"Complaisance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... constantly to bear each other, and of forgetting one another's faults, as {263} a man in engaging in this state seeks a companion for life, the saint observes that nothing is busier than for him to make it an affair of traffic, or a money job. A wife with a moderate fortune usually brings more complaisance and submission, and blesses a house with peace, union, and friendship. How many rich men, by marrying great fortunes, in seeking to increase their estates, have forfeited the repose of their minds for the rest of their lives. A virtuous wife gives every ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... Oriental Hotel at Singapore when she was made a relict through cholera, and he had more time than he knew what to do with, to say nothing of moustaches that predestined him to a box-office. And certainly circumstances justified the lady's complaisance, for while hitherto hers had been but a fleeting show, it was now, in the excusably imaginative terms of Colonel Pike, an architectural feature of the cold weather. There was the mystic bower, too, in an ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... informed the Indian chief, in the presence of his council or attendants, respecting the purport of their business; and with this the chief expressed his satisfaction. When the latter was informed concerning the object of Mr. Bartram's journey, he received him with complaisance; giving him unlimited permission to travel over his country, for the purpose of collecting plants, and saluting him by the name ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word good-breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimicry of good nature, or, in other terms, affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper, reduced into an art. These exterior shows and appearances of humanity render a man wonderfully popular and beloved, when they are founded upon a real good nature; but, without it, are like hypocrisy in religion, or a bare form of holiness, ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... lady, which order was filled by a collection of the Annuals of six years back and a few unsalable modern novels. I read them all most conscientiously and gratefully, and would not listen for a moment to Mr. Hammond's jests about them; but, a few weeks afterwards, I almost repented of my complaisance, when Tom Salyers took me at an advantage while rowing me down to Louisa one afternoon, and, seeing a long stretch of river before him without shoal or sand-bar, leisurely laid up his oars, and, letting the boat float with the stream, asked me, abruptly, to marry him, and go with him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... finds the desiderated virgin, whom he conducts to Mubarak. In the Arabian story the Imam, Abu Bakr (Haji Bakr in the Turkish), is at first inimical towards the prince and the shaykh but after being propitiated by a present of money he is all complaisance, and, as in the Turkish, introduces the prince to the fallen vazir, the father of the spotless virgin. The sudden conversion of the Imam from a bitter enemy to an obliging friend is related with much humour: ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... he found him under arrest for debt, and engaged in violent altercation with his landlady. Taking from him the Vicar of Wakefield, then just written, Johnson proceeded with it to Newbery the Bookseller, from whom he obtained sixty pounds for his friend; and Goldsmith's good humour, and the complaisance of his hostess, returning with this accession of wealth, they spent the remainder of the day together in harmony. In this novel, like Fielding and Smollett, he exhibits a very natural view of familiar life. Inferior to the ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... not to her merit, but to her sex: she has not perhaps gained a victory, though she may be allowed a triumph; and it should humble her to reflect, that the tribute is paid, not to her strength but her weakness. It is worth while to discriminate between that applause, which is given from the complaisance of others, and that which is paid to our ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... admiration, and whose vanity and passions too often led him to yield to the temptations by which he was surrounded, it was but natural that, in the consciousness of her own power to charm, she should be now and then piqued into an appearance of retaliation, and seem to listen with complaisance to some of those numerous worshippers, who crowd around such beautiful and unguarded shrines. Not that she was at any time unwatched by Sheridan,—on the contrary, he followed her with a lover's eyes throughout; and it was believed of both, by those who knew them best, that, even when they ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... conduct of those wives (for you and I know more than one such) who can suffer themselves to be out-blustered and out-gloomed of their own wills, instead of being fooled out of them by acts of tenderness and complaisance.—I wish, that it does not demonstrate too evidently, that, with some of the sex, insolent controul is a more efficacious subduer than kindness or concession. Upon my life, my dear, I have often thought, that many of us are mere babies in matrimony: perverse ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... 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, prvenance, amability[obs3], gallantry; pink of politeness, pink of courtesy. compliment; fair words, soft words, sweet words; honeyed phrases, ceremonial; ,salutation, reception, presentation, introduction, accueil[obs3], greeting, recognition; welcome, abord|, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... countenance; her sisters went to meet him, and, notwithstanding their endeavours to appear sorrowful, their joy, felt for having got rid of their sister, was visible in every feature. A moment after, everything disappeared, with Beauty's apprehensions at this proof of Beast's complaisance. ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... would profess the most unbounded faith in the creed of the planters, and would crowd their favorite temples located on our own soil. But this would not be a real bond of union between us, but merely an exhibition of servility and fawning hypocrisy. And so the Northern complaisance toward slavery has in no degree tended to avert the disaster which has overtaken us, but only to breed self-reproach on the one side, and hauteur with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... prodigality and stinginess; magnificence between vulgar display and pettiness: magnanimity between vainglory and pusillanimity; truthfulness between exaggeration and dissimulation; friendship between complaisance, or flattery, and frowardness,—and so of the rest. The golden mean must be taken in relation to ourselves, because in many matters of behaviour and the management of the passions the right amount for ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... face to face, and, even while he prayed for his advice and assistance, a very natural feeling of curiosity prompted him to ask "how he came to be translated alive into the assembly of the gods." Hasisadra, with great complaisance, answered his descendant's question and gave him a full account of the Deluge and his own share in that event, after which he informed him in what way he could be freed from the curse laid on him by the gods. Then turning to ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... such by their bearing, and not by arrogating to themselves, even indirectly, the titles. In England, the title lady is properly correlative to lord; but there, as in this country, it is used as a term of complaisance, and is appropriately applied to women whose lives are exemplary, and who have received that school and home education which enables them to appear to advantage in the better circles of society. Such expressions as "She is a fine lady, a clever lady, a well-dressed ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... prisoners of all complexions—that some have lived and some have died—and that you have something else to do than to remember what became of each. I hope, however, and (as it would be for the advantage of the First Consul) I believe, that you would have the complaisance ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... as of the true means by which the public happiness may be promoted. The Republican principle demands that the deliberative sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they entrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests. It is a just observation, that the people commonly intend the public good. This often applies to their very errors. But their ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... or seemed to see, the arched apartments, the procession of venerable matrons, the consecrated vestments: the very temple began to rise upon my sight, when a Dutch porpoise approaching to make me a low bow; his complaisance was full as notorious as Satan's, when, according to Catholic legends, he took leave of Calvin or Dr. Faustus. No spell can resist a fumigation of this nature; away fled palace, Hecuba, matrons, temple, etc. I looked up, and lo! I was in a garret. ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... ninny-hammer of yours from ruin, and all his family? It is well known how he has rose early and sat up late to make him easy, when he was sotting at every alehouse in town. I knew his last wife: she was a woman of breeding, good humour, and complaisance—knew how to live in the world. As for you, you look like a puppet moved by clockwork; your clothes hang upon you as they were upon tenter-hooks; and you come into a room as you were going to steal away a pint pot. Get you gone in the country, to look after your mother's poultry, ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... accompanied by Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD, whose peculiar views upon the questions of war and peace have so recently been repudiated by the Government and the House of Commons, makes it still more extraordinary. In the circumstances it was almost surprising to learn that the complaisance of the Government did not extend to furnishing Mr. MACDONALD with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... Mr Bellamy, in his turn, conducted himself towards the schemer with much cordiality and kindness. Proud men never unbend until their supremacy is acknowledged through your servility. Your submission turns their gall to honey—converts their vinegar to milk—to the very cream of human complaisance. Mr Bellamy acted his part in this respect, as in every other—well; a tiger to such as would not cringe, he could become a playful lamb to all who were content to fawn. Planner and he were on the best possible terms. Looking into what is called the nature of things, we shall think it very natural ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... but an attractive look, and the handlers of them still less so, it was, therefore, to tell the truth, not without some lurking reluctance, or even shrinking, it may be, that Captain Delano, with apparent complaisance, acquiesced in his host's invitation. The more so, since, with an untimely caprice of punctilio, rendered distressing by his cadaverous aspect, Don Benito, with Castilian bows, solemnly insisted upon his guest's preceding him up the ladder leading to the elevation; ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... moods try to coax it from him. This was the way women had always been forced to do with their masters, and it was, of course, all wrong: it classed the wife with "horrid" women, who made men pay them for their complaisance. ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... idle questioning," said I. "I cannot give you more than explanations, because I have nothing more. You will make me regret even so much complaisance." ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... what you ought to attach to the mysteries and ceremonies of that religion you propose to meditate on, and adore in silence. I proceed now to examine some of those practices to which the priests tell us the Deity attaches his complaisance and his favors. In consequence of the false, sinister, contradictory, and incompatible ideas, which all revealed religions give us of the Deity, the priests have invented a crowd of unreasonable usages, but which are conformable to these erroneous notions that they have framed of this Being. God ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... could produce no warrant for his demand. Cibber concluded with telling him that "as his pretensions were not backed with any visible instrument of right, and as his strongest plea was custom, the managers could not so far extend their complaisance as to continue the payment of fees upon so slender a claim to them." From that time neither their plays nor his fees gave either party any further trouble. In 1725 Killigrew was succeeded as Master of the Revels by Charles Henry ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... sir, for gentlemen to exercise their abilities, and employ their pens, upon political questions, and when they have produced any thing, which their complaisance for themselves equally hinders them from owning and suppressing, they are known to procure some person of inferiour rank, to take upon him, in publick, the character of the author, and to stand the danger of the prosecution, contenting themselves ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... nomination at Chicago did not in the least disturb my equanimity or my allegiance to the great party to which I belonged, and for the success of which I had devoted my life since 1854. I listened with complaisance to the explanations made as to the wavering of the Ohio delegation on the Saturday previous to the nomination, and as to the unexpected action of the New York delegation and the curious reasoning which held them together in the hope that they could persuade their leader to ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... designate it can only be thinking of utility, like our hostess at La Rochelle, when she took us to a grand sight, which turned out to be no other than a washing-establishment. The French have, it is acknowledged, no taste for the picturesque, and it appeared to me as if the complaisance of the English abroad led them to agree that anything is pretty which pleases their ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... tyrant. Adroit esclave is the epithet applied to him in this respect by Voltaire, who idolises him as a moralist and poet. But it carries little weight in the mouth of the cynic who could fawn with more than courtierly complaisance on a Frederick or a Catherine, and weave graceful flatteries for the Pompadour, and who "dearly loved a lord" in his practice, however he may have sneered at aristocracy in his writings. But if we put ourselves as far as we can into the poet's place, we shall come ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... that there are many women, in all classes of society—not mercenary women—who extend to men a certain measure of sex complaisance and feel no deep regret for this behavior, so long ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... {what was} her misfortune, and too {easily} prevailing, as now about to perish by the complaisance of her lover, Semele said, "Present thyself to me, just such as the daughter of Saturn is wont to embrace thee, when ye honor the ties of Venus." The God wished to shut her mouth as she spoke, {but} the hasty words ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... under such circumstances as made reprisal impossible. In reality, however, Van Ariens had not been intentionally wounded by Hyde. The situation was the natural result of incipient jealousy and sensitive pride on Rem's part; and of that calm indifference and complaisance on Hyde's part, which appeared tacitly to assert its own superiority and expect its recognition as a matter of course. Indeed, at their introduction, Rem had affected Hyde rather pleasantly; and when the young Dutch gentleman's opposition became evident, Hyde had simply ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... they were paying for some complaisance on the part of the master of Abbey Burnfoot. But his light burned steadily up in his study window. He had never looked down on the flitting torches, the turmoil of the loading, the black figures crossing and recrossing the glimmering strips of sand, the clinking of shod feet on the ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... many tokens of unselfish cordiality, for further manifold proofs of political complaisance, to be reviewed by me in detail later, proofs of a sincere desire to be enduringly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... or a Compliance, if not Subservience, to his Vices, must be the Measures of your Conduct. When it comes to that, the unnatural State a Man lives in, when his Patron pleases, is ended; and his Guilt and Complaisance are objected to him, tho the Man who rejects him for his Vices was not only his Partner but Seducer. Thus the Client (like a young Woman who has given up the Innocence which made her charming) has not only lost his Time, but also the Virtue which could render him capable of resenting ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... a foregone conclusion; and though the learned lawyer duly prepared a very fine speech and pocketed some monstrous fees with a great deal of complaisance, he was honest enough not to hold out the smallest hope of being able ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Bell thinks that Chaucer here praises the complaisance of Marcia, the wife of Cato, in complying with his will when he made her over to his friend Hortensius. It would be in better keeping with the spirit of the poet's praise, to believe that we should read ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... as much through unfaithfulness as complaisance, I went to take a walk at some of the public parks, rather from excess of vanity to show myself than to take the pleasure of the place. Oh, my Lord! how didst Thou make me sensible of this fault? But far from punishing me in letting me partake of the amusement, Thou didst ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... aims, had been imbibed, and not one fault corrected while young; and self-experience, which rectifies in most so much that is wrong, seemed to do nothing for her. There was no substance to work upon. Mrs. Fisher was soon heartily tired of her, and could have regretted her complaisance to Mrs. Danvers' wishes in receiving her against her judgment; but she was too good to send her away. She laughed, and accepted her as a penance for her sins, she said—as a thorn in the flesh—and she let the thorn rankle there. She remembered ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... looked back smiling proudly. He realized how pure, how tender, how true she was. He knew, too, that she was daily and hourly weaving about him bands which held him captive to beliefs which though true to her were the veriest falsehoods to him; and that only his love of ease, his fatal complaisance, prevented his rending these cords as did Samson the new ropes of the Philistines. He realized that he was sacrificing his manhood, that he was bartering his convictions for flattery and ease by allying ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... this year to the King and Queen; who came to the Arsenal with a numerous train, and found the diversions I had provided so much to their taste that they did not leave until I was half dead with fatigue, and like to be killed with complaisance. Though this was not the most splendid entertainment I gave that year, it had the good fortune to please; and in a different and less agreeable fashion is recalled to my memory by a peculiar chain of events, whereof the first link came under my ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... home; but the stars light us on our way and make our homes beautiful. Talent has something familiar and social in its impression and greeting; but Genius receives us with a calm dignity that transfigures courtesy and complaisance, and makes our relations healthy and grand. The whole tone of Artot's violin differs from Bull's. I felt they must not be compared, and so listened delightedly, but with a pale, ghastly joy. When I heard Ole, I could not sleep. It was like a fire shining out of heaven, sudden ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... condition. England, watching for an opportunity to revive the struggle on the continent, excited the resistance of Rome, the peninsula, and the cabinet of Vienna. The pope had been cold towards France since 1805; he had hoped that his pontifical complaisance in reference to Napoleon's coronation would have been recompensed by the restoration to the ecclesiastical domain of those provinces which the directory had annexed to the Cisalpine republic. Deceived in ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... exposed, without a consort, to the fire of Lady Penelope, speedily found it so brisk and incessant, as to drive his complaisance, little tried as it had been for many years by small talk, almost to extremity. She began by begging him to draw his chair close, for an instinctive terror of fine ladies had made him keep his distance. At the same time, she hoped "he was not afraid of her as ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... elbows had a peculiar elegance in them; and in old times to hold the elbow out well, and yet not to stick it out, was a point of early discipline. Then her glossy black hair set off a superb neck and shoulders; and, moreover, she was gay, full of mirth, life, complaisance, perfect in all the acts of politeness, and invariable in her ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Captain Joncaire, informed me that he had the command of the Ohio; but that there was a general officer at the near fort, where he advised me to apply for an answer. He invited us to sup with them, and treated us with the greatest complaisance. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Think wholly of to-day, and not at all of to-morrow. Beware of the high and hold fast to the safe. Dismiss conviction, and study general consensus. No zeal, no faith, no intellectual trenchancy, but as much low-minded geniality and trivial complaisance as you please. ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... young, he thinks himself of great consequence, and every thing of importance. As he advances in life, he learns to think himself of no consequence, and little things of little importance; and so he becomes more patient, and better pleased. All good humour and complaisance are acquired. Naturally a child seizes directly what it sees, and thinks of pleasing itself only. By degrees, it is taught to please others, and to prefer others; and that this will ultimately produce the greatest happiness. If a man is not convinced of that, he never will practice it. ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... which the face should be the appendage, the leg the portrait. "Hoc ligno," not "hoc signo vinces." But here Gerard bounces—giving an instance of a gentleman "who, being drawn in little, and comparing the smallness of the eyes with his own, asked the painter whether he had such? However, in complaisance, and for his pleasure, he desired that one eye at least might be as big as his own, the other to remain as it was." Fie, Gerard! you have spoiled your emblem by taking the mirror out of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... indeed there be any of you who have never heard the trifles I toss off on the spur of the moment. You will listen to them with the same critical exactitude that I have bestowed on their composition, but with greater complaisance, I hope, than I can feel in reciting them. For prudent judges are wont to judge finished works by a somewhat severe standard, but are far more complaisant to improvisations. For you weigh and examine ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... year, I believe, which was opulence in the Latin Quarter. Now, the squire had been aware of Pair's relation with Godelinette from its inception, and had not disapproved. On his visits to Paris he had dined with them, given them dinners, and treated her with the utmost complaisance. But when, one fine morning, her tailor died, and my quixotic friend announced his intention of marrying her, dans les delais legaux, the squire protested. I think I read the whole correspondence, and I remember that in the beginning the elder man took the tone of paradox ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... other house discover in this single instance, any uncommon degree of flexibility and complaisance, should they patiently endure the rejection of the bill, admit the validity of the reasons upon which your lordships have proceeded, and willingly engage in drawing up a new scheme for raising supplies; even upon this supposition, which is more favourable than can reasonably ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... counterpart of every other, with the exception of more gilt, if the owner can afford it. The interior arrangement, instead of being characteristic, instead of revealing something of the tastes and feelings of the owner, is rigorously conformed to every other interior. The same hollow and tame complaisance rules in the intercourse of society. Who dares say precisely what he thinks upon a great topic? What youth ventures to say sharp things, of slavery, for instance, at a polite dinner-table? What girl dares wear curls, when Martelle prescribes puffs or bandeaux? ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... Frank—" She looked wistfully into his face as she addressed him, as though half afraid to go on, and begging that he would receive with complaisance whatever she ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... in themselves; but what made the disappearance of any prospect of spontaneous reform in the Transvaal still more serious to the High Commissioner for South Africa, was the complaisance with which President Krueger's reactionary policy was regarded by the Dutch subjects of the Crown. It was just here that Lord Milner's observations must have yielded the most startling results. We know that the days which had passed since the Jubilee despatch was written had brought him constant ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... was not given up; or, in other words, if peace between the two countries was not concluded. The noble lord commenced his speech by joining in the congratulation of the address on the birth of another princess, and the happy recovery of her majesty. Here, however, he said, his courtly complaisance must end; for he could not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. He could not concur in a blind and servile address, which approved, and endeavoured to sanctify, the monstrous measures that had heaped disgrace upon ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of her dress, the exquisite distinction of her manners, all contributed to her charm. And then she was so humble in the presence of her husband! She so carefully avoided whatever might have the semblance of reproach! She closed her eyes with such complaisance! Henry told himself that it would be difficult to find another woman so well-disposed, another wife so faithful to her duties, another princess so accomplished in point of instruction and intelligence. The menage a trois (household of three) was continued, therefore, and if the dauphin ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... 1804.—Went to church, plain chapel with a picture behind the pulpit, which I was not close enough to see, and at the other end in a nitch, a 'cross painted'! Was it there before? or was it in complaisance to Maltese superstitions?—Called on Sir A. Ball—there I met General Valette, and delivered my letter to him,—a striking room, very high; 3/4ths of its height from the ground hung with rich crimson silk or velvet; and the 1/4th above, a mass of colours, pictures in compartments rudely ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... and the lofty teachings of Zeno, have alternately attracted or absorbed your attention. Permit me to suppose, that the high-toned ethics of the Stoics, and their elevation of mind, which could teach its frail companion, the body, the proud lesson of insensibility to pain, have won your peculiar complaisance. Yet, while meting out to them the full measure of your applause, have you ever recollected that modern times—that your own country came in competition for a share of fame! Has it occurred to you that your own sex—even the most delicate and tender part of it—exceeded the ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... all that," said Mr Hobson, "it makes no alteration in my argument; I am speaking to the purpose, and not for the matter of complaisance: and therefore I'm bold to say Mr Harrel's action had nothing of the gentleman in it. A man has a right to his own life, you'll tell me; but what of that? that's no argument at all, for it does not give ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... "Knickerbocker" history, which Mr. Lockhart had just been warmly praising in "Blackwood's." Indeed, he bought the copyright of the "Sketch-Book" for two hundred pounds. The time for the publisher's complaisance had arrived sooner even than Scott predicted in one of his kindly letters ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... white-faced debtors, already drunk with the bumpers their deliverers were pouring down their throats. Bement was not visible, but as Abner and Perez entered the jail, they saw Mrs. Bement in the corridor. She was not making any fuss or trouble at all over the breaking of the jail this time. With apparent complaisance she was promptly opening cells, or answering questions in response to the demands of Meshech Little and some companions. But there was a vicious glint in her pretty blue eyes, and she was softly singing the lugubrious hymn, beginning with the ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... were apt to be directed. I may have clung to him instinctively as a wholesome corrective. At all events, he submitted, in the main good-humouredly, to my frequently personal diatribes, and, by his very complaisance and merry indifference, supplied me again and again with point and illustration for ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... objects of it, his brother officers wondered still more, and no sooner did they perceive the major and his companions issue forth, than they set out in a body to watch where this most novel and unexpected complaisance would terminate. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... his complaisance a step farther, and dispatched the letter to Paris by the hands of his own son, an intelligent lad of nineteen. It was late in the afternoon of that perfect August day when young Rougane presented himself at the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... youth, when she was Sforza's betrothed. No sacrifice would be too great for her if it would wipe out the remembrance of the nine years which had followed that day. The victory she had now won by the shameful complaisance of the house of Este was associated with deep humiliation, for she knew that Alfonso had condescended to accept her hand only after long urging and under threats. A bold, intriguing woman might overcome this feeling of humiliation by summoning up the consciousness of her genius and her charm; while ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... not, however, carry his complaisance so far as to embrace Sir Geoffrey's side during the Civil War. On the contrary, as an active Justice of the Peace, he rendered much assistance in arraying the militia in the cause of the Parliament, and for some ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... thing lying out in common, they say that all passengers, both those known and those unknown indiscriminately, were invited to lodgings, and that conversation was adopted between persons at variance with complaisance and kindness, and that they refrained from disputes and quarrels; their chains were also taken off those who were in confinement during those days; that afterward a scruple was felt in imprisoning those to whom ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... in their youth and strength. Presently a mother rolled lazily over on her side, permitting its calf to suck. Others followed this example; and then the leader of the herd ceased his passage to windward, but began to circle the spot, as if in complaisance to those considerate nurses who thus waited on the wants of their young. At this interesting moment, the boats came glancing ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... like Major Pendennis to be found from Trolhatten to Messina, and yet Pendennis is a class with us; and it is in the nicely-blended selfishness and complaisance, the egotism and obligingness, that we find the purest element ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... his right ear so disposed towards the speaker that each word came through as little atmospheric intervention as possible. To intensify the sense of hearing, he seemed to sink the sense of sight. No complaisance of mere speech could have been so flattering, or expressed such striking politeness as this mute eloquence of ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... frequently than Condillac and Voltaire. M. Suard, the Abbe Morellet, the Marquis de Boufflers, the frequenters of the drawing-rooms of Madame d'Houdetot and of Madame de Rumford, who received me with extreme complaisance, smiled, and sometimes grew tired of my Christian traditions and Germanic enthusiasm; but, after all, this difference of opinion established for me, in their circle, a plea of interest and favour instead of producing any feeling of illwill or even of indifference. They knew that I was as sincerely ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... We started about four o'clock—Legrand, Jupiter, the dog, and myself. Jupiter had with him the scythe and spades, the whole of which he insisted upon carrying, more through fear, it seemed to me, of trusting either of the implements within reach of his master, than from any excess of industry or complaisance. His demeanor was dogged in the extreme, and "dat d——d bug" were the sole words which escaped his lips during the journey. For my own part, I had charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... Louis XVI. Both of them are what history is in the habit of calling good kings; but principles are not to be parcelled out, the logic of the true is rectilinear, the peculiarity of truth is that it lacks complaisance; no concessions, then; all encroachments on man should be repressed. There is a divine right in Louis XVI., there is because a Bourbon in Louis Philippe; both represent in a certain measure the confiscation of right, and, in ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... vanquished an enemy in single combat, in his general's sight. In consequence of all this he had several honors conferred upon him; and once when at an entertainment a question arose about commanders, and one of the company (whether really desirous to know, or only in complaisance) asked Scipio where the Romans, after him, should obtain such another general, Scipio, gently clapping Marius on the shoulder as he sat next him, replied, "Here, perhaps." So promising was his early youth of his future greatness, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... shoulders. There were limits to the complaisance he found due to this future relation; the family secrets, the family confidences, though they might indirectly concern him, should at least be kept from him for the present. Georges knew all his sister's story, as far as her mother ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... Stocks were left sole occupants of the carriage for the better half of the way. The man was only too willing to seize the chance thus divinely given him. His irritation at Lewis's projects had been tempered by Alice's kindness at lunch and Wratislaw's unlooked-for complaisance. Things looked rosy for him; far off, as on the horizon of his hopes, he saw a seat in Parliament and a fair and ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... that none of the absurdities I met with in this visit proceeded from an ill intention, but from a wrong judgment of complaisance, and a misapplication of the rules of it. I cannot so easily excuse the more refined critics upon behaviour, who having professed no other study, are yet infinitely defective in the most material parts of it. Ned Fashion has been bred ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... have, and my life to boot.' Ten weeks before Elizabeth's death Cecil was writing to Ralegh about partnership in a privateer. Ralegh in a memorable letter to his wife in July, 1603, spoke of the business association as still subsisting. It is difficult to believe that Cecil reciprocated, unless from complaisance and policy, the ferocity against Ralegh and Cobham, or either, which inspired Henry Howard's venomous canting mystifications, and was echoed by James. His correspondence with Ralegh's cousin, George Carew, countenances the view that his hostility had something in it of hurt affection. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... and excluded rigorously from office every opponent of the baleful system, it is certain that the shrug of the polite Frenchman who listened to our demonstration that ours, after all, was not a slaveholding country, was an indication of complaisance rather than of conviction. To prove this nothing of the sort, while Brazil was placed at the head of modern slaveholding countries, was to overtax the resources of ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... have received from authority less partial. I command, therefore, that my son, upon pain of my eternal displeasure, may never speak to me on the subject again, and I hope, madam, from you the same complaisance to my request. I cannot explain myself further, nor is it necessary; it is no news, I flatter myself, to Mortimer Delvile or his mother, that I do nothing without reason, and I ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... as thine, or to suppress the pain that is rapidly drawing the dread shadow of death over my eyes? What I entreat of thee, O thou fatal star to me, is that the hand thou demandest of me and wouldst give me, be not given out of complaisance or to deceive me afresh, but that thou confess and declare that without any constraint upon thy will thou givest it to me as to thy lawful husband; for it is not meet that thou shouldst trifle with me at such a moment as this, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... must now be told, that there was nothing of the slightest importance occurred at this repast, except that it gave me an opportunity of studying Mrs. Berry in many different ways; and, in spite of the extreme complaisance which she now showed me, of forming, I am sorry to say, a most unfavourable opinion of that fair lady. Truth to tell, I would much rather she should have been civil to Mrs. Muchit, than outrageously complimentary to your ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the utmost stretch of Arthur's complaisance to pay this visit; but, in spite of his national prejudices and habitual reserve of temper, he was pleased with the reception he met with from the generous Carlo and the playful Rosetta. They showed him Francisco's drawings with enthusiastic eagerness; ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... joined the jolly cavalcade and rollicked through the moonlight nights, merely to make fun for their conquerors by playing on the superstitious fear of the sable allies of the Northmen. Never before was such good-natured complaisance, such untiring effort to please. So the North laughed, the South chuckled, and ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... there's another, &c. and by the help of some Wax in the hollow of his Hand, he drew away several Guineas every time, which he conveyed into a Handkerchief he held in his Left-hand. When the Number was compleated, they parted, with much Complaisance on each side: but when the Banker came the next Morning to settle the Account of his Cash, he found in his Gold a ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... feathers, and he had on his head a very large and high head-piece, in the form of a grenadier's cap, with prickles like a porcupine; and he made a certain noise which resembled the cry of an alligator. Our people skipped amongst them out of complaisance, though some could not drink of their tourrie; but our rum met with customers enough, and was soon gone. The alligators were killed and some of them roasted. Their manner of roasting is by digging a hole in the earth, and filling it with wood, which they burn to coal, and then ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... France. But the constable, in the mean time, without even the privity of his master, entered into negotiations for his marriage with the princess Isabella, granddaughter of John the First of Portugal; and the monarch, with an unprecedented degree of complaisance, acquiesced in an arrangement professedly repugnant to his own inclinations. [37] By one of those dispensations of Providence, however, which often confound the plans of the wisest, as of the weakest, the column, which the minister had so ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs." "But," he said in the same essay, "however inclined we might be to insist upon an unbounded complaisance in the executive to the inclinations of the people, we can with no propriety contend for a like complaisance to the humors of the legislature.... The executive should be in a situation to dare to act his own opinion with vigor ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... impress upon you that all the changes that have taken place in Paris have been sudden. There is now a moment of calm, but if thro' any over complaisance to the persons you converse with on the subject of my liberation, you omit procuring it for me now, you may have to lament the fate of your friend when its too late. The loss of a Battle to the Northward or other possible ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... a morsel given to his brother, accompanied with such cutting words from his master, began to growl and snarl. "Since you have shown so much complaisance and generosity to your brother," continued Mr. Howard, still speaking to Castor, "who in return treats you with ill manners, jealousy, and envy, you shall in future be my own dog, and be at liberty to range about the house at your pleasure: ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... dismissed. It was not a creditable business; four months before he had signified his readiness to make room for Bute,[28] and he received a present pension of L4,000 a year and the reversion of the wardenship of the Cinque Ports, which was at least equally valuable, as a reward for his complaisance. He was succeeded by Bute as secretary of state on ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... "Your complaisance does credit to your good nature, sir," exclaimed the old man. "But we can not take advantage ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Mr. Martens; and your complaisance to such a child of the world as I am, always causes me great astonishment," said Fanny, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... as she habitually cherishes, of being taught and led by men. I would have her, like the Indian girl, dedicate herself to the Sun, the Sun of Truth, and go nowhere if his beams did not make clear the path. I would have her free from compromise, from complaisance, from helplessness, because I would have her good enough and strong enough to love one and all beings, from the fulness, not the poverty ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... head and holding up her vigilant long-handled eyeglass, she seemed to be sweeping the whole field of society and asking herself where she should pluck her revenge. Suddenly she espied it, ready made to her hand, in poor Longmore's wealth and amiability. American dollars and American complaisance had made her brother's fortune; why shouldn't they make hers? She overestimated the wealth and misinterpreted the amiability; for she was sure a man could neither be so contented without being rich nor so "backward" without being weak. Longmore ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... woman," said I, and went ahead and pushed open the door. There, sure enough, was Timothy, looking very uncertain and rueful. The little man's complaisance had given me the greatest wonder of my life—Margaret's silent watching over me as I lay asleep, and I gave him ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... black tribes who have become Mahommedans. The major had been drawing with a lead pencil, when he was carried into the presence of the sultan. Malem Chadily on this occasion pretended to treat him with great complaisance. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... fires, for the Radicals abuse them for their tyrannical and despotic treatment of the Canadians, and the Tories attribute the rebellion to their culpable leniency and futile attempts at conciliation by concessions which never ought to have been made, and only were made out of complaisance to the Radicals here. As generally happens when there are charges of an opposite nature, and incompatible with one another, neither ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... his work in his usual quiet and gloomy fashion, and, after a day's leave for the purpose of arranging the affairs of a sick aunt in Camberwell, came back only a little less gloomy than before. It was also clear that Mr. Swann's complaisance was nearly at an end, and a letter, couched in vigorous, not to say regrettable, terms for a moribund man, expressed such a desire for fresh air and exercise that Hardy was prepared to ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... along the Maritza controlling that river and Adrianople. An even more sinister concession to Bulgarian exorbitance was that of Epirus, a district assigned to Albania in 1913 but populated by Greeks who had revolted and claimed incorporation in Greece. This Prussian complaisance was doubtless due to the fact that Venizelos, who had resigned owing to Constantine's opposition to his policy, had at the Greek general election in June secured nearly a two to one majority in the Greek Chamber. Greece could not be allowed the benefit of a Prussian queen ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... fy, Laura, a Lady bred at Court, and Yet want complaisance enough to entertain A Gallant in private! this coy Humour Is not a-la-mode.—Be not so peevish with a Heart ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... those that were given to censure, pass'd a Judgment upon her which she no Ways merited, since she was a Woman of strict Honour and Virtue; and tho' she might be agreeable to his Lordship in every Particular, that noble Peer's Complaisance to her, proceeded wholly from the great Esteem he had for her Wit and most exquisite Understanding, as will appear from what relates to her in his Will at the Close ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... clouds into cocks for a coming cartage. There were thrushes in the Richmond Road, and a lark on Putney Heath. The freshness of dew was in the air; dew or the relics of an overnight shower glittered on the leaves and grass. Hoopdriver had breakfasted early by Mrs. Gunn's complaisance. He wheeled his machine up Putney Hill, and his heart sang within him. Halfway up, a dissipated-looking black cat rushed home across the road and vanished under a gate. All the big red-brick houses behind the variegated shrubs and trees had their blinds ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... perplexingly novel in this new manifestation, is the display of a considerable amount of egotism, which we had always supposed to be a sinful and naughty thing in technical journalism. And, as if to magnify this self-complaisance, it actually alludes to its "own extensive and ever-increasing circulation in America." Now to show how small a thing can impart comfort to the soul of our cotemporary, we venture to say that the circulation of Engineering in this country ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... said Preciosa, mindful of the portfolios that Little O'Grady had lugged downstairs and had opened in Festus Gowan's studio. "Leave them all behind," she added, feeling as keenly as ever the smart of her feeble complaisance toward Virgilia Jeffreys. ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... the Baron with the utmost complaisance, and Hawbury was surprised, and Mrs. Willoughby and Lady Dalrymple were disgusted; but the Baron was delighted, and his soul was filled with perfect joy. Too soon for him was this drive over. But the end came, and they reached the hotel. ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... time, I must state that not only have the hitherto inaccessible treasures of Anton Schindler's "Beethoven's Nachlass" been placed at my disposal, but also other letters from private sources, owing to various happy chances, and the kindness and complaisance of collectors of autographs. I know better, however, than most people—being in a position to do so—that in the present work there can be no pretension to any thing approaching to a complete collection of Beethoven's ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... joined them in the universal concerns of mankind as confederates espousing the same fundamental principles. If they renounced some of their religious and national traditions, it was by no means out of complaisance for their neighbors. They were guided solely and alone by those universal principles that forced non-Jews as well as Jews to reject many traditions as incompatible with reason and conscience. Non-Jews and Jews alike yielded themselves up to the fresh inspiration of the time, and ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... right—at all events, the successful—conduct for a whilom foe. If the Yugoslavs, in simply accepting the judgment of their Allies, acted against their own ultimate advantage, they can, at any rate, believe that their complaisance, their extraordinary lack of chauvinism, will be recognized. It is true that when, on former occasions, such as during the prolonged d'Annunzio farce at Rieka, they displayed a similar and wonderful forbearance, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... of you," said Janet, genuinely persuading herself for the moment that Edwin was quite exceeding the usual bounds of complaisance. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... caprices—plunged headlong with ever accelerating speed, till the deliverance of the Naparimas became the welcome consequence of his own personal action. On one occasion it was credibly reported in the Colony that this infatuated dispenser of British justice actually stretched his official complaisance so far as to permit a lady not only to be seated near him on the judicial bench, but also to take a part—loud, boisterous and abusive—in the legal proceedings of the day. Meanwhile, as the Governor could not be induced to interfere, things went [109] on from bad to worse, till ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... not contented with this spiritual affinity, the younger Will is for establishing some claim to a natural one, alleging that his mother was a great admirer of wit, and there were no bounds to her complaisance for men of genius." ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... will have been all his life a real scourge of the human race, imagines that his conscience can be tranquillized, if, in order to expiate so many crimes, he will have wept at the feet of a priest, who will have the cowardly complaisance to console and reassure a brigand, whom the most frightful despair would punish too little for the evil which he has ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... where he would stay about a month, and that he intended to make a visit before his departure, which he did, attended by my late chaplain; and I, being in handsome lodgings, received them with all the complaisance and love as was possible, telling them that time and circumstances having greatly varied with me, whatever they saw amiss I hoped they would be so good as to look over it at that time, by considering the unhappy situation ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... And why should I not trust him only this time, 20 Who have always trusted him? What, then, has happened, That I should lose my good opinion of him? In complaisance to your whims, not my own, I must, forsooth, give up a rooted judgment. Think not I am a woman. Having trusted him 25 E'en till to-day, to-day ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... formally the order for execution; the gendarmes, who were charged to see that the public peace was kept during the business about to be transacted; and the assistants of the executioner, who, notwithstanding the ill name which has been given to them, pointed out to him, with a complaisance full of delicate consideration, the precise position in which to place himself under the axe. One minute after, Peter Leroux's head was divorced from his body, which operation was accomplished with such dexterity, that many of those present ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... "earliest opportunity of mediation," and the pleasant reception given by Russell scarcely justified any great hope of decided benefit for the South. It must now have been fairly apparent to Lindsay, as it certainly was to Mason, that all this complaisance by Palmerston and Russell was but political manipulation to retain or to secure support in the coming contest with the Tories. The two old statesmen, wise in parliamentary management, were angling for every doubtful vote. Discussing with ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... of a narrative of a direct war between Satan on the one side and the Royal Commissioners on the other, "because," says Councillor de Lancre, with self-complaisance, "nothing is so calculated to strike terror into the fiend and his dominions as a ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... suppose you mean the sweets of domestic life—the large portion of comfort arising from a large winter fire, and the very pleasing tittle-tattle of an antiquated maiden aunt, or the equally pleasing (tho' less loquacious) society of a husband, who, with a complaisance peculiar to husbands, responds—sometimes by a doubtful shrug, sometimes a stupid yawn, a lazy stretch, an unthinking stare, a clownish nod, a surly no, or interrogates you with a—humph? till bed time, when, heaven defend us! you are doom'd to ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... representations of the embarrassed condition he should be reduced to if the supply were refused, to yield a subsidy of seventy thousand pounds a month for eighteen months, they forced him to pay a high price for their complaisance by extorting his consent to the "Test Act." By the operation of this act, the Duke of York, the inveterate enemy of the Dutch, and Sir Thomas Clifford, the minister who had the most zealously pushed forward the business of the war, were forced to resign ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... France, as the best means of educating the people to an intelligent appreciation of his purposes and of his plans. Condorcet, who treated the brutal murderers of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld with a complaisance which entitles him to the confidence of the most advanced anti-clerical philosophers of our own day, bears witness to the good intentions of Turgot's correspondents. He says, in his memoir of Turgot, printed at Philadelphia seven years before the Revolution of '89, that 'the curates, accustomed ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... marriage she had been ever complaisant toward him in his card-playing. This complaisance, to him, had become habitual. But now that doubt had arisen, it seemed to him that he noted an eagerness in her countenancing of his poker parties. Another point he could not avoid noting was that Sonny Grandison was missed by the poker and bridge crowds. He ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... swelled as I drew near, until at last I could make out the words, which were singularly appropriate both to the hour and to the condition of the singers. 'The cock may craw, the day may daw,' they sang; and sang it with such laxity both in time and tune, and such sentimental complaisance in the expression, as assured me they had got far into the third ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... undertaken at the request, and almost at the command of Sir Richard Steele. He entreated Mr. Addison to speak candidly and freely, though it might be with ever so much severity, rather than by keeping up forms of complaisance, conceal any of his faults. This Mr. Pope spoke in such a manner as plainly indicated he thought Mr. Addison the aggressor, and expected him to condescend, and own himself the cause of the breach between them. But he was disappointed; ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... do you see? If that had gotten into the newspapers, if Morley had known of it through Maria Fulton and had blurted it out, no power on earth could have kept down the very reasonable assumption that Withers had had a hand in his wife's death—or, at least, had regarded it with complaisance. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... leave they learned from her where the lady was, whose marvellous beauty they had heard lauded so often; and being eager to see her, they besought the Duke to afford them an opportunity. Forgetful of what a like complaisance had cost the Prince, he consented, and next morning brought them to the villa where the lady lived, and with her and a few of his boon companions regaled them with a lordly breakfast, which was served in a most lovely garden. Constantine ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... you, as you will, I know you, You were too honest, knight, to be more civil; A girl all feeling, and a she-attendant All complaisance, a father at a distance - You valued her good name, and would not see her. You scorned to try her, lest you should be victor; For that I ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... that you could entertain a thought which did so great an injury to our friendship. As to believing that you said this to one, and wrote it to the other, simply for the sake of paying them an agreeable compliment, I have too high an esteem for your courage to be able to imagine that complaisance would cause you thus to betray the sentiments of your heart, especially on a subject in which, as they were unfavorable to me, I think you would have the more reason for concealing them, the affection which I have for you being so well known to every one, and especially to ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... thought Corilla: "This is a charming theme which the good Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn for me. I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his promise, he inserted in the paper. This cardinal is an agreeable imp, and I must give him a kiss for his complaisance. Besides, the Tasso rhyme will here ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... the servant's eyes were upon him, smiled at this question, "looked superior down;" and though with reluctant complaisance he leaned his body to this side or to that, as Queasy pulled or swayed, yet he appeared totally regardless of the man's vulgar reflections. He had seen every thing as he passed, and was surprised at all he saw; but evinced not the slightest symptom of astonishment. He was now ushered into ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... down to this country. His alleged motive, it seems, was a desire of seeing a monument which he had directed to be raised in the chapel over the tomb of your mother. Mr. Ratcliffe, who at this time had done me the honour to make my house his own, had the complaisance to introduce him secretly into the chapel. The consequence, as he informs me, was a frenzy of several hours, during which he fled into the neighbouring moors, in one of the wildest spots of which he chose, when he was ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... the author, inflated with this success, "that it is necessary to pass through Complaisance and Sensibility; and that if we do not take this road, we run the risk of losing our way to Tiedeur, Oubli, and of falling into the ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... her way through it, if not serenely, at least without ever a thought of yielding to those temptations that beset a girl who is at once poor and charming. Fortunately for her, those in closest authority over her were not so deeply smitten as to make obligatory on her a choice between complaisance and loss of position. She knew of situations like that, the cul-de-sac of chastity, worse than any devised by a Javert. In the store, such things were matters of course. There is little innocence for the ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... had Gervaise shown so much complaisance. She was as quiet as a lamb and as good as bread. In her slight gluttonous forgetfulness, when she had lunched well and taken her coffee, she yielded to the necessity for a general indulgence all round. Her common ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... After he had got over the first surprise and shock of finding me on the chairs instead of in the bed, for whose comfort he vouched enthusiastically, he became confident that it was merely out of complaisance to him and his comrade that I had opened the window, and assured me that they really did not care for fresh air, even if they could feel the difference in the alcove, which he declared they could not. As soon as that was arranged to my satisfaction, the other pensionnaire came in, ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... expression—a mixture of audacity and weakness; his thin and somewhat pale lips were apt to curl in an ironical smile; his hands were of perfect beauty, his feet of dainty smallness, and he showed with an affectation of complaisance a well-turned leg above his ample boots, the turned down tops of which, garnished with lace, fell in irregular folds aver his ankles in the latest fashion. He did not appear to be more than eighteen years of age, and nature had denied his charming face the distinctive sign of his sex for ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... I could only answer my question on the assumption that they had found the treasure and were making merry. Yet it was not like Holgate to give them the reins so completely unless he had some purpose to serve by his complaisance. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... the Sabbath morning when his breakfast-table was filled with guests; but to him they furnished no pretext for neglecting his God and losing the satisfaction of setting a good example. For, instead of staying at home out of false complaisance to them, he used constantly to invite them to ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... breakfast, sheerly from obeying the commands of a respectable-looking old lady, who once required me to ring the bell, and another time to help the tea-kettle. I have some reason to think she was literally an OLD-STAGER, who laughed in her sleeve at my complaisance; so that I have sworn in my secret soul revenge upon her sex, and all such errant damsels of whatever age and degree whom I may encounter in my travels. I mean all this without the least ill-will to my friend the contractor, who, ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... may as well name to you, Mr. Lind," said he, being forced to speak more plainly. "If I were to marry, I should like to give my wife a proper home. I should not like her to marry a pauper—one dependent on the complaisance of other people. And really it has seemed to me strange that you, with your daughter's future, your daughter's interests to think of, should have ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... enough? and yet you will observe (as I now do on recollection) that he was in no great hurry to solicit for a day; since he had no thoughts of proposing settlements till I had got into my new house; and now, in his great complaisance to me, he desired leave to propose his terms, not with an expectation of my immediate answer; but for my consideration only —Yet, my dear, your advice was too much in my head ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... that gives us the greatest Pleasure, sometimes stands in Need of our Indulgence. Whenever this happens with regard to Shakespeare, I would willingly impute it to a Vice of his Times. We see Complaisance enough, in our own Days, paid to a bad Taste. His Clinches, false Wit, and descending beneath himself, seem to be a Deference paid to reigning Barbarism. He was a Sampson in Strength, but he suffer'd some such Dalilah to give him up to ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... de Lelaing was selected to tilt with the young count,—doubtless with the idea that he could be trusted not to harm him. In the first course that was run the count shattered his spear against the shield of Jacques, who raised his own weapon and passed without touching his adversary. This complaisance displeased the duke, who sent word to the knight that if he proposed to play with his adversary he had better withdraw at once. They ran again. This time both splintered their spears, and both kept their seats, much to the delight of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... slightly turned round, her face wearing a smile of great complaisance, and Mr. Bumpkin could have seen at once that she was a person of great distinction even if he had not been informed of her rank. Well, taken for all in all, it was a night he would never forget, and his only feeling of regret was that Mrs. Bumpkin was not present ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... and practices of mankind, is in some degree the duty of a social being; because by compliance only he can please, and by pleasing only he can become useful: but as the end is not to be lost for the sake of the means, we are not to give up virtue to complaisance; for the end of complaisance is only to gain the kindness of our fellow-beings, whose kindness is desirable only as instrumental to happiness, and happiness must be always lost ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... And how can I, when I am taken up with your dear image, express to that prince the joy which he always observed in my eyes whenever he came to see me? I shall have my mind perplexed when I speak to him, and the least complaisance which I shew to his love will stab me to the heart. Can I relish his kind words and caresses? Think, prince, to what torments I shall be exposed when I can see you no more." Her tears and sighs hindered her from going on, and the prince of Persia would ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon. |
