"Pleasantness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 89: Call it Tempe.—Ver. 569. Tempe was a valley of Thessaly, proverbial for its pleasantness and the beauty of its scenery. The river Peneus ran through it, but not with the violence which Ovid here depicts; for AElian tells us that it runs with a gentle sluggish stream, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... what a fool I am; what a forgetful vengeur, to be chanting Gringoire in the house of Doom and my quarry still to hunt!" His voice had of a sudden gained a sterner accent; the pleasantness of his aspect became clouded by a frown. Looking round the constricted room, and realising how like a prison-cell it was compared with what he had expected, he felt oppressed as with the want of air. He sought vainly about the window for latch ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... also discoursed of their own wretchedness of heart, of their unbelief; and did contemn, slight, and abhor their own righteousness, as filthy and insufficient to do them any good. And methought they spake as if joy did make them speak; they spake with such pleasantness of Scripture language, and with such appearance of grace in all they said, that they were to me as if they had found a new world; as if they were people that dwelt alone, and were not to be reckoned ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... her unmercifully, he pinched her when she passed by him, and said a thousand coarse, shameless things to her which she knew how to take in the opposite sense. And the dwarfish maid, who was neither kind nor pretty, and whose cruel nature had choked every germ of pleasantness and transformed her into a priestess of misery, a fatal, pitiless Eumenide, was pleasant and obliging to that brute. She admired his bearish manners, his roughness, his greediness, and his insolent, careless ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... talked "on the other side of his mouth." Most willing was he to help to bring to justice the scoundrels who had deceived him and robbed Mr. Darwin, but he feared they would be difficult to trace. His own feeling was that of wishing for pleasantness among neighbors. The pigeons had been found at the Gardens. That was enough. He would be glad to settle the business out ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... of marriage yonder gentle queen: What chaste sobriety whene'er she speaks, What glad content sits smiling on her cheeks, What plans of goodness in that bosom glow, What prudent care is throned upon her brow, What tender truth in all she does or says, What pleasantness and peace in all her ways! For ever blooming on that cheerful face Home's best affections grow divine in grace; Her eyes are ray'd with love, serene and bright; Charity wreathes her lips with smiles of light; Her kindly voice hath music in its notes; And heav'n's own ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... All this pleasantness and good fellowship was not to last long, and little more than a month elapsed before the blow came. The suspicions of Ki-Chan had been lulled—not dispelled. It was contrary to the invariable policy of the Chinese to brook the presence of strangers, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the palace, all the court were astonished at the change. She, who had annoyed everybody by the impertinent, tasteless, or downright foolish things she uttered, now charmed everybody by her wit, her pleasantness, and her exceeding good sense. The king himself began to come to her apartment, and ask her advice in state affairs. Her mother, and indeed the whole kingdom, were delighted; the only person to be pitied was the poor younger sister, of whom nobody now ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... of a sudden change in things. The garden smiled about him, the valley below laughed in the breeze, the blackcaps sang, the many windows of the Castle glistened in the sun; but their beauty and their pleasantness had departed, had retired with her into the long, low, white-walled, red-roofed pavilion. He was conscious of a sudden change in things, and of a sudden acute and bitter ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... Bible does not compare the Christian's path as one of hard labor. But Solomon says wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness and her paths are peace. Under the word transgressor are included all those that disobey their maker, or, in shorter words, the ungodly. Every person looking around him will see many who are transgressors and whose ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... The Turk was waiting for him. Carl cut short the Turk's apologies for not having supported Frazer, with the dreadful curt pleasantness of an alienated friend, and, as he began packing his clothes in two old suit-cases, insisted, "It's all right—was your biz whether you stood up in chapel or not." He hunted diligently through the back of the closet for ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... had its garden and its ponds, in a site called Bagunbaian, only three hundred paces from the walls. It was just being finished when he returned from his conquest, and when he ended the pleasures and joys of this life. The retreat and pleasantness of this place were very welcome to Ours; consequently they tried to buy it, and did so—having collected the alms in two afternoons. During that time two religious went through the city, accompanied by certain ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... apple stand with her unless he had first put by a penny for a purchase. And so unflinchingly she adhered to this determination, that sometimes weeks went by—hard, weary weeks, without a bit of pleasantness for her; weeks of sore pining for a morsel of heart food—before she was free of her own conscience to ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... fruitfulness of this valey, and pleasantness of its situation, its security from storms, and the delightfulness of the adjacent woods, I concluded I was settled in the worst part of the country, and therefore was thinking to ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... wife more than ever. Calm when she lost her trinkets, Sibyl exhibited no less self-command now that she was suddenly deprived of her whole fortune, about eight hundred a year. She had once remarked on the pleasantness and fitness of a wife's possessing in her own name an income equal to that of her husband; yet she resigned it without fuss. Indeed, Sibyl never made a fuss about anything. She intimated her wishes, and, as they were always possible of gratification, obtained them ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... motions that are so violent or extravagant that they attract the listeners' attention to themselves and away from your ideas. Remember that the expression of your face is most important of all gestures. Earnest interest, pleasantness, fairness, and vigor expressed in the speaker's face at the right times have done more to win debates than other ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... barbarities, too much puzzled by his shifting humours, and too frequently annoyed by his small vanities, to regard him otherwise than as the cross of my existence. It was only by degrees, in his rare hours of pleasantness, when he forgot (and made me forget) the weaknesses to which he was so prone, that he won me to a kind of unconsenting fondness. Lastly, the faults were all embraced in a more generous view; I saw them in their place, like discords in a musical progression; and accepted them ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the pleasantness—poetry in tariffed items, but all the more, for guests already convicted, a challenge to consumption—they smiled at each other in confirmed fellowship. "Do you call it subtly? It's a plain poor tale. Besides, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... seek after the island producing aloes; after his conquest of India, Alexander remembered the advice, and on his return journey from the Sea of India to the Sea of Oman, he stopped at Socotra, which he greatly admired for its fertility and the pleasantness of its climate. Acting on the advice of Aristotle, Alexander removed the inhabitants from their island, and established in their place a colony of Ionians, to whom he entrusted the care of cultivating aloes. These Greeks were converted ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... butter into milk, where it lay all night, and the next day it would eat fresh and sweet as this did, and any butter new made, and commended her Majesty's good housewifery; who, to express her contentment in this collation, was full of pleasantness and gaiety of spirit, both in supper-time and afterwards. Among other frolics, she commanded Whitelocke to teach her ladies the English salutation, which, after some pretty defences, their lips obeyed, and Whitelocke most readily. She highly ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... beginning. See the world 230 Such as it is—you made it not, nor I; I mean to take it as it is—and you, Not so you'll take it—though you get naught else. I know the special kind of life I like, What suits the most my idiosyncrasy, Brings out the best of me and bears me fruit In power, peace, pleasantness and length of days. I find that positive belief does this For me, and unbelief, no whit of this. —For you, it does, however?—that, we'll try! 240 'T is clear, I cannot lead my life, at least, Induce the world to let me peaceably, Without ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... Queen's instructor in the duties of her position, and as she had no private secretary, he had to be in constant attendance upon her—to see her, not only daily, but sometimes three or four times a day. The Queen has given her testimony to the unwearied kindness and pleasantness, the disinterested regard for her welfare, even the generous fairness to political opponents, with which her Prime Minister discharged his task. It seems as if the great trust imposed on him drew out all that was most manly and chivalrous in a character ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... watch in reading them all. Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, and that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement: if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... name of the evil that comes in through this door Legion? and we throw it wide open and invite both young and old to enter. We draw them by various allurements. We make the way of this door broad and smooth and flowery, full of pleasantness and enticement. We hold out our hands, we smile with encouragement, we step inside of the door ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... the winner. Books made up of the little homely things which might happen to anybody and distinguished by their pleasant atmosphere have been Miss COLE's speciality in the past; this time she has, without abating a jot of her pleasantness, added a touch of the occult in the shape of an old black-letter volume which infects everyone who gets possession of it with a mildly insane determination to keep it. An honourable man steals it and a nice woman smacks her baby for holding it, so you can see how really baleful its influence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... the first division of natural beauty to sound, which we distinguish from diction in that propriety and force of meaning are looked to in this; in sound it is the pleasantness or harshness that is regarded, flattering or offending the ear, or it is a kind of imitation of the subject-matter—sad things recited tearfully, excited rapidly, or harsh harshly. This is common enough in the spoken word; in writing, ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... should be her neighbor at the dinner-table. When the cousin glanced back over her succession of neighbors, she came to the conclusion that they had lost in sprightliness what they had gained in moral worth. Fink was rather profane, but very amusing; Anton had a certain equipoise of goodness and pleasantness; Baumann was the best of them all, but also the most silent. Her conversation with him, though edifying enough, was never exciting. On Mondays, indeed, they had a mutual interest in discussing the Sunday's sermon, but there was another tie between ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... raised the plump little hand to her lips. Beneath the surface pleasantness of Mrs. Fowler's life—that pleasantness which wrapped her like a religion—she was beginning to ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... plenty of sweet air. Light streamed down upon him from the grating which formed the floor of the passage between the deck and the bulwark over his head. In some respects, therefore, the condition of the men might have been much worse. Still, it must not be imagined that there was any pleasantness in their lives. Communication between them was not allowed. Day after day they filled their places without speech; in hours of labor they could not see each other's faces; their short respites ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... being at least, advancing with dire intent of obliging a recognition), may be, especially upon old and provincial friends, practised ad libitum, without the slightest danger of your character for etiquette, politeness, suavity, and general pleasantness, being impeached. Indeed it is not incompatible with the highest breeding, to allow your slighted and amazed acquaintance to hear you quizzing, and see you laughing at, him heartily, should it be your interest so to do; and then next day, to walk boldly up to him, protest he is the best fellow ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... always said," exclaimed Grandma Johnson; "that the pleasant things come to the people who are looking for pleasant things but, land! see what's happened to her and if anyone ever looked for pleasantness it was Mary Rose. Why she even looked for it in us!" And ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... frequently to visit, and as they object to the toil of walking, the citizens, called upon to provide them with post-horses, and rations for their servants, have to pay heavily in purse for the pleasantness of their city. Therefore to prevent this, for the future we decide that all charges for providing post-horses and rations shall be debited to the public account. We cut up, root and branch, the system of paying Pulveratica[849] ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... senior did not look good-humoured or pleasant. There was that in his old eye which was the very opposite to good-humour and pleasantness. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... left this world, which he had found pleasant and had filled with pleasantness for others, after an illness that was happily brief. He passed, in the words of that great physician, Sir Thomas Browne, "in drowsy approaches of sleep;... believing with those resolved Christians who, looking on the death of this world ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... every expression of the pleasure which Ulysses has in this landing and resting, contains uninterruptedly the reference to the utility and sensible pleasantness of all things, not to their beauty. After his first grateful kiss given to the corn-growing land, he considers immediately how he is to pass the night; for some minutes hesitating whether it will be best to expose himself to the misty chill from the river, or run the risk of wild ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... him, grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he, who had been so exactly unreserved and affable to all men, that his face and countenance was always present, and vacant, to his company, and held any cloudiness, and less pleasantness of the visage, a kind of rudeness or incivility, became, on a sudden, less communicable; and thence, very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had minded before always with more neatness, and ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... in the Poet's style, I will add a few more instances. Thus in the same play: "This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses"; that is, the air sweetens our senses into gentleness, or makes them gentle, by its purity and pleasantness. Again: "Ere humane statute purg'd the gentle weal"; which means, ere humane laws made the commonwealth gentle by cleansing it from the wrongs and pollutions of barbarism. So too in King Henry the Fifth, when the conspiring lords find their ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... rise, So her rewards increase; Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... What orations on the benefit of starvation—on the comeliness of rags! Have we not heard selfishness speaking with a syren voice? Have we not seen the haggard face of state-craft rouged up into a look of pleasantness and innocence? Have we not, night after night, seen the national Jonathan Wilds meet to plan a robbery, and—the purse taken—have they not rolled in their carriages home, with their fingers smelling of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... thing became a certainty. Like the month of March, the Cyclone, who had come in like a lion, was going out like a lamb. A slight decrease in the pleasantness of the Kid's smile was noticeable. His expression began to resemble more nearly the gloomy importance of the Peaceful Moments photographs. Yells of agony from panic-stricken speculators around the ring began to smite the rafters. The Cyclone, now but a gentle breeze, clutched repeatedly, ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... there's something different at the farm. Something that runs through everything, as you might say. The beasts do their work as well again, and the sun shines brighter, and the flowers bloom prettier, and there's a kind of a pleasantness about the place. I can't set it down to anything, any more than I know why the sky's blue, but it's there all the same. So I thought over it a deal, and one day I was up in the High field, and all of a sudden it rapped into my head what Grannie Dunch says about the brownie ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... three together at a table that was like a small island of warm pleasantness in the great hollow dining-hall, Yvon was full of wild talk, we two others mostly listening. He had everything to tell, about the voyage, about his new friends, all of whom were noble and ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... of water is one of the greatest additions to the pleasantness of any place, the Koran often speaks of the rivers of paradise as a principal ornament thereof: some of these rivers, they say, flow with water, some with milk, some with wine, and others with honey; all taking their rise from the ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... had been a shock. She saw him now as the shattered dream of her childish fancy, and she was thankful for her escape. Yet deep down in her heart was a slight scar. It did not make her hate Nigel, but apart from the fun and pleasantness of their intercourse her real indifference to him was slightly tinged with acidity: probably she would have been less sorry for him in any trouble ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... order that his authority might have effect on his sister. To speak the truth, he was unwilling enough to interfere, and would have declined to come at all could he have dared to do so. Eton was now more pleasant to him than Desmond Court, which, indeed, had but little of pleasantness to offer to a lad such as he was now. He was sixteen, and manly for his age, but the question in dispute at Desmond Court offered little attraction even to a manly boy of sixteen. In that former question as to Owen he had said a word or two, knowing that Owen could ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... hold on to you," said the doctor huskily; "I wish I could lead you by loving force into the paths of pleasantness and peace. But what I can't do, God can. Good-by, and ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... calculated on reaching Bute in a few hours; but ere they had been half an hour at sea, the wind, veering about, obliged them to woo its breezes by a traversing motion, which, though it lengthened their voyage, increased its pleasantness by carrying them often within near views of the ever-varying shores. Sailing under a side-wind, they beheld the huge irregular rocks of Dunoon, overhanging the ocean; while from their projecting brows hung every shrub which can ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... at one end, and sailing by Degrees through the whole Piece. On another there appeared the Green Shadows of Trees, waving to and fro with the Wind, and Herds of Deer among them in Miniature, leaping about upon the Wall. I must confess, the Novelty of such a Sight may be one occasion of its Pleasantness to the Imagination, but certainly the chief Reason is its near Resemblance to Nature, as it does not only, like other Pictures, give the Colour and Figure, but the Motion of the Things ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... deer standing in the open. At a distance of sixty yards he shot the animal, not because he hankered to kill, but because he needed meat. So under the cabin eaves he had quarters of venison, and he knew that he could go abroad on that snowy slope and stalk a deer with ease. There was a soothing pleasantness about a great blaze crackling in the stone fireplace. And ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... him that he imagined it to be very particularly meritorious. A bit of a pharisee you will think—but not the least of that, I assure you. Only people, at their first trying of such paths, do often find them most peculiarly paths of pleasantness and ways of peace; and, this sort of peace, this being at ease with the conscience, is, to be sure, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... though he might be unable to obtain ultimate conquest. And then there seemed to be a fair prospect that the building would fall of itself, which surely would be a great triumph. And, after all, might it not fairly be hoped that the pleasantness of the Vicarage garden, which Mr. Puddleham must see every time he visited his chapel, might be quite as galling and as vexatious to him as would be the ugliness of the Methodist ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... the contrary part, and whose writings were altogether in a differing style and form; taking liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may call it) lawfulness of the phrase or word. And again, because the great labour then was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say, Execrabilis ista turba, quae non novit legem), for the winning and persuading of ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... perilous path; dare you walk in it? It is the way of honor, and will prove to be the way of safety; but, beshrew me, if I do not fear that it may prove to you a way of pain. Whatever may be the ways of wisdom, the ways of honour are not always ways of pleasantness, nor is the path of duty always one of peace. If you would wear the rose you must grasp it as it grows amidst the thorns. And now, farewell—yet, hold. I hold you to your bond. The forfeit were the forfeit of your word, which ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... Cremorne. There could be no doubt, however, that the Faithful were enjoying themselves amazingly—"right lucky fellows," as we read in the new translation of the Koran. Yet even here all was not peace and pleasantness, for I heard my name called by a small voice, in a tone of patient subdued querulousness. Looking hastily round, I with some difficulty recognized, in a green turban and silk gown to match, my old college tutor and professor of Arabic. Poor old Jones had been the best and the ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... confess that this love she spoke of never came to me. I tried to do my duty, and I endured all the hardships of my life in, I hope, a cheerful spirit. But the dry monotony of the studies had no element of pleasantness, and I used to wonder how Miss Susan could derive pleasure—as it was evident she did—from the exercise of her authority over those hapless scholars who had the misfortune to belong to her class. Day after day they heard the same lectures, listened submissively ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... to be in a sort of mixed temper, between pleasantness and sourness. He would sometimes joke (which was natural to him), and cast out a jesting flirt at me; but he would rail maliciously against the Quakers. "If" said he to me, "the King would authorise me to do it, I would not leave a Quaker alive in England, except you. I would ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... There is a great similarity between the words used to name things and to express their actions; as, builders build buildings; singers sing songs; writers write writings; painters paint paintings. In the popular use of language we vary these words to avoid the monotony and give pleasantness and variety. We say builders erect houses, barns, and other buildings; singers perform pieces of music; musicians play tunes; the choir sing ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... strolled out with Mr. Trundle; the deaf old lady had fallen asleep in her chair; the snoring of the fat boy, penetrated in a low and monotonous sound from the distant kitchen; the buxom servants were lounging at the side door, enjoying the pleasantness of the hour, and the delights of a flirtation, on first principles, with certain unwieldy animals attached to the farm; and there sat the interesting pair, uncared for by all, caring for none, and dreaming only of themselves; there they sat, in ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... his moments of effusion and abandonment (then so full of pleasantness), had said more than once: "If I have any physical beauty, I owe it to the Queen, my mother; if my daughters have any beauty, they owe it to me: it is only fine couples who get ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... woman's suffrage. He replied, "You are on the right track, go ahead." So we have decided to move "on this line" until the inauguration of the new administration, when, under the dynasty of the chivalrous soldier, "our ways will, no doubt, be those of pleasantness, and all our paths be peace." New Jersey was represented by Deborah Butler of Vineland, the only live spot in that benighted State, and we thought her speech quite equal to what we heard from Mr. Cattell in the Senate. During the evening sessions, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... fairest fair and oval cheeks the rarest rare; neck long and spare and eyes that Kohl wear; her side face shows the Anemones of Nu'uman, her mouth is like a seal of cornelian and flashing teeth that lure and stand one in stead of cup and ewer. She is cast in the mould of pleasantness and between her thighs is the throne of the Caliphate, there is no such sanctuary among the Holy Places; as saith in its ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... work is pleasure; His days are pleasantness, his nights are peace; He drinks of joys that neither cloy, nor cease, A well that gushes blessings without measure; Yea, and to crown the cup of peace with praise, Both God and man approve his works ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the advantages of it, that it would be injustice to communicate his ideas in any words but his own. "No other sort of abode," says he, "seems to contribute so much both to tranquillity of mind and indolence of body. The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of the smell, the verdure of plants, the clearness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking; but above all, the exemption from care and solicitude, seem equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... Ala al-Din to him, "I come to thee seeking thine alliance and desiring the hand of thy noble daughter." Quoth the Kazi, "O my lord merchant, welcome to thee and fair welcome; but indeed my daughter befitteth not the like of thee, neither beseemeth she the goodliness of thy youth and the pleasantness of thy compostition and the sweetness of thy speech;" but Ala al-Din replied, "This talk becometh thee not, neither is it seemly in thee; if I be content with her, how should this vex thee?" So the Kazi was satisfied and they came to an accord and concluded the marriage contract ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... this climate and scene. I had expected chill skies and bleak shores: I found the perfect pleasantness of summer in the air, and a coast-scenery with which that of New England in general ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... length prevailed on to accompany Mrs. Ellison to the masquerade. Here, I must confess, the pleasantness of the place, the variety of the dresses, and the novelty of the thing, gave me much delight, and raised my fancy to the highest pitch. As I was entirely void of all suspicion, my mind threw off all reserve, and pleasure only ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... like unto anise seeds. This root is much used among the Dutch people in a kind of loblolly or hotchpot, which they do eat, calling it warmus. The seeds taken as a salad whilst they are yet green, exceed all other salads by many degrees in pleasantness of taste, sweetness of smell, and wholesomeness for the cold and feeble stomach." In common with other camphoraceous and strongly aromatic herbs, by reason of its volatile oil and its terebinthine properties, the Scandix, or Sweet Chervil, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... recommend the use of the Dutch-box, (rarely found growing in England) which is a pumil dwarf kind, with a smaller leaf, and slow of growth, and which needs not be kept above two inches high, and yet grows so close, that beds bordered with boards, keep not the earth in better order; beside the pleasantness of the ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... well as in thy warm and cheerful town of Vevey, which outdoes most of Italy in its pleasantness and fruits; but thou shalt, at least, drink of thine own warm wines," observed the superior, as they went along the corridor; "and a right goodly company awaits thee, to share hot only thy repast ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... in each glass. Into this, at the proper moment was added the crushed ice to the brim and, as a jigger or two of liquor flowed over the ingredients, the glasses frosted and were topped with a sprig of mint. The pleasantness of the drink was not deemed its single virtue, for there was a very sincere belief in the efficacy of this refreshment in the promotion of good health and, particularly, in warding off the current fevers ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... roared. His hand in mine was fondly clasped. They cultivated shrubs and plants. He selected his texts with great care. His lips grow restless, and his smile is curled half into scorn. Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness. O breeze, that waftst me on my way! Thou boast'st of what should be thy shame. Life's fitful fever over, he rests well. Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? From star to star the living lightnings flash. And ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... for his manliness of character, for the extreme pleasantness of his conversation, and his good-nature toward myself personally. May he prosper! for ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... cried Eyebright, yielding to the pleasantness of the thought. "I'd rather live with you than anybody else in the world, Mr. Joyce, if only you are sure it ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... merely how one's view of common things is affected by literary association. What were honey to me if I knew nothing of Hymettus and Hybla?—if my mind had no stores of poetry, no memories of romance? Suppose me town-pent, the name might bring with it some pleasantness of rustic odour; but of what poor significance even that, if the country were to me mere grass and corn and vegetables, as to the man who has never read nor wished to read. For the Poet is indeed a Maker: above the world of sense, ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... other than his own. Hail to thee, George Borrow! Cervantes himself, 'Gil Bias,' do not more effectually carry their readers into the land of the Cid than does this miraculous agent of the Bible Society, by favor of whose pleasantness we can, any hour of the week, enter Villafranca by night, or ride into Galicia on an Andalusian stallion (which proved to be a foolish thing to do), without costing anybody a peseta, and at no risk whatever to our ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to the motherly guardian. Mrs. Astrid's presence, the mere sound of her light tread, the mere sight of her shadow, operated beneficially on her mind; all that she received from her hand was to her delicious and healing. There arose between them a relationship full of pleasantness. Mrs. Astrid, who saw the young girl as it were born anew under her hands, conceived for her an attachment which surprised herself, much as it made her happy. The strong and healthy Susanna had stood too distant from her; the weak, and in her weakness the so child-like affectionate one, ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... joined together (whence I called it a chain) a hard bondage held me enthralled. But that new will which had begun to be in me, freely to serve Thee, and to wish to enjoy Thee, O God, the only assured pleasantness, was not yet able to overcome my former wilfulness, strengthened by age. Thus did my two wills, one new, and the other old, one carnal, the other spiritual, struggle within me; and by ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... in California, when it is very common in New York in the same latitude? Why should it be almost unknown in the Hawaiian Islands, within seventeen degrees of the equator? Its rarity in South Africa is a great point in favour of the healthfulness of the country, and also of the ease and pleasantness of life. In India one has to be always mounting guard against the sun. He is a formidable and ever-present enemy, and he is the more dangerous the longer you live in the country. In South Africa it is only because he dries up the soil so terribly that the traveller wishes to have less of him. ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... without reason, have prescribed so just a term of life that they would not suffer men to exceed it; and yet I have some intermissions, though short and inconstant, so clean and sound as to be little inferior to the health and pleasantness of my youth. I do not speak of vigour and sprightliness; 'tis not reason they should follow me ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... glorious morning air, the sunshine, the lowing of the cattle on the hills, and the songs of the birds in the trees along the Sweetwater had banished all depressing thoughts, and her mind dwelt on her love for Jack and the pleasantness of the lines in which her ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... the writer's reasonings and bearings are brought out with much point and vigour. Even a drawing-room reader must be caught by their attractions, and no better means was probably ever devised for bringing superficial readers into the way of knowledge, and setting forth its pleasantness. It has been said that such works as the present satisfy the reader, and disqualify him for the study of science. This opinion is hardly worth controverting: since that mind must be weak indeed which would not be stimulated as well as gratified in this case; and it is still ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... What is Cicero to us of the nineteenth century that we should care so much for him as to read yet another book? Nevertheless, Hamlet was moved because the tale was well told. There is matter in the earnestness, the pleasantness, the patriotism, and the tragedy of the man's life to move a reader still—if the story could only be written of him as it is felt! The difficulty lies in that, and not in the ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... usual with other peoples. This mixed expression charmed the eye of Isaac van Ostade, who had painted his portrait from a sketch taken at one of those skating parties, with his plume of squirrel's tail and fur muff, in all the modest pleasantness of boyhood. When he returned home lately from his studies at a place far inland, at the proposal of his tutor, to recover, as the tutor suggested, a certain loss of robustness, something more than that cheerful indifference of early youth had passed away. The learned ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... a pleasant, sunny day—that is, it would have been pleasant had it not been for the war. That spoiled the pleasantness, but nothing could stop the sunshine. To the great orb that had seen the earth formed, this fighting, momentous as it was destined to be, was only an incident in the rolling on of the ages ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... to Middleton, however, will show that on this occasion the tenantry have no reason either to sigh or weep, and the visit is worth making, independently of the pleasantness of a change from town to country, because it affords an opportunity of seeing what can be done with a neglected domain when it passes into the hands of men of large capital, liberal views, and a thorough determination ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... room was seated on the sofa with Miss Storey. After being introduced in due form, I placed myself by the young lady and endeavored to at least divide her attention with my Confederate friend. The apple-jack dilated most engagingly on the remarkable beauty of the evening, the pleasantness of the weather generally, and the delightfulness of Shelbyville. There was a piano in the room, and finally, after having occupied her attention jointly with O'Brien for some time, I took the liberty to ask her to favor us with a song; but she pleaded ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... him, and his practice had made him acquainted with us poor Bohemians, as you seem to think us. Old Mrs. Brownlow had means of her own, and theirs was quite a wealthy house among our set. Any of us were welcome to drop into five o'clock tea, or at nine at night, and the pleasantness and good influence were wonderful. The motherliness and yet the enthusiasm of Mrs. Brownlow made her the most delightful old lady I ever saw. I can't describe how good she was about my marriage, and many more would say ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had a confidence that was, indeed, as firm and as resolute as she was beautiful and interesting. He hastened to the cottage of Louisa, who received him in her usual mode of pleasantness, and informed him that Ambulinia had just that moment left. "Is it possible?" said Elfonzo. "Oh, murdered hours! Why did she not remain and be the guardian of my secrets? But hasten and tell me how she has stood this trying scene, and what are her future determinations." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... knowing it, may spoil the life of one who cannot possibly, as a woman, express herself to you. I have known such a case in clerical life. The man was a true man, but he allowed himself, for the pleasantness of it, to be very agreeable where he meant no more than friendship. Great, while silent, was the sorrow that resulted. ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... sat between them on the upper deck, blinking contentedly at the blue satin bay, her eyes following the wheeling gulls or the passage of ships, her mind evidently concerned only with the idle pleasantness of the moment. And always, for Peter, there was the same joyous sense of something new—something significant—something ecstatic ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... duty to pursue and make after the best and choicest of everything, that he may not only employ his contemplation, but may also be improved by it. For as that color is most suitable to the eye whose freshness and pleasantness stimulates and strengthens the sight, so a man ought to apply his intellectual perception to such objects as, with the sense of delight, are apt to call it forth, and allure it to its ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... exquisite faculty of story-telling, and yet no story of his own telling is so touching as the story of his death. Two weeks before the Easter of 735 the old man was seized with an extreme weakness and loss of breath. He still preserved however his usual pleasantness and gay good-humour, and in spite of prolonged sleeplessness continued his lectures to the pupils about him. Verses of his own English tongue broke from time to time from the master's lip—rude rimes that ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... kind of force that knocks one down before pleasantness hardly gets to him. I knew Roxanne said something in answer to that; in my heart I knew, but I couldn't hear what it ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and came alongside us, taking his part in our talk in all cheerfulness. And from that time I had little thought but of the pleasantness of the ride in the sharp winter air and under the bright sun with him toward the new court which I had often longed to see, with its strange ways, in the ancient British-Roman palace that he had so ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... Welshmen speak with a certain hesitation, betraying their bilingual infancy and youth. The Irish have as many accents nearly as there are members. The Northumbrian burr, however, is a tongue apart. It has the pleasantness of every foreign tongue, and since Mr. Joseph Cowen left Parliamentary life, Mr. Burt is the only member who speaks it in its pristine purity. The Tories were closured finally, though they had their revenge by preventing the Bill from going to the Grand Committee, and the work ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... certainly, that men and women do so much to destroy the pleasantness of their days,' said she, interrupting him. 'It is a pity that there should ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... chapter, will not only be found practically more convenient than the phrases in common use, but will more securely fix in the student's mind a true conception of {231} the essential differences in substance, which, ultimately, depend wholly on their pleasantness to human perception, and offices for human good; and not at all on any otherwise explicable structure or faculty. It is of no use to determine, by microscope or retort, that cinnamon is made of cells ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... harmonizes them. In the second place come games and sport, which may enter into their right if fatigue can be avoided. Harmonious joyful company, as different as possible from the depressing company of the sanitariums, will add its pleasantness. ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... scenes, as they passed, served to reconcile him to that lonely life which must, henceforward, be his fate. What was there to enjoy in the fate of Poppins, and what in the proposed happiness of Brisket? Could not a man be sufficient for himself alone? Was there aught of pleasantness in that grinding tongue of his friend's wife? Should not one's own flesh,—the bone of one's bone,—bind up one's bruises, pouring in balm with a gentle hand? Poppins was wounded sorely about the head and stomach, and of what nature was the balm which his wife administered? He, Robinson, had longed ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... do you do, sir?" exclaimed the apothecary, with great pleasantness, of face. It seemed the most natural thing that they should resume their late conversation just where they had left off, and that would certainly be pleasant. But the man of more experience showed an unresponsive ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... useful to you." Instead of returning a direct answer, "Would," said they, "we had never seen or known you! Several gentlemen have honoured us with their company before you; but never one of them had that comeliness, that sweetness, that pleasantness of humour, and that merit which you possess; we know not how to live without you." After they had spoken these words, they began to weep bitterly. "My dear ladies," said I, "have the kindness not to keep me any longer in suspense: tell me the cause of your ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... difference between artistic and mechanical coinage. The Florentines, using pure gold, and thin, can strike their coin anywhere, with only a wooden anvil, and their engraver is ready on the instant to make such change in the stamp as may record any new triumph. Consider the vigour, popularity, pleasantness of an art of coinage thus ductile to events, and ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... holy chime Flagged; I, expecting Mrs. Gamp, Thought—"Will the woman come in time?" Upstairs I knew the matron bed Held her whose name confirms all joy To me; and tremblingly I said, "Ah! will it be a girl or boy?" And, soothed, my fluttering doubts began To sift the pleasantness of things; Developing the unshapen man, An eagle baffled of his wings; Considering, next, how fair the state And large the license that sublimes A nineteenth-century female fate— Sweet cause that thralls my liberal rhymes! And Chastities and colder ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... The song was more elaborate for the perfect morning. It was so joyous that it choked me—in the sunlight and elm-leaves. It stood out from all the songs of the morning because it was so near—every note so finished and perfect, and we were each in the pleasantness of our tasks. The little girl leaned over to the window. I was already watching. We heard the answer from the distance. The song was repeated, and again. In the hushes, we sipped the ecstasy from the ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... with regard to the worthy traveller's final destination, was certainly a blunder. It was no blunder as to his immediate satisfaction; for the way was pleasant. In the irksome journey of the Regicide negotiations it is otherwise: our "paths are not paths of pleasantness, nor our ways the ways to peace." All our mistakes, (if such they are,) like those of our Hibernian traveller, are mistakes of repetition; and they will be full as far from bringing us to our place of rest as his well-considered project was from forwarding him to his inn. Yet ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... description of this favourite liquor. "Canarie-wine, which beareth the name of the islands from whence it is brought, is of some termed a sacke, with this adjunct, sweete; but yet very improperly, for it differeth not only from sacke in sweetness and pleasantness of taste, but also in colour and consistence, for it is not so white in colour as sack, nor so thin in substance; wherefore it is more nutritive than sack, and less penetrative."—Via recta ad Vitam longam, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... allow. He is lively, you are serious; but so much the better: his spirits will support yours. It is your disposition to be easily dejected and to fancy difficulties greater than they are. His cheerfulness will counteract this. He sees difficulties nowhere: and his pleasantness and gaiety will be a constant support to you. Your being so far unlike, Fanny, does not in the smallest degree make against the probability of your happiness together: do not imagine it. I am myself convinced that it is rather a favourable ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... with a week's notice or a week's rent, any day—this sort of life is natural and even delightful to some people. There are those who, like strawberry plants, are of such an errant disposition, that grow them where you will, they will soon absorb all the pleasantness of their habitat, and begin casting out runners elsewhere; may, if not frequently transplanted, would actually wither and die. Of such are the pioneers of society—the emigrants, the tourists, the travelers round ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... its antiquity, and that it had flourished in the Saturnian age, when it had as yet no rival. Creatium set forth its own splendour, pleasantness, and power. At last, a council being called, Creatium got the preference by the universal votes of the assembly; for such is the iniquity of the times, that though the head be covered with grey hairs, yet nothing is allowed to the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... below with a hideous and horrid crack!" In the evening the weather began to clear up, which induced me to walk out, when taking two peons as a guard, I proceeded south of the town, on a beautiful plain: the pleasantness of the weather, and the stillness of the evening, tempted me to prolong my walk, and inspired my mind to contemplate on the wonderful works of Providence, who had so lately showered down his blessings upon me, in preserving me from want ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... which he might have been appreciating her raciness—"when I talk of life I think I mean more than anything else the beautiful show of it, in its freshness, made by young persons of your age. So go on as you are. I see more and more how you are. You can't," he went so far as to say for pleasantness, "better it." ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... of anger, of hurt pride or thwarted will. As to the fit of passion in which one is giddy, blind, and deaf, if there is a relief to the overcharged mind in saying the sharpest things and hitting the heaviest blows one can at the moment, the pleasantness is less than momentary, for almost as we strike we foresee the pains of regret and of humbling ourselves to beg pardon which must ensue. Our friends do not always pity as well as blame us, though they are sorry for those who were possessed ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... was against college rules, there was no help for it; else, were he reading for his degree, he should like nothing better than to pass the Long Vacation in Oxford, if he might judge by the pleasantness of the ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... child of God. The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, shall be given unto him, to teach him the knowledge of the Scriptures, and to become a principle of holiness in his heart. Then shall he find that wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths peace; then shall he experience the blessedness of that man whose God is the Lord; then is the way open for communion and converse with God the Father, Son, ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... infinitely higher and holier and happier thing than our childhood fancied. The world that lay before us then was but a tinsel toy to the world which our firm feet tread. We have entered into the undiscovered land. We have explored its ways of pleasantness, its depths of dole, its mountains of difficulty, its valleys of delight, and, behold! it is very good. Storms have swept fiercely, but they swept to purify. We have heard in its thunders the Voice that woke once the echoes of the Garden. ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth; and tells us that that Wisdom is a tree of life to all who can lay hold of her; that in her right hand is length of days, and in her left hand riches and honour; that her ways are ways of pleasantness; and all her paths ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... Besides, was he not educating the boy? And education, philosophers are agreed, is the most philosophical of duties. What can be more heavenly to poor mankind than to have one's hobby grow into a duty to the State? Then, indeed, do the ways of life become ways of pleasantness. Never had the Doctor seen reason to be more content with his endowments. Philosophy flowed smoothly from his lips. He was so agile a dialectician that he could trace his nonsense, when challenged, back to some root in sense, and prove it to be a ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... happy time," said Jess. "We've ha'en a pleasantness in oor lives 'at comes to few. I ken naebody 'at's ha'en sae muckle happiness one ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie |
