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More "Suavity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grocery requires-the foresight about the markets, to take advantage of an eighth per cent. off or on here and there; the vigilance required to keep a "full line" and not overstock, to dispose of goods before they spoil or the popular taste changes; the suavity and integrity and duplicity and fairness and adaptability needed to get customers and keep them; the power to bear the daily and hourly worry; the courage to face the ever-present spectre of "failure," which is said to come upon ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... suavity and forbearance Melancthon was the counterpart of Luther. John Arrowsmith (1602-1657), in his Tractica Sacra, describes him as "Vir in quo cum pietate doctrina, et cum utraque ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... never be satisfied. There was a general impression that if Vienna ever became the capital of a Republic the archives would be opened and the truth of the Meyerling tragedy given to the world. But all documents relating to private scandals must have been destroyed." She spoke with the utmost suavity, the patient hostess with rather tiresome guests. "People in Vienna, I assure you, take very little interest in that old scandal. They are too busy and too uncomfortable making ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, that Mr Gladstone always addressed her as if she were a public meeting. Every sentence was rounded, polished and precise, every syllable had its particular rhythmic weight and value, and with it all there was a certain suavity and courtesy which, for my own part, I thought very gracious and charming. I had heard one of his remarkable Budget speeches and knew already with what ease he handled figures, but he surprised me more than once by his quickness in calculation. He was ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... irritability. The producer of the piece, especially if he is also the author of it, develops a sort of intermittent insanity. He plucks at his mustache, if he has one; at his hair, if he has not. He mutters to himself. He gives vent to occasional despairing cries. The soothing suavity which marked his demeanor in the earlier rehearsals disappears. He no longer says with a winning smile: "Splendid, old man; splendid. Couldn't be better. But I think we'll take that over just once more, if you don't mind. You missed out a few rather good lines, and ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... The suavity went out of Culvera's face as a light does from a blown candle. Snarling, he rose from his seat ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... being bored, yet with an irrepressible curiosity, Mrs. De Peyster, piano-lover, awaited during the morning and early forenoon Mary's first assault upon the instrument. She would be crude, no doubt of it; no technique, no poetic suavity of touch, no ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... and that little man must have had a great fund of charity about him somewhere to be drawn upon at first sight. Still this popularity was no joke. There were other rubs. The keen love of approbation in the little man, which was at the bottom of his suavity, was galled by the least condemnation of his work and credit; he was too manly to enact the old man and the ass, but successful Sam Winnington was about as soon pricked as a man who wears a fold of silk on his breast instead of the ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... diplomatically led up to a question, Mrs. Gonorowsky with great suavity asked, "Sadie is a ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... will do me the favor to come on board of the Fatime, and remain with me in the cabin, which is quite as luxurious as your own on board of your large steam-yacht, until the money is paid, it will save all trouble and settle the matter at once," continued the Pacha's representative with a suavity creditable to his ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... Teutonic tongue. Certainly, she grasped everything at a glance—even the contingency that might have possibly occurred, for, my embarrassment was not lost upon her. I saw an anxious expression hover across her face for a second, to be quickly replaced by her ordinary society look of calm, studied suavity. ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... winced. A rosy flush of indignation mantled his cheeks, and only his habitual respect for the landed gentry (whom he was accustomed to call the backbone of England) checked him on the verge of a severe retort. As it was, he answered with fine suavity. ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... came on, and, as is the case with all rank and file, there were some indifferent, and a few bad characters among them. It was now that I observed and admired the tact, combined with firmness, of Lumley. He spoke to these Indians with exactly the same respect and suavity that had characterised him when trading with the chiefs. When he saw any one become puzzled or undecided, he suggested or quietly advised. If a man's eye appeared to twinkle he cut a mild joke with him. If one became too familiar, or seemed disposed to be insolent he took no notice, ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... Victoire. Feel in your pocket and see," said Guerchard sternly. His voice had lost its suavity; his face its smile: his eyes ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... checkered career, given him much pleasure, and had provided him with far more anxiety. But he was almost uncannily able and astute, as every man found who entered the arena of diplomacy to treat with him or circumvent him. Suavity, with an attendant mordant wit, and a mastery of tactics unfamiliar to the minds and capacities of Englishmen, made him a great factor in the wide world of haute politique; but it also drew upon him ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... necks that can't fit cravats; there are jaws that can't fill out collars—(Willis touched this last point in one of his earlier ambrotypes, if I remember rightly); there are tournures nothing can humanize, and movements nothing can subdue to the gracious suavity or elegant languor or stately serenity which belong to different styles ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Percy-hall consisted of the Miss Falconers, the two Lady Arlingtons, and some other young people, who were at Falconer-court. It was a fine morning, Mrs. Falconer was all suavity and smiles, both the Miss Falconers in charming hopes, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... American Commissioners it was possible to conclude the terms of peace, and the preliminary treaty was drawn accordingly and agreed to on November 30, 1782. Franklin had been of such great service during all the negotiations, smoothing down ruffed feelings by his suavity and tact and presenting difficult subjects in a way that made action possible, that to him was accorded the unpleasant task of communicating what had been accomplished to Vergennes, the French Minister, and ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... by the fair ones, more particularly Charlotte, who took pattern from life in the States, were amusing. She acted her part to perfection; she was the centre of attraction, the belle of the evening. She treated the suitors for the pleasure of the next set with becoming ease and suavity of manner; she knew her worth, and managed accordingly. When the favoured gallant stood by her side waiting for the rudely scraped tune from a screeching fiddle, satisfaction, joy, and triumph over his rivals were pictured on his ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... high spirits, and full dress; and seemed in no measure piqued at Major Tyler for occupying the Secretary's chair. The Secretary must have been aware that the colonel was to act during his absence—but, probably, supposed it proper that the major, from his suavity of manners, was best qualified for the reception of the visitors. He had been longer in the department, and was more familiar with the routine of business. Yet the colonel was not satisfied; and accordingly requested me to intimate the fact to Major Tyler, of which, it seemed, he had ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... boss; I sure is," he replied with diplomatic suavity; "but I jes' cain't do it. You see, de banker on de nex' cohner an' me—we done made a 'greement dat ef I didn't loan money he wouldn't shine shoes, an' I ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... imagine, the life of the French court at this period was shamefully corrupt. Vice, however, was gilded. The scandalous immoralities of king and courtiers were made attractive by the glitter of superficial accomplishment and by exquisite suavity ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... evening of "free liquor" and forgetfulness of the past had brought them there now. Among them, and yet not of them, was a young man who, although speaking English without accent, was distinctly of a different nationality and race. This, with a certain neatness of dress and artificial suavity of address, had gained him the nickname of "the Count" and "Frenchy," although he was really of Flemish extraction. He was the Union Ditch Company's agent on the Bar, by virtue ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... quickly, for with the last words his grandfather's tone had changed from mere suavity to a sudden suggestion of sternness. Instinctively he straightened in his chair, and his glance at the other two young men showed that they had quite as involuntarily straightened in theirs. As the head of the firm, Hugh Benson, ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... My little friend," said Sir Norman, with bland suavity, and unconsciously quoting Leoline, "once seen in ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... himself without it." Perhaps even the greatest merit cannot successfully straggle against unfortunate and disagreeable manners. Lord Chesterfield says that the Duke of Marlborough owed his first promotions to the suavity of his manners, and that without it he could ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... see, Ned," added Mr. Morris, joining in the laugh, "that nothing will be done—unless 'tis to appoint a minister to the United States. 'Tis my conviction that Mr. Pitt has determined, in spite of his suavity and apparent friendliness, to make no move in this matter—he hasn't that damned long, obstinate upper lip for nothing, boy. He is all for looking after home affairs and doesn't want to meddle with any foreign policy. I think he is not wise or great enough to look abroad ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... home in such surroundings, and that, had she been willing to give him the welcome he expected, she might have had a welcome at these as yet unopened doors through which he passed with conscious suavity, sometimes occurred to her. She was but human—and but woman—and she could not be completely oblivious to such things. But they did not, after all, wear ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... the way for colonization. The same energy and pluck, the same spirit of persistence, that triumphed over the obstacles and dangers of his earlier enterprises are again called into play, combined with the suavity and patience demanded for the attainment of the present object and permitted by the ample means at his disposal and the freedom from any necessity for impetuous haste or hazardous adventures. Experience, counsel, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... Duke, the Chief Secretary, acting as temporary Chairman and Sir Francis Hopwood (soon to become Lord Southborough) having been brought over as Secretary. Mr. Duke having addressed us with an earnest suavity, we were told to select a Chairman: and on the motion of the Primate, Archbishop Crozier, this embarrassing task was delegated to a committee of ten, rapidly told off. We adjourned for lunch, and on reassembling found that a unanimous recommendation named Sir Horace Plunkett. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... with the sweetest suavity. "I was afraid for the moment that we had got into the wrong place. This is ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... accounting for that conquering spirit of all-besetting drowsiness that attacks us at sundry times and places. It is in vain that we lengthen our limbs into an awakening stretch—that we yawn with the expressive suavity of yawning no more—that we dislocate our knuckle bones, and ruffle the symmetry of our visage, with a manual application; like the cleft blaze of a candle, drowsiness returns again. Well, then, what manner of reader is he that hath never sinned by drowsing in church time? Let him ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... Heautontimorumenos was Diderot's favourite. The half dozen pages upon Terence, which he threw off while the printer's boy waited in the passage (1762), are one of the most easy, flowing, and delightful of his fragments; there is such appreciation of Terence's suavity and tact, of his just and fine judgment, of his discrimination and character. He admits that Terence had no verve; for that he commends the young poet to Moliere or Aristophanes, but as verve was exactly the quality most wanting to ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... down to an artist's foolish love of independence,' Stradella answered with suavity. 'It is one thing for you rich nobles to accept favours from each other; you can return them; but we poor musicians cannot, and so we set a limit to what we ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... the harmony seems broken. Madame Lepelletier wonders why they so jar upon each other. She has been trained to society's suavity, and they seem quite ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... twirled his moustache, his voice had lost its suavity and had taken on an accent of almost contemptuous raillery. He even winked at his two brother officers, he was beginning to play with Faversham. "I read the letter to illustrate how strange, how very strange, are your English girls. Here is one of them who ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... with a smile of the utmost suavity. "And, understand me, youngster," he continued, with a sudden change to sternness in his manner, that disconcerted me a great deal more than I should have cared for him to know, "if you decide to join us you must do so wholeheartedly, and with no mental reservations. Those who are ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... an exclamation from his friend interrupted him, and turning quickly he was considerably taken aback at seeing the devil himself, or something like him, at his very shoulder as he spoke. Recovering his equanimity, with the ease and suavity which is usual with him in all company, Mr. Bennett was about to address the intruder, when he perceived that what he had taken for the gentleman in black was nothing more than a frightened orang-outang. ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... his suavity. "Do I appear bitter? I beg your pardon for exhibiting so ungentlemanly a phase of human nature; yet hypocrisy does move me to—" And then occurred one of those sudden periods with which Dr. Douglass always seemed to stop himself when any thing not quite courteous ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... accustomed from of old not only to command, but to assume the responsibility of his orders; when they were carried out, his manner was a happy mixture of the haughty sternness of a soldier and the complacent suavity of the courtier, tempered both by the spirit of frankness and geniality born of the free life of a Virginia ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... sand with other feet. At length Mr. P. shuffled himself into a very sequestered nook indeed, and there he saw a man smoking. His melancholy little boy was sitting by his side. Perceiving that it was only General GRANT, Mr. P. advanced with his usual grace and suavity ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... nature, intellect, fancy, rectitude, facility, flexibility, precision, art, abundance, variety, fertility, warmth, magic, charm, grace, force, an eagle sweep of vision, vast understanding, instruction rich, tone excellent, urbanity, suavity, delicacy, correctness, purity, cleanness, eloquence, harmony, brilliancy, rapidity, gayety, pathos, sublimity, and ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... company by his patriotic and exuberant singing while "marching along"; Dr. Bennett, the amiable and popular Assistant Surgeon; Story, the ever-punctual and faithful Orderly, who had the art to soften distasteful requirements by a gentlemanly suavity; Sergeant Blossom, self-respecting and respected, perpetually finding something to do to render the general hardships more endurable, and going about it with so little ostentation that it too often passed unappreciated; Hazard, ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... roundness of her slender figure was set off by the elegant carriage of her head. Her feet were small and pretty, her hands very white, with pink, well-rounded nails. But what formed the chief attraction of Hortense was the grace and suavity of her manners. She was gay, gentle, amiable. She had wit which, without the smallest ill-temper, had just malice enough to be amusing. A polished education had improved her natural talents. She drew excellently, sang harmoniously, ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Ashton, "let me spare Lucy's bashfulness. I tell you, in her presence, that she has already consented to be guided by her father and me in this matter. Lucy, my love," she added, with that singular combination of suavity of tone and pointed energy which we have already noticed—"Lucy, my dearest love! speak for yourself, is it ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... Mrs. Markham. That lady busied herself with some goods until Mrs. Ridgeley had completed her purchases, when she approached her with her natural graciousness, which was so spontaneous that it was hardly a virtue, and was met with much of her own frank suavity. These ladies never discussed the weather, or their neighbors, or hired girls,—which latter one of them did not have; and with a moment's inquiry after each other's welfare, in which each omitted the family of the other, Mrs. Markham asked Mrs. Ridgeley's judgment ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... delivered with cutting suavity, tempered and chastened by a lofty air of moral rectitude, carried the speaker to the door. There she inclined her head in a ghostly and statue-like manner, and so withdrew to her carriage, to seek comfort and consolation in the arms of Mr ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... corner of the library while he is holding his moot court; infusing into the dignity of his manner a marked suavity of disposition which never forsook him; or he is perpetrating some appropriate legal joke to his audience, who never played upon his ease or ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... excuse for prolonging it, and deciding that her schemes had met with defeat largely owing to her own impolitic precipitation in forcing the situation, she did not mean to make an ignominious retreat. So, with well assumed suavity she told her brother-in-law that some urgent business matters claimed her attention in New York, and asked if he could complete his arrangements for Peggy's departure without her aid, as she really ought to go ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... I want the key of the lavatory. I'm indisposed," said Wildney again, in a tone of such disciplined suavity, that the others ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... days, Sir Thomas had been a floor-walker of no mean caliber. A touch of the professional still lingered in his brisk movements. He preceded Jimmy upstairs with the restrained suavity that can be learned ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Tokugawa to supplement that part of the peace provisions which related to allowances for the samurai who had fought on the side of the garrison. A demand in that sense was preferred to Ieyasu. But he had now laid aside his transient suavity. The Osaka people were brusquely informed that they must look to the Toyotomi family for recompense, and that as for rewarding unattached samurai who had drawn the sword against the shogun, the Osaka people, were they obedient to the dictates of loyalty, would ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... fellow,' replied Timson, all suavity, shaking hands with Tottle again most heartily, 'so long as we see you to breakfast, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... reading. Upon this Howell read in New Testament Greek another utterly irrelevant passage. In reply the lecturer said, rather roughly, "If you will speak English I will answer you.'' At this Howell said with the most humble suavity, "Do I understand that the distinguished gentleman does not recognize what I have been reading?'' The preacher answered, "I don't understand any such gibberish; speak English.'' Thereupon Howell threw back his long black hair and launched forth ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... under an hallucination when he calls this letter of M. St. Hilaire a "flattering notice." He has been misled by his inability to comprehend the employment of courteous language between persons who differ from each other in matters of opinion. With the accustomed suavity of a Frenchman and a gentleman, M. St. Hilaire declines entering into a discussion with Mr. Wilson, and leaves him to "settle this difference with his learned fellow-citizen," Mr. Prescott, mildly intimating at the same time that he will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... After that he listened to the conversation that passed between her and the shopmen, and found it as different from the bland English chatter of such occasions as if it had been in a different tongue. It had the tweedy texture of Scotch talk, the characteristic lack of suavity and richness in sense, in casual informativeness, in appositeness. Here, it was plain, was a people almost demoniac with ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... last below him in form order—had already received their prefects' caps). Not being a prefect, it would have been officious in him to have stopped the game. So he was passing on with what Mr Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., would have termed a beaming simper of indescribable suavity, when a member of one of the opposing teams, in effecting a G. O. Smithian dribble, cannoned into him. To preserve his balance—this will probably seem a very thin line of defence, but 'I state ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... one at the Vatican. Although there are masterpieces of Perugino's in nearly every great European collection, I cannot but think one must go to Perugia to appreciate fully the limpid clearness, the pensive, tranquil suavity, which reigns throughout his pictures in the countenances, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... of the Transcendentalists came other men and women, new and untried, with not so much of Greek and Latin, not so much suavity of manners, not so much "cultivation," but warm of heart and brave of purpose. The magnificent idea was a revelation of truth to some but also a great temptation for many shivering poor and impatient outsiders. They could thrive on it. They felt it was their right, their destiny, having ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... Gherardi, still preserving his bland suavity of demeanour, "But permit me, Donna Sovrani, to express the hope that when the veil is lifted a crown of laurels may ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... it is only puppyism come to its full growth; and certainly the worst form this quality can assume, is that of opinionativeness and arrogance. Let men agree to differ, and, when they do differ, bear and forbear. Principles and opinions may be maintained with perfect suavity, without coming to blows or uttering hard words; and there are circumstances in which words are blows, and inflict wounds far less easy to heal. As bearing upon this point, we quote an instructive little parable spoken some time since by an itinerant preacher of ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... might feel the want of the charm of Lady Cecilia's suavity of manner, of her agreeable, and her agreeing temper, yet she felt the safe solidity of principle in her present friend, and admired, esteemed, and loved, without fear of change, her unblenching truth. Pretty ornaments of gold cannot be worked out of the native ore; to fashion the rude mass some ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... few years ago to Paris to treat with the Spaniards, the latter are said to have desired certain changes in the language of the protocol. With the polished suavity for which they are noted the Spaniards urged that there be made slight changes in the words: no real change in the meaning, they said, simply in the verbiage. And our Judge Day at the head of the American Commissioners, listened politely and patiently ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... Horace hardly distinguished, giving to both the name of Sermo, or "Talk," was the easier to imitate. Persius, dying in the year 62, at the age of twenty-eight, was steeped in Horace, but lacked the gentle spirit, the genial humor, and the suavity of expression that make Horatian satire a delight. In Juvenal, writing under Trajan and Hadrian, the tendency of satire toward consistent aggressiveness which is present in Horace and further advanced in Persius, has reached its goal. ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... which by the way he always carried bare—a fashion which is very irritating to my desires. Precisely at eight o'clock in the evening, I observed that he regularly shut up his windows. One night I watched him when thus engaged—bolted in after him—locked the door—and, addressing him with great suavity, acquainted him with the nature of my errand; at the same time advising him to make no resistance, which would be mutually unpleasant. So saying, I drew out my tools; and was proceeding to operate. But at this spectacle, the baker, who seemed ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... shore, Columbus was delighted with the purity and suavity of the atmosphere, the crystal transparency of the sea, and the extraordinary beauty of the vegetation. He beheld also fruits of an unknown kind upon the trees which ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... sorry to disturb Mr. Greyne," she answered, with that gracious, and even curling suavity which won all hearts; "but I wish to see him. Will you ask him to come ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... little jewelled shoe of hers on the neck of rebellion, when she should have held out her soft white hand to make friends of her foes. Her beauty and her grace might have done much, had she inherited with the pride of the Medici something of their finesse and suavity. But he loved her, Denzil, forgave all her follies, her lavish spending and wasteful splendour. 'My wife is a bad housekeeper,' I heard him say once, when she was hanging upon his chair as he sat at the end of the Council table. The palace accounts ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... said thirty-two!" said the personage addressed, with a stiffness contrasting very forcibly with the suavity of his speech to Aunt Martha. Emily, who, as may be supposed, knew Frank Wallace better than any other person in the house, at that moment caught a glimpse of his face under the chandelier, and saw that trouble was brewing. The sulk ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... if the stories anent his youth, and even in regard to his manhood, were to be believed, a passionate, and, possibly, a violent man. His universal suavity was less an instinct of nature than the result of a grand conviction which had filtered into his heart through the medium of life, and had trickled there slowly, thought by thought; for, in a character, as in a rock, there may exist apertures made by drops of water. These hollows ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... With triumphant suavity the Archbishop of Ebury conducted the service, assisted by deans, chapters, bishops, and a dozen cathedral choirs. Something in G was being intoned; the ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... a severe and terrific battle of life her husband is engaged. Whether in professional, or commercial, or artistic, or mechanical life, your husband from morning to night is in a Solferino, if not a Sedan. It is a wonder that your husband has any nerves or patience or suavity left. To get a living in this next to the last decade of the nineteenth century is a struggle. If he come home and sit down preoccupied, you ought to excuse him. If he do not feel like going out that night for a walk or entertainment, remember he has been out all day. You say ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... of Titian. If the Venetian master does not soar as high as Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo, those figures so vast, so mysterious, that clouds even now gather round their heads and half-veil them from our view; if he has not the divine suavity, the perfect balance, not less of spirit than of answering hand, that makes Raphael an appearance unique in art, since the palmiest days of Greece; he is wider in scope, more glowing with the life-blood of humanity, more the poet-painter of the world and the world's ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... sinless one, be able to remove the eagerness of the lord of the celestial for the possession of the ear-rings. Do thou, O Karna, after Purandara's purpose by urging answers fraught with reason and grave import and adorned with sweetness and suavity. Thou dost always, O tiger among men, challenge him that can draw the bow with his left hand, and heroic Arjuna also will surely encounter thee in fight. But when furnished with thy ear-rings, Arjuna will never be ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... then, had yet to acquire this finesse. As we are now privileged to observe him, he is as easy to understand as the multiplication table, as little devious and, alas! as lacking in suavity. Yet, let us be fair to George. Mere innocence of guile, of verbal trickery, had not alone sufficed for his passionate bluntness in the present crisis. At a later stage in his career as a husband he might have ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... upon the hearth, listened with his patient courtesy, and put in a sympathetic word at intervals. No personal anxiety could cloud his comely face, nor any grievance of his own sharpen the edge of his peculiar suavity. It was only when he rose to go that he voiced, for a single instant, his recognition of the general danger, and replied to the Major's inquiry about his health with the remark, "Ah, grave times make ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... recovering himself, and with increasing suavity, "if some gentleman would mark down the date of the almanac I cherish the opinion" [cheers from the corner] "that in one month from to-day there will be five hundred dollars lookin' round for two hundred on that there ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... slug-throwing pistol, and a copy of "Green's Introduction to the Study of Arabic." With such a start, and the blood of youth running hot in his veins, everything seemed easy. He was a little frightened of the general; he had heard stories of his sternness to young officers, but with tact and suavity he hoped for the best. So, leaving his effects at "Shepherd's Hotel," he reported himself at headquarters. It was not the general, but the head of the Intelligence Department who received him, the chief being still absent ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... practically the case with all these street railway magnates, was a municipal politician before he became a financier. The fact that he attained the city treasurership shows that he had already gone far, for it was the most powerful office in Philadelphia. He had all those qualities of suavity, joviality, firmness, and personal domination that made possible success in American local politics a generation ago. His occupation contributed to his advancement. In recent years Mr. Widener, as the owner of great art galleries ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... as far as California, was relating his experience in this particular the other day. It seems he had lost a horse somewhere among the hills, and during his search for it met a gentlemanly Chileno, who with national suavity made the most desperate efforts to understand the questions put to him. Of course Chileno was so stupid that he did not succeed, for it is not possible one of the Great American People could fail to express himself clearly even in Hebrew if he takes it into his cute head ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... influence, however, was John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State. Brought up from early boyhood in the atmosphere of diplomacy, familiar with nearly every country of Europe, he had nevertheless none of those arts of suavity which are popularly associated with the diplomat. Short, baldheaded, with watery eyes, he on the one hand repelled familiarity, and on the other hand shocked some sensibilities, as for example when he appeared in ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... the moods of the monstrous being whose unveiled face she had never seen, was not deceived by the suavity of his manner. Nevertheless, she fought down her terror, knowing how much might depend upon her retaining her presence of mind. How much of her interview with Stuart he had overheard she did not know, nor how much he ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... blame, in strong language, an act of wholesome severity, [249] In truth the French ambassador and the French general were well paired. There was a great difference doubtless, in appearance and manner, between the handsome, graceful, and refined diplomatist, whose dexterity and suavity had been renowned at the most polite courts of Europe, and the military adventurer, whose look and voice reminded all who came near him that he had been born in a half savage country, that he had risen from ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... young lady, you were proposing to sell the place outright for twenty thousand francs," said Boniface with much suavity. "The interest on twenty thousand francs is only twelve hundred francs per annum at ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Waife delivered to the care of Mike Callaghan; and simultaneously he astounded that functionary with no less a gratuity than half a crown. Cutting short the fervent blessings which this generous donation naturally called forth, the Comedian said, with his happiest combination of suavity and loftiness, "And should the Mayor ask you what sort of person I am,—for I have not the honour to be known to him, and there are so many adventurers about, that he might reasonably expect me to be one, perhaps you can say that I don't ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... unmistakable signs of embarrassment, almost annoyance. He pretended to busy himself with his books, but was evidently listening to what was going on, and Miss Wallen was decidedly constrained. Presently he arose and came forward, saying, with much suavity of manner, "You must pardon my intrusion. I could not but catch something of this conversation, and had I known before that Mr. Wells was contemplating a change here I should have eagerly availed myself of the privilege our friendship gives to recommend this young lady, of whose ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... touched his temper, as I thought they would. "You seem to know a lot more than I know myself," he sneered. Before I could answer, he regained control of his tongue, and continued with oily suavity. "I guess the Big 'Un has been talking to you? Hasn't he? I guess maybe he's told you that Blackie and me are two men who can take a chance without weakening? Say, Jack, what has the Big 'Un been saying to you about us? I want ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... him what he means by assaulting an innocent passenger.' Then he turns to the rest of the people in the street, who know exactly how virtuous and mild John Bull is in his own family-relations, who have watched his tender forbearance with his eldest son Erin, and his long-suffering suavity with his youngest son India, and says to them,—'To a moral citizen of the world it is very shocking to see such an insolent attack upon a peaceable person. That man is an intolerable bully. If he were smaller, I'd step ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... would still have been reasonably well employed and he would have enjoyed an income sufficient at least to keep him in cigars of the standard to which his eminence entitled him. Mr. Murch's private secretary held a position requiring quick-wittedness and suavity in no common degree. Hardly a day went by that the ring of the phone did not serve as preamble for some such colloquy ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... business lay with Conyngham. He was the incarnation of the Continental ideal of the polished cold Englishman, and had the air of a diplomate such as this country sends to foreign Courts to praise or blame, to declare friendship or war with the same calm suavity and imperturbable politeness. ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... could not find any words to give it expression. He could not wait to turn the insult over in his mind, to weigh the exact amount of affront in each question, to take counsel, to sleep over it, and reply to it with diplomatic measure and suavity. One hour had scarcely elapsed before his answer was written. As to his feelings as an American, he appeals to his record. This might have shown that if he erred it was on the side of enthusiasm and extravagant expressions of reverence for the American people during the heroic years just passed. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and then I saw, to my astonishment, that he was all white and trembling. He recovered himself in a moment and turned to us with the suavity ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... the triumvirate was broken in upon by Tom, who, with his usual suavity of manners, politely addressed himself to the unknown, on the common topic of weather, et cetera, without eliciting in reply more than an assenting or dissenting monosyllable, "You have seen some ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Anything to oblige you, Crofts—except church. If you should happen to want me, Vivvums, ring the gate bell. [He goes into the house with unruffled suavity]. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... he said, with great suavity—"as the older man. Of course, as a question of right, we neither of us have any claim to the privilege of being allowed to help this lady. Eventually, however, one of us may secure the right; but there is many a slip, you know, and perhaps it would be less awkward ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Mr. Rogers, (who was one of the very few that watched the going out of this great light with interest,) of the dreary situation in which his old friend was lying, paid him a visit one evening, in company with Mr. Rogers, and by the cordiality, suavity, and cheerfulness of his conversation, shed a charm round that chamber of sickness, which, perhaps, no other voice but ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... in a commanding voice, without the least softening with that southern suavity, "for how much do you want to sell me secretly, your ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... address of a high-bred English gentleman—nothing more kindly prepossessing than the genial good-nature of some patriarchal German, who will condescend to forget his sixteen quarterings in the pleasure of doing you a favor—yet these specimens of the suavity of their several nations are rare; whereas blandness and polish are common attributes with your Italian. They seem to have been immemorially handed down to him from ancestors emulating the urbanity of Caesar, and refined by the grace ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... hopeless suppression of natural desires, the conflict through years of ardent youth with sordid circumstances, could have brought him to the pass he had now reached—one of desperation centred in self. Every suggestion of native suavity and prudence was swept away in tumultuous revolt. Another twelvemonth of his slavery and he would have yielded to brutalising influences which rarely relax their hold upon a man. To-day he was prompted ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... surpass all men in their coffee-drinking courtesy, and Zeyd himself was more than any large of this gentlemen-like imposture: he was full of swaggering complacence and compliments to an humbler person. With what suavity could he encourage, and gently too compel a man, and rising himself yield him parcel of another man's room! In such fashions Zeyd showed himself a bountiful great man, who indeed was the greatest niggard. The cups are drunk twice ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Sykes was one of the original members of the Roxburghe Club, and in 1818 printed for presentation to the members a portion of Lydgate's Poems. He was the 'Lorenzo' of Dibdin, who describes him as 'not less known than respected for the suavity of his manners, the kindness of his disposition, and the liberality of his conduct in all matters ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... in which they have been raised and pressed by German Governments has caused them to be regarded by British Ministers, and to a less extent by the British people, as sources of annoyance, as so many diplomatic "pin-pricks." The manners of German diplomacy are not suave. Suavity is no more part of the Bismarckian tradition than exactitude. But after all, the manners of the diplomatists of any country are a matter rather for the nation whose honour they concern than for the nations to which ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... over a kitchen fire. Tony, agape, shouldered his way through the press, aware at once that, spite of the tumult, the shrillness, the gesticulation, there was no undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency to horse-play, as in such crowds on market-day at home, but a kind of facetious suavity which seemed to include everybody in the circumference of one huge joke. In such an air the sense of strangeness soon wore off, and Tony was beginning to feel himself vastly at home, when a lift of the tide bore him against a droll-looking ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... and follower of that illustrious son of Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas. He was one of the most sagacious politicians of his day. By his shrewd management of the Cleveland campaign he secured the defeat of Mr. Blaine and the election of Mr. Cleveland. His charming personality, his suavity of manner, his magnetic influence over men with whom he came into contact, combined with his marked ability, made it easy for him to retain the difficult position of a leader of his great party. He enjoyed ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... the Mazourka! It can surround, with its own enchantment, the lightest emotion of the heart, while, through its magic, the most reserved, transitory, and trivial rencounter appeals to the imagination. Could it be otherwise in the presence of the women who give to this dance that inimitable grace and suavity, for which, in less happy countries, they struggle in vain? In very truth are not the Sclavic women utterly incomparable? There are to be found among them those whose qualities and virtues are so incontestable, so absolute, that they are ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... go quite so far as that, sir," answered Mr. Craggie, with that diplomatic suavity which leads to postmasterships and seats in the General Court, and has even been known to oil a dull fellow's way into Congress. "I cannot take quite so hopeless a view of it. There are difficulties, but they must be overcome, Mr. Pinkham, and ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... softly, distinctly, and with chill suavity, "that Mr. Okada might be grateful for the services of the excellent Murray, if the potato baron is, as I shrewdly suspect he will ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... I wooed: They pleased him and cried he, 'O man of wit, * Thou hast proved thee perfect in merry mood!' Quoth I, 'O thou Lord of men, save thou * Lend me art and wisdom I'm fou and wood In thee gather grace, boon, bounty, suavity, * And I guerdon the world ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... and sometimes feel sorrowful at his changeable appearance; perhaps if one of influence and authority came in, he would put on peculiar airs of suavity, and expatiate upon how things were and should be in prison, while one without that influence might enter and receive entirely different treatment. I here see how our rulers may have been led on at times, unaware ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... perfect suavity, "you have spoken as though you doubted my readiness to do my duty. Let me assure you very solemnly that when the time comes for me to act, I shall act as ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... the poorer part, and the suavity of the succeeding streets rapidly increased to a soothing luxury. Wide cottages occupied velvet- green lawns, and the women he saw were of the sort he approved—closely skirted creatures with smooth shoulders in transparent crepe de Chine. They invited ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... respect &c 928; good manners, good behavior, good breeding; manners; politeness &c adj.; bienseance, urbanity, comity, gentility, breeding, polish, presence; civility, civilization; amenity, suavity; good temper, good humor; amiability, easy temper, complacency, soft tongue, mansuetude; condescension &c (humility) 879; affability, complaisance, prevenance, amability^, gallantry; pink of politeness, pink of courtesy. compliment; fair words, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... table, sir?' the official proceeded with relentless suavity. As he stooped towards Henry's ear his chain swung in the air ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... Lucca he thought afforded a perfect exception to the general degeneracy of the country. The inhabitants of that little republic presented the finest view of human nature that he had ever witnessed. With the manliness of the British character they appeared to blend the suavity of the Italian manners; and their private morals were not inferior to the celebrity of their public virtues. So true it is, that man, under the police and vigilance of despotism, becomes more and more vicious; while, in proportion to the extension of his freedom, is the vigour of his private ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... foresight to induce him to relinquish his idea, and establish himself in his native Antwerp. He was already a man of eminence in his profession, and a man of mark out of it. Go where he would he made friends, and he so recommended himself to his royal patrons by his natural suavity, tact, and sagacity, that he was not only in the utmost favour with them as a right courtly painter, but was employed by them, once and again, on delicate, difficult, private embassies. But it was not only to his patrons that ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... peroration, he told the honest seaman that he had not a leg to stand upon; and all the ladies, and some of the gentlemen, too, cried out with one accord, "O fie, Captain Headman, now don't be so obstinate—surely you are quite mistaken." And the arch-master of impudence looked round with modest suavity, and, in an audible whisper, assured the gentleman that sat next to him, that Captain Headman's argument of the demolished proboscis went for nothing, for that there were other causes equally efficacious as cold and ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... activities, and these of the quite voluntary kind, forms of zealously united effort such as are never dreamt of in the countries supposed to be eminently "social." Sociability does not consist in a readiness to talk at large with the first comer. It is not dependent upon natural grace and suavity; it is compatible, indeed, with thoroughly awkward and all but brutal manners. The English have never (at all events, for some two centuries past) inclined to the purely ceremonial or mirthful forms of sociability; but as regards ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... 72, Johnson defines good-humour as 'a habit of being pleased; a constant and perennial softness of manner, easiness of approach, and suavity of disposition.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the merely worldly, the difference between an ill-bred and a well-bred person is that the former displays his discomfort, ill-humor, or selfishness in his Manners, while the latter conceals them all under a veil of suavity and kindness. Selfishness prompts the one to be rude, and the other to be hypocritical, and each is ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... speaking to Milo with that ever-smiling suavity which Gavin recalled from the night before, and ignoring Gavin entirely "You've kept ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... sometimes to be found in Dr. Burney's cabin. His mind, though not very powerful or capacious, was restlessly active, and, in the intervals of his professional pursuits, he had contrived to lay up much miscellaneous information. His attainments, the suavity of his temper, and the gentle simplicity of his manners, had obtained for him ready admission to the first literary circles. While he was still at Lynn, he had won Johnson's heart by sounding with honest zeal the praises of the English Dictionary. In London the two friends met frequently, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... his reputation? From the reasonableness and propriety of some of his scenes, from the elegance of his diction, and the suavity of his verse. He seldom moves either pity or terror, but he often elevates the sentiments; he seldom pierces the breast, but he always delights the ear, and often improves the understanding. His translation of the "Golden Verses," and of the first book of Quillet's poem, have nothing ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... abundance, especially since Dullah had been allowed to set up a trading station at the island. He monopolised the whole business, the various boats that came rowing straight to him; but he did it all in so pleasant a manner, that no one could complain. To the English people he was suavity itself. His courtesy—his gentlemanly bearing was the talk of the whole place; and regularly every morning one of his Malay slaves or bond-servants used to carry up and lay in the residency verandah a large bunch of deliciously fresh orchids, ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... and vindictive beneath his surface suavity, would, Martin felt, be pleased to put a period to his existence. Was it merely to cow him that Ichi so carefully examined his gun? Or was it to have cruel sport with him, as Ichi had attempted to ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... his confreres for his exquisite suavity and unequalled urbanity. Even with his prisoners he was the perfection of courtesy, and never was known to handcuff a man without first obsequiously apologizing for being compelled ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... I should have taken him for something far more distinguished. His manner is good. There is a suavity ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... His suavity and blandness forgotten in the presence of death, he mounted with confident alacrity to heights of greatness. Masterfully, he overrode them all. He poured brandy between Billy's teeth. Then he ordered the ladies off to bed, and recommended to Mr. Kennaston—when ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... the culture, the spontaneity, the suavity, the reticence, the abandon, the heating power, the cooling power, the light, the shade, or any of the other ingredients referred to by the great Small in ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... us of the justice of this observation than this picture. From the Virgin herself to the most humble of the servants of the Magi, and indeed even to the animals, that beautiful soul which had for its servant a talent replete with delicacy and suavity may be traced.[6] ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... he corrected, with a dangerous suavity. "I acknowledge the claim enjoyed by your sex to the last word. In this matter, however, I am inclined to ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... his wife were yet in a state of suspense, when, some weeks after the first interview, the former received a politely worded note from Jasper, requesting him to call at his store. He went, accordingly, and Jasper received him with marked suavity and kindness of manner, and, after making a few inquiries ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... and was still covetous of notice from the sex who had, in a checkered career, given him much pleasure, and had provided him with far more anxiety. But he was almost uncannily able and astute, as every man found who entered the arena of diplomacy to treat with him or circumvent him. Suavity, with an attendant mordant wit, and a mastery of tactics unfamiliar to the minds and capacities of Englishmen, made him a great factor in the wide world of haute politique; but it also drew upon him a wealth of secret ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals—very exalted ones—but honors them in the breach rather than in ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... said Hilda, with great suavity. "I hope your rheumatism has not been troubling you since ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... you were proposing to sell the place outright for twenty thousand francs," said Boniface with much suavity. "The interest on twenty thousand francs is only twelve hundred francs per ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... Merton was of the middle height; fair, and inclined to stoutness, with small features, beautiful teeth, and great suavity of address. Mindful still of the time when he had been "about town," he was very particular in his dress: his black coat, neatly relieved in the evening by a white underwaistcoat, and a shirt-front admirably plaited, with plain studs of dark enamel, his well-cut trousers, and elaborately polished ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... me," rejoined the voice, with perfect suavity. "No doubt there are many weak and foolish persons who commit crimes,—nay, I will admit that the vast majority of criminals are weak and foolish; but that does not affect the dignity of the true sinner,—he who sins from exalted motives. Ignorance is the only ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... Introduction to the Study of Arabic." With such a start, and the blood of youth running hot in his veins, everything seemed easy. He was a little frightened of the general; he had heard stories of his sternness to young officers, but with tact and suavity he hoped for the best. So, leaving his effects at "Shepherd's Hotel," he reported himself at headquarters. It was not the general, but the head of the Intelligence Department who received him, the chief being still ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... colonel was in high spirits, and full dress; and seemed in no measure piqued at Major Tyler for occupying the Secretary's chair. The Secretary must have been aware that the colonel was to act during his absence—but, probably, supposed it proper that the major, from his suavity of manners, was best qualified for the reception of the visitors. He had been longer in the department, and was more familiar with the routine of business. Yet the colonel was not satisfied; and accordingly requested me to intimate ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... magnificent capacity for indignation. He will roar you like a lion, his eyes will flash, and his clenched fist will shake as he denounces that which he believes to be error. And yet among inferiors he will consult, defer, inquire, and show a humility, a forced suavity, that has given ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... Seasons to that finished courtier, and candid biographer of his own life, Bub Doddington. As critics, however, not as moralists, we might say on the other hand—"Would he had blotted a thousand!"—The same suavity of temper and sanguine warmth of feeling which threw such a natural grace and genial spirit of enthusiasm over his poetry, was also the cause of its inherent vices and defects. He is affected through carelessness: pompous from unsuspecting ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... office, Mr. Dill was noticeably abstracted. His smiling suavity, his gracious manner, had given place to taciturnity and Ore City's choicest bon mots, its time-tested pleasantries, fell upon inattentive ears. As a matter of fact, his bones ached like a tooth from three long, hard days in the mail-carrier's sledges, ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... warmer, without any loss of dignity; his expression, once morose, was now marked by a serenity at once pleasing and grave. His politeness was almost a royal grace; for he showed to women—young or old, rich or poor, virtuous or otherwise—the famous suavity of Louis ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... rivers, torrential or dry or overburdened," blinding dust, nerves upset by steady northern blasts or by the intermittent gusts of the sirocco. A sensual race choleric and impetuous, with no intellectual or moral ballast, in which the mixture of Celt and Latin has destroyed the humane suavity of the Celt and the serious earnestness of the Roman; "complete, tough, powerful, and restless men,"[2401] and yet gay, spontaneous, eloquent, dupes of their own bombast, suddenly carried away by a flow of words and superficial enthusiasm. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... possessed. To be sure, he was weak and delicate, while Drew had the strength of a young ox. But Parmalee had wealth and standing and a polished manner that appealed strongly to women. Why should he not, with his suavity and winning smile, fascinate an ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... they had summoned him from the studio to see a peculiar phenomenon—Johnny Dromore, very well groomed, talking to Sylvia with unnatural suavity, and carefully masking the goggle in his eyes! Mrs. Lennan ride? Ah! Too busy, of course. Helped Mark with his—er—No! Really! Read a lot, no doubt? Never had any time for readin' himself—awful bore ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... rival systems debated their merits with suavity and mutual respect, but they met with scornful silence a compromising spirit who held that it was better to throw off your coat and boots, but keep your pantaloons on. Meanwhile, the steamer was hanging idle upon the current, against which it now and then stirred a careless ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... leave Sir Robert and Sir Willmott to talk over the affairs of this great nation; temporal matters must be attended to, you know: and though"—she looked for a moment at Burrell, whose countenance had not yet regained its usual suavity—"I am sorry to be the means of depriving Sir Willmott of much necessary instruction—I have no doubt you will make up the deficiency to him at some ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... key of the lavatory. I'm indisposed," said Wildney again, in a tone of such disciplined suavity, that the others shook ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... men in the world who ought to be placed in a position of responsibility, trust, and confidence. For the protection of others and for protection against himself, he ought to be under the most careful supervision. His intellectual powers, his suavity, his ability to meet and handle strangers, his commercial and financial shrewdness, ought all to be given full scope by his employers, but any opportunity to handle money or help himself to the funds of others should be carefully ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... out a few of the notable men present, because there is no space to give biographies as well as portraits. That man of sixty, in rich, civil uniform, who entered with the Emperor, and who at once reminds an American of Edward Everett both in face and in the polished grace and suavity of his manner, is at present the first statesman of Europe,—Prince Alexander Gortchakoff. Of medium height and robust frame, with a keen, alert eye, a broad, thoughtful forehead, and a wonderfully sagacious mouth, the upper lip slightly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... said in detail. Most people knew his pictures of the Four Elements, so neatly executed in a style adapting Flemish smoothness of surface to Italian suavity of line. This sort of art delighted the cardinals and Monsignori of the seventeenth century. But it has nothing whatsoever to say to and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... laurels. Although Pericles was the greatest orator of his day, yet his business was not oratory. Public speaking was to him merely incidental and accidental. He doubtless would have avoided it if he could—he was a man of affairs, a leader of practical men, and he was a teacher. He held his place by a suavity, gentleness and gracious show of reasons unparalleled. In oratory it is manner that wins, not words. One virtue Pericles had in such generous measure that the world yet takes note of it, and that is his patience. If interrupted in a speech, he gave way and never answered sharply, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... property infected. Where should they go? To return to their own country would be difficult since it was in the middle of winter, and Chopin trembled like a forsaken bird, thinking of the chill of Paris. He loved the island, despite the inhospitable people, because of the suavity of its climate. The Cartuja of Valldemosa offered itself as their sole refuge, a building devoid of architectural beauty, with no other charm than that of its medieval antiquity, situated in the mountains with pine-covered ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Adams was a complete and thorough Puritan, wonderfully little modified by times and circumstances. The ordinary arts of propitiation would have appeared to him only a feeble and diluted form of dishonesty; while suavity and graciousness of (p. 203) demeanor would have seemed as unbecoming to this rigid official as love-making or wine-bibbing seem to a strait-laced parson. It was inevitable, therefore, that he should never avert by his words any ill-will naturally caused ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... was struck with the expression of this man's one eye, which had "as great a quantity of being as half-a-dozen common eyes." After the first exposition of the Christian doctrine, the philosopher began with extreme suavity and politeness: "Your lordship says that in the beginning God created one man and one woman. I do not understand (I beg your lordship's pardon) what a man is, and why he is ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... for Percy-hall consisted of the Miss Falconers, the two Lady Arlingtons, and some other young people, who were at Falconer-court. It was a fine morning, Mrs. Falconer was all suavity and smiles, both the Miss Falconers in charming hopes, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... Columbus was delighted with the purity and suavity of the atmosphere, the crystal transparency of the sea, and the extraordinary beauty of the vegetation. He beheld also fruits of an unknown kind upon the trees which ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... smiling as I lay awake and thoughtful on my couch— smiling at Madame. The unction, the suavity of her behaviour offered, for one who knew her, a sure token that suspicion of some kind was busy in her brain. From some aperture or summit of observation, through parted bough or open window, she had doubtless caught a glimpse, remote or near, deceptive or instructive, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... civilization, and taking pains that the requirements of religion should not interfere with the fishery or the chase. All the good customs and practices already established among them, they confirmed and approved, and found much to sympathize with in the Indians. The suavity and dignified simplicity of the chiefs particularly pleased them, and the relation of the chief to the people,—they consulting him in regard to every public or private undertaking, as when about to take a journey, or when entering upon marriage; he regulating the ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... my hero were lacking in enterprise and what the world calls "push." But as I observed more closely, I dismissed this suspicion as unjust; for I began to note that one or two of the grave, important-looking men whom Roger Dale treated with so much suavity, were much more frequent visitors over the way. Besides, the plate-glass windows were very small, and it was next to impossible to see what went on inside. Mr. Prime always stayed at his office until nearly six o'clock, and once or twice he was still at work at his desk ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... while he may. It is only the way in which the answer is given that varies. Here characteristic differences appear. The authorities of the Roman Catholic Church swell out to increased magnificence, and nothing can exceed the suavity and the compassionate scorn with which they point out the transparent absurdity and the audacity of such proposals. The Holy Office at Rome has not, it may be, yet heard of Dr. Pusey; it may regret, perhaps, that it did not wait for so distinguished ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... was to take things good-naturedly and as all in the song! The worst that might happen would be that he must proceed to France afoot, without a penny, lacking weapons, Don Fernando's cloak—all things, in short, but the bare clothing he stood in. To make loss as small as possible there were in order suavity, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... in her manner, which, in spite of its ease and apparent artlessness, has too much method in it. Her suavity is no more studied than her raptures. She is frosted all over,—frosted like a cake, I mean, and not with ice. And, to follow the image, I have no idea what sort of a compound the tasteful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... himself. Breitmann was not on deck; neither was he in his state-room. The door was open. M. Ferraud, without any unnecessary qualms of conscience, went in. One glance at the trunk was sufficient. The lock hung down, disclosing the secret hollow. For once the little man's suavity forsook him, and he swore like a sailor, but softly. He rushed again to the deck and sought Captain Flanagan, who was enjoying a ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... to us, don't you see?" She makes her points with a directness and simplicity that should disarm even the diplomatic suavity of Uncle Sam when he meets her in Washington. "Year after year the Cherokees waited for the Government to pay. And at last, three years ago, it came to us—$133.19 to each Indian, seventy-eight years after the removal from Georgia had ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... menacingly. But to me it was impossible to refrain from an outburst of merriment. It was quite in accordance with German promises, which are composed of the two ingredients—uncompromising bluff and unabashed deliberate lying, leavened with a sprinkling of disarming suavity. I had tasted this characteristic at Wesel and frankly was not a bit surprised at anything which loomed up, always resolving at all hazards to make the ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... Washington, purposely to call on Mr. Roosevelt, the President. Was refused an audience. While in the office of Secretary Loeb, a delegation of politicians, republicans and democrats, came out of the president's apartments with their mutual admiration compliments and suavity ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... the stage. He laughed when he thought of Major Belwether, too, confounded under the loss of such a nephew-in-law, humiliated, crushed, all his misleading jocularity, all his sleek pink-and-white suavity, all his humbugging bonhomie knocked out of him, leaving only a rumpled, startled old gentleman, who bore an amusing resemblance to a ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... seasoning of the virtues," as well as "the garb." Cicero represents suavity of speech and manners to be the seasoning of friendship (condimentum amicitiae). De Amicitia, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... hair, but still as pre-eminent as ever for that beauty, the charm of which depends less than any other upon youth, arising, as it does, from a felicitous combination of bearing and manner, and that exquisite suavity of expression which steals into the heart and pleases so much that it be comes a satisfaction to admire! Of Lord Castleton, indeed, it might be said, as of Alcibiades, "that he was beautiful at every age." I felt my breath come thick, and a mist passed before my eyes as ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... locality is a depression. As a passenger without serious occupation, it fell to his lot to inquire the way. This he would do very minutely, with great suavity and becoming gravity, and then with no sign of hesitation indicate invariably the wrong road. Once, after crossing a field where there were no fences to mark the highway, descending a hill we could not have mounted, and finding a stream that seemed impassable, ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... he was face to face with an adventure of a peculiar kind. Whether he took me for a lunatic I cannot certainly say; but, from his manner, I think it possible he did. He began to move towards me from across the room, addressing me with the utmost suavity ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... all study but that of art as time wasted, and made her small store of French answer admirably by talking very loud and fast, and saying, 'Oui, oui, oui,' on all occasions with much gesticulation, and bows and smiles of great suavity and sweetness. ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... come again and Walcott's probationary year with Mr. Underwood had nearly expired. For a while he had maintained his old suavity of manner and business had been conducted satisfactorily, but as months passed and Kate Underwood was unapproachable as ever and the prospect of reconciliation between them seemed more remote, he grew sullen and morose, ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... persons who did not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the church and the power of its ministers. Thus it happened that Christianity, from a very early period after its introduction to Spain, was deprived of that spirit of meekness, suavity, and tolerance, impressed upon it by its Divine Founder, and became possessed of a spirit of the most implacable resentment against every person who had not gone through the baptismal ceremony; and thus, also, it was that the religion of the country degenerated ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... said Agnew, with the suavity of a confidence man, "but that is no reason why we should always remain foes. I saw you here, and you looked lonesome. I'm a rather lonesome bird myself to-night, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... would sometimes smile and sometimes feel sorrowful at his changeable appearance; perhaps if one of influence and authority came in, he would put on peculiar airs of suavity, and expatiate upon how things were and should be in prison, while one without that influence might enter and receive entirely different treatment. I here see how our rulers may have been led on at times, unaware of the true state of things in the institution. ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... neat play in the game, the way in which these two smoothed each other down. They accepted each other's assurances with the suavity of practiced lawyers, each without an atom ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... seemed small and petty. She was conscious of a revolt against the whole atmosphere of the place. The suavity of Miss O'Flynn's manner, the artificial grandeur of Madame Villard, filled her with aversion, and she wanted only to get away, and get ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... Transfiguration, with its three quiet spectators, than the world-famous one at the Vatican. Although there are masterpieces of Perugino's in nearly every great European collection, I cannot but think one must go to Perugia to appreciate fully the limpid clearness, the pensive, tranquil suavity, which reigns throughout his pictures in the countenances, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... it is ages since we met!" Her piercing tones, likened by the Tobies to those of a macaw, strove in vain for suavity. "So good of you to come to this affair—such ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... with Lesley. But his good-humor was gone: the usual suavity of his manner was a little ruffled. His recognition of Mary Kingston had evidently been displeasing as well as ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... to a monomania with him; yet he was not himself of Celtic lineage. His intolerance of opinion and rashness of action would have been utterly unendurable, were it not for the directness of his aims, the sincerity of his motives, the disinterestedness of his spirit, and the suavity of his disposition. The only other member of the Young Ireland party deserving notice as a chief was Charles Gavin Duffy, the editor and proprietor of the Nation newspaper. Mr. Duffy was a Roman Catholic, and professed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and his wife were yet in a state of suspense, when, some weeks after the first interview, the former received a politely worded note from Jasper, requesting him to call at his store. He went, accordingly, and Jasper received him with marked suavity and kindness of manner, and, after making a few inquiries ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... "and for that reason those who are not of noble origin should take care that the dignity of the office they hold he accompanied by a gentle suavity, which wisely managed will save them from the sneers of malice that ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... exaggeration, that to prevent the comings and goings of servants, he would be served, he would have gruel brought to him, in case of illness, by tables connected with his steam-engine. I am aware it is supposed by the generality of people that this suavity of motion is obtained only by a loss of power; but it is an error, a gross error: the saying, "much noise and little work," is true, not only in the moral world, but is also ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... whereas the good natured confiding expression of his brother, with his pleasing address, won all hearts, and he was served with alacrity and scarcely needed to express his wants; it really is astonishing how much influence suavity of manners has in France, in procuring civility and attention, and how opposite is the ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... at him, hesitating, studying. It was hardly a fair contest, this of youth and scant experience against suavity and shrewdness strengthened ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... glad,' retorted Vandeloup, with suavity, as he walked beside him to the men's quarters. 'What a horrible thing to be the duplicate of half-a-dozen other men. By the way,' breaking off into a new subject, 'Madame Midas ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... friends, to his wife, of the effects of which on the people his enemies were so much afraid, on which Shakespeare himself dwells so attentively as the "royal blood" comes and goes in the face with his rapid changes of temper. As happens with sensitive natures, it attunes him to a congruous suavity of manners, by which anger itself became flattering: [195] it blends with his merely youthful hopefulness and high spirits, his sympathetic love for gay people, things, apparel—"his cote of gold and stone, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... has a soul rich in sweetness and suavity. What sympathy he evokes in all! The disagreeable person is irritated by trifles. He excites disgust and fear in others. He who is affable shows love to ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... good impression on us, and I remarked several times in him a searching side-glance, as though he were trying to read our thoughts. He sustained the entire conversation himself, and it was somewhat difficult to follow his meaning: he spoke in an unctuous, oratorical tone, with extreme suavity, in very general terms, and evaded all direct questions. When I had listened to him for ten minutes I was not one whit wiser than before. His language was not remarkably choice, and he used liberally a mixture of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... House chimney-piece a finer knowledge of line in Stevens's work. Michael Angelo's Medici figures, and indeed, his other famous works, are not so unequivocably good; the effigies superimposing the sarcophagi are, for brief instance, "pillowy," though they may be more anatomic. The suavity of nature's hypo-refined grace is not traceable in their easy posture. The fact is, that they pose for something; generally their own animal idiosyncrasy, if not respectable vanity. Stevens's figures, on the contrary, ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... finding favour neither from Royalists nor Cromwellians. Macaulay, with more justice, remarks, 'That he was a good man he evinced by proofs more satisfactory than deep groans or long sermons, by humility and suavity when he was at the height of human greatness, and by cheerful resignation under cruel wrongs and misfortunes.' . . . 'He did nothing amiss during his ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... chief beauty. A profusion of light hair played in silken locks around her soft and penetrating blue eyes. The delicate roundness of her figure, slender as a palm-tree, was set off by the elegant carriage of her head. But that which formed the chief attraction of Hortense was the grace and suavity of her manners, which united the Creole nonchalance with the vivacity of France. She was gay, gentle, and amiable. She had wit, which, without the smallest ill-temper, had just malice enough to be amusing. A polished ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... respect of suavity and forbearance Melancthon was the counterpart of Luther. John Arrowsmith (1602-1657), in his Tractica Sacra, describes him as "Vir in quo cum pietate doctrina, et cum utraque ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Bonaparte's reply immediately revealed his determination to reassert French supremacy in Italy and the Rhineland. The action of the Courts of Vienna and London was not unlike that of the sun and the wind in the proverbial saw. Viennese suavity induced Bonaparte to take off his coat and show himself as he really was: while the conscientious bluster of Grenville and Pitt made the First Consul button up his coat, and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... a modest corner of the library while he is holding his moot court; infusing into the dignity of his manner a marked suavity of disposition which never forsook him; or he is perpetrating some appropriate legal joke to his audience, who never played upon ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the most sympathetic of us feel in Michelangelo. This master's engraving of three lovely nudes, the most charming memento preserved to us from the Cartoon, introduces a landscape of grove and farm, field and distant hill, lending suavity to the muscular male body and restoring it to its proper place among the sinuous lines and broken curves of Nature. That the landscape was adapted from a copper-plate of Lucas van Leyden signifies nothing. It serves the soothing purpose which ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... insisted upon singing their airs in their native language, though they had no objection to using German for the recitatives, in which there was no opportunity for vocal display. Keiser's music lacks the suavity of the Italian school, but his recitatives are vigorous and powerful, and seem to foreshadow the triumphs which the German school was afterwards to win in declamatory music. The earliest operas of Handel (1685-1759) were written for Hamburg, and in the one of them which Fate has preserved for ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... that upon yourself, Mr. Plaisted, but I am very, very sorry," said Gussie, who felt all the insolence of the words that were spoken with such suavity. "Why will you call her Dexter when you know that it makes her throw ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... retorted with extreme suavity, 'you will also attend to your daughter's manners.' Otherwise he took little notice of Ursula, viewing her perhaps, as did the neighbourhood, as a poor imitation of May, without her style, or it may be with a sense that her tongue might become inconvenient ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... alertness, self-possession, and genial suavity Browning impressed him as an American rather than as an Englishman, though there can be no question but that no more thorough Englishman than the poet ever lived. It is a mistake, of course, to speak of him as a typical Englishman: for typical he was not, except ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... buoyant, and that little man must have had a great fund of charity about him somewhere to be drawn upon at first sight. Still this popularity was no joke. There were other rubs. The keen love of approbation in the little man, which was at the bottom of his suavity, was galled by the least condemnation of his work and credit; he was too manly to enact the old man and the ass, but successful Sam Winnington was about as soon pricked as a man who wears a fold of silk on his breast instead of the old ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... besides expressing much new-born good will, to intimate that his cause lay in the belief that the prisoner was a great white conjuror, who could help him to a solution of sundry interesting questions, the old chief pronounced with much solemnity and suavity; and he betrayed an inclination to continue it, the captors of Nathan standing by and looking on with vast and eager interest. But a sudden and startling yell from the Indians who had charge of the young Virginian, preceded by an exclamation from the renegade ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... I will walk about unconcernedly, and when I perceive a judicious spot, I will take a pinch of snuff and use my handkerchief, turning at the same time in the direction in which I wish my adversary to be placed. Take your cue from that, and with all suavity of manner, insist as much as you can upon our being so placed. That must be left to your own persuasive powers. I believe I have now stated all that is necessary, and I must ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... forward, and renders it agreeable, and a man must have eminent qualifications to support himself without it." Perhaps even the greatest merit cannot successfully straggle against unfortunate and disagreeable manners. Lord Chesterfield says that the Duke of Marlborough owed his first promotions to the suavity of his manners, and that without it ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... not only the best possible place to hear correctly enunciated speech, but a play of contemporary life is equally valuable as a study in manners. There is also a suavity of grace in the way Europeans bow and stand and sit, and in the way they speak, that is unconsciously imitated. These "manners" need not—in fact, should not—be gushing or mincing, but you gradually perceive that jerking ramrod ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... were windows in his soul which looked out onto vague and ethereal prospects which so far from being obvious were only dimly intelligible. In form these odes were cast in the loose rhythms of Walt Whitman, but their smooth suavity and their contents bore no resemblance whatever to the productions of that barbaric bard, whose works were quite unknown in Riseholme. Already a couple of volumes of these prose-poems had been published, not of course in the hard ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... difficulty, and that is what occurred on the five several occasions that the case of The People versus Antonio Mathusek came up on the trial calendar during the month following Tony's incarceration, on each of which Mr. Hogan with unctuous suavity rose and humbly requested that the case be put over at his client's earnest request in order that counsel might have adequate time in which to subpoena witnesses ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... on the whole, a model of suavity in the domestic fold. The first blow that had fallen upon him seemed to have affected his temper; and his helpmate knew from experience that whenever he called her "Nance" his ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the Perpetual Curate, with less suavity than usual, and a sigh that nearly blew Mrs Hadwin's candle out. She saw he was discomposed, and therefore, with a feminine instinct, found more to say than usual before she made her peaceful way to bed. She waited while ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the statement attributed to Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, that Mr Gladstone always addressed her as if she were a public meeting. Every sentence was rounded, polished and precise, every syllable had its particular rhythmic weight and value, and with it all there was a certain suavity and courtesy which, for my own part, I thought very gracious and charming. I had heard one of his remarkable Budget speeches and knew already with what ease he handled figures, but he surprised me more than once by his quickness in calculation. ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... the church, crossing themselves and bowing in succession before each of the pictures of saints which hung against the wall, and at last turned to receive the congratulations of their friends. It was expected of course that the "distinguished Americans," of whose intelligence, politeness, and suavity so much had been heard would congratulate the bride upon this auspicious occasion; but at least one distinguished but unfortunate American did not know how to do it. My acquirements in Russian were limited to "Yes," "No," and "How do you do?" and ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... as she desired. And to-night, in contrast to Trixton Brent, Sidney Dallam suggested the counter more than ever before. He was about five and forty, small, neatly made, with little hands and feet; fast growing bald, and what hair remained to him was a jet black. His suavity of manner and anxious desire to give one just the topic that pleased had always ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "I wish I could!—This vixenish old craft is behaving with a great deal too much suavity to suit my notions. I don't care about making a reverence to every wave I meet if they're going to tower up at this rate. But I guess you're right, Linden—the description of you can be made quite captivating—and her cheeks glowed like damask roses with some sort ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... kitchen had reached white heat. Hutton's suavity was fast disappearing behind a loud angry tone. He had about sized up Ma and decided to ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... fancied even an accession to the subdued suavity of his manner as he picked up and replaced on the tuckerbox the empty pannikin which Bum had thanklessly tossed on the ground at his feet. Then he resumed his place; and Thompson, palpably turning his back on Dixon and Bum, selected him as chief ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... assurance than his culture. Of the latter quality he has so little that the best clubs of which he is a member tolerate rather than accept him. In most cases he is deplorably curt of speech and brusque of deportment. Suavity, repose, that kindliness which is the very marrow and pith of high-breeding, shock you in his manners as acutely by their absence as if they were rents in his waistcoat or gapes in his boot-leather. The "bluff," impudence, and swagger of the Stock Exchange cling to him in society like ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... the conversation was again resumed and I noted then the singular clearness and suavity of this Martian language. I must hasten my narrative. I have so much to tell you. We ate the great cereal of Mars—the Rint—a delicious food, in which, as it seemed to me, the substance of a sort of rice was mingled with a creamy exudation in all of which was enclosed the flavor ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... The Rambler, No. 72, Johnson defines good-humour as 'a habit of being pleased; a constant and perennial softness of manner, easiness of approach, and suavity of disposition.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... speaking aloud with all the weightiness of a general, on subjects to which others were alluding in discreet whispers. This was, so to say, his 'special role in local society. He drawled, too, and spoke with peculiar suavity, probably having picked up the habit from Russians travelling abroad, or from those wealthy landowners of former days who had suffered most from the emancipation. Stepan Trofimovitch had observed that the more completely a landowner was ruined, the more suavely he lisped ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... entertains her with long stories about Seringapatam, and pleasant anecdotes of the Mulligatawney club. I have even seen him present her with a full-blown rose from the hot-house, in a style of the most captivating gallantry, and it was accepted with great suavity and graciousness; for her ladyship delights in receiving the homage and attention ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... impertinent. Oddly enough, amateur “schoolmarms” who fall into this unpleasant habit are generally oversensitive, and resent as a personal affront any restlessness under criticism on the part of their victims. It is easy, once the habit is acquired, to carry the suavity and consideration of general society into the home circle, yet how often is it done? I should like to see the principle that ordered presentation of arms to the infant princess applied to our intimate relations, and the rights of the ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... it softened this young provincial, used to the harder country life of his home; it relaxed the Numidian contracted by the roughness of his climate; it cooled his eyes burned by the sun in the full-flowing of its waters and the suavity of its horizons. It was a city of laziness, and above all, of pleasure, as well for those plunged in business as for the idlers. They called it Carthago Veneris—Carthage of Venus. And certainly the old Phoenician Tanit always ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... bead of sweat from his forehead. His lips were working nervously. All suavity and polish were gone now; there were only viciousness and fear, each struggling with the other for the mastery in the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... than those of Charles Kean for drawing upon the stage, met together at Somerset House, on Monday last, to distribute prizes among their scholars. Prince Albert presided, gave away the prizes with great suavity, and made a speech which occupied exactly two ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... priest, and had a quaint sensation of feeling as a romantic woman must feel in the presence of a specially impressive masculine personality. It was indeed strange that this soft-voiced, portly creature in a gown, with his white, fat hands and his feline suavity of manner, should produce such a commanding and unique effect of virility. No doubt this was a part of the great sex mystery which historically surrounded the figure of the celibate priest as with an atmosphere. Women had always been prostrating ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Is it a good policy for me to follow with you?" she asked, and he found the mockery in her voice delightful. "Would you advise me to offer you shocks as a sort of vacation from suavity?" ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... moods of the monstrous being whose unveiled face she had never seen, was not deceived by the suavity of his manner. Nevertheless, she fought down her terror, knowing how much might depend upon her retaining her presence of mind. How much of her interview with Stuart he had overheard she did not know, nor ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... been allowed to set up a trading station at the island. He monopolised the whole business, the various boats that came rowing straight to him; but he did it all in so pleasant a manner, that no one could complain. To the English people he was suavity itself. His courtesy—his gentlemanly bearing was the talk of the whole place; and regularly every morning one of his Malay slaves or bond-servants used to carry up and lay in the residency verandah a large bunch of deliciously fresh orchids, or ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... you fall in with Dalton, who has just returned from a year passed in the French capital. There is an easy suavity and graceful indifference in his manner that chimes admirably with your humor. He is gracious, without needing to be kind. He is a friend, without any challenge or proffer of sincerity. He is just one of those adepts in world tactics which match ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... one or two details which we may perhaps arrange later," said Marston, who preserved a perfect suavity. ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... Austria raised her beautiful eyes towards him, and with an unmoved suavity of manner, said, "What do you ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... watching Harriet, with a menace in his narrowed eyes. White lines had drawn themselves about his tightly closed lips, yet he was smiling. He had lost the game, truly, but she knew he would play his last card, just the same. The suavity, the calm of years fell from him, and his voice deepened into a sort of cold and quiet fury as ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... conversation avoid argument. It is too engrossing of attention, and is moreover apt to break in upon the harmony of the company. If obliged to discuss a point, do so with suavity, contradicting, if necessary, with extreme courtesy, and if you see no prospect of agreement, finishing off with some happy good- natured remark to prove that you are not ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... undertone, and the two sisters—if Frowenfeld's guess was right—confronted each other. For a single instant only they stood so; an earnest and hurried murmur of French words passed between them, and they turned together, bowed with great suavity, and ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
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