"Prepossessing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... duty to act as guardian to T., and it appeared only too probable that his conduct had not been very correct. The young Titan sometimes gives way to an absence of mind and a state of overexcitement, against which those who wish him well should warn him. His exceptional talent and his genial and prepossessing manner generally incline me towards being overindulgent with him, and I do not deny my genuine love and partiality for this remarkable specimen of a "Liszt of the future," as T. has been called at Vienna. ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... Marmaduke boundless ambition, had failed to bestow on him those attributes which would have helped him on towards its satisfaction. He was neither sufficiently prepossessing to please an heiress, nor sufficiently witty and brilliant to catch the royal eye or the favor of his uncle, the present Earl of Northallerton. His efforts in the direction of advantageous matrimony had earned for him at Court the nickname of "The ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... Payne, an active and intelligent partisan and agent of king James; by which means he supplied the earl with such intelligence as raised him to some degree of credit with that minister. This he used in prepossessing the earl against the king's best friends, and infusing jealousies which were soon kindled ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Mr. Beamish, we found him a most prepossessing young man, of elegant manners and refined speech; in short, a gentleman. He begged me to allow his portmanteau to be placed in the carriage; and as I observed that he was not expected to dress for our family dinner, he answered ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... the portress as often as a hundred times a day and more; but when it is open there is nothing to be seen within but a dark vestibule paved with flagstones; and the portress's wooden face is no more prepossessing than the wall itself. If any one asks her a question, she answers civilly in a businesslike tone, with a hard foreign accent, for she is the widow of one of the Swiss Guards at the Vatican; but she is naturally silent, ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... of Plymouth, held tightly on to his money; he had been especially warned against the women who lure the unwary seaman into dark dens and rob him of money and life. But no adventure befell him, thanks chiefly to the swiftness of his heels, for when a young lady of prepossessing appearance came up to him and inquired after his health, affectionately putting her arm in his, he promptly took to ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... were not a prepossessing or good-natured acquisition to the party. Apart from the natural antagonism which, on such occasions, those in possession always feel towards the new-comer, they were strongly inclined to resist the dissatisfied querulousness and aggressive attitude of these ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... the porch and awkwardly introduced Duane to Mrs. Bland. She was young, probably not over twenty-five, and not quite so prepossessing at close range. Her eyes were large, rather prominent, and brown in color. Her mouth, too, was large, with the lips full, and she ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... in her own heart, or rather all those which she has met with in her reading, dispersed in a variety of heroines. She is persuaded, that her new friend unites them all in herself, because she carries in her prepossessing countenance the promise of them all. How cruel and how censorious would this inexperienced girl think her mother was, who should venture to hint, that the agreeable unknown had defects in her temper, or exceptions in ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... He was asked to take the Portland church and he accepted. He came first to San Francisco on his way. Dr. Stebbins was trying the experiment of holding services in the Metropolitan Theater, and I remember seeing in the stage box one Sunday a very prepossessing couple that interested me much—they were the Eliots on their way to Portland. William G., Jr., was an infant-in-arms. I was much impressed with the spirit that moved the attractive couple to venture into an unknown field. The acquaintance ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... it was true; it was proved to be so to me by his pricking his ears and his attentive look at the mention of the word prepossessing him in relation to the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favourably and pleasantly to a stranger at the first glance as this does: with its clean houses of red and white, its well-paved roads, and foot-ways of bright tile. Nor does it become less prepossessing on a closer acquaintance. The streets are broad and airy, the shops extremely good, the private residences remarkable for their elegance and neatness. There is something of invention and fancy in the varying styles ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... boy of apparently fifteen or sixteen years of age called upon Dennis and desired to speak with him in private. He was a handsome lad, of easy, graceful manners, and long, curling hair; his dress was juvenile, and his whole appearance extremely prepossessing. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... cordial; genial; glad, gladsome; sweet, delectable, nice, dainty; delicate, delicious; dulcet; luscious &c. 396; palatable &c. 394; luxurious, voluptuous; sensual &c. 377. [of people] attractive &c. 615; inviting, prepossessing, engaging; winning, winsome; taking, fascinating, captivating, killing; seducing, seductive; heart-robbing, alluring, enticing; appetizing &c. (exciting) 824; cheering &c. 836; bewitching; enchanting, entrancing, enravishing[obs3]. charming; delightful, felicitous, exquisite; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and the landlord should each spend a certain amount in improvements. Rents had gone up in the past four years, and last spring when Anthony had waived his option the landlord, a Mr. Sohenberg, had realized that he could get a much bigger price for what was now a prepossessing apartment. Accordingly, when Anthony approached him on the subject in September he was met with Sohenberg's offer of a three-year lease at twenty-five hundred a year. This, it seemed to Anthony, was outrageous. It meant that well over a third of their income would be consumed ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Edward represent him as a kind-hearted and affectionate boy, of a gentle spirit, and of a fair and prepossessing countenance. The ancient portraits of him which remain confirm these accounts of his personal appearance and of ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... should have been in the uncommon-tall young woman of buxom stateliness and prepossessing features, attired (to the mere masculine eye) in quite elegant black raiment—a thing called, I think, a picture hat, broad-brimmed with a sweeping ostrich feather, tickled my especial fancy, but was afterwards reviled by my wife as being entirely unsuited ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... the great rains that had fallen to obliterate them as much as possible. In examining the cliffs they came so near us that we could distinguish their voices, and even found that they spoke a sort of Spanish. The nearer they came the less prepossessing they appeared, and even Gatty retreated with a shudder as two wild fierce-looking hairy faces showed themselves just above a ledge of rocks within fifty yards of our ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... was a man of marked character. Long before my business connection with him ceased, I learned to regard him with genuine respect and liking, and these feelings I entertained for him to the day of his death. But his somewhat rough exterior was not altogether prepossessing, and when I came to him first as a raw lad, shy, sensitive, and intolerant of manners that were foreign to my own, I must frankly confess that I felt repelled by him. Besides, I quickly discovered that I should have to fight my own battles if I wished to preserve my professional rights ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... of an erring creature whose crime has been that of ignorance. I await your reply with the most lively impatience, and have the honor to remain, etc., etc." This note puzzled me excessively, however I gave orders for the immediate introduction of M. de Mandeville, whose appearance was even more prepossessing than his note; he looked and spoke like an honorable man endowed with that sensibility so precious and so rare; he put into my hands the petition, whilst he explained to me the particulars relative to it, and I instantly ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... front door Mr. and Mrs. Spear welcomed me. My hostess was a prepossessing Canadian woman of fair education, in fact, she had been a stenographer. On entering the house I found the trading room on the right of a tiny hall, on the left was the living room, which was also used to eat in, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... of this Essay we have been led to observe the different ways, in which the mind of man may be brought into a position tending to exhibit its powers in a less creditable and prepossessing point of view, than that in which all men, idiots and extraordinary cases excepted, are by nature qualified to appear. Many, not contented with those occupations, modest and humble in certain cases, to which their endowments and original bent had designed them, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... like a furnace—I'm always in liquor, A ruffian—a bully—a sot; I'm sure I should thrash her, perhaps I should kick her, I am such a very bad lot! I'm not prepossessing, as you may be guessing, She couldn't endure me a day! Recall my professing, when you are assessing The ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... appearance was not singularly prepossessing. Inconspicuous in stature and unattractive ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a judge of such matters, Superintendent Wade thinks she might be described as a highly intelligent young woman, and of exceptionally prepossessing appearance. ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... dinner, a young gentleman of the name of Hudson joined the company; his manners and appearance were prepossessing; he was frank and well-bred; and the effect of his politeness was soon felt, as if by magic, for every body became at their ease; his countenance was full of life and fire; and though he said nothing that showed remarkable abilities, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... A heavy fine and imprisonment accompanied the corporal penalties. Thus utterly ruined and degraded, and a mark for the finger of scorn to point at, Clement Lanyere, whose prospects had once been fair enough, as his features had been prepossessing, became soured and malevolent, embittered against the world, and at war with society. He turned promoter, or, in modern parlance, informer; lodging complaints, seeking out causes for prosecutions, and bringing people into ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... to see it "through the Customs," we took a hansom and drove to the Grand Hotel, en route to the hotel, in the suburb of Newlands, where we had taken rooms. My first impressions of Cape Town certainly were not prepossessing, and well I remember them, even after all these years. The dust was blowing in clouds, stirred up by the "south-easter" one hears so much about—an icy blast which appears to come straight from the South Pole, and which often makes its appearance in the height of summer, which season ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... by no means prepossessing in appearance, with a long beard, and with a pipe in his mouth, and clad in a workman's blouse, was seated upon a large block of stone not ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... the Earl. 'He will have great influence. The free, prepossessing manner is a great advantage, where it is so natural and devoid ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... occupied by a clergyman who had several young daughters. These girls were very prepossessing in appearance. Their father was a widower, their mother having died some years ago. There were six girls, and as they trooped up the aisle, two by two, they attracted Rosamund's attention. They were dressed very simply in different ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... acted clap-trap or for his printed verbiage, what it must come to was that she liked him, and to such a tune, just for himself and quite after no other fashion than that in which every goddess in the calendar had, when you came to look, sooner or later liked some prepossessing young shepherd. The question would thus have been, for him, with a still sharper eventual ache, of whether he positively had, as an effect of the miracle, been petrified, before fifty pair of eyes, to the posture of a prepossessing shepherd—and would perhaps have left him under the shadow ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... still retains his amazing sang froid, which is wonderful, even in a strong-nerved German. The sympathy of most of the visitors at his jail has certainly been won by his calmness and his general appearance, which is quite prepossessing." This little instance of his method of proceeding I must subjoin: A lady who had come to converse with him on the subject of his eternal salvation said, as she left him, "I hope you put your trust in the Lord," to which he sweetly ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... the beginning. Coming from the city and crowds of people to the gloomy valley with a man almost a stranger, going she knew not where, to conditions she knew not what, with the experiences of the day vivid before her. The black valley road was not prepossessing, with its border of green pools, through which grew swamp bushes and straggling vines. The Harvester looked carefully at the road, and ceased to marvel at the Girl. But he disliked to let her know he understood, so he gave one last glance at those gripped ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... Professor's house was opened to them by Helene Jegado, another of M. Bidard's servants. She was a woman of forty odd, somewhat scraggy of figure and, while not exactly ugly, not prepossessing of countenance. Her habit of looking anywhere but into the face of anyone addressing her gave her ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... Beyond a ragged pair of drill trousers—indescribably dirty—his only garment was a still dirtier and raggeder undershirt. His naked feet flapped awkwardly, like a turtle's. He was not a pretty or prepossessing sight. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... inexhaustible; and the address, with which he contrives to gain time, that he may suit his reply to the object of his evidence, is beyond all praise. And yet his appearance when he mounts the table is anything but prepossessing; a sheepish look, and a loose-jointed frame of body, wrapped in a frieze great-coat, do not promise much. Nay, there is often a rueful blank expression in his visage, which might lead a stranger to anticipate nothing but blunders and ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... appearance they were very prepossessing. Ernest was handsome, and Albert more than handsome. They were much beloved by their Uncle Leopold, then King of Belgium, and soon endeared themselves to their Aunt Kent and their Cousin Victoria. They spent three weeks at Kensington in daily intercourse with their relatives, ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... Black in his late years, says the Hon. S. L. Shannon, who remembers him well, was very prepossessing. He was of medium height, inclining to corpulency. In the street he always wore the well-known clerical hat; a black dress coat buttoned over a double-breasted vest, a white neckerchief, black small clothes and well polished Hessian boots completed his attire. When he ...
— William Black - The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada • John Maclean
... teamster in the quartermaster's department. Her features were very large, and so coarse and masculine was her general appearance that she would readily have passed as a man, and in her case the deception was no doubt easily practiced. Next day the "she dragoon" was caught, and proved to be a rather prepossessing young woman, and though necessarily bronzed and hardened by exposure, I doubt if, even with these marks of campaigning, she could have deceived as readily as did her companion. How the two got acquainted, I never learned, ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... hid from us yesterday. Pulo Aor looking beautiful and picturesque. Some of the natives on board with their scant stores of fowls, eggs, and cocoa-nuts. They are larger than the natives of Condore, and stouter, and more developed, but with countenances not very prepossessing. The Governor, a rough-looking, middle-aged fellow, above the common height, pulled out some greasy papers, the recommendations of former visitors, and desired that I also would give him one, which I declined, as I knew nothing about him. ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... of this world. They were, so to speak, more earthy, too definite, too true to the mould, like figures in a bleak, bright light viewed out of darkness. Certainly not one of them was at first blush prepossessing. Yet who finds much amiss with the fox at last, though all he ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... most prepossessing countenance of any Turk I had yet seen, and in conversation evinced a spirit of inquiry and an amount of intelligence that far surpassed my expectations.... His history is a pleasing one. He was a poor boy, a charity scholar in one of the ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... to look at, prepossessing and engaging. He looked like a driver, a man of his word too. And one day when he was standing on the street here he was approached by a stranger who began to get him into conversation. You see, we don't have slavery here as a regular thing. The negroes are sort ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... tell them about a man, but it is nothing of the sort. Isabella Lyon, in spite of her pronounced beard, was a very fine woman; exceedingly good-humoured looking and fresh-coloured, with most amiable prepossessing manners. She had not long arrived, and had been at once snapped up for an hotel, but she applied for my place, saying she wished for quiet and a country life. Could any thing be more propitious? I thought, like Lois, that my luck, so long in turning, was improving, and that at last I was ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... of Navarre had spent a part of his youth at the French Court, he was well known to Margaret, who apparently had a secret fancy for him. He was in his twenty-fourth year, prepossessing, and extremely brave. (1) There was certainly a great disproportion of age between him and Margaret, but this must have served to increase rather than attenuate her passion. She herself was already thirty-five, and judging by a portrait ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... insignificant looking girl of about twenty-five. Small, slender, not very prepossessing, but clever—enormously clever. One of the best film cutters we have. I should be sorry to ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... perhaps seen the remark made, that "dress does not make the man, but after he is made, he looks better dressed up." Neither do gentlemanly habits and manners make the man, but they certainly improve him after he is made, and render him agreeable and prepossessing. ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... unremitting watch on the house and its surroundings, occasionally giving vent to his feelings by a series of expletives. In fact, Worrell, who now showed himself to himself, as it may be said, was altogether a less prepossessing character than the one who had so kindly conducted the fugitives to the hiding-place in the woods, and bidden them sleep while he watched over their slumbers. Suddenly he started. He had discerned something for which he was waiting. Moving to the edge of the open space, he ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... impostors? Our intimacy is with poets of the last two centuries,—not the most inspired period in the history of poetry. And in the ranks of our multitudinous verse-writers, it is not the most prepossessing who are loudest in promising us a fair spectacle. How harsh-voiced and stammering are some of these obscure apostles who are offering to exhibit the entire mystery of their gift of tongues! We see more impressive figures, to be sure. Here is the saturnine Poe, who with contemptuous smile ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... simplicity, with just so much of a peculiarity of style as served to show that, although he belonged to the order of metropolitan beaux, he was not altogether a common one ... His physiognomy was prepossessing and intelligent, but ever and anon his brows lowered and gathered—a habit, as I then thought, with a degree of affectation in it, probably first assumed for picturesque effect and energetic expression, but which I afterwards discovered ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... drinking and cheating are the most conspicuous among them. Their residences are usually on the outskirts of 'the Rules,' chiefly lying within a circle of one mile from the obelisk in St. George's Fields. Their looks are not prepossessing, and ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... personal appearance became less prepossessing, his quickness and cleverness, however, rather increased; and I may say of him, that with respect to everything which he took in hand he did it better and more speedily than any other person. Perhaps it will be asked here, what became of him? Alas! alas! his was an early and a ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... a somewhat similar instance, but one even better exhibiting the cleverness of an old woman, which occurred in the year 1901. A man named Orlando J. Hackett, of prepossessing appearance and manners, was on trial, charged with converting to his own use money which had been intrusted to him for investment in realty. The complainant was a shrewd old lady, who together with her daughter, had had a long series of transactions with Hackett which would have entirely confused ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... be married in February next. He is plain in person, but has a pleasing expression of countenance; and, if he be moulded after the old man, and not after his minister, the country may perhaps have in him the 'lucky accident' of a good governor.[11] I have rarely seen a finer or more prepossessing man than the Raja, and all his subjects speak well of him. We had an elephant, a horse, abundance of shawls, and other fine clothes placed before us as presents; but I prayed the old gentleman to keep them all for me till I returned, as I was a mere voyageur without the means of carrying ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... The anchors could be tripped and the sails flung out on a moment's notice. Both skiffs came over noiselessly from the Reindeer. Red Nelson had given one of his two men to French Pete, so that each skiff was doubly manned. They were not a very prepossessing group of men,—at least, Joe did not think so,—for their faces bore a savage seriousness which almost made him shiver. The captain of the Dazzler buckled on his pistol-belt, and placed a rifle and a stout double-block tackle in the boat. Then he poured out wine all around, ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... notables, bishops, generals, and Ministers of State, saw the doors thrown open and a very short, very slim girl in deep plain mourning come into the room alone and move forward to her seat with extraordinary dignity and grace; they saw a countenance, not beautiful, but prepossessing—fair hair, blue prominent eyes, a small curved nose, an open mouth revealing the upper teeth, a tiny chin, a clear complexion, and, over all, the strangely mingled signs of innocence, of gravity, of youth, and of composure; they heard a ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... objects—on one of these blessed evenings, on my road to Camden Town, I chanced to miss my way, and was compelled, notwithstanding a certain shyness towards strangers, to ask my direction of the first respectable person I should meet. Many passed me by, but none sufficiently prepossessing; when, on turning down some nameless street that leads to Tottenham Court-road, I chanced to come behind a staid-looking gentleman, accoutred in a dark brown coat, with an umbrella—the cotton ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... heart. He received the blonde lady, bold, young, and already faded, who only asks for a hundred napoleons, with the threat that she will throw herself into the river when she leaves if they are not given to her, and the stout matron of prepossessing and unceremonious manner, who says, as she enters: "Sir, you do not know me. Neither have I the honour of knowing you. But we shall soon make each other's acquaintance. Be kind enough to sit down and let us have a chat." The merchant at bay, on ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the fire of which apartment the truant couple were sitting, very innocently looking over the hotel scrap-book and the album containing views of the neighbourhood. No sooner had the old man entered than the young lady—who now showed herself to be quite as young as described, and remarkably prepossessing as to features—perceptibly turned pale. When the nephew entered, she turned still paler, as if she were going to faint. The young man described as an opera-singer rose with grim civility, and ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... a young priest, about twenty-eight years of age,—Jean Jacques Olier, afterwards widely known as founder of the Seminary of St. Sulpice. Judged by his engraved portrait, his countenance, though marked both with energy and intellect, was anything but prepossessing. Every lineament proclaims the priest. Yet the Abb Olier has high titles to esteem. He signalized his piety, it is true, by the most disgusting exploits of self-mortification; but, at the same time, he was strenuous in his efforts to reform the people and the clergy. ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... warlike tribe in Africa, between the coast of Zanzibar and Victoria Nyanza, of the race of the Gallas, men of powerful physique, though far from prepossessing in appearance; when their warlike spirit and prowess are spent they ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... sweetness; in addition, she seemed as much devoted to him and his every interest as a young mother is to her first-born. During this time he wrote his longest prose romance, entitled the Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym. Poe had a remarkably pleasing and prepossessing countenance—what the ladies would call decidedly handsome. He died after a brief and fitful career at Baltimore, October, 1849, where his remains lie ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Mrs. Hind-Willet was prepossessing enough to interest him, clever enough to stop gaps in a dinner table conversation, wealthy enough to permit him a liberty of rejecting commissions, which he had never before dared to exercise, and fashionable enough to carry for ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... his brother. With a figure and appearance equally martial and equally prepossessing, he wanted the quiet dignity, the self-possession of voice and feature which characterized the king. He had not the mind of Robert, and consequently the uppermost passion of the spirit was ever the one marked on his brow. On this morning he was all animated smiles, for ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... young man, about five feet six in height, but of a remarkably compact and athletic form. His complexion was dark, but his countenance open, and his features well set and regular. Indeed his whole appearance might be termed bland and prepossessing. If he ever appeared to disadvantage it was whilst under the influence of resentment, during which his face became pale as death, nay, almost livid; and, as his brows were strong and black, the contrast between them and his complexion changed the whole expression of his ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... agreed in expressing the deep regret with which they looked forward to his approaching departure for England; when their little daughter, who was then just ten years old, gravely offered to prevent the catastrophe by marrying the illustrious, but by no means prepossessing, historian. ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... not look very prepossessing as he stood near the door, his tall, powerful form towering above the young skaters; his coarse, red face ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... to stammer out an incoherent explanation; that news had reached her of the retirement of one of the Lady Adelaide's attendants, and of her wish to fill the vacant place. "What is your name?" inquired the countess, already taken, as the young are apt to be, with the prepossessing manners ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... hut, while the chorus yet echoes among the palm-branches. Scarcely of middle stature, certainly not more than five feet four in height,—but broad-shouldered, muscular, with a constitution of iron, equal to perpetual exertion, capable of every fatigue. His countenance is open and prepossessing, his features rounded, forehead square, eyes piercing and intelligent. Like his men, he wears a motley garb,—part Spanish uniform, part costume of the Llanos; and he leans upon a lance, decorated with a black bannerol, which has carried death already to innumerable Loyalist hearts. Thus Jose Antonio ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... stood was large, the houses were spacious and handsome, their tenants, as I learned afterwards, opulent and respectable. It was late in August; my friend's family were all at Margate; and I found none to do the honours of the house but himself and his eldest son, a young man of prepossessing appearance and intelligent manners. On finding I was not disposed to go out the following morning, he recommended me to the library and some portfolios of choice engravings, and, promising to return early in the afternoon, departed for his haunts of business ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... was not at all prepossessing applied to me one day for a job. He conducted the sale of himself very skillfully, but I meant to put him off. It was our dull season, and his looks didn't make a hit with me anyway. However, he realized there was a good deal on ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Heber's, or Morier's or Sir John Malcolm's pages:—"He was a man of goodly stature, and powerful frame; his countenance, hard, strongly marked, and furnished with a thick, black beard, bore testimony of exposure to many a blast, but it still preserved a prepossessing expression of good humour and benevolence. His turban, which was formed of a cashmere shawl, sorely tached and torn, and twisted here and there with small steel chains, according to the fashion of the time, was wound around a red cloth cap, that rose ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... His natural lines were all upward curves, his smile most ingratiating, his eye so frank, even his trick of rubbing his clean, well-feel, English-looking hands, had something about it coaxing and debonnaire, something that actually decoyed you into trusting your money into hands so prepossessing. Indeed, to him might be fully applied the expression—Sedem animce in extremis digitis habet,—"He had his soul's seat in his finger-ends." The critics observe that few men have ever united in equal perfection the imaginative ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to find one of them a woman, having never before known a squaw to take any part in the business of war. They were the village chief and his wife, who, in excitement and alarm at the unusual event and appearance, had come out to meet their fate together. The chief was a very prepossessing Indian, with handsome features, and a singularly soft and agreeable voice—so remarkable as to ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... to those who exhibit it a mysterious and almost unbounded ascendency over all within their influence. Alexander was characterized by these qualities in a very remarkable degree. He was finely formed in person, and very prepossessing in his manners. He was active, athletic, and full of ardor and enthusiasm in all that he did. At the same time, he was calm, collected, and considerate in emergencies requiring caution, and thoughtful and far-seeing in respect to the bearings and consequences of his ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the great chief of the Delawares, appeared. This distinguished warrior had a prepossessing appearance and bland manners, and his language to the prisoners was kind. His purposes, however, were bloody and revengeful. With his own hands he painted every prisoner black! As they were conducted towards the town, the captives observed the ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... was a pretty woman, perhaps thirty years of age, with long light yellow hair, which she allowed to escape from her bonnet, knowing, perhaps, that it was not unbecoming to her when thus dishevelled. Her skin was very delicate, and her complexion good. Indeed her face would have been altogether prepossessing had there not been a want of gentleness in her eyes. Her hands, too, were soft and small, and on the whole she may be said to have been possessed of a strong battery of feminine attractions. She also well knew how ...
— The Man Who Kept His Money In A Box • Anthony Trollope
... loyalty was engaged to one to whom his father owed so much. He was now a young man of twenty-one years of age—able to act for himself; and he went heart and soul into the cause of his sovereign. Never was there a gayer, a more prepossessing Cavalier. He could charm even a Roundhead. The harsh and Presbyterian-minded Bishop Burnet, has told us that 'he was a man of a noble presence; had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar faculty of turning everything into ridicule, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... even marry. That dreadful old woman was right, no doubt, it was her manifest destiny. Certainly she should like to have children and a fine establishment of her own. Lord Hunsdon was unacceptable, but doubtless a prepossessing suitor would arrive before long, and when he did she would marry him gladly and live rationally and dream no more. And when she reached this decision she wept, and could not go down to luncheon; but she did not retire from the ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... of prepossessing appearance entered the store. He heard the grocer's last words, and ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... said he was 'glad to have the honour of meeting me.' His long, loose, silvery locks struck me; he looked like Franklin at his best. He also reminded me of Benjamin West; he had the great benevolence of William Roscoe about him and a kindness most prepossessing. I could not forbear looking at him, my eyes feasted on his countenance. I watched his movements as I would those of a celestial being; his long, heavy, white eyebrows struck me forcibly. His little room was tidy, though it partook a good deal of the character of a laboratory. ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... and I passed a quiet night in a comfortable bed. In the morning I told the inn-keeper that I would return for my dinner, and I went out to visit the royal palace. As I passed through the gate, I was met by a man of prepossessing appearance, dressed in the eastern fashion, who offered to shew me all over the palace, saying that I would thus save my money. I was in a position to accept any offer; I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... went everywhere. One of them lies before me now in rough boards of paper, with the "blue back" of which one of Scott's correspondents talks, not a prepossessing volume, but independent of externals and all things else except its own native excellence ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... succeed, though not at once, or till after killing Rudolf's immediate successor, [Adolf of Nassau; slain by Albert's own hand; "Battle" of Hasenbuhel "near Worms, 2d July, 1298" (Kohler, p. 265).]—Albert was by no means a prepossessing man, though a tough and hungry one. It must be owned, he had a harsh ugly character; and face to match: big-nosed, loose-lipped, blind of an eye: not Kaiser-like at all to an Electoral Body. "Est homo monoculus, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... contrary, it arose simply from the fact that Charles was the more capable man of the two. And as Alphonse had now to work on his own account, it was soon clear to any one who observed him closely, that in spite of his promptitude, his amiability and his prepossessing appearance, he was not fitted to be at the head of ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... Thorndyke, rather stiffly, and, as he held the door open, the two visitors entered. They were both men—one middle-aged, rather foxy in appearance and of a typically legal aspect, and the other a fine, handsome young fellow of very prepossessing exterior, though at present rather pale and wild-looking, and evidently in a state of ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... Solenstrale lavished compliments on Elise on account of her children. "They are positively the ornament of the room," said she;—"charmant! and your son a most prepossessing young man—so handsome and comme il faut! ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... costume, as well as rather uncourtly in his address and general appearance. His clothing was of home Kentucky jean, and the first impression made by his tall, lank figure upon those who saw him was not specially prepossessing. He had not outgrown his hard backwoods experience, and showed no inclination to disguise or to cast behind him the honest and manly though unpolished characteristics of his earlier days. Never was a man further removed from all snobbish affectation. As little was there, also, of the demagogue ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the social toast, And pipes, and such frivolities, You possibly some day may boast My prepossessing qualities!" ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... the dictates of common sense and prudence, in this one instance at least enforced by the attractions of pleasure, pointed out the vast superiority of England to the oppressed, impoverished country which he had left, as a field for genius and industry to work upon. Having a prepossessing face and person, and manners frank, conciliating and firm, he soon extended his acquaintance to a wide circle of friends, whose advice conspired with his own taste to bring him to a determination, in consequence of which he settled near the metropolis, and became a practitioner in surgery ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... bay colour, with a star in its forehead, with strong but elegant limbs, and a long black tail, which swept the ground. The other animal, which was destined to carry me to Madrid, was not quite so prepossessing in its appearance: in more than one respect it closely resembled a hog, particularly in the curving of its back, the shortness of its neck, and the manner in which it kept its head nearly in contact with the ground: it had also the tail of a hog, and meandered over the ground much like ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... and character of Yussef are drawn in the most favorable colors by the Arabian writers. We are told that his stature was tall and noble, his countenance prepossessing, his eye dark and piercing, his beard long, his tone of voice harmonious, his whole frame, which no sickness ever assailed, strong, robust, and familiar with fatigue; that his mind corresponded with his outward ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... hazel-eyed, sunny-haired, with a form too plump to be quite classical, yet graceful and prepossessing in the extreme. A very fair face, and a very wise one; the face of a woman of the world, who knows it in all its phases; who is able, in her own peculiar manner, to guide her life bark successfully if not correctly, and who has little to acquire, in the way of experience, save ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... aware of the adjacent forms and staring eyes of Phineas and Mo, who for the first time in their military career beheld him on easy terms with a strange and prepossessing young woman. After a second's thought he came to ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... of the crowd of captives was, I must confess, far from prepossessing. They were very dirty, very dusty and worn out, as I myself was probably, and no wonder; the floor was several inches thick in dust, no straw was attainable, and washing was impossible. I gained some comparative comfort by gathering ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... morning, with just the simple warning that you must not expect me to see with the eyes of a young girl or even with those of a fashionable society woman. I know a man when I see him, and I had always regarded Mr. Franklin as an exceptionally fine-looking and prepossessing gentleman, but I shall not go into raptures, as I heard a girl behind me doing, nor do I feel like acknowledging him as a paragon of all the virtues—as Mrs. Cunningham did that evening ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... I could not receive his attentions with indifference. It cannot be denied that this young stranger is uncommonly pleasing, and, indeed, for any woman whose heart is disengaged, an uncommonly DANGEROUS companion. There is something very prepossessing in his appearance, his manners are elegant, and short as has been his abode in Venice, it is already past doubting that there are many noble and striking features in his character. But alas, after all, he is but a poor nobleman, and it is not very probable that the rich and powerful Doge of ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... of shape, giving an uncomfortable expression. Sarawak Malays always said, "A Sakarran Dyak may be trusted, but a Sarebas is deceitful." It is a curious fact, however, that the Sakarrans, with all their fair words and sleek prepossessing looks, did not embrace the gospel as the Sarebas did. The Rev. Walter Chambers lived at Sakarran for some time, but gathered no converts. He then settled himself among the Balows of the Batang Lupar and Linga, and ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... event so long desired by the Queen, and by all those who wished her well, took place; her Majesty became enceinte. The King was in ecstasies. Never was there a more united or happier couple. The disposition of Louis XVI. entirely altered, and became prepossessing and conciliatory; and the Queen was amply compensated for the uneasiness which the King's indifference during the early part of ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... as soon as I saw my father; which was not surprising, for he could not be called a prepossessing half-breed. His lower lip protruded and hung sullenly. He had heavy brows and a shaggy thatch of hair. Our St. Regis Iroquois kept to the buckskins, though they often had hunting shirts of fulled flannel; and my father's ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... minutes the young debutante appeared. She was received with a chilling silence, broken only by a few faint claps from some half dozen good-natured persons, in consideration of her youth and beauty. In defiance of her prepossessing appearance, the audience seemed determined that they would not be cheated or flattered into a single expression of approbation, but the manager observed with rising hope that they forbore to hiss. Undismayed, and regardless of the reception she met with, the young girl, with ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... shake of the head, the small value you attach to this, but it is a great element in that droll contract, by which one person agrees to pit his temper against another's, and which we are told is made in heaven, with angels as sponsors. Mr. Walpole is sufficiently good-looking to be prepossessing, he is well bred, very courteous, converses extremely well, knows his exact place in life, and takes it quietly but firmly. All these are of value to his wife, and it is ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... by no means prepossessing in appearance: they have broad faces, projecting cheek-bones and wide nostrils; but they have generally good teeth and fine eyes. When at the fort they imitate the dress of the Canadians except that instead ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... we were also having a pretty merry time. Medhurst, the maid of Mrs. Clayton, was a particularly prepossessing young woman, and I had many chats and a few walks with her. From her, at Bindo's instigation, I learned a good deal regarding her mistress's habits and tastes, all of which I, in due course, reported to my master. A shrewd girl was Medhurst, however, and I was compelled ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... musical contralto, now shrilling aloft in a note of pealing gladness. Laurence, who was beginning to feel vividly interested in this strange race of valiant fighters, failed not to note that many of these girls were of extraordinarily prepossessing appearance, with their tall, beautiful figures and supple limbs, their clear eyes and white teeth, and bright, pleasing faces. Then suddenly song and dance alike ceased, and the women, parting into two companies, ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... closely at the red-headed young man for the first time, and met his lively brown eyes, full of a droll, confiding sort of humor. Mr. Landry was not prepossessing. He was undersized and clumsily made, with a red, shiny face and a sharp little nose that looked as if it had been whittled out of wood and was always in the air, on the scent of something. Yet it was this queer little beak, with his eyes, that made his countenance anything of a face at ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... over her fine features a screen of silver gauze which reached to her feet, the door opened, and Gurth entered, wrapt in the ample folds of his Norman mantle. His appearance was rather suspicious than prepossessing, especially as, instead of doffing his bonnet, he pulled it still deeper over his ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... that of the month was altogether out of the question, and could only be reckoned by counting back to the date of the last battle; but our division was here joined by a chaplain, whose duty it was to remind us of these things. He might have been a very good man, but he was not prepossessing, either in his appearance or manners. I remember, the first Sunday after his arrival, the troops were paraded for divine service, and had been some time waiting in square, when he at length rode into the centre of it, with his tall, lank, ungainly figure, mounted on a ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... all happened so quickly and unexpectedly. We thought and talked it over the whole day. He is a well-to-do man, to be depended upon, he has two posts in the government and has already made his fortune. It is true that he is forty-five years old, but he is of a fairly prepossessing appearance and might still be thought attractive by women, and he is altogether a very respectable and presentable man, only he seems a little morose and somewhat conceited. But possibly that may only be the impression he makes at first sight. And beware, dear ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of mark, Samoa best speaks for himself; but we may as well convey some idea of his person. Though manly enough, nay, an obelisk in stature, the savage was far from being sentimentally prepossessing. Be not alarmed; but he wore his knife in the lobe of his dexter ear, which, by constant elongation almost drooped upon his shoulder. A mode of sheathing it exceedingly handy, and far less brigandish than the Highlander's dagger concealed in ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... bright brown complexion, straight features, dark glancing eyes, and rich curling hair, gave him a striking appearance. By many he was considered eminently handsome; to those accustomed to read the mind in the face, Mark Hurdlestone's countenance was everything but prepossessing. ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... trickles down the mountain and forms a most disagreeable area of sticky salt mud at the bottom. The streak this morning can more truthfully be described as yellow liquid mud than as water, and both myself and wheel present anything but a prepossessing appearance in ten minutes after starting down its grimy channel. I am, however, congratulating myself upon finding it so shallow, and begin to think that, in describing the water as nearly over their donkeys' backs, the travellers were but indulging their natural propensity ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... M., son of a gentleman of wealth in Ohio, early acquired the evil practice which has ruined so many bright lads. He was naturally an intelligent and prepossessing lad, and his father gave him as good an education as he could be induced to acquire, affording him most excellent opportunities for study and improvement. But the vile habit which had been acquired at an early age speedily began its ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... chief of Dir, is an Eusafzai, ruler of a population exceeding 600,000. In appearance he is anything but prepossessing—small of stature and very dark in complexion for a Pathan; with not a tooth in his head, and the skin on his face loose and wrinkled, he presents the appearance of an aged man, though really not ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... travelled to exceed not only every Prince and Potentate now in being, but even all those whose memory has come down to us. He has more unaffected dignity than I could conceive in man. His address is the gentlest and most prepossessing you can conceive, which is seconded by the greatest fund of levee conversation that I suppose any person ever possessed. He speaks deliberately, but very fluently, with particular emphasis, and in a rather low tone ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... the 29th, found us outside Koombanah Bay, running to the westward before a light land breeze. From the offing, this part of the western shore of the continent was much more prepossessing than any we had before seen. The outline of the Darling Range, here approaching within fourteen miles of the sea, and broken only by Mount Leonard and the gorge of the Harvey, was sharply pencilled against the eastern sky that glowed ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... medley one might have seen a small French cart, of the sort very appropriately called a "mule-killer" beyond the frontiers, and not far distant a tent, together with a miscellaneous assortment of boxes and barrels. The whole equipage was far from prepossessing in its appearance; yet, such as it was, it was destined to a long and arduous journey, on which the persevering ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... self-reliance, and a repellent severity which would no more have become an intending mendicant than the resolute and often scornful expression which played about his lips. There was nothing amiable, nothing prepossessing, nothing soft in this man's face; and those who knew what his life had been could not wonder that the years had failed to sweeten his abrupt and contradictory acerbity or to transmute them into that kindly forbearance which old men, remembering how often they have stumbled and how ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and earnest, pure and generous, and often sublime in its emotions. Whenever he made the great mission of his life the theme of his declamations—and he took every suitable occasion for doing so—let his listeners be friends or foes, his appearance, at all times striking and prepossessing in the extreme, became as that of one inspired. His ample chest expanded with noble feeling; every gesture of hip hand, every movement and posture of his commanding form, grew eloquent with meaning. ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... was between eleven and seventeen years old. At seventeen, I am told that he was remarkably well informed and clever. His manners were, like my father's, singularly genial, and his appearance very prepossessing. He had as yet no doubt concerning the soundness of any fundamental Christian doctrine, but his mind was too active to allow of his being contented with my mother's child- like faith. There were points on which he did not indeed doubt, but which it would none the less be interesting ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... affectionate, his education had been so finished, and he possessed so much natural grace, that he had the gift of pleasing even where he was not personally known. His exceeding loveliness was immediately prepossessing, the delicacy of his constitution rendered him interesting in the eyes of women, the full yet graceful cultivation of his mind, the sweet and captivating originality of his conversation, gained for him the attention of the most enlightened men. Men less highly cultivated, liked ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... expressive mouth. Bryant judged that she had small, firm hands, but could not see them as she wore gauntlets. He further decided that she was neither plain nor pretty: just average good-looking, one might say. An air of friendliness was in her favour, though what might or might not be a prepossessing trait, depending on circumstances, was the suggested obstinacy in her ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... of man he was? In outward aspect all accounts agree that he was singularly, noticeably prepossessing—bright, animated, eager, with energy and talent written in every line of his face. Such he was when Forster saw him, on the occasion of their first meeting, when Dickens was acting as spokesman for the insurgent ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... topsy-turvy corridors of the Niccola. He was about the size of a ten-year-old human boy, and features which were definitely not grotesque showed through the clear plastic of his helmet. His pressure suit was, engineering-wise, a very clean job. His whole appearance was prepossessing. When he spoke, very clear and quite high sounds—soprano sounds—came from a small speaker-unit ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... medium height, entered. His hair was black, and curled down his neck, which was symmetrical. And, too, his face was singularly expressive, and his features prominent. In a word, his appearance was prepossessing. And in addition to dressing in the fashion of the day, he wore many jewels. His bearing also was graceful; and on entering the room, he addressed the lady with much courtesy, and called her Maria. She in turn introduced him ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... hot and thirsty under the melting sunshine of mid-forenoon. It was not a prepossessing town. All told, no more than two hundred buildings were within its corporate limits. A giant mound, capped by a crown of crumbling, weather-tinted rock, rose abruptly at the northern edge of the village and gave the place its name. Cimarron River, sluggish and yellow, bounded ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... spirit, playing on his favourite instrument, still haunts one wing of Brynbella. If he designed the building, his architectural taste does not merit the praises she lavishes on it. The exterior is not prepossessing; but there is a look of comfort about the house; the interior is well arranged: the situation, which commands a fine and extensive view of the upper part of the valley of the Clywd, is admirably chosen; the garden and grounds are well laid out; and the walks through ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... a ghrazzie or slave-hunt, but returned next day, and sent for the English traveller. After being conducted through three huts, which served as guard-houses, Clapperton was ushered into a fourth, somewhat larger than the rest, supported on pillars painted blue and white. Sultan Bello had a prepossessing and noble appearance, with a fine forehead, and large black eyes. He appeared to be much pleased with the various presents laid before him, expressing particular satisfaction at the sight of a compass and spy-glass. ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... calico, who sat in the shadow formed by the protruding clay and stick chimney, and played by bouncing up and down and waving her fat hands, which seemed a perpetual joy and delight of possession to her. Take her altogether, she was a person of prepossessing appearance, despite her frank display of toothless gums, and around her wide mouth the unseemly traces of sorghum. She had the plumpest graces of dimples in every direction, big blue eyes with long lashes, the whitest possible skin, and ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... formed their own camp, and studiously avoided encroaching on our ground so as to appear troublesome. Their manners were those of a quiet and inoffensive people, and their appearance in some measure prepossessing. The old men had lofty foreheads, and stood exceedingly erect. The young men were cleaner is their persons and were better featured than any we had seen, some of them having smooth hair and an almost Asiatic cast of countenance. On the other hand, the women and children were disgusting objects. The ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... dark period in his life. He was alone in London, without friends, without money, without introductions; his appearance was the reverse of prepossessing; and, even despite that medical degree and his acquaintance with the learned Albinus and the learned Gaubius, he had practically nothing of any value to offer for sale in the great labour-market of the world. How he managed to live at all is a mystery: it is certain that he must have ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... the Boulevard St. Michel, his broad shoulders well thrown back, his head erect, chin high in air, his whole person radiating health, power, contentment, and the pride of them: he was a sight worth seeing, spirited, picturesque, prepossessing. You could not have passed him without noticing him—without wondering who he was, confident he was somebody—without admiring him, and feeling that there went a man it ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... manages the estate; but she has adopted the nearest heir to her husband, the present Rajah of Bhuderee, a fine, handsome, and amiable youth, of sixteen years of age, who is now learning Persian. He was one of the many chiefs who took leave of me yesterday, and the most prepossessing of all. His adoptive mother, however, absorbs the estates of her weaker neighbours, by fraud, violence, and collusion, like other landholders, and the dispossessed become leaders of gang ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... what little could be seen of his face through a heavy growth of whiskers was mild and prepossessing, in spite of two large scars just visible below the broad brim of a rough hat. His dress was faded ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... and do whatever I can for her," eagerly returned Edith, who felt that it would be a great relief and safeguard if she could complete her journey under the protection of these prepossessing people; while, too, it would give her something to think of and keep her from dwelling upon ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... poor. He had been a barefooted urchin, who was ready to fight or engage in any reckless undertaking. As he grew older and became more thoughtful, he assumed better clothing, grew more studious, and, helped by his fine ability and prepossessing ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... docile pupil of Dr. Strachan. He now presented himself to take a leading part in one of the most shameless and iniquitous prosecutions that ever disgraced a court of justice. His personal appearance was decidedly prepossessing. His figure, clad in well-fitting garments of the fashionable cut of the period, was light, agile and compact, and his face, rather inclining to narrowness, was surmounted by a high and smoothly-finished brow, beneath which looked out a pair of steel-grey ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... with the sensible philosophy of his nature. Those who saw him as he moved here and there with the boys, or Mul-tal-la, or Spink and Jiggers, had to admit the truth of the assertion heard many times; he was the most prepossessing young warrior upon whom any of them had ever looked. Neither among the Blackfeet nor any of their neighboring tribes had so comely a youth been seen. And this being the fact, many were more unwilling than before to believe he was so powerful, so ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... countenance of any of its physical beauty, had strongly developed the intellectual charm by which it had ever been distinguished. As he bowed lowly before the Duchess and her daughter, it would have been difficult to imagine a youth of a mien more prepossessing and a manner ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... but prepossessing. A large unwieldy cutter of home manufacture, the boards of which it was composed unplained and unpainted, with rope harness, and an undressed bull's hide by way of buffalo's, formed our equipage. But no description that I could give you would do justice to the ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... him to wait. Madame Fritsche had on a neat white cap; she smiled, spoke in an ingratiating voice and evidently tried to give an affable expression to her morose countenance, which was, however, none the more prepossessing for that, but on the contrary acquired a ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... all faces as they glanced around the handsome edifice so beautifully decorated for the occasion. Flowers and garlands were lavishly strewn around, scattered upon the floor, upon the steps, upon the way-side; literally all space was crowned with flowers. Gerald Bereford was truly a prepossessing bridegroom, worthy of loving and being loved in return. His truthful countenance was beaming with manly love. He was now ready to pronounce those vows which in his heart met a ready response. Lady Rosamond and her train of lovely bridesmaids have arrived. Hundreds of spectators ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... years of age; Son about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome, well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and somewhat crushed and spotted in his general effect, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... generally to be found hanging about foreign hotels people ready to undertake anything the traveller may require, little as they may be competent to fulfil their engagements. One of this class presented himself, his appearance by no means prepossessing; but the view he took of our present ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... partially and after a sort adopted, and who is very bright and promising and means to be a Christian. Our helper, Chung Moi, stands directly behind me; but the picture does him injustice. He has a very prepossessing face. The one who stands on the left of Miss Deuel (i.e. at her right hand) is Gee Jet, the deacon of our little church and the stand-by of the mission. The trees in the rear grow at the water's edge of Feather River. The building, as you observe, is of brick, ...
— The American Missionary, October, 1890, Vol. XLIV., No. 10 • Various
... granddaughter of a high admiral of France—was fond of calling him. For albeit John Paul Jones was of Scotch peasant ancestry, his associates were people of the highest intellect and rank. In appearance he was handsome; in manner prepossessing; and in speech he was a linguist, having at easy command the English, French, and Spanish languages. His surname was Paul. The name Jones was inherited with a ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... statement of his friend. A long livid scar, extending almost entirely across his left cheek, was visible on the face of the younger man. His companion was taller, evidently at least ten years older and had a face which was not altogether prepossessing at first sight. ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... Alfred Carson were face to face, and an appointment had been made for the following day. Richard took a liking to the assistant buyer on the spot. He felt as if he were selecting a competent physician for his friend, and was glad to send him a man whose personality was both prepossessing and inspiring ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond |
