had already made some inquiries as to the prisoner's reputation and business standing in the community, and all that he had heard was favourable. A certain hardness and lack of amiability in Graumann's nature made it difficult for him to win the hearts of others, but although he was not generally loved, he was universally respected. Through the signs of nagging fear, sorrow, and ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... very sweet and she was my—wife—and when I was given a parish and had introduced her to my people, they loved her for the white gentleness which seemed purity, and for acquiescent amiability ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... comes in. He is a High-church clergyman to a highly fashionable congregation. His success is partly due to his social position and partly to his elegance of speech, but chiefly to his inherent amiability, which leaves the sinner in happy peace and smiles on the just and ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... probably have been the same: it never having been distinctly shown that Sunday is more favourable to the propagation of the human race than any other day in the week. The second result—the murder of the child—does not speak very highly for the amiability of her natural disposition; and the whole story, supposing it to have had any foundation at all, is about as much chargeable upon the Book of Sports, as upon the Book of Kings. Such 'sports' have taken place in Dissenting Chapels before now; but religion ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... asked concerning the state of France, the Englishman openly drew out a note-book and requested those about him, the wine merchant, the abbe, or the young noble to repeat their remarks; to which each had complied with an amiability equal to the courteous tone of the request. He had noted down the most important, extraordinary and, picturesque features of the robbery of the diligence, the state of Vendee, and the details about the Companions of Jehu, thanking each informant by voice and gesture ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... religious and moral worth. The circumstances of her early life and education are unknown to the writer of this sketch, but must have been such as to develop that purity of mind and manners, that sweetness and amiability of temper, that ready sympathy and disinterestedness of purpose and conduct, which, together with rare conversational and musical powers, she possessed in so ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... under Lord Cochrane. This was agreed to, and the Prince, a youth about eighteen years old, and six feet high, became, immediately after his arrival at Poros, a favourite with Lord Cochrane and all his staff and crew. He was remarkable, said Dr. Grosse, for "his good-will, his amiability of character, his solidity of judgment, his intelligence, and the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... not the less to be beloved because at times his amiability prevents him from attacking even our somnolence too fiercely. If the casual reader but remember Browne as a poet who had the honor to supply Keats with inspiration,[A] there will always be others, and enough of them, to prize his ambling Muse for ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... strength of the Latin language. We might have dwelt with pleasure upon the softness, flexibility, richness, and musical tone of that vehicle of thought which could represent with full effect the melancholy tenderness of Tibullus, [Footnote: Albius Tibullus was a poet of singular gentleness and amiability, who wrote verses of exquisite finish, gracefully telling the story of his worldly misfortunes and expressing the fluctuations that marked his indulgence in the tender passion, in which his experience was extensive and his record real. He was a warm friend of Horace.] the exquisite ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... and unintentional signal, he smote himself upon the knee, giving utterance again to his feelings of triumph, and departed, considering himself a young man of perception and ability. His amiability lasted so long that his mother congratulated him upon it, and remarked that he must have had good news, but Prescott gallantly attributed his happiness to her presence alone. She said nothing in reply, but ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the first time this young man has been introduced, we will briefly describe him. He was of medium size, well knit and vigorous, with a broad forehead, blue eyes, and an intelligent and winning countenance. He might have been suspected of too great amiability and gentleness, but for a firm expression about the mouth, and an indefinable air of manliness, which indicated that it would not do to go too far with him. There was a point, as all his friends knew, where his forbearance gave way and he sternly asserted his ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... and servile amiability. The long, wiry white hair of his neck fell flat; he wagged his bushy white tail; he pawed the snow and playfully tossed his long, pointed nose as he crept near. But had Jimmie Grimm been more observant, more knowing, he would have perceived that the light ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... when he has been known to inflict injury for which, on his recovery, he has afterwards exhibited the most undoubted sorrow and repentance. How often is the same disposition exhibited by children from the same cause, and how speedily, on recovering their health, is their amiability restored! So we must not be over-harsh in judging of the poor elephants, who have not the reasoning powers ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... bow on sitting down and rising from the table, I had interchanged no sign of fellowship with him. He was a young Russian, named Bourgonef, as I at once learned; rather handsome, and peculiarly arresting to the eye, partly from an air of settled melancholy, especially in his smile, the amiability of which seemed breaking from under clouds of grief, and still more so from the mute appeal to sympathy in the empty sleeve of his right arm, which was looped to the breast-button of his coat. His eyes were large and soft. He had no beard or whisker, and only delicate moustaches. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... his personal amiability, enthusiasm, and lucid intelligence, interested a number of disciples who have studied his language called the Alwato, and it may be hoped will not allow it to disappear with the life of its highly gifted ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... the journey to France, since Giles was certainly to go upon it; and lest Mrs. Headley should be starting on her journey, he said he should despatch a special messenger to stay her. Giles, who had of course been longing for the splendid pageant, cheered up into great amiability, and volunteered to write to his mother, that she had best not think of coming, till he sent word to her that matters were forward. Even thus, Master Headley was somewhat insecure. He thought the dame quite capable of coming and taking possession ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Consequently, Mr. McInnes was removed from office, and the Dominion government appointed in his place Sir Henri Joly de Lotbiniere, who has had large experience in public affairs, and is noted for his amiability ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... and peeping through chinks in the palings. From the former we have the eulogistic, from the latter the depreciatory fashionable novels; these make us familiar with the celestial attributes of countesses-dowager, and the amiability of their pugs. They are slavering, servile, self-degrading productions, and only serve the exclusives as provocatives to laughter; they are usually written by tutors, ladies who have married tutors, or superannuated governesses, patronized by some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... amiability was passing. He was getting tired of a subject which dealt with another man's profit. He rolled his cigar across ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... and ill-used word, often confused on the one hand with passion and on the other with amiability. If we ask the most fashionable sort of psychologist what love is, he says that it is the impulse urging us towards that end which is the fulfilment of any series of deeds or "behaviour-cycle"; the psychic thread, on which all the apparently ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... not go away with the others, as they had all taken it for granted that he would do, was that a reason why he, Gaston, whose father had lost a leg at Gravelotte, should do this masquerading German a service? All the German's amiability and originality did not change that. Perhaps, indeed, that explained the originality and amiability. The German, at any rate, did not seem to trouble himself about it. When Gaston next looked over his shoulder, Magin was lying flat on his back in the bottom of the boat, with ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... they are every one of them equally in order to his great end and immortal felicity: and beauty is not made by white or red, by black eyes and a round face, by a straight body and a smooth skin; but by a proportion to the fancy. No rules can make amiability; our minds and apprehensions make that: and so is our felicity; and we may be reconciled to poverty and a low fortune, if we suffer contentedness and the grace of God to make the proportions. For no man is poor that does not ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... we had a good supper, and Maton pleased me both by her appetite and amiability. When we had finished I affectionately asked her if she would like to share my bed, and she replied as tenderly that she was wholly mine. And so, after passing a voluptuous night, we rose in the morning the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... gave him L100 for each annual volume, and the sum was welcome enough, for towards the end of 1756 Burke had married. His wife was the daughter of a Dr Nugent, a physician at Bath. She is always spoken of by his friends as a mild, reasonable and obliging person, whose amiability and gentle sense did much to soothe the too nervous and excitable temperament of her husband. She had been brought up, there is good reason to believe, as a Catholic, and she was probably a member of that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... "Marrow Controversy," regarding the merits of an English work, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, which he defended against the attacks of the "Moderate" party in the Church. B., if unduly introspective, was a man of singular piety and amiability. His autobiography is an interesting record of Scottish life, full of sincerity and tenderness, and not devoid of ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... the strange amiability of the master of the Works toward the man he had once threatened to break for libel. They had stood there chatting ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... good foe, men thought seriously before they opposed him. He had made himself a power in the Southwest because he was the type that goes the limit when aroused. Yet about him, too, there was the manner of a large amiability, of the easy tolerance characteristic ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... retorted the Professor with smiling amiability. "You've seen what the Vitalizing Mixture has done for this poor old colored man. It will do as much or more for any of you. And the price is Only One Dollar!" The voice double-capitalized the words. "Don't, for the sake of one hundred little cents, put off the day of cure. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... part of Lucretius was paralleled by the love felt for him by his contemporaries; he had crowds of followers who loved him and who were proud to learn his words by heart. He seems indeed to have been a man of exceptional kindness and amiability, and the 'garden of Epicurus' became proverbial as {214} a place of temperate pleasures and wise delights. Personally we may take it that Epicurus was a man of simple tastes and moderate desires; and indeed throughout ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... me the other day of the martyrdom he had suffered from this class. He spoke with much feeling, as he is the soul of amiability, but somewhat short-sighted and afflicted with a hopelessly bad memory for faces. For the last few years, he has been in the habit of spending one or two of the winter months in Washington, where his friends put him up at one club or another. Each winter on his first appearance at one of these ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... probably cleaning their horses, carriages, or harness; but whatever else they may be doing, you may be quite certain they will all be singing, though it is equally certain that, by the greatest exercise of amiability, you could scarcely call the result a song; the words seem to be improvised as the performer goes on. There was a light-hearted groom in one of the patios of our flat, in the Calle Lope de Vega, who would continue almost without a ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... Roignon, daughter to the Chief Justice of Martinique; he returned to the Parisian world with some eclat and he became an universal favourite on account of his happy wit and humour, his bonhomie, his perfect frankness, and his hearty amiability. The vogue of "Olivier" induced him to follow it up with Le Diable Amoureux, a continuation or rather parody of Voltaire's Guerre civile de Geneve: this work was so skilfully carried out that it completely deceived the world; and it was followed by sundry minor pieces which ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... "You'll be old yerself some day," she sobbed, not noticing that he was stealthily edging toward the door, one eye on her, one on to-morrow's pot-roast. "I tell yew, Tommy," regaining her accustomed confiding amiability, as she lifted the corner of her apron to wipe her eyes, "Miss Ellie will feel some kind o' bad, tew. Yer know me an' her an' Angy all went ter school tergether, although Miss Ellie is so much younger 'n the rest o' us that we call her ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... resolution melted away at the sight of him. His imposing exterior had such an effect on me that I could only humbly entreat him to excuse me from indicting a second flagellation on myself. He smiled, benignantly, and granted my request with a saintly amiability. "Give me the cat-o'-nine-tails," he said, in conclusion, "and I will keep it for you till you ask me for it again. You are sure to ask for it again, dear child—to ask for it on your ...
— A Fair Penitent • Wilkie Collins
... house, especially when that lady has a lover who is in the habit of taking tea with the family. But I was in a mood to transgress all rules and even to forget the rights of lovers. Besides, much is forgiven a woman of my stamp, especially by a person of the good sense and amiability of ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... and Halifax was asked by his close friends what he had cooked up over there, he told the above story, expressing the fear that his conversation was probably misunderstood by Goering, the latter taking his amiability to mean that Great Britain approved Germany's plans to swallow Austria. The French Intelligence Service, however, has a different version, most of it collected during February, 1938, which, in the light of subsequent events, seems ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... ways. They are always talking with you about this one or that one's social position, and they never make new acquaintances without finding out what set they belong to; and I was never allowed from a little girl to make acquaintances with any children whose mothers were not in the right set; and amiability and goodness had nothing to do with it,—nothing, ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... of great good sense, whose amiability had made the leaders of the diocese and the members of the best society in Tours seek his company, had steadily opposed, though secretly and with much judgment, the elevation of the Abbe Troubert. He had even adroitly managed to prevent his access to the salons of the best society. Nevertheless, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... see you again, old fellow," he said, with an amiability that surprised me. "I was afraid you might hold a grievance against me. You Americans are queer chaps, you know. Our little tilt of the other evening, you understand. Stupid way for two grown-up men to behave, wasn't it? Of course, the explanation ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... which Borasdine asked. Further along were two women putting fish upon poles for drying, and a third was engaged in skinning a large salmon. The women did not look up from their work, and were not inclined to amiability. They had Mongol features, complexion, eyes, and hair, the latter thick and black. Some of the men wear it plaited into queues, and others let it grow pretty much at will. Each woman I saw had it braided in two queues, which hung over her shoulders. In their ears they wore long pendants, ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... plaguy juice was still running but that he hoped to be able to drive over to dinner. Miss Davidson went to bed in a huff; and Major Freeze was temporarily inclined to think that her home-trip had impaired his good lady's amiability of character. ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... pause, for George did not speak; and the Cheap Jack, bent upon amiability, repeated his ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... won my heart, he was so supernaturally lively, and so full of hurried amiability. A very dear ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... a vehicle on which to go out to luncheon, she compromised on a pony cart as a substitute, for she could drive almost as well as she could sail. She took comparatively little interest in the garden, and was not always at home at five-o'clock tea to read aloud the latest books; but her amiability and natural gayety were like sunshine in the house. She talked freely of what she did, and she ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... while they sat in treaty with Salech, visible to the passers-by, the Vekeel Obada, who had so deeply stirred the wrath of the governor's son on the previous evening, came by, close to him. To Orion's amazement he greeted him with great amiability, and he, remembering Amru's warning, responded, though not without an effort, to his hated foe's civility. When Obada passed the stall a second and a third time, Orion felt that he was watching him; however, it was quite possible that the Vekeel might also have business ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... does not remember that horrible Turk, Jacob Asdrubal, the Old Bailey barrister, the terror of witnesses, the bane of judges,—who was gall and wormwood to all opponents. It was said of him that "at home" his docile amiability was the marvel of his friends, and delight of his wife and daughters. "At home," perhaps, Mr. Daubeny might have been waved at, and have forgiven it; but men who saw the scene in the House of Commons knew that he would never forgive Mr. Gresham. As for Mr. Gresham himself, he triumphed at the moment, ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... laughing at your dying of amiability, Mrs. Peyton!" said Margaret. "When is this young lady—I suppose she is young, if she is going to study nursing—when ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... "Glum! Why, the amiability in that horse's face is enough to draw tears. Come up, Prince Rupert, your highness is to go ahead of me; it's to ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... Guardsman at the feet of the belle of the season. Even the most ardent of worshippers at such a shrine must, one would think, desire in their deity a little more sweetness and light. But the beauty of eighteen summers is trained to look on worship as simply her due, and to regard amiability as a mere superfluity. She knows she can summon an adorer by one beckon of her fan, and dismiss him by another. A bow will repay the most finished of pretty speeches, and conversation can be conducted at ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... gave me your heart, believing me to be a poor and humble individual; and you have consented to become my wife and abandon home and kindred for my sake. Profoundly then do I rejoice that it is in my power to elevate you to a position of which your beauty, your amiability and your virtue render you so eminently worthy; and in my own native Florence, no lady will be more courted, nor treated with greater distinction than ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... MacWhirter was tall, fair, and stoutish; he was very quietly spoken, was humorous and amiable, yet extraordinarily learned. He never, by any chance, gave himself away, maintaining always an absolute reserve amid all his amiability. Therefore Frank would have done anything to win his esteem, while Beatrice was deferential to him. Mr Allport was tall and broad, and thin as a door; he had also a remarkably small chin. He was naive, inclined ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... picture of a much more tender heart than might have been supposed to beat under the armour of a mercenary soldier set to overawe a sullen people. 'He loveth our nation,' say the elders of the Jews,—not certainly because of their amiability, but because of the revelation which they possessed. Like a great many others in that strange, restless era when our Lord came, this man seems to have become tired of the hollowness of heathenism, and to have been groping for the light. His military ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... prevailing desire to please, I cite the following piece of amiability on the part of the chef. I had given tea and a teapot, with instructions, to the waiter. The chef, however, anxious that there should be no blunder, came up to me and begged for information at ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... treat,' remarked my brother, 'that it is hard to understand the discourtesy and want of amiability that have deprived us of it so long. Play something else, Elfie!' This was said quietly, but I was as powerless to resist as if ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... not be so curt and sharply sweet, my dear. Here I have been listening to marvellous accounts of your amiability ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... unlike than the two cousins. Bessie was small, her form inclining to fulness, her face childlike in dimpled smiles and innocent blushes,—betraying no lack of intellect, but most expressive of a quiet, almost indolent amiability. Zelma was large, but lithe, supple, and vigorous, with a pard-like freedom and elasticity of movement,—dark, with a subdued and changing color,—the fluttering signal of sudden emotion, not the stationary sign of robust health. She had hair of a glistening blackness, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... countenance at once assumed that look of gravity which had become habitual to him since the day of the mutiny. "They have had too good reason to plot, poor fellows, but I have such faith in their native amiability of disposition, that I don't believe they will ever think of anything beyond ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... friends of your accident; how it had frustrated all our summer plans, and what our plans were. I played quite a spirited solo on the fibula. Then I described you; or, rather, I didn't. I spoke of your amiability, of your patience under this severe affliction; of your touching gratitude when Dillon brings you little presents of fruit; of your tenderness to your sister Fanny, whom you would not allow to stay in town to nurse you, and ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the liveliest little men I ever met. I feel almost guilty of a fraud with regard to him, for his amiability towards me was due in great part to his belief of my statement that I was going to Egypt; yet I never went there, and shall certainly not go now. My only excuse is that I sincerely believed the same statement myself. He said ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... his wife. The famous actor had seen a letter of hers to a mutual friend, extolling one of his theatrical performances. He forthwith secured an interview, which resulted in favourable impressions on both sides, of amiability and intellectual powers. ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... together. She looked very angry, and yet there was a sparkle of something like amusement in her eyes. Having bowed to Tussie Fritzing sat down again with the elaboration of one who means to stay a long while. During his walk from the farm he had made up his mind to be of a most winning amiability and patience, blended with a determination that nothing should shake. At the door, it is true, he had been stirred to petulance by the foolish face and utterances of the footman James, but during the whole of the time he had been alone with ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... forage-cap. These ladies are very charming, and long continue to be charming. Each year their adorers are exchanged for new ones, and in that very fact, it may be, lies the secret of their unwearying amiability. ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... the Constitution. Yet his appointment as Chief Justice aroused criticism even among his party friends. Their doubt did not touch his intellectual attainments, but in their opinion his political moderation, his essential democracy, his personal amiability, all counted against him. "He is," wrote Sedgwick, "a man of very affectionate disposition, of great simplicity of manners, and honest and honorable in all his conduct. He is attached to pleasures, with convivial habits strongly ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... trouble; I'll get it. I know the bedroom," said the Terror with ready amiability; and he started to mount ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... now, who was in disgrace, and it was Henrietta, Caroline and Sophia who passed an evening of excessive amiability ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... Podgers. I only understood that I was to go back to Dick, and of that I should have been heartily glad, had not my satisfaction been mitigated by the idea that I should be thus separated from Miss Kitty, whose amiability and gentleness had ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... presence in church of the unbidden curiosity-seekers, who have come for much the same reason as that which prompts them to go to the theatre—to enjoy the spectacle. But Bessie's face showed nothing but that intense amiability for which she had all her life long been noted; and as for Thaddeus, he never ceased to smile from the moment he turned and faced the congregation until the carriage door closed upon him and his bride, and then, of course, he had to, ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... spare guards who asked for my railway-ticket after I had carefully wrapped myself up for a journey, and no touting vendor of subscription books or works of art can truthfully say that I have kicked him. On the whole I think I am reasonably even-tempered and of higher than average amiability. Others may judge me differently. I don't wish to quarrel with them. I simply reiterate my opinion. Why then am I to-day in a seething state of exception to my rule? Here is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... to manage everything, and then you have no time!" said Ethel, sensible all the time of her own ill-humour, and of her sister's patience and amiability, yet propelled to speak the unpleasant truths that in her better moods ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... of loving—some vulgar, some pretentious, some foolish, and others, again, excessively comic. None of these seemed suited to the Prince, our neighbor. I ever felt he should love, like the Prince he is, with grace and dignity; with serious tenderness, a little stern perhaps; with amiability, but almost with condescension—as a lover, but as a master, too—in fine, ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... "Howld yer tongues!" "May the divil ate yez! but the best of yez hashn't the manners of a pig!" Amid such pleasant ebullitions of Celtic amiability, PUNCHINELLO succeeded in carving his way to the door, when it suddenly opened, and a tall, lean, cadaverous man, who looked like the ghost of some Fenian leader, bawled at ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... Majesty. But the premier began to interest me. The more I saw of him the more he puzzled me. It was plain that all who came in contact with him both feared and loved him. He displayed a kind of passive amiability of which he seemed always conscious, which he made his forte. By what means he exacted such prompt obedience, and so completely controlled a people whom he seemed to drive with reins so loose and careless, was a mystery to me. But that ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... again, on his way back to the railroad. Billy Louise was so anxious that she smothered her dislike and treated him nicely, which thawed the man to an alarming amiability. She questioned him artfully—trust Billy Louise for that!—and she decided that the stock inspector was either a very poor detective or a very good actor. He did not, for instance, mention any corral hidden in a blind canyon ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... with her pleasant smile. It was a peculiarly sweet and kindly smile, for it was inspired by a gentle womanly desire to make things pleasant for all who were around her. Amiability was never artificial with her, for she had the true instincts of a lady—those instincts so often spoken of, so seldom, so very seldom seen. Like a gentleman, or a Christian, or any other ideal, it is but a poor approximation which ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... easily and instinctively recognized. No one can read Ruskin, for instance, without feeling his sincerity and integrity, even in his most impracticable vagaries. In Addison, Goldsmith, and Irving we find a genial, uplifting amiability; and Whittier, in his deep love of human freedom and justice, appears as ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... he behaves simply, almost modestly, but with dignity; they find him rather a bore, but respect him for being, as they say, 'a perfect gentleman.' With Russians he is more free and easy, gives vent to his spleen, and makes fun of himself and them, but that is done by him with great amiability, negligence, and propriety. He holds Slavophil views; it is well known that in the highest society this is regarded as tres distingue! He reads nothing in Russian, but on his writing table there is a silver ashpan in the ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... very little, but he thought a great deal for a few minutes about how much better it would have been if Sam Hardock had treated Dinass with a little more amiability. He quite forgot all about the matter for three days, and then he had fresh news, for Sam Hardock came ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... they deserve whipping, you will seriously offend me." As mamma said this, I observed Miss Evelyn's eyes appeared to dilate with a sort of joy, and I felt certain that, severely as mamma had often whipped us, if we should now deserve it, Miss Evelyn would administer it much more severely. She looked amiability itself, and was truly beautiful in face and person, twenty-two years of age, full and finely formed, and dressed always with the most studied neatness. She was, in truth, a seductive creature. She made an instantaneous impression on my senses. There was, however, ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... of associations. The sight of Rupert reminded Nigel of one of the pleasantest evenings in his life—that evening they had spent at the Russian Ballet. Bertha had sat next to him. Bertha had been delightful. She had looked lovely and laughed at his jokes, and had been all brightness and amiability—it had been before the first shadow, the first thought of arriere pensee had risen in her mind to cloud her light heart. And he at that time, with what he saw now to be his dense stupidity, had believed ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... the moment out of sight of the rest of the party. He tore a sheet from his pocket-book and scribbled out a telegram. His man had disappeared and a substitute taken his place by the time von Hern arrived. The latter was now all amiability. It was hard to believe, from his smiling salutation, that he and the man to whom he waved his hand in so airy a fashion had ever declared war to ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... these marks of honor with that grace and amiability with which she won all hearts, and, with her enchanting smile, thanking the senators, she told them, with all the confidence of a lover, that her victorious husband would, for the magnificent hospitality thus shown ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... mean time, the fresh life of the Candidate began to develop its weak side. Gratitude had, in the first instance, warmed Elise's heart towards him, and then his own real amiability made it so easy to gratify the wish of her husband respecting her behaviour towards him, and thus it soon happened that her intercourse with Jacobi enlivened her own existence. In many respects their tastes were similar, especially in their love of music and polite literature, whilst ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... was in some sense just, necessarily gave a tone to her language and a coloring to all her thoughts, such as good sense and amiability should equally strive to suppress and conceal—unless, as in the case of Margaret Cooper, the individual herself was without due consciousness of their presence. It had the effect of discouraging and driving from her side many a good-natured ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... notorious criminals, we must state in fairness and candour that their conduct has been, while on the field as miners, free from reproach in every way. For James Marston, who was married but a short while since to a Melbourne young lady of high personal attractions and the most winning amiability, great sympathy has ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... extreme L. enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Antonio, who observe, with mild surprise, that there are several other persons present, and proceed to point out objects of local interest to one another with the officious amiability of persons in the foreground of hotel advertisements. (Here a Small Boy in a box, who has an impression he is going to see a Pantomime, inquires audibly "when the Clown Part will begin?" and has to be answered and consoled.) ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... report of his sister, for whose unsparing judgment censure was easier than praise, it is evident that the amiability of the talented boy had its effect upon those about him: as when, for instance, he secretly read a French story with his sister, and recast the whole Berlin Court into the comic characters of the novel; when they made forbidden ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... labor. It was then the design of the Creator that this labor should be controlled and directed by a superior intelligence. In the absence of mental capacity, we find him possessed of equal physical powers with any other race, with an amiability of temper which submits without resistance to this control. We find him, too, without moral, social, or political aspirations, contented and happy in the condition of servility to this superior intelligence, and rising ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... December, 1831, and stayed there till about the middle of April, 1832, associated a good deal with this set of striving artists. The diminutive "Chopinetto," which he makes use of in his letters to Hiller, indicates not only Chopin's delicate constitution of body and mind and social amiability, but also Mendelssohn's kindly feeling for him. [Footnote: Chopin is not mentioned in any of Mendelssohn's Paris letters. But the following words may refer to him; for although Mendelssohn did not play at Chopin's concert, there may have been ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... I observed that the pretty servant girl—who was all smiles and amiability, when I wished her good morning on my way out—received a modest little message from Ezra Jennings, relating to the time at which he might be expected to return, with pursed-up lips, and with eyes which ostentatiously looked ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... time, however, Henrietta was altogether herself, save for a pretty pensiveness, and emerged with all her accustomed amiability ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... mean what we say; and in the meantime extend your amiability so far as to give me a cigarette. Miss Blanche, I am ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... had done it all, 'Tommy', the great, idiotic mongrel retriever, came slobbering round Dave and lashing his legs with his tail, and trotted home after him, smiling his broadest, longest, and reddest smile of amiability, and apparently satisfied for one afternoon with ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... confess, be likely to increase in proportion to your own honesty and generosity. Be comforted, however, by this consideration, that, conflict being the only means of forming the character into excellence, and your natural amiability averting from you many of the usual opportunities for exercising self-control, you would be in want of the former essential ingredient in spiritual discipline did not your very virtues ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... Okotook's illness was not suffered to interfere. This anecdote shows, in a strong light, that deep-rooted selfishness, which, in numberless instances, notwithstanding the superiority of Iligliuk's understanding, detracted from the amiability of her disposition. The fact was, that she did not feel inclined so far to exert herself as to comply with Captain Lyon's request; and the slight degree of gratitude and proper feeling which was requisite to overcome that ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... had come, including the inevitable late couple for whom the others waited with painful amiability, a great gray emptiness had replaced the purple swirling in Babbitt's head, and he had to force the tumultuous greetings suitable to a host ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... the better leg afore, gentlemen," she said with becoming amiability; "yer breakfast ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... long-handled eyeglass, she seemed to be sweeping the whole field of society and asking herself where she should pluck her revenge. Suddenly she espied it, ready made to her hand, in poor Longmore's wealth and amiability. American dollars and American complaisance had made her brother's fortune; why shouldn't they make hers? She overestimated the wealth and misinterpreted the amiability; for she was sure a man could neither be so contented without being rich nor so "backward" without being weak. ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... and some of us stood on tiptoe to get a glimpse of them; for San Silvestro is a man of no small importance in the political and diplomatic world, and his wife enjoys quite a European fame for beauty and amiability, having had opportunities of displaying both these attractive gifts at the several courts where she has acted as Italian ambassadress. They made their way quickly up the long room,—she short, rather sallow, inclined toward embonpoint, but with eyes ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... they lived. They cared little for anything but that which the white folk could provide. Without interest or ambitions, beyond such comfort as they could snatch from life, they desired only to be left in peace. But with real amiability they wished the ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... Haydn and Mozart These, although they have serenity and grace, beauty and finish of form, and are sincere manifestations of the genius of their creators, are yet lacking in passion. This placid mood and amiability of style is shown by the comparatively slight employment of dissonances. By unthinking and uncultivated persons dissonances[147] are often considered as something harsh, repellant—hence to be avoided. But dissonances contain the real life and progress of music. They arouse, even take by storm ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... definite, was to play the part of a gentilhomme. This, it seemed to him, was enough to occupy comfortably a young man of ordinary good parts. But all that he was he was by instinct and not by theory, and the amiability of his character was so great that certain of the aristocratic virtues, which in some aspects seem rather brittle and trenchant, acquired in his application of them an extreme geniality. In his younger years he had been suspected of low ...
— The American • Henry James
... Monsieur Necker's cordiality was above reproach, and it was with elaborate politeness that he presented the Americans to Madame Necker. She was a very handsome woman still, retaining traces of that beauty which had fired Gibbon in his youth, and was all amiability to the two strangers, whom she introduced to her daughter, Madame la Baronne de Stael-Holstein, wife of the ambassador from Gustavus III. to ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... beauty attracted and her amiability retained the devotion of men, the friendship of women. Nature had lavished upon her those rare, delicate, elusive qualities which go to make up that top flower of evolution, the woman of fascination, a creature indefinable, like poetry. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... rows of brilliant white teeth,[16] and their long black hair, arranged in plaits, falls gracefully over the bosom and shoulders. Add to all this a captivating grace of manner and deportment, joined to an exceeding degree of gentleness and amiability, and it will be readily admitted that the Limena is a noble ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... of the frankly antagonistic girl. At such times the gentleness of Elizabeth, her almost passionate desire to be loved and fondled, completely transformed her for the moment. Louise, shrewd at reading others, told herself that Beth possessed a reserve force of tenderness, amiability and fond devotion that would render her adorable if she ever allowed those qualities full expression. But she did not tell Beth that. The girl was so accustomed to despise herself and so suspicious of any creditable ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... President became a constant guest at the royal supper-parties. It was the happy—the too happy—President who was the rose-leaf in the bed of Voltaire. The two men had known each other slightly for many years, and had always expressed the highest admiration for each other; but their mutual amiability was now to be put to a severe test. The sagacious Buffon observed the danger from afar: 'ces deux hommes,' he wrote to a friend, 'ne sont pas faits pour demeurer ensemble dans la meme chambre.' And indeed to the vain and sensitive poet, uncertain of Frederick's cordiality, suspicious of hidden ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... up, however, it was quite another thing. The heterogeneous population, inhabiting the lower floor of the old tower, and the other extensive regions of the palace, were now willing to tell all they knew, and imagine a great deal more. The amiability of these Italians, assisted by their sharp and nimble wits, caused them to overflow with plausible suggestions, and to be very bounteous in their avowals of interest for the lost Hilda. In a less demonstrative people, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... certainly exceed all others in some lines. But be just to your own nation. They have not patience, it is true, to set rubbing a piece of steel from morning till night, as a lethargic Englishman will do, full charged with porter. But do not their benevolence, their cheerfulness, their amiability, when compared with the growling temper and manners of the people among whom you are, compensate their want of patience? I am in hopes that when the splendor of their shops, which is all that is worth looking at in London, shall have lost their charm of novelty, you will turn a wistful eye ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... and just because others do not do so. The fact that society is guilty aggravates the guilt of each member of it. "Someone ought to do it, but why should I? is the ever re-echoed phrase of weak-kneed amiability. Someone ought to do it, so why not I? is the cry of some earnest servant of man, eagerly forward springing to face some perilous duty. Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution." Thus spoke Mrs. Annie Besant in her ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... the end of the first of aeronauts, and the most courageous of men," says a contemporaneous historian. "He died a martyr to honour and to zeal. His kindness, amiability, and modesty endeared him to all who knew him. She who was dearest to him—a young English lady, who boarded at a convent at Boulogne, and whom he had first met only a few days prior to his last ascent—could not support the news of his death. Horrible convulsions seized ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... whose talents had made him indispensable in every company, declared that for that day he was the marquise's cavalier, a title which his sister-in-law, with her usual amiability, confirmed. Each of the huntsmen, following this example, made choice of a lady to whom to dedicate his attentions throughout the day; then, this chivalrous arrangement being completed, all present directed their course towards the place ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... go back. They had had one or two alarms, and had to retire on a fort one night. Almost immediately we were sent off to our kopjes, where we spend our nights. The kopjes round here are really horrible things: to ascend and descend them one requires legs of flexible iron, and the amiability and patience of Job. At night one has to pick and choose a little, before getting a satisfactory "doss." To arrange your couch you must, of course, remove all the movable stones, and as regards the fixtures it is strange how in a short time one's ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... God for His great mercy as I did this morning, on reading of dear Jem's danger and safety. He is less accustomed to talk about his feelings than I am, in which I see his superiority, but partly because our tastes are in several respects different, chiefly because of his exceeding amiability and unselfishness. I am sure we love each other very dearly. Ever since his illness at Geneva, I have from time to time contemplated the utter blank, the real feeling of loss, which anything happening to him would bring with it, and the having it brought home close to me in this way quite upset me, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "all the cardinal virtues, and counting for nothing." I can do little more than offer my humble testimony to the truthfulness of Miss Halcombe's sketch of the old lady's character. Mrs. Vesey looked the personification of human composure and female amiability. A calm enjoyment of a calm existence beamed in drowsy smiles on her plump, placid face. Some of us rush through life, and some of us saunter through life. Mrs. Vesey SAT through life. Sat in the house, early and late; sat in the garden; sat in unexpected ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... Mrs. Annie Besant, I read the following passage: "Plenty of people wish well to any good cause, but very few care to exert themselves to help it, and still fewer will risk anything in its support. 'Someone ought to do it, but why should I?' is the ever reechoed phrase of weak-kneed amiability. 'Someone ought to do it, so why not I?' is the cry of some earnest servant of man, eagerly forward springing to face some perilous duty. Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution." True enough! and between these two sentences lie also the different ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... the direction he was looking. She was still too lethargic for curiosity; and she found a kind of dreamy content in lying with her eyes upon the Etheling's handsome face. Though its prevailing characteristic was the easy amiability of one who has known little of opposition or dislike, there was no lack of steel in the blue eyes or of iron in the square chin; now and then a spark betrayed them, thrilling pleasantly through ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... qualities that commended him as a soldier seem to have forsaken him as a politician. He supported Burr, he followed Lewis, and he finally ran for lieutenant-governor against DeWitt Clinton, the regular nominee of his party, losing the election by a large majority; yet his amiability and war services kept him a favourite in spite of his political wavering. It was hard for a lover of his country to dislike a real hero of the Revolution, even though he forfeited ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... urged the prince, with an amiability which the merchant had known to be a dangerous prelude ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... all the holy places, and all the grandees of the town, as well as several of lesser note, who have been highly gratified by making his acquaintance, he being a person of the greatest merit, and unequalled among the nation for propriety and amiability of manners; and having ourselves experienced the highest pleasure in his society we have written this to testify our sense of ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... kindness that would have been denied him as merely an American. And he sometimes could not avoid seeing that, even as Harry Peyton, he was regarded as compensating, by certain attractive qualities in the nature of amiability and sincerity, for occasional exhibitions of what the English rated as social impropriety and bad taste. Often, at the English lofty derision of colonials, at the English air of self-evident superiority, the English pretence ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Connick was grinning, but under his amiability his tones were decisive. "I don't know what he wants to talk with you about, but I reckon it's railroad. We here can't do that with ye. So ye'll have to come along. But we all think you're a smart little ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... longer for the signal; or, rather, whether it had not been already fired, and the sound failed to reach us on the sultry, heavy air. There were two opinions upon this, and for a time the difference was discussed in amiability, if with some heat. The General felt positive that if the shots had been fired ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... does away at once with so many qualities with one fell swoop, that one can hardly tell what is left. It puts amiability out of the question, and unselfishness and cheerfulness, and—and tact, and everything which makes us care for a person or not. When they ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... selected by the government to contest York was Mr. John Pickard, a highly respectable gentleman, who was engaged in lumbering, and who was extremely popular in that county, in consequence of his friendly relations with all classes of the community and the amiability of his disposition. The Hon. Charles Fisher was brought forward by the confederation party as their candidate in York, although the hope of defeating Mr. Pickard seemed to be desperate, for at the previous election Mr. Fisher had received only 1,226 votes against 1,799 ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... was no reason why Nora could not be a princess or a duchess. So she planned accordingly. But the child puzzled and eluded her; and from time to time she discovered a disquieting strength of character behind a disarming amiability. Ever since Nora had returned home by way of the Orient, the mother had recognized a subtle change, so subtle that she never had an opportunity of alluding to it verbally. Perhaps the fault lay at her own door. She should never ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... in an outstanding sense, the bosom friend of Jesus. Probably it was not because of any special gentleness or amiability on John's part, though he may have had something of these traits. It was more likely because of the deep, intelligent sympathy between the two, a sympathy not only of personality, but deeper and stronger because of a mental and spirit ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... of art in moral character. Of course art-gift and amiability of disposition are two different things; for a good man is not necessarily a painter, nor does an eye for color necessarily imply an honest mind. But great art implies the union of both powers; it is the expression, ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... from my open window, dancing meanwhile in helpless rage, to see how futile is the voice of august man when blue-jays hold the floor. Talk about the English sparrow! It is a mild-mannered little gentleman compared to the noisy jay. Its politeness and amiability are Chesterfieldan beside the behavior of its handsomely attired but boorish neighbor. And as for fighting, why, I verily believe a bluejay in good condition could "do up" John L. Sullivan so quickly the gentle pugilist would ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... What astonishing amiability! The attack of nerves which had assailed Elizabeth upstairs began to disappear. She took the chair the Squire offered her, cleared a small table, and produced from the despatch-box she had brought into the room with her a ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a long low structure, built of brick, and, being very old, naturally had the reputation of being haunted. A former proprietor, half a century before I was born, once had among his slaves a very handsome young negro, who, on account of his beauty and amiability, was a special favourite with his mistress. Her preference filled his poor silly brains with dreams and aspirations, and, deceived by her gracious manner, he one day ventured to approach her in the absence of his master and told her his feelings. She could not ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson |
