"Prepossessing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... abhorred worse than the yaws; and hating the measure, they could not but dislike the men who were come to execute it. In common with their sex, they were sufficiently partial to soldiers of honor. But alas! they were not permitted the pleasure to contemplate the British in that prepossessing light. On the contrary, compelled to view them as mere 'fighting machines', venal wretches, who for pay and plunder, had degraded the man into the brute, the Briton into the buccaneer, how could they otherwise than ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... pitch, and dirt. Though his face and hands, as well as other parts of his body, were very dirty, his eye was bright, and, even seen through the disguise of filth and rags that covered him, he was rather prepossessing. ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... the metropolis was ludicrous in the extreme. One can imagine from accounts given of him how prepossessing he must have looked; flaxen locks, blue eyes, his hat on the back of his head as if accustomed to star gazing, must have given him the appearance of one decidedly 'green,' to say the least. As is a noted fact he was, to his death, exceedingly indifferent as to ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... women, who played an equally minor role in his life and in his books. This may be partly because his personal appearance was not prepossessing. He is described by a contemporary as "a little man with legs too short for his body. He walked crookedly; he was clumsy, ill-dressed, and rather ridiculous-looking, with his long lock of hair flapping on his forehead, and ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... world had indeed intimidated poor Jane; but there were many others upon whom it had no deterring effect at all. Some of these brought art-books in monthly parts; others brought polish for the piano legs. Many of them were quite as prepossessing in appearance as Jane was; some of them were much less plain and dowdy; few of them were so recklessly indiscreet as to betray themselves at the threshold by exhibiting a black ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... ladies pay great attention to the demands of fashion, whether it is in their delicately-tinted garments, their embroidered sunshades or fan, or the lace handkerchief with which they love to toy; and nothing in the way of crowd could be nicer than these daintily-dressed and usually prepossessing men and women. Fashion, however, has always some drawback. The ladies in many cases smear their faces with a paste called "thannakah," which has the effect of whitening the skin. The result is very unfortunate, for it is not always put on evenly, and only ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... handsome, and his manners extremely prepossessing, while to a cultivated understanding and an early fondness for the belles lettres he ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... Albert, Rudolf's eldest son, for instance, Kaiser Albert I.,—who did succeed, though not at once, or till after killing Rudolf's immediate successor, [Adolf of Nassau; slain by Albert's own hand; "Battle" of Hasenbuhel "near Worms, 2d July, 1298" (Kohler, p. 265).]—Albert was by no means a prepossessing man, though a tough and hungry one. It must be owned, he had a harsh ugly character; and face to match: big-nosed, loose-lipped, blind of an eye: not Kaiser-like at all to an Electoral Body. "Est homo monoculus, et vultu rustico; non potest esse Imperator ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... pleasure of seeing the other victim of that motor accident," Willa remarked demurely. "He was even less prepossessing than usual. I—I knew something of what occurred as I think you could understand from my note. I think that I have again to thank ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... society had been a great resource when the Court was at Windsor, was now dead. One of the gentlemen of the royal establishment, Colonel Digby, appears to have been a man of sense, of taste, of some reading, and of prepossessing manners. Agreeable associates were scarce in the prison house, and he and Miss Burney therefore naturally became attached to each other. She owns that she valued him as a friend; and it would not have been strange ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... boy of apparently fifteen or sixteen years of age called upon Dennis and desired to speak with him in private. He was a handsome lad, of easy, graceful manners, and long, curling hair; his dress was juvenile, and his whole appearance extremely prepossessing. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... served in good style, my appetite was excellent, and I passed a quiet night in a comfortable bed. In the morning I told the inn-keeper that I would return for my dinner, and I went out to visit the royal palace. As I passed through the gate, I was met by a man of prepossessing appearance, dressed in the eastern fashion, who offered to shew me all over the palace, saying that I would thus save my money. I was in a position to accept any offer; I thanked ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... woman would not move, and the other woman and the doctor stood there looking at her. All at once the truth dawned upon her, or a part of the truth. She had been brought here, and they would keep her here. Who they were she could not imagine, but their faces were not at all prepossessing. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... earl of Portland employed as a spy, had insinuated himself into the confidence of Nevil Payne, an active and intelligent partisan and agent of king James; by which means he supplied the earl with such intelligence as raised him to some degree of credit with that minister. This he used in prepossessing the earl against the king's best friends, and infusing jealousies which were soon kindled into ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Amongst the above slaves to be sold were Currer and her two daughters, Clotel and Althesa; the latter were the girls spoken of in the advertisement as "very superior." Currer was a bright mulatto, and of prepossessing appearance, though then nearly forty years of age. She had hired her time for more than twenty years, during which time she had lived in Richmond. In her younger days Currer had been the housekeeper of a young slaveholder; ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... was not of a very prepossessing appearance. Like most of my race, I was large and strong, but my clothes were somewhat coarse, and my hands were brown and bare. Then my face was covered with a huge brown beard, and I was tanned by long years of ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... rapidity, his lingual organ is always obliged to be on the "run." His eyes are keen, and his wits sharp; his mouth is tinged with humour, and his hair—particularly when threatening to be gray—with poudre unique. Manner, prepossessing; crop, close; fingers, dirty; toes, turned out. He seldom indulges in whiskers, for his business is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... artist, a young man of prepossessing appearance, sits in a dejected attitude, amid a litter of sketches, with his head resting upon his hand. An oil stove stands on a pine box in the centre of the studio. The artist rises, tightens his waist belt to another hole, and ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... a young priest, about twenty-eight years of age,—Jean Jacques Olier, afterwards widely known as founder of the Seminary of St. Sulpice. Judged by his engraved portrait, his countenance, though marked both with energy and intellect, was anything but prepossessing. Every lineament proclaims the priest. Yet the Abb Olier has high titles to esteem. He signalized his piety, it is true, by the most disgusting exploits of self-mortification; but, at the same time, he was strenuous in his efforts to reform the people and ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... particularly prepossessing. He was tall and angular, and pock-marked and sandy-haired; and his eyes had a peculiar cast—only a cast, of course, nothing more. To balance these detractions he was civil in his manners and extremely moderate in his terms. Dalghetty, faithful fellow, almost wept as he watched us depart. ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... post with all speed to Ascyltos, but we did not arrive at the home of Lycurgus until the following day. In a few words I told Ascyltos of the robbery, when he joined us, and of our unfortunate love-affairs as well. He was for prepossessing the mind of Lycurgus in our favor, naming the increasing wantonness of Lycas as the cause of our secret and sudden change of habitation. When Lycurgus had heard everything, he swore that he would always be a tower of strength between us and our enemies. Until ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... estate; but she has adopted the nearest heir to her husband, the present Rajah of Bhuderee, a fine, handsome, and amiable youth, of sixteen years of age, who is now learning Persian. He was one of the many chiefs who took leave of me yesterday, and the most prepossessing of all. His adoptive mother, however, absorbs the estates of her weaker neighbours, by fraud, violence, and collusion, like other landholders, and the dispossessed become leaders of gang ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... expect, my dear sir?" answered Gilbert. "You were so amiable, so prepossessing the first time I had the honor of meeting you, that I was discouraged. I said to myself, that do what I would, I should always be in ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... women almost as light as a mulatto. We have seen a few of both sexes with tolerably good features, but in general they have broad noses, large wide mouths, and thick lips; and their countenance altogether not very prepossessing; and what makes them still less so, is, that they are abominably filthy; they never clean their skin, but it is generally smeared with the fat of such animals as they kill, and afterwards covered with every ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... the protruding clay and stick chimney, and played by bouncing up and down and waving her fat hands, which seemed a perpetual joy and delight of possession to her. Take her altogether, she was a person of prepossessing appearance, despite her frank display of toothless gums, and around her wide mouth the unseemly traces of sorghum. She had the plumpest graces of dimples in every direction, big blue eyes with long lashes, the whitest possible skin, and an extraordinary ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... subject of this Essay we have been led to observe the different ways, in which the mind of man may be brought into a position tending to exhibit its powers in a less creditable and prepossessing point of view, than that in which all men, idiots and extraordinary cases excepted, are by nature qualified to appear. Many, not contented with those occupations, modest and humble in certain cases, to which their endowments and original bent had designed them, shew themselves immoderately ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... way to the baker's shop, a few words of explanation and description may be in place. First, for our hero. I have already said he was fifteen. Let me add that he was stout and strongly built, with an open, prepossessing face, and the air of one who is ready to fight his own battles without calling for assistance. His position in life is humble, for he is a street bootblack. He has served, by turns, at other vocations; but he has found none of them pay so well as this. He has energy and enterprise, ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... much service that it was literally threadbare from collar to skirt, and showed numerous patches, darns, and other evidences of needlework, applied long since to its original manufacture. His cow-hide boots, though whole, had a coarse look; and his long dark beard gave his face, not a very prepossessing one at best, a no very ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... became very evident to the not altogether impartially disposed judges that they could not, without incurring the suspicions alike of friend and foe, award the premium to their fellow-townsman. Straight as a shingle though he might be, more prepossessing to the eye, the ex-cavalryman of fifty battles was far better trained in ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... carefully sniffed at this sleeves, the inside of his cap, made a grimace, looked at himself in the little looking-glass hanging in between the windows, and shook his head; he certainly did not look very prepossessing. "So much the better," he thought. Then he took several pamphlets, thrust them into his side pocket, and began to practise speaking like a shopkeeper. "That sounds like it," he thought, "but after all there is no need of acting, my get-up is convincing enough." Just then he recollected a German ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... not prepossessing. Laruns is a small village centring about a large square. It looks unpromising, and one of its most unpromising buildings proves to be the "hotel,"—a low, dingy, stone building set in among its mates. At this the breack draws up. The splendor of the Gassion seems in the impossible ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... simplicity, with just so much of a peculiarity of style as served to show that, although he belonged to the order of metropolitan beaux, he was not altogether a common one ... His physiognomy was prepossessing and intelligent, but ever and anon his brows lowered and gathered—a habit, as I then thought, with a degree of affectation in it, probably first assumed for picturesque effect and energetic expression, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... thickness of the dust, and a man made his appearance on the top of the little rising where the lane climbed up into a curve of wild-rose hedge and honeysuckle which almost hid the actual road from view. He was not a prepossessing object in the landscape; short and squat, unkempt and dirty, and clad in rough garments which were almost past hanging together, he looked about as uncouth and ugly a customer as one might expect to meet anywhere on a lonely road at nightfall. He carried a large basket on ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... was a middle-aged, tidy woman, with that alert precision of movement which seems to come from an active, orderly mind; and as she now turned her head briskly at the sound of the parson's footstep, she showed a countenance prepossessing though not handsome,—a countenance from which a pleasant, hearty smile, breaking forth at that moment, effaced some lines that, in repose, spoke "of sorrows, but of sorrows past;" and her cheek, paler than is common to the complexions even of the fair sex, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... years older than her sister. She was handsomer too, and much stronger. There was a bright, fearless, resolute look about her, very attractive and prepossessing. But she was less intellectual, less thoughtful, more joyous and confident, though tenderly and devotedly unselfish to those she loved, especially to all weak ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... Young, irresistibly prepossessing in his appearance, with great eloquence, crude but considerable knowledge, an ardent imagination and a subtle mind, and a generous and passionate soul, under any circumstances he must have obtained and exercised influence, even if his ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... vicissitudes, that to see before me the realization of a character which in the abstract so much absorbed my regards, gave me a degree of satisfaction which it would be difficult to express." Eighteen years later Lord Byron calls him a prepossessing looking person, and, with his usual admixture of satire, says, "To have his head and shoulders I would almost have written his Sapphics;" and elsewhere he speaks of his appearance as "Epic," an expression which may be either a sneer or ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... his printed verbiage, what it must come to was that she liked him, and to such a tune, just for himself and quite after no other fashion than that in which every goddess in the calendar had, when you came to look, sooner or later liked some prepossessing young shepherd. The question would thus have been, for him, with a still sharper eventual ache, of whether he positively had, as an effect of the miracle, been petrified, before fifty pair of eyes, to the posture of a prepossessing shepherd—and would ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... at home were content to take no further interest in his fortunes. During the fifteen or sixteen years which he had spent in or about the colony, Hadden followed many trades, and did no good at any of them. A clever man, of agreeable and prepossessing manner, he always found it easy to form friendships and to secure a fresh start in life. But, by degrees, the friends were seized with a vague distrust of him; and, after a period of more or less application, he himself would close the opening that he had made by a sudden disappearance ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... hazel-eyed, sunny-haired, with a form too plump to be quite classical, yet graceful and prepossessing in the extreme. A very fair face, and a very wise one; the face of a woman of the world, who knows it in all its phases; who is able, in her own peculiar manner, to guide her life bark successfully if not correctly, and who has little to acquire, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... young King of Navarre had spent a part of his youth at the French Court, he was well known to Margaret, who apparently had a secret fancy for him. He was in his twenty-fourth year, prepossessing, and extremely brave. (1) There was certainly a great disproportion of age between him and Margaret, but this must have served to increase rather than attenuate her passion. She herself was already thirty-five, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... man, he was not of prepossessing appearance in early life; he was lank and hollow-chested. He was by no means a favourite with the beauties for which Fredericksburg was always famous, and had a cruel disappointment of his early love for Betsy Fauntleroy. In his youth he became pitted by smallpox ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... be anything in common between me and the refugees of Geneva?"— "Sire," observed Lauriston, "he is a very young man; and, as well as I could judge from the little I saw of him, there is something very prepossessing in his appearance."—"A very young man, say you? . . . Oh, then I will see him. . . . Rustan, tell him to come in." M. de Stael presented himself to Napoleon with modesty, but without any unbecoming timidity. When he had respectfully saluted the Emperor a conversation ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... friends were there, and entered his cabinet now by the secret door. They were headed by Baron von Hormayr in his brilliant gold-embroidered uniform, which rendered doubly conspicuous the beauty of his slender yet firmly-knit form, and the noble expression of his prepossessing, youthful face. He was followed by three Tyrolese, clad in their national costume, and holding their ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... west of the monastery stood a deserted house. One day there had been a great snowfall, and as young Kung accidentally passed by the door of the house, he noticed a well dressed and prepossessing youth standing there who bowed to him and begged him to approach. Now young Kung was a scholar, and could appreciate good manners. Finding that the youth and himself had much in common, he took a liking to him, and followed him into ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... for ourselves before they formed their own camp, and studiously avoided encroaching on our ground so as to appear troublesome. Their manners were those of a quiet and inoffensive people, and their appearance in some measure prepossessing. The old men had lofty foreheads, and stood exceedingly erect. The young men were cleaner is their persons and were better featured than any we had seen, some of them having smooth hair and an almost ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... goodness and generosity, that I must not pass it over. This distinguished architect is one of those unfortunate beings who have been decreed to taste the bitterness, very soon after the sweets of matrimony. Upon discovering the infidelity of his lady, who is very pretty and prepossessing, the distracted husband immediately sought a divorce from the laws of his country. This affair happened a very short time before the revolution afforded unusual acceleration and facilities to the wishes of parties, who, ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... was a man thirty-eight years of age, and of prepossessing appearance; sympathetic notwithstanding his coldness; wearing upon his countenance a sweet, and rather sad expression. This settled melancholy had remained with him ever since his recovery, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... replied Yes. Ellen begged that she might go likewise. We objected, fearing that she might be exposed to danger. "She will be perfectly safe," answered Captain Byles; "for though the people on shore are not very prepossessing, I have always found them perfectly harmless. We will, however, carry our muskets, and the crew shall ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... broadly arched, as in the case of Goethe, and deeply furrowed with the plough of mental labour; his kindly, mild eyes looking forth under the shadow of prominent brows; his amiable mouth surrounded by a copious silver-white beard. The cordial, prepossessing expression of the whole face, the gentle, mild voice, the slow, deliberate utterance, the natural and naive train of ideas which marked his conversation, captivated my whole heart in the first hour of our meeting, just as his great work had formerly, on my first reading it, ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... live," said one, "like men; we are like monkeys; we are hunted from place to place; we have no houses; and when we light a fire, we fear the smoke will draw our enemies upon us." The appearance of these Dyaks, we are told, is very prepossessing. They are of middle height, active, and good-natured in their expression; the women not so good-looking, but as cheerful tempered. "The dress of the men consists of a piece of cloth, about fifteen feet long, passed between the legs, and fastened round the loins, with the ends hanging before ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... agreeably surprised at the attention paid him by his new friend. There are some who have no difficulty in making friends at first sight, but this had not often happened to him. In fact, there was very little that was attractive or prepossessing about him, and though he could not be expected to be fully aware of that, he had given up expecting much on the score of friendship. Yet here was a stranger, who, to Martin's undiscriminating eyes, appeared quite the gentleman, ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... IV.; and the son of Clarence—a lad of fifteen years of age—was a prisoner in the Tower. In the year 1486, a report spread of the escape of this Prince, and soon afterwards Richard Symon, a Priest of Oxford, landed in Dublin with a youth of the same age, of prepossessing appearance and address, who could relate with the minutest detail the incidents of his previous imprisonment. He was at once recognized as the son of Clarence by the Earl of Kildare and his party, and preparations were made for his coronation by the title of Edward VI. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... our luggage to the tender mercies of some officious agent, who professed to see it "through the Customs," we took a hansom and drove to the Grand Hotel, en route to the hotel, in the suburb of Newlands, where we had taken rooms. My first impressions of Cape Town certainly were not prepossessing, and well I remember them, even after all these years. The dust was blowing in clouds, stirred up by the "south-easter" one hears so much about—an icy blast which appears to come straight from the South Pole, and which often makes its appearance in the height of summer, which season it then ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... was a decidedly more prepossessing looking man than O'Brien. In fact he was rather good-looking, with grey hair and moustache, face of a deep bronze-red hue and very blue eyes. He was well set up, and quite well dressed too in rough tweeds, and the ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... continued the Earl. 'He will have great influence. The free, prepossessing manner is a great advantage, where it is so ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of strength was to take a short stick of very hard wood and bend it in their hands, using the thumbs as levers, till it snapped. Strange to say, I failed to bend the stick more than a quarter of an inch. The women are not very prepossessing, and not nearly so graceful in their bearing and gait as the men. Poor creatures! they did all the hard work of the camp-building, food-hunting, waiting, and serving. Occasionally, however, the men did condescend to go out fishing, and they would ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... wooden sides and floorings. We visited the rajah several times, who invariably received us with urbanity, and entertained us in a very hospitable manner. Muda Hassein is a man about fifty years of age,—some think more,—of low stature, as are most of the Malays, well made, and with a very prepossessing countenance for a Malay. His brother, Budruden, is a much finer man, very agreeable, and very partial to the English. The Malays profess Mahomedanism; but Budruden in many points followed European customs, both ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... their shoulder rather than their hand, as their father named them to their new kinsman, Rashleigh stepped forward, and welcomed me to Osbaldistone Hall, with the air and manner of a man of the world. His appearance was not in itself prepossessing. He was of low stature, whereas all his brethren seemed to be descendants of Anak; and while they were handsomely formed, Rashleigh, though strong in person, was bull-necked and cross-made, and from some early injury in his youth ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Stevenson was not a prepossessing figure at these times. With his sallow skin and his black dishevelled hair, with finger-nails which had been allowed to grow very long, with fingers discolored by tobacco—in short, with a general untidiness that was all his own, Stevenson, so Bok felt, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... M.L.O., with that prepossessing smile which came to his lips when he had discovered the solution of a problem. "There are two boats going to the Peninsula to-night, one to Suvla and the other to Helles. The Redbreast is the one that's going to Suvla, I fancy, ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... had slowly risen from the sofa was his son, Mr. Mollett junior—Mr. Abraham Mollett, with whom also we shall become better acquainted. The father has been represented as not being exactly prepossessing; but the son, according to my ideas, was much less so. He also would be considered handsome by some persons—by women chiefly of the Fanny O'Dwyer class, whose eyes are capable of recognizing what is good in shape and form, but cannot recognize what ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... your friend for the present," said Gerrard in the same placidly pleasant manner, as he drew him aside. "But I may mention before you go that there is, on the lower deck, ample space if you wish to fulfil your promise to complete the adornment of my prepossessing features. I am quite at your service later on in ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... tell fortunes. They generally pitch their tents in the vicinity of a village or small town, by the roadside, under the shelter of the hedges and trees. The climate of England is well known to be favourable to beauty, and in no part of the world is the appearance of the Gipsies so prepossessing as in that country. Their complexion is dark, but not disagreeably so; their faces are oval, their features regular, their foreheads rather low, and ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... thin and anemic girl, not at all prepossessing in appearance, dull in expression, suffering from a chronic suppurating ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... door opened, and a man of rude and savage aspect advanced into the hall, and, presenting himself before the King, stood waiting his commands to speak. This man's appearance was anything but prepossessing, and on his entrance the nobles, as if animated with one thought, shrank back with contempt and loathing, as if some unclean animal had entered into their midst. His massive, herculean figure was clad in a doublet of black leather, and his face, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Herder could be charmingly prepossessing and brilliant, but he could just as easily turn an ill-humoured side forward. He resolved to stay in Strasburg because of a complaint in one of his eyes of the most irritating nature, which required a tedious and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... is the headquarters of the Kulkalega tribe of Torres Strait Islanders who are now absent on one of their periodical migrations, leaving in possession only the old man whom we met yesterday, and his family, among whom is a daughter of rather prepossessing appearance for a female of her race. The village consists of a single line of huts, which would furnish accommodation for, probably, 150 people. It is situated on the north-west, or leeward side of the island, immediately behind the beach, and in front of a belt of jungle. The huts ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... Thorndyke, rather stiffly, and, as he held the door open, the two visitors entered. They were both men—one middle-aged, rather foxy in appearance and of a typically legal aspect, and the other a fine, handsome young fellow of very prepossessing exterior, though at present rather pale and wild-looking, and evidently in a state ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... turned toward me, when in a confused manner I stammered forth an apology, which, undesignedly on my part, involved a statement of the contradictory motives which had influenced me. With the most quiet and prepossessing demeanor he questioned me if I were a stranger visiting the city, and in reply I gave him all the necessary particulars concerning myself,—that my name was Waters, that I was employed by the firm of Brown, Urthers ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... he was? In outward aspect all accounts agree that he was singularly, noticeably prepossessing—bright, animated, eager, with energy and talent written in every line of his face. Such he was when Forster saw him, on the occasion of their first meeting, when Dickens was acting as spokesman for the insurgent reporters engaged on the Mirror. So Carlyle, who met him ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... she saw another cyclist approaching, and, thinking that here was a chance to find out if she were right before going any farther, she jumped off her machine and stood waiting. When the new-comer was quite close to her she noticed that he was not a very prepossessing individual, and remembered that she had been warned in foreign countries always to look at people before speaking to them. But it was too late then. So making the best of it, she asked boldly which was the nearest way to Dol. The man stared at her for a moment, then said she should ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... in the Phrygian cap, and simple garb of a Sicilian mariner. His appearance, as far as it could be judged of by the dim light of the lantern, was anything but prepossessing. A profusion of long, straggling, grizzly locks, once probably of raven hue, which evidently had not felt the barber's scissors for many a year, concealed the greater part of his face which was still further hidden by a patch over one eye, and a handkerchief bound round his head, while his mouth ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... but he lacks in the conciliatory advantages of personal appearance; and his physiognomy, though indicating considerable strength of mind, is not so prepossessing. He is evidently a man of more education than his friend, that is, of more reading, perhaps also of more various observation, but he has less genius. His tact is coarser, and though he speaks with more vehemence, he seldomer touches the sensibilities of his auditors. ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... over her fine features a screen of silver gauze which reached to her feet, the door opened, and Gurth entered, wrapt in the ample folds of his Norman mantle. His appearance was rather suspicious than prepossessing, especially as, instead of doffing his bonnet, he pulled it still deeper over his ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... very prepossessing as he stood near the door, his tall, powerful form towering above the young skaters; his coarse, red face darkened by ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... his personal appearance became less prepossessing, his quickness and cleverness, however, rather increased; and I may say of him, that with respect to everything which he took in hand he did it better and more speedily than any other person. Perhaps it will be asked here, what became of him? Alas! ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... see your father hoped very much from some new process of manufacture. I wish he could have lived. Wilmarth is not a prepossessing man, yet I have never heard him spoken of in any but the highest terms. He is a bachelor, lives plainly, and has no vices, though he may have a desire to amass a fortune. I think, indeed, he rather urged your father to this new undertaking. St. Vincent I really know ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... There is a continual accompaniment of beating with sticks on a piece of wood. All the girls decorate themselves with coloured leaves, and their bodies, arms and legs glisten as in Samoa with coconut-oil, really a very clean custom in these hot countries, though it does not look prepossessing. Our two Samoans in the crew were most amusing; they came in dressed up only in leaves, and took off the Fijians to perfection with the addition of numerous extravagant gestures. I laughed till my sides ached, but the Fijians never even smiled. However, our Samoans gave ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... responded, clapping her hands in summons. A female servant of such prepossessing appearance that Philadelphus looked at her again, bowed ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... time I presented myself, and was received very pleasantly in a little drawing-room at his house in the Latin Quarter. His appearance, to me, was prepossessing; and though I had heard French artists speak of him as morose and bearish, I must say that his whole manner was most kindly and sympathetic, though not demonstrative. He was small, spare, and nervous-looking, with evident ill-health in his face and bearing, and under slight provocation, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... from the city and crowds of people to the gloomy valley with a man almost a stranger, going she knew not where, to conditions she knew not what, with the experiences of the day vivid before her. The black valley road was not prepossessing, with its border of green pools, through which grew swamp bushes and straggling vines. The Harvester looked carefully at the road, and ceased to marvel at the Girl. But he disliked to let her know he understood, so he gave one ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... that," he stated, hesitatingly, "but I didn't have much surplus cash for travel in those days, or—or clothes, either. I'm afraid I wasn't too prepossessing an object, on any of those visits, after I had tramped in overland. The house was closed both times I came. And then I did write once—that was from San Domingo—the third year after I left college. I was so lonesome down there ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... she added; 'she will be happy to see you,' and, conducting them in with complete self-possession—rather, as it occurred to Bessie, as the Queen might have led the way to the Duchess of Kent, though there was a perfect simplicity and evident enjoyment about her that was very prepossessing, and took off the edge of the sense of conceit. Besides, the palace was, to London eyes at least, so little to boast of, with the narrow little box of a wooden porch, the odd, one-sided vestibule, and the tiny anteroom ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... affectionate and conscientious brother, who had previously related to us some of the almost incredible events in his sister's life. I immediately became much interested in Linda; for her appearance was prepossessing, and her deportment indicated remarkable delicacy of feeling and ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... dinner, a young gentleman of the name of Hudson joined the company; his manners and appearance were prepossessing; he was frank and well-bred; and the effect of his politeness was soon felt, as if by magic, for every body became at their ease; his countenance was full of life and fire; and though he said nothing that showed remarkable ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... man, about five feet six in height, but of a remarkably compact and athletic form. His complexion was dark, but his countenance open, and his features well set and regular. Indeed his whole appearance might be termed bland and prepossessing. If he ever appeared to disadvantage it was whilst under the influence of resentment, during which his face became pale as death, nay, almost livid; and, as his brows were strong and black, the contrast between them and his complexion changed the whole expression of his countenance into ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... in the Rockies, but the exact location is a mystery. That is why I need your help. You will soon understand the reason. Well, as I said, myself, Folwell and the others, who were not exactly prepossessing sort of men, started west. When we got to a small town, called Indian Ridge, near Leadville, Colorado, the men insisted that I must now proceed in secret, and consent to be blindfolded, as they were not yet ready to reveal the secret of the ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... countenance; and, if he be moulded after the old man, and not after his minister, the country may perhaps have in him the 'lucky accident' of a good governor.[11] I have rarely seen a finer or more prepossessing man than the Raja, and all his subjects speak well of him. We had an elephant, a horse, abundance of shawls, and other fine clothes placed before us as presents; but I prayed the old gentleman to keep them all for me ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... that kingdom. Nature seemed to have taken pleasure to endow this young prince with many of the rarest qualities both of body and mind. His face was so very beautiful, his shape so fine, and his physiognomy so prepossessing; that none could see him without loving him immediately. When he spoke, he expressed himself always in terms the most proper and well chosen, with a new and agreeable turn, and his voice charmed all who heard him. He had withal ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... grandfather's court or at that of any other foreign sovereign which he was occasionally allowed to visit. Pale-faced and delicate-looking, very severely treated by his mother, who is what one is bound to call une maitresse femme, the boy at seventeen was by no manner of means prepossessing, and his efforts to assert himself, and to crush down a good deal of natural awkwardness and timidity added to his singularly ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... I was introduced to Southey,—the best-looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet's head and shoulders, I would almost have written his 'Sapphics.' He is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that—and—there ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... irascible, and conveying a not unpleasant impression of taking a reasonable interest in his diet. The other man was quite young, not more than five-and-twenty, and was a fine athletic-looking fellow with a healthy, out-of-door complexion and an intelligent and highly prepossessing face. I took a liking to him at the first glance, and so, I saw, ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... they said, were not common; and they certainly took uncommon pains to treat and to please us. The old man appeared between sixty and seventy years of age, with a long white beard and moustachios, which, added to a mild, sensible, and prepossessing countenance, gave him a most sage and respectable appearance, and personified to my imagination the wise enchanter whose name he bore. Conon Merlin had been educated by the famous Mr. Evashkin, a Russian nobleman, who was banished to Kamtchatka during the ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... recent than anywhere else. But we trusted to the great rains that had fallen to obliterate them as much as possible. In examining the cliffs they came so near us that we could distinguish their voices, and even found that they spoke a sort of Spanish. The nearer they came the less prepossessing they appeared, and even Gatty retreated with a shudder as two wild fierce-looking hairy faces showed themselves just above a ledge of rocks within fifty ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... more than they do abroad; one is forced to look respectable and portly; the Devil himself could not cheat your countrymen with a shabby exterior. Doubtless you observe that all the swindlers, whose adventures enliven your journals, are dressed 'in the height of fashion,' and enjoy 'a mild prepossessing demeanour.' Even the Cholera does not menace 'a gentleman of the better ranks;' and no bodies are burked with a decent suit of clothes on their backs. Wealth in all countries is the highest possible morality; but you carry the doctrine to so great an excess, that you scarcely ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... and troubles no one much about its derivation. We were rather disappointed with the general appearance of the city: dirt and grandeur were closely combined, and the combination gave the usual impression of shabby genteelness in general, not at first sight prepossessing. After driving through what might have been an Eastern Sebastopol, from the amount of ruin about, we reached a cut-throat-looking archway; and the coachman, here pointing to a dirty board, above his head, triumphantly announced the "Punch Gur!" Hot and thirsty, ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her so. She came into the room, with twinkling eyes, looking radiantly happy,—that sort of look which makes even a plain young woman prepossessing. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... that he should take the oath of conformity required, and in the midst of his daily labor, he still hoped privately to become one of that ministry, who were to New England what the House of Lords represented to the old. Prepossessing in appearance, with a singularly mild and gentle manner, he made friends on all sides, and in a short time came to be in great favor with Governor Dudley, whose daughter Mercy was then nearly the marriagable ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... river with deep ravines. On this last bearing fully six miles on the opposite or left bank of the river, at about two miles distance from our camp here a large creek with abundance of running water joins from north-west by north through apparently a not prepossessing country, very hilly and little or no valley belonging to it; in travelling along the bed of the river occasionally the bed is of a quicksand nature and very heavy. Sun quite overcast all day, at night it cleared off. ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... and the loss of the good right arm of poor Fritz. Heinrich was also taken prisoner, in a sudden night attack on his regiment in Tennessee, and carried off by one of the robber bands of the barbarous Forrest. His tender age, and gentle, prepossessing ways, won him no pity. He was shut up, with thousands of others, in one of those horrible slaughter-pens of the South, called a "stockade," where he languished for many months, bearing all his hardships with the utmost sweetness and patience, feeling that his suffering ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... after he had left the house, they agreed in expressing the deep regret with which they looked forward to his approaching departure for England; when their little daughter, who was then just ten years old, gravely offered to prevent the catastrophe by marrying the illustrious, but by no means prepossessing, historian. ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... those who have travelled to exceed not only every Prince and Potentate now in being, but even all those whose memory has come down to us. He has more unaffected dignity than I could conceive in man. His address is the gentlest and most prepossessing you can conceive, which is seconded by the greatest fund of levee conversation that I suppose any person ever possessed. He speaks deliberately, but very fluently, with particular emphasis, and in a rather low tone of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Overbeck and the two Schadows much, and they are estimable both as artists and as men; but the Catholicism of Overbeck and one of the Schadows excludes entirely many topics of conversation." Overbeck is elsewhere described as of "very prepossessing physiognomy, taciturn and melancholy," with a "proselyting spirit." Bunsen, who no less than Niebuhr deplored these conversions, writes in 1817 that Overbeck had been for a fortnight in August a welcome guest at Frascati, ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... Ned,' said his father coolly; 'you are mistaken, I assure you. I found you a handsome, prepossessing, elegant fellow, and I threw you into the society I can still command. Having done that, my dear fellow, I consider that I have provided for you in life, and rely upon your doing something to ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... pushed a ball or two about, examined the form of an ash-stand, swung his glasses almost with violence and declined either to smoke or to sit down. Vanderbank, perched aloft on the bench and awaiting developments, had a little the look of some prepossessing criminal who, in court, should have changed places with the judge. He was unlike many a man of marked good looks in that the effect of evening dress was not, with a perversity often observed in such cases, to over-emphasise ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... personal appearance is striking and prepossessing. He is about six feet one inch high, has dark auburn hair, light grey eyes, and a well developed muscular organization. As a public speaker he has few, if any, superiors. His language is chaste and copious, containing an unusually large per cent, of Saxon ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... laughed and chattered till the old man said something or other which I suppose was a joke; for the girl laughed merrily and ran away, leaving her father to take away the dinner things. Then I had another visitor, who was not so prepossessing, and who seemed to have a great idea of himself and a small one of me. He brought a book with him, and pens and paper—all very English; and yet, neither paper, nor printing, nor binding, nor pen, nor ink, were ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... more desirable than another in the whole county, it is Lord Garle," resumed Lady Verner. "The eldest son of the Earl of Elmsley, his position naturally renders him so; but had he neither rank nor wealth, he would not be much less desirable. His looks are prepossessing; his qualities of head and heart are admirable; he enjoys the respect of all. Not a young lady for miles round but—I will use a vulgar phrase, Sir Henry, but it is expressive of the facts—would jump at ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... her appearance inside the square, and quite close to the scaffold. She asked Captain Goodwin and Major Wiles the privilege of adjusting the rope around his neck, but they would not grant it. She is a young woman of about seventeen years, rather prepossessing and intelligent looking. She stood there unmoved, while the body hung dangling between heaven and earth. She seemed to realize that the murderer of her father had now paid the penalty with his life. I asked her what she thought of the affair, and ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... the cases had been disposed of, Stephens came to my room. He was a slender, sinewy man, with fair complexion, pale blue eyes and light brown hair, not prepossessing in manners or appearance; illiterate and unpolished, but very earnest; belonging to the plain classes of the South. His origin was respectable, although born into a poor family, in Guilford county. He had courage and tenacity. He was the leader of the Caswell county Republicans, being one ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... happiness: at fifty, broken-down in health and prematurely aged, he drifted to the town of O——, and remained there for good, having now lost once for all every hope of leaving Russia, which he detested. He gained his poor livelihood somehow by lessons. Lemm's exterior was not prepossessing. He was short and bent, with crooked shoulders, and contracted chest, with large flat feet, and bluish white nails on the gnarled bony fingers of his sinewy red hands. He had a wrinkled face, sunken cheeks, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... young traveller might be about nineteen, or betwixt that and twenty; and his face and person, which were very prepossessing, did not, however, belong to the country in which he was now a sojourner. His short gray cloak and hose were rather of Flemish than of French fashion, while the smart blue bonnet, with a single sprig of holly and an eagle's ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Boulevard St. Michel, his broad shoulders well thrown back, his head erect, chin high in air, his whole person radiating health, power, contentment, and the pride of them: he was a sight worth seeing, spirited, picturesque, prepossessing. You could not have passed him without noticing him—without wondering who he was, confident he was somebody—without admiring him, and feeling that there went a man it would ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... an elderly and singularly prepossessing man entered and saluted his visitor in a gracious and ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... watchman was at his post, and that all was secure. For the last few days, he had remarked with some uneasiness that a youth frequently passed the house and gazed at the barred windows, and he at first imagined he might be leagued with the nocturnal marauders he had heard of; but the prepossessing appearance of the stripling, who could not be more than sixteen, and who was singularly slightly made, soon dispelled the idea. Still, as he constantly appeared at the same spot, the grocer began to have a new apprehension, and to suspect he was an ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... known to wear the same hat or pair of boots all day. Occasionally he dons a vest, and, at rare times, a coat. In stature he is below the medium height; nevertheless, his appearance is eminently imposing and prepossessing. His countenance is rather oblong, and wears an expression that is a singular mixture of profound gravity and fearful earnestness. His eyes resemble those of some species of fish, and are set under curiously wrinkled brows that nearly conceal them.... Such is Bill Pratt, ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... a prepossessing village, held in some repute by sightseers, on the N.E. edge of the Mendips, 5 m. N.N.E. from Wells. It may be reached from either Hallatrow (G.W.R.) or Binegar (S. & D.) Stations. Its chief attraction is its singularly interesting church, ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... full-length portrait of Rogers was published in London in 1776. He is represented as a tall, strong man, dressed in the costume of a Ranger, with a powder-horn strung at his side, a gun resting in the hollow of his arm, and a countenance by no means prepossessing. Behind him, at a little distance, stand his Indian followers."—[Parkman's Conspiracy of ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... M., son of a gentleman of wealth in Ohio, early acquired the evil practice which has ruined so many bright lads. He was naturally an intelligent and prepossessing lad, and his father gave him as good an education as he could be induced to acquire, affording him most excellent opportunities for study and improvement. But the vile habit which had been acquired at an early age speedily began its blighting influence. It destroyed his taste for study and culture. ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... entrance, is opened and shut by the portress as often as a hundred times a day and more; but when it is open there is nothing to be seen within but a dark vestibule paved with flagstones; and the portress's wooden face is no more prepossessing than the wall itself. If any one asks her a question, she answers civilly in a businesslike tone, with a hard foreign accent, for she is the widow of one of the Swiss Guards at the Vatican; but she is naturally silent, stolid, mechanical, and trustworthy. She is a lay sister and ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... that whatever there might be of haughtiness or command in the upper part of that energetic countenance, was softened down, and tempered by a constant but not uniform smile—for, as occasion served, this smile became either kind or sly, cordial or gay, discreet or prepossessing, and thus augmented the insinuating charm of this man, who, once seen, was never again forgotten. But, in yielding to this involuntary sympathy, the doubt occurred if the influence was for ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the look of calm and settled sorrow which she invariably at such times cast upon her child seemed to touch even them, and to disarm their coarseness. On the other side of the widow sat a young gentleman of plain yet prepossessing exterior, who seemed especially to attract the notice of the dandies. His surtout was not absolutely threadbare, but it had evidently seen more than one season; and I could perceive many contemptuous looks thrown upon it by the gentlemen in the Belcher handkerchiefs. ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher
... gentleman standing at a window that overlooked his garden, enjoying a fragrant Havannah. His appearance was not by any means prepossessing; he was rather above than below the middle height, with round shoulders, and long, thin arms, finished off by disagreeable-looking hands. His head was bald on the top, and the thin greyish-red hair, that grew more thickly about his ears, was coaxed up to that quarter, where an attempt ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... top and nail of my third finger and stuck in the end of my thumb. The cut bled profusely, and it took me till the horses came to sew my mutilated digits up. It was late when we left this waterless spot. As there was a hill with a prepossessing gorge, I left Carmichael and Robinson to bring the horses on, and rode off to see if I could find water there. Though I rode and walked in gullies and gorges, no water was to be found. I then made down to where the horses should have ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... to be spoken of. It was occupied by a young officer of prepossessing appearance, who was widely known in the aristocratic circles of Kief. The dark-eyed Russian beauties adored him for his handsome bearing, his flashing eyes, his gallant and fearless demeanor; the gay young officers ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... Cecilia or not, the room-door opened, and the servant had scarcely time to say, that two ladies who did not give their names had insisted upon being let up—when the two ladies entered. One in the extreme of foreign fashion, but an Englishwoman, of assured and not prepossessing appearance; the other, half hid behind her companion, and all timidity, struck Helen as the most beautiful creature she ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... looked closely at the red-headed young man for the first time, and met his lively brown eyes, full of a droll, confiding sort of humor. Mr. Landry was not prepossessing. He was undersized and clumsily made, with a red, shiny face and a sharp little nose that looked as if it had been whittled out of wood and was always in the air, on the scent of something. Yet it was this ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... and from the fact that I have heard other stories of a similar nature, I am led to believe that there is in this one some substratum of truth. Were-wolves are not, of course, always prepossessing; they vary considerably. Moreover, they are not restricted to one sex, but are just as likely to be met with in the guise of boys and men ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... impossible. Considerate at every other time of the impression which she gives, a woman, with the full light of emotion upon her, throws appearances to the winds. She will cry, though she knows there is nothing less prepossessing; she will distend nostrils, curl her lip with an ugly turn, fling herself utterly into the grip of the situation, and lose dignity in the tempest of her feelings, unless it be, as in some cases, that the imperiousness of anger should add ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... or something else equally magnificent; however, whatever the nature of the situation, one thing is certain—one possessed of more courtly manners, and more polished address, cannot be conceived, to which he added all the attractions of a very handsome person and a most prepossessing countenance. The only thing the most scrupulous critic could possibly detect as faulty in his whole air and bearing, was a certain ultra refinement and fastidiousness, which in a man of acknowledged family and connections was somewhat unaccountable, and certainly unnecessary. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... Denny's black, unpainted farmhouse and dilapidated outbuildings—even when he had been certain that just as surely as he reached the crest he would find the boy's big body silhouetted against the skyline, waiting for him, they had not been any too prepossessing. Now they never served to awake in him anything but actual dread ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... others were grinding them, and others wringing down the pomace, whose sweet juice gushed forth into tubs and pails. The superintendent of these proceedings, to whom the others spoke as master, was a young yeoman of prepossessing manner and aspect, whose form she recognized in a moment. He had hung his coat to a nail of the out-house wall, and wore his shirt-sleeves rolled up beyond his elbows, to keep them unstained while he rammed the pomace into the bags of horse-hair. Fragments ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... a friend to lose a parliamentary election, and his experience has been invaluable to us. The moment we are tired of fighting and want billets, the Squadron sits down where it is and the Skipper passes the word along for William. William dusts his boots, adjusts his tie and heads for the most prepossessing farm in sight. Arrived there he takes off his hat to the dog, pats the pig, asks the cow after the calf, salutes the farmer, curtseys to the farmeress, then turning to the inevitable baby, exclaims in the language of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... years, during which my brother was between eleven and seventeen years old. At seventeen, I am told that he was remarkably well informed and clever. His manners were, like my father's, singularly genial, and his appearance very prepossessing. He had as yet no doubt concerning the soundness of any fundamental Christian doctrine, but his mind was too active to allow of his being contented with my mother's child- like faith. There were points on which he did not ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... more quickly again; but, in a few moments, a slight bend in the road brought before her a sight at which she stopped short and uttered a cry of alarm. An exceedingly ill-favoured man, and a no more prepossessing woman, were sitting upon the bank, by the road-side, discussing a dinner of broken victuals. They were thorough-going tramps, of middle age. Marian would have fled; but their evil eyes held her to ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... Christ Church: the youth's best feelings were aroused, and his loyalty was engaged to one to whom his father owed so much. He was now a young man of twenty-one years of age—able to act for himself; and he went heart and soul into the cause of his sovereign. Never was there a gayer, a more prepossessing Cavalier. He could charm even a Roundhead. The harsh and Presbyterian-minded Bishop Burnet, has told us that 'he was a man of a noble presence; had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar faculty ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... he was remarkable. His eyes, if deep-sunken, were still keen and lively, and sparkled with all the fire of youth; his mouth curved upward in a pleasant, though half-satiric, smile; and his appearance on the whole was prepossessing and commanding, indicating rather the high blood, the shrewd wit, and the gallant valour of the patrician, than his craft, hypocrisy, and habitual but disdainful spirit ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and his every interest as a young mother is to her first-born. During this time he wrote his longest prose romance, entitled the Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym. Poe had a remarkably pleasing and prepossessing countenance—what the ladies would call decidedly handsome. He died after a brief and fitful career at Baltimore, October, 1849, where his remains lie interred in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... porch and awkwardly introduced Duane to Mrs. Bland. She was young, probably not over twenty-five, and not quite so prepossessing at close range. Her eyes were large, rather prominent, and brown in color. Her mouth, too, was large, with the lips full, and she ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... growing dark, but the coppery glow of the fire fell upon his face, emphasizing the strong coloring of his weather-darkened skin. On the whole, it was a prepossessing face, clearly cut—indeed, it was a trifle thin—with a hint of quiet determination in the clear gray eyes and firm mouth. He looked capable of resolute action and, when it was needed, of Spartan self-denial. There was no ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... Aloysia Weber, and he went to Munich to offer her marriage. She, however, saw nothing attractive in the thin, pale young man, with his long nose, great eyes, and little head; for he was anything but prepossessing. A younger sister, Constance, however, secretly loved Mozart, and he soon transferred his repelled affections to this charming woman, whom he married in 1782 at the house of Baroness Waldstetten. His naive reasons for marrying show Mozart's ingenuous ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... that she should have united her destinies with those who, several months before, were entirely unknown to her. But, though not related, every one was her friend. Her amiable disposition, her grace and beauty of manners, her own prepossessing appearance, and above all, her unremitting kindness to every one with whom she came in contact, had won upon the hearts of all. Old Smith's two sons, Jim and Harry, one eighteen the other twenty, both over six feet in height, looked upon "little ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... Nelson and of wondering Ermengarde. Mr. Wilton could be the jolliest of companions if he pleased, but he also could be stern, with a severity which Basil inherited. At such times his face was scarcely prepossessing. He came of a proud race, and pride, mixed with an almost overbearing haughtiness of manner, made him a person to be dreaded ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... a manly and prepossessing demeanour; being generally of a good stature, and remarkably well formed in their limbs. The men shave their heads, but wear long beards, and are extremely proud of their mustaches, which are usually turned downwards, and which give the other features of the face a ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... was said, had been appointed for his wedding. The time-hands marked the hour of eight when this letter was finished, and, as he uttered its closing words, his spirit fled from the shattered body and left it only cold and tenantless clay. He was but twenty-eight years of age, of prepossessing appearance and manners, with as brave a soul as ever defended the flag of the Union, and a capacity for military usefulness equal to any man in the service. Gradually he had arisen from one position of honor and responsibility to another, ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... straight person and medium height, entered. His hair was black, and curled down his neck, which was symmetrical. And, too, his face was singularly expressive, and his features prominent. In a word, his appearance was prepossessing. And in addition to dressing in the fashion of the day, he wore many jewels. His bearing also was graceful; and on entering the room, he addressed the lady with much courtesy, and called her Maria. She in turn introduced him to me as her husband. And ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... come to reside in the parish." The existing superstition of the country is that his spirit, playing on his favourite instrument, still haunts one wing of Brynbella. If he designed the building, his architectural taste does not merit the praises she lavishes on it. The exterior is not prepossessing; but there is a look of comfort about the house; the interior is well arranged: the situation, which commands a fine and extensive view of the upper part of the valley of the Clywd, is admirably chosen; the garden and grounds ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... that Peveril's present appearance was not so prepossessing as it had been at other times, and might be again. He had lost his hat, his hair was uncombed, his hands were bruised and soiled, while his clothing was torn and covered with dirt from the underground passages through which he had so recently struggled. But his face was quite clean, for he had just ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... college-room in that far-famed city, New Haven. He is in the act of replacing his cigar in his mouth, after having knocked the ashes off it, when we introduce to him the reader. Though not well employed, his first appearance must be prepossessing; he inherited his mother's clear brunette complexion, and her fine expressive eyes. His very black hair he had thrown entirely off his forehead, and he is now reading an Abolition paper which had fallen into his hands. There are two other ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... us. When the subject comes within the scope of natural science, the interest is nearly always assured; the difficulty, the great difficulty, is to prune it of its thorns and to present it under a prepossessing aspect. Truth, they say, rises naked from a well. Agreed; but admit that she is all the better for being decently clothed. She craves, if not the gaudy furbelows borrowed from rhetoric's wardrobe, at least a vine leaf. The geometers alone have the right to refuse her that modest garment; ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... emotions. Whenever he made the great mission of his life the theme of his declamations—and he took every suitable occasion for doing so—let his listeners be friends or foes, his appearance, at all times striking and prepossessing in the extreme, became as that of one inspired. His ample chest expanded with noble feeling; every gesture of hip hand, every movement and posture of his commanding form, grew eloquent with meaning. Unmasked of its habitual cast of reserve, his handsome face, clear, strong, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... masculine was her general appearance that she would readily have passed as a man, and in her case the deception was no doubt easily practiced. Next day the "she dragoon" was caught, and proved to be a rather prepossessing young woman, and though necessarily bronzed and hardened by exposure, I doubt if, even with these marks of campaigning, she could have deceived as readily as did her companion. How the two got acquainted, I never learned, and though they had joined the army independently of each ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... them one young man, however, who appeared to take no share, and find no enjoyment in the conversation; though he seemed to force himself to attend to it. He was tall and slender, and of extremely prepossessing appearance. His features were fine, though emaciated. He had a profusion of black glossy hair that curled lightly about his head, and contrasted with the extreme paleness of his countenance. His brow was haggard; ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... classes was quite disconcerting, for when we entered or departed from a house, the host, hostess, and children bowed their heads until their foreheads touched the floor. Japanese women, both in features and general appearance, are far from prepossessing, but we were told there were marked exceptions among the people of rank. The exclusiveness and debased condition of the sex produces a shyness and diffidence very prejudicial to their appreciation by strangers. The eyes of the women, though elongated, are not nearly so much so as those of the Chinese, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou |
