"Amenities" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gates. This time King Edward was not in a good humor. He bade his soldiers drive them back at sword's-point. The governor refused to admit them into the town. The whole miserable multitude died of starvation in sight of both camps. Such were the amenities of war in the Middle Ages, and in fact, of war in almost all ages, for mercy counts for little when opposed by ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Mercer made it his business to acquire some rudiments of this useful knowledge, he would never have undergone that outrageous official ill-treatment which has become a byword in the annals of international amenities. And if these strictures be considered too severe, let us see what Italians themselves have to say. In 1900 was published a book called "La Quistione Meridionale" (What's Wrong with the South), that throws a flood ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... was in some ways worse off than others of his badly governed possessions. The officials who were sent from Constantinople into various provinces regarded the job as a poor one, as far as the amenities of life were concerned, and one to be endured while making as big a pile as possible from the ground-down natives. I should imagine that one of these officials would be about as popular with the landowners as a publican was among ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... carried out. The hardy Rangers hollowed out a sheltered nook in the snow, threw up a wall of protection against the wind, lighted a fire, and sat round it discussing the events of the night, and exchanging amenities with their new comrades. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... forever to the philosophy of Capitalism and of Collectivism, which declares that work is a necessary evil never to be made pleasant, and that the workers' only hope is a leisure which shall be longer, richer, and well adorned with municipal amenities.[37] ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... a violation of treaty obligations, it is nevertheless true that such refusal of transit and the other injurious acts which have been recited constitute a provoking insistence upon rights neither mitigated by the amenities of national intercourse nor modified by the recognition of our liberality ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... wheeled his new possession through the shop into the road, got on to it with the advice and assistance of Grubb, and teuf-teuffed off into the haze of the traffic-tortured high road, to add himself as one more voluntary public danger to the amenities of the south ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... renders its service again and again and yet remains—a steadfast companion. "Over a pipe" is a phrase of more meaning than "over a cigarette." Discussions are best conducted over a pipe. No one can get too excited or over-heated in argument, no one can neglect the observance of the amenities of conversation, who talks thoughtfully between the pulls at his pipe, who has to pause now and again to refill, to strike a light, to knock out the ashes, or to perform one of those numberless little acts of devotion at the shrine of ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... and me, old fellow, it's time to drop these amenities," continued Dolokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of this subject which irritated Denisov. "Now, why have you kept this lad?" he went on, swaying his head. "Because you are sorry for him! Don't we know those 'receipts' of yours? You send a hundred men away, and thirty get ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... with the dictator's policy was as strong as it had been in the praetorium, while its expression was less governed by the amenities of rank. Roman discipline, however severe as to the acts of the legionary, put very few restrictions upon his speech; and the general, as he watched from the rampart the lines and movements of the enemy, heard many comments no less uncomplimentary than those of his master-of-the-horse, ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... who would have liked to visit them refrained from doing so because they thought the reunited family would prefer to be alone that first evening. Kate did her best to preserve some tattered fragments of the amenities. She told college stories, talked of Lena Vroom and of beautiful Honora Fulham,—hinted even at Ray McCrea,—and by dint of much ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... leading aspect of life is investigated—the social, the political, the economic, the intellectual, and the religious. Under the Social Aspect are set forth the growth and constitution of the community, the characteristics and customs of the home, social life and amenities, morality and philanthropy, and racial and physical conditions. Under the Political Aspect are related how one-half of the people acquired civil equality, how the other half is still suffering in bondage, and what services Israel has rendered to so many countries in both their government ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... questions Field had none. The same may be truthfully said of his attitude on all social and economic problems. He eschewed controversy and controversial subjects. His study was literature and the domestic side and social amenities of life; and he left the salvation of the republic and the amelioration of the general condition of mankind to those who felt ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Princess, and an English Marquis, before many days were over: nor was Pen by any means averse to making the acquaintance of these great personages, having a liking for polite life, and all the splendours and amenities belonging to it. That very evening the resolute old gentleman, leaning on his nephew's arm, made his appearance in the halls of the Kursaal, and lost or won a napoleon or two at the table of 'Trente-et-quarante.' He did not play to ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... showered on the Autonomists by their beloved friends the Magyars, after all the dark electioneering tricks and gutter legislation which for years had been committed by the Magyars to the end that the Autonomists and they should have all the amenities of some one else's house, it surely is the acme of ingratitude to call this tottering benefactor "Hote insalue." If the Autonomists did not desire to reap advantages from any Magyar corruption, they might at any time since November 17, 1868, have torn ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... kind of reason, it appears to me that we all think that peace is a blessing, and war a curse. For under peace commerce and industry prosper; science and the arts flourish; friendships are made and adorn the amenities of life. Moreover, our religious traditions in all Christian countries, and in some non-Christian ones like China, influence us to believe that war is wrong, indefensible, and, in the present year ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... magnanimity of the Senate. I ask your attention; I trust not to abuse it. I may speak strongly, for I shall speak openly and from the strength of my convictions. I may speak warmly, for I shall speak from the heart. But in no event can I forget the amenities which belong to debate, and which especially become this body. Slavery I must condemn with my whole soul; but here I need only borrow the language of slaveholders; nor would it accord with my habits or my sense of justice to exhibit them ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... quick-springing green shall have kindly softened and folded in the crowded, incongruous buildings, and blended into rounded masses above them, Ventnor will be forgiven its railway that has made this region accessible to the many-headed, in consideration of the comforts and amenities of life brought to the doors of circumjacent dwellers, instead of being, as once, lacking, or brought laboriously from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... his dingy old house bore once more the characteristics of a home; that womankind was represented in it by fairer faces and softer voices than the face and voice even of dear old Doctor Sophy, with her advanced theories, her committees, and her brisk disregard of the amenities of life. Yes, he would give a good deal to see Alice—it was long since he had thought of her by that name—established in his drawing-room (which she should refurbish and adorn to her heart's content), with Lesley by her side, and himself ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... teachers, who, like Thorlakson, whom Dr. Henderson found toiling cheerfully with his beloved parishioners in the hay-harvest of the brief arctic summer, combine with the vigorous diction and robust thought of their predecessors the warm and genial humanity of a religion of love and the graces and amenities ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... he has seen his country ravaged, his home violated, his family —— But no! the tongue recoils from speaking the horrors and atrocities of war thus brought into the bosom of a peaceful home. All the amenities and charities of domestic life are outraged, are annihilated. All that is dearest to man; all that tends to refine, to soften him—to make him a noble and a better being—all these are trampled under foot by a brutal soldiery—all ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... resembles a rough diamond, his brusque manner and impulsive temper needing the keen polish of the refining wheel of the conventional amenities of life to make his inherent worth shine forth in its full brilliancy. Anson, too, reminds one somewhat of that old Western pioneer, Davy Crockett, inasmuch as his practical motto is, 'When you know you're right, go ahead.' This latter trait was conspicuously shown in the year of the players' ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... Henry came. He was a quiet, stern-looking man, of considerable intelligence and refinement, and so much taste for music as to charm Erminia, who had rather dreaded his visit. But all the amenities of life were put aside when he entered Mr. Buxton's sanctum—his "office," as he called the room where he received his tenants and business people. Frank thought Mr. Henry was scarce commonly civil in the open evidence of his ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... smiling face such insults as no European princess, least of all Elizabeth, would have endured for an hour. There is a limit to patience, and before Mary passed that limit, Randolph and Lethington saw, and feebly deplored, the amenities of the preacher whom men permitted to "rule the roast." "Ten thousand swords" do not leap from their scabbards to protect either the girl Mary Stuart or the ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... These amenities having reestablished them in their mutual esteem, they chatted lazily and spasmodically till past midnight, with more smoke than fire ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... in the lap of luxury; intellectual luxury first and foremost—good talk, good company, an abundance of books for rainy days; but with the addition of a supreme chef, Lord Dunstable's champagne, and all the amenities of one of the best ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... Cannibalism is an almost inconceivable outrage against all right, in moral, social, or even superior animal existence. Few animals or even reptiles devour their kind. It is, therefore, an act repugnant to human nature, and in violation of the amenities even of a nobler animal existence. In a word, it is unmitigated wrong, showing its subjects and votaries ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... op. cit. 33) in which he covers them with praise, commending their courtesy, their humility, their openness and the care with which they bring up their children. A few pieces of political satire show us French and English exchanging amenities on their mutual shortcomings. The Roman des Francais, by Andre de Coutances, was written on the continent, and cannot be quoted as Anglo-Norman although it was composed before 1204 (cf. Gaston Paris: Trois versions rimees de l'evangile ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... declares at the very outset: "Best Society is not a fellowship of the wealthy, nor does it seek to exclude those who are not of exalted birth; but it is an association of gentlefolk, of which good form in speech, charm of manner, knowledge of the social amenities, and instinctive consideration for the feelings of others, are the credentials by which society the world over recognizes ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... streets was a pleasant change, and Grace was in high spirits when she ensconced herself at the top of Margery's seat—which was a much better observatory than her aunt's pew—where every thing could be seen that was interesting and amusing within the four walls. Besides, there were small amenities connected with a seat in nurse's pew which had great attractions for Grace when she was a little girl, and had still a lingering charm for her. In the pew behind there sat a worthy couple, friends of Margery, ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... that the razor-like tips began to look somewhat scarred and battered, as if they might perhaps retire from active service in ten years' time, or so. But the tan shoes were not Jerry's only concession to the social amenities. An unwonted attention was given to grimy knuckles and finger-nails. More than once he made his appearance with his usually frowsy hair as sleek as the coat of a water rat, and dripping, in further likeness to the animal mentioned. Peggy, whose ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... concern in the pleasant labours or the social amenities of life. The busy hum of the great world beats outside her chamber, men and women are born, and marry and die, society may be convulsed with scandals, kingdoms may totter to their fall in a crash of wars and tumults, but the Invalid lies through ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... labors and successes are they that those who have read of them in different countries know him by. These comprise and present the character they honor with respect. What he was in the temper and disposition of his inner life, in daily walk and conversation, in the even and gentle amenities of Christian humility, in sudden trials of his faith and patience; what he was as a husband, father, friend and neighbor, to the poor, to the afflicted in mind, body or estate,— all this will remain unwritten, but not unremembered by those who breathed and moved within that disk of light ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... and counsellor to this young girl who had come into her life by such an odd chance, but Mrs. Harold seemed to be born to mother all the world, and subtly Harrison recognized the fact that Peggy was growing beyond her care and guidance, and the thousand little amenities of the social world in which she would so soon move and have her being. For more than a year this knowledge had been a source of disquietude to the good soul who for eight years had guarded her little charge so faithfully, and she had ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... a moment to say that we took no crockery with us on that expedition. Our cups were tin pannikins, our plates were made of tin; our pots and kettles were either tin or copper. We had no sugar basins, or butter-dishes, or table-cloths, or any of the other amenities of civilised life. But everything we had was strong and serviceable, and the same may be said of the things we constructed. The deal tables and chairs made for us by Coppet were very strong if not elegant, and the plank walls and ceiling ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... perhaps, to the fact that he was born at Madras; but as on the mother's side he is descended from the poet Tickell, the friend of Addison, it would not be altogether unreasonable to have expected in him some few of the amenities of the literae humaniores. He soon, however, exchanged the torrid scenes of Oriental life for the snows of Canada, where he received his education; and when we remember what the bizarre oddities of his subsequent career have been, it might be interesting, if we had the materials for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... credit, although if he had not mentioned my name I would have been complimented to know that he had read the Good Stuff closely and pondered it well. As brother authors, you will please take notice that we observe the amenities. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... individual or the family, there are few people who would seriously dispute that this goes to justify, on grounds of fairness as well as of expediency, a higher level of annual remuneration later on; though many people would doubtless argue that the amenities and dignities of the professions should be taken into account on the other side. But the same consideration makes it a matter of legitimate doubt whether it would be desirable, even as an ideal, that the community should provide so completely the costs of training and of maintenance in the waiting ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... possible to retrieve his fortunes; and Woburn's mother and sister, embittered by this final evasion, settled down to a vindictive war with circumstances. They were the kind of women who think that it lightens the burden of life to throw over the amenities, as a reduced housekeeper puts away her knick-knacks to make the dusting easier. They fought mean conditions meanly; but Woburn, in his resentment of their attitude, did not allow for the suffering which had brought it about: ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... law-abiding, though a magistrate warns Dundas that local malcontents are setting them against the Government. Multiply these typical cases a thousand fold, and it will be seen that the old rural system is strained to breaking point. The amenities of the rule of the squires are now paid back, and that, too, at a time when England needs one mind, one heart, one soul. At and near Sheffield serious riots break out owing to the enclosures of common-fields and wastes, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... particular is a time of anxiety, and sometimes of privation, even to the well-to-do among them. Work then is scarce, and what there is, is rendered disagreeable to them by the cold. Yet they take their chance with facile temper, and are not soured by hardships. The amenities of the Venetian sea and air, the healthiness of the lagoons, the cheerful bustle of the poorer quarters, the brilliancy of this Southern sunlight, and the beauty which is everywhere apparent, must be reckoned ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... in a fold of his blanket, and, as he held it stiffly, Robert knew that his wound was yet far from healed. He and Tayoga were careful to keep away from each other, the Onondaga because he was a guest and was aware of the white man's amenities, and the Ojibway because he knew it was not the time and place ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... At the same time we were told of the Bedouins "with saddle, bridle, and life on the Islam," always mounted, always armed, always engaged in war or razzias and mutual pillage; of the Turkomans and their motto: 'Thy soul is in thy sword'; and those who thus celebrated the amenities of pastoral life, and the heroic adventures of the Arabs of the desert, never perceived the ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... concocted a great deal of paper theory on social amenities and modern manners generally, the special ounce of practice was wanting, and now for his life Knight could not recollect whether it was considered correct to give a young lady personal ornaments before a regular engagement ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... and I, to the strains of the last Sousa two-step (it was the Washington Post), and we conversed, meanwhile, with careful disregard of the amenities of life, since each feared lest the other might suspect in some common courtesy an attempt at—there is really no other word—spooning. And ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... the curricula of our colleges. It is only by training the student from the start, by fostering literary, dramatic and debating societies where not alone the practical art of speaking is developed, but the social amenities of good society are practised, that the young priest can be equipped to efficiently discharge the high office awaiting him, and so reflect a lasting credit on the Church of God at ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... he sighed. "As long as the amenities were preserved! We must be as friendly as possible about that sort of thing, or run ...
— The Outbreak of Peace • Horace Brown Fyfe
... Achilles at the London Museum. He is indeed a swift-footed Achilles, but in another race, another warfare. Born of a noble family, naturally endowed with sensitiveness and ideality to appreciate all the amenities and suavities of that brilliant sphere, the sacrifice must have been inconceivably great for him to renounce favor and preferment, position in society,—which, here in England, means more than Americans can ever dream of,—to descend from being a court chaplain, to become ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... off calling on the Bingles for a month or six weeks, being that scornful of social amenities; but he could hardly wait for the approach of sunrise to be on his way to Seafood on this brilliant Christmas morning. It was not a brilliant, shimmering day for him, however. He saw nothing beautiful in the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... order, much of efficacy. In the very inception of revolution, the beginning was made of that elaborate diplomatic system which became the medium by which we have asserted rights, elicited respect, and received amenities from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... responded, and he felt that her rustic simplicity possessed a charm above the amenities of culture. "The old clergyman—that was before Mr. Mullen's day—when we all went to the church over at Piping Tree—used to say that the mercy of God would have to exceed his if He was ever going to redeem him. I remember hearing him tell grandma ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... who paid no heed to scoundrels, I am led to allude to the attitude of a profession, the members of which profited by their amenities—I, of course, mean solicitors—because some one put a question to me on the subject ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... I employed him to read aloud to me, and derived pleasure from his intonation. I talk with refinement: yet he learned to answer me in language as precise as my own. My cast-off garments fitted him not more irreproachably than did my amenities of manner. Divest him of his tray, and you would find his mode of entering a room hardly distinguishable from my own—the same urbanity, the same alertness of carriage, the same superfine deference towards the weaker sex. All—all my idiosyncrasies I saw reflected in him; and can you doubt ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his knowledge of State craft and Church craft renders the book of great value to the history of religious polemics. His father, Isaac d'Israeli, is favorably known as the author of The Curiosities of Literature, The Amenities of Literature, and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... unfortunately for them, these limits were poorly defined. They could never be sure of themselves. At an unguarded moment they might be taken for "toughs," so they generally erred in the other direction, and were absurdly formal. No people have a keener eye for the amenities than those whose social ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... civilisation and of the amenities, and the welfare of the nation, of the family, and of woman, are all intimately bound up with a ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... truth; rigidly stern in morals, but eminently charitable to the shortcomings of others. He was, from childhood, reared in a new country, amid rude, uncultivated people, and was a noble specimen of a frontier man; without the amenities of cultivated life, or the polish of education, yet with all the virtues of the Christian heart, and these, perhaps, the more prominently, because of the absence of the others. It was frequently remarked by him that he did not think education would have been of ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... suddenly roused himself with a quick, glad smile and with a look in his eyes that to Lloyd was unmistakable. But there was not that joyful, exuberant start she had anticipated, and, for that matter, wished. Neither did Lloyd set any too great store by the small amenities of life, but that Ferriss should remain covered hurt her a little. She wondered how she could note so trivial a detail at such a ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... which our rule brings, to being plundered by native princes, but we do not understand them, or they us, and where they happen to be Mohammedans, there is a gulf of contempt and dislike on their part which is rarely bridged by amenities on ours. The pilgrimage to Mecca is the great object of ambition. Many Malays, in spite of its expense and difficulties, make it twice, and even three times. We passed three women clothed in white from head to foot, their drapery veiling them closely, leaving holes for their eyes. These had ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... not the laws of society and the amenities of civilized life supreme over such trifles as personal animosities? How many women are there who never meet without mingling in a close embrace, when each is to the other a Brinvilliers in heart? ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... With amenities of this nature the Quartier guests passed their time while waiting their turn to go to the front. There were always, while I was there, one or more parties in the field, either on the Italian or the Russian front, or both, while a few writers ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... great rancor developed between the two parties, both of which had lately been included in the Republican ranks. Henry Clay and John Randolph inaugurated animosities by a duel; and soon, in North Carolina, as elsewhere, social amenities were but little regarded between the ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... friendly fluency. "We are always busy, and are expecting to be busier still; but we are never too busy for a call like this." He considered that that was doing pretty fairly for an old man who was immersed in affairs and altogether alien to the amenities of the great world. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... turning and pausing in the doorway, "you allow your business-energy to violate all the most delicate amenities of private life, and will yet drive some maddened mortal to such resentful use of pistol, knife, or poker, as your mourning family shall sincerely deplore. The articles on Free Trade and Protection in the daily papers have hitherto ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... the Kunsthistorische Hofmuseum at Vienna. The spirit of those pictures may be described, I am told, as one of stately grace. They are full of Latin joy in life and beauty. They speak of an existence constantly softened by concern for the amenities of life. It is just what survives of their atmosphere that frequently makes foreigners speak of Vienna with a tender devotion not even surpassed by that bestowed on ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... manners, proverbially polite, and he delighted the Virginians, who had a weakness for courtliness. He belonged to an ancient English family, and believed in monarchy as a devotee believes in his saint, "and he brought to the little capital at Jamestown all the graces, amenities, and well-bred ways which at that time were characteristic of the cavaliers. He was a cavalier of the cavaliers, taking the word to signify an adherent of monarchy and the established church," and thoroughly hated anything ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... really becoming domestic," said Kent as he laughingly dodged. "The gentle amenities could not cluster more thickly around our fireside, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... system. When dignitaries of an Eastern town gradually laid aside their rough farmers' clothes and put on the smooth garbs of directors of corporations or financial magnates, the legal briefs and sermons underwent a similar change. Social amenities displaced Calvinistic theology; dancing, which had been a crime against the Church, became mere frivolity and finally an innocent pastime. Leading lawyers ceased to plead in petit courts to inferior magistrates, and learned to devise forms of contracts, to ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... delight with which I received this announcement, the way I jumped and danced, and that Rubens jumped and danced with me, my gratitude and my father's satisfaction, the renewed amenities between myself and my pony, his obvious knowledge of the fact that I was his master, and the running commentary of the Irishman, I ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of natural beauty can have nothing that is acquisitive or reproductive about it. There is no physical instinct to which it can be referred; it arouses no sense of proprietorship; it cannot be connected with any impulse for self-preservation. If it were merely aroused by tranquil, comfortable amenities of scene, it might be referable to the general sense of well-being, and of contented life under pleasant conditions. But it is aroused just as strongly by prospects that are inimical to life and comfort, lashing storms, inaccessible peaks, desolate moors, wild sunsets, foaming seas. It ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... supposed that beauty had gone from the countryside. Some of what the land agents call the amenities of the district had certainly disappeared. There seemed to be nowhere for the pedestrian to sit down in order to refresh himself with those rural sights and sounds which exhilarate the spirit. But this marvellously delved, methodised and trimmed countryside had a character and a stimulus ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... revulsion for what those measurements revealed. The spirit that was growing in him called out for bigger things, for the wild freedom which he had tasted for a time with Gregson—for a life which was not warped by the gilded amenities of the crowded ballroom to-night, by the frenzied dollar-fight to-morrow. No one could understand that change in him. He could find no spirit in sympathy with him, no chord in another breast that he could reach out and ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... came with the question. She, too, was of gentle blood,—not meaning by that that she was of any noted lineage, but that she came of a cultivated stock, never rich, but long trained to intellectual callings. A thousand decencies, amenities, reticences, graces, which no one thinks of until he misses them, are the traditional right of those who spring from such families. And when two persons of this exceptional breeding meet in the midst of the common multitude, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... "no amenities can take place between us. From this hour on we are strangers, till the time conies when we shall appear before the judgment-seat of God. In that day, neither you nor I can hold back one iota of the truth. Think of this, and repent your part in this awful tragedy of sin, ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... object in life was to benefit mankind. He said in an address, delivered just after he had begun the practice of law, speaking of conscience and charity: "They must become a part of us and of our existence, as present, in season and out of season, in all the amenities of life, in those daily offices of conduct and manner which add so much to its charm, as also in those grander duties whose performance evinces an ennobling self-sacrifice." It was his own determined and unfaltering devotion to ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... we noticed that the Doctor was very much vexed about something. We asked what was the matter? He said, "Never mind!" We insisted on his saying what disturbed him so. At last, he said "Well, I don't see why, because men are in the army, they should not observe the amenities customary among gentlemen." "Well," we said, "that is all right; but why do you say it?" "Why!" he warmly said; "did you hear that dirty, ragged infantryman call me an old fellow? A most disrespectful ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... divined, a doubtfully wholesome spirit! Over Damaris it exercised an unwilling fascination, as of some haunting refrain ending each verse of her personal experience. Even when, as a little girl of eight, fresh from the gentle restraints and rare religious and social amenities of an aristocratic convent school in Paris, she had first encountered it, it struck her as strangely familiar—a thing given back rather than newly discovered, making her mind and innocent body alike eager with absorbed yet ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... left the most favorable impression behind him, as a preparation for more easy intercourse. But for his own part those amenities had been carried on under the heaviest spirits. If these were really Mirah's relatives, he could not imagine that even her fervid filial piety could give the reunion with them any sweetness beyond such as could be found in the strict fulfillment of a painful duty. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... After these amenities, the white master and the black talked of many things, the one bluffing with the white-man's superiority of intellect and knowledge, the other feeling and guessing, primitive statesman that he was, ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... The amenities of trench life depend almost wholly on the enemy and the weather. In both these respects we were fortunate. The Saxons who faced us lived up to their reputation, and apart from some accurate sniping which did ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... commonplace, more uneventful than that meeting. Doris introduced her husband. They were all at their ease. Myra glanced once at his face and thereafter looked away. But her flow of small talk, the conversational stop-gap of the woman accustomed to social amenities, went on placidly. They were strangers, meeting for the first time in a ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... first interview. We all became so fond of him, he was a loyal, faithful friend, was always ready to help me in any small difficulties, and I went to him for everything—visits, servants, horses, etc. W. had no time for any details or amenities of life. We moved over just before New Year's day. As the gros mobilier was already there, we only took over personal things, grand piano, screens, tables, easy chairs, and small ornaments and bibelots. These were all sent ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... the direct question which Blount had been dreading. Now, if never before, the wretched involvement had reached a point beyond which it was impossible to follow his father's plea for a continuance of the kinsman amenities. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... final and esoteric approval of Calvinton was a thing apart from these mere fashionable courtesies and worldly amenities—a thing not to be bestowed without due consideration and satisfactory reasons. Leroy Carmichael failed, somehow or other, to come up to the requirements for a leading physician in such a conservative community. In the judgment of Calvinton he was a clever ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... nauseous mud-slinger, a deliberate liar. He had heard of men who had justified themselves with vile tales to their insipid, disgustingly virtuous wives, but he had not counted such among his acquaintances. By the side of Flint, Lily Condor loomed a very paragon of the social amenities. ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... habituate himself to the hardest conditions, in spite of the sentiment of outraged nobility which nothing can change, you are gradually induced by a fascination whose power is constantly around you, to accept the little amenities of ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... fact my wonder bred (Though known by all the nobly wise), It was the mountain stream that fed That fair green plain's amenities." ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... ball-room,—where the handsome and resentful senoritas were preparing to avenge California with a battery of glance, a melody of tongue, and a witchery of grace that was to wreak havoc among these gallant officers,—and after exchanging amenities over a bowl of punch, went out into the high-walled garden to smoke the cigarito. The perfume of the sweet Castilian roses was about them, the old walls were a riot of pink and green; but the youths ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... John Taylor forsook social amenities and pulled himself together. "Well," shortly, "now for that talk—ready?" And quite forgetting Miss Cresswell, he bolted ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... little interchange of the acid amenities of feminine intercourse, step-mother and step-daughter withdrew to a writing-table, to put the virtue of hospitality in ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... that were no doubt set down to the account of her brute of a lover, by the over-watching intelligences. But the quarrel ceased not, even yet, at the bidding of either; and, marvellous to relate, though the front windows were open and they were speaking in a tone altogether too loud for the amenities of society, a crowd had not gathered around the area ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... leaning on the chair opposite, watching her with knitted forehead, while her apprehension fluttered for what he should do next. He had done away with all the amenities of meeting and attacked his point with a ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... of a Canadian life in the wilderness were resisted by an invincible, passive courage, and a deep, internal tranquillity. Away from the amenities of life, away from the opportunities of vain-glory, they became dead to the world, and possessed their souls in unalterable peace. The few who lived to grow old, though bowed by the toils of a long mission, still kindled with the fervour of apostolic ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... get the chance," rejoined our sister, claiming her right of the last word. There was no heat about these little amenities, which made up—as we understood ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... individual supporter of the Government who contradicted him. Through the columns of his paper he poured out much bitter invective. What he said was for the most part undeniably true, but he had such an offensive way of expressing himself that the amenities of journalism were constantly violated. By this means he brought down upon his head the rancorous hatred of those whom he ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... Holiness toward the rebellious spirit of the Most Serene Republic; the Ambassade Extraordinary which had been appointed to convey to the Holy See the dutiful congratulations of her devoted Venetian sons, on the accession of Paul V, had few amenities to report in those lengthy dispatches to which the Senate listened with a dignity which disdained to show the least outward trace of irritation or forgetfulness, in a presence so exasperating as that of the Papal ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... good deal of time spent in the kindergarten on the cultivation of politeness and courtesy; and in the entirely social atmosphere which is one of its principal features, the amenities of polite society can ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... you think, Wade? I've tried to puzzle it out, and this is the conclusion I've come to. Is it rather cold-blooded? I know it isn't at all like the lovemaking in the books. I suppose I ought to go and fling myself at her feet, in defiance of all the decencies and amenities and obligations of life, but somehow I can't bring myself to do it. I've thought it all conscientiously over, and I think I ought ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... salon whether in upholstery or talk. "Every Britisher," said Novalis more than a hundred years ago, "is an island"; and Heine once defined silence as "a conversation with Englishmen." We Americans, tho not so reserved in talk as our English brothers, are less respectful to conversational amenities; and both of us are far behind the French in the gracious art of verbal expression. Not only is the spoken English of the cultured Irish the most cosmopolitan and best modulated of any English in the world, but the conversation of ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... labor, the patient pains of science on the edge of great discoveries, the slowly increasing spirit of toleration, pity, and humanity, the gradual spread of education, the widening realms of knowledge, the increasing appreciation of the decencies and amenities of life—all these things make the reign of George the Third the hopeful preface to the reign of greater length, greater glory, greater promise and greater fulfilment that was to dawn when two more sovereigns of the House of Hanover had ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... pursuers, and turned into a little all-night grill for a comforting mutton chop of gargantuan proportions, with an equally huge baked potato. He was a healthy brute, after all his morbid line of activities! Later, at the Club, he submitted to the amenities of the barber, whose fine Italian hand smoothed away, in a skilful massage, the haggard lines of his long vigil. As he left the club house for William Grimsby's residence he looked as fresh and bouyant as though he had enjoyed ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... that when I received your invitation, having heard so much of the literary, artistic and social amenities of your famous Club, I resembled in feelings, not in feature, the beautiful bride ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... detached, each house in its own fairly spacious garden, each house individual and different from all the rest. Few of the houses are large; on the other hand, none of them is small: this is the region of the solid middle class, the class which loves comfort and piques itself on its amenities, but is a little ashamed or too timid ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... arms, Paris does without its accustomed daily refreshment of ephemeral literature, its comic and illustrated press, its literary and artistic causeries, its feuilletons, and chroniques. It does without its theatres, its music halls, without politics, art, and social amenities, without barbers, florists, and motor cars, partly because there are not men enough to keep these things going, and partly because, even if there were, la patrie comes first, so that thrifty self-denial has ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... of introduction is always sent, never left in person. Calls at the theater or in opera boxes are mere social amenities, and are not accepted as formal. A man enters an opera box, stands, and bows. His hostess will turn around and greet him. He will then, if there is a vacant chair, take one, and sit and talk a little while, ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... after. On the latter occasion nothing is too bad for his "damsel with the twisted nose," as he calls her. She is spared neither hint nor accusation, and he tells his messenger to accost her with the vilest insults. Villon, it is thought, was out of Paris when these amenities escaped his pen; or perhaps the strong arm of Noe le Joly would have been again in requisition. So ends the love story, if love story it may properly be called. Poets are not necessarily fortunate in love; but they usually ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... forehead, a trifle bald, urbane and unassuming in deportment. As a pleader at the bar he was only moderately eloquent, but he was popularly designated far and near as "the honest lawyer," and his advice was not only much sought but implicitly relied upon. In a period not much devoted to the amenities of legal procedure one member of this group of lawyers, George Morell, made a reputation not so much as an advocate as for his faultless diction and ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... from Kenby. He did not care much for society, but he vaguely respected it as the stronghold of the proprieties and the amenities. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... minor amenities of Western civilisation" has taught me to respect my national costume, and it may interest Mr. Irwin to know that the dress I wear in Champaran is the dress I have always worn in India except that for a very short period in India ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi |
