"Congenial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very like it! Except that—" Harriet floundered a little, but regained her thread—"except that he does care for me," she repeated; "he loves beauty—I can say that to you without your misunderstanding!—and then, he knows me, we have been intimate for years, we are congenial!" ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... presence of the major the leader of the gang had felt himself under that restraint which vice must ever experience in the company of acknowledged virtue; but having left the house, he at once conceived that he was under the protection of a congenial spirit. There was a gravity in the manner of Lawton that deceived most of those who did not know him intimately; and it was a common saying in his troop, that "when the captain laughed, he was sure to punish." Drawing near ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... fathers without acquiring the laborious industry of the whites. Lands were assigned them in various places, which they were prohibited by law from alienating. But this very provision, though humanely intended, operated to perpetuate their indolence and incapacity. Some sought a more congenial occupation in the whale fishery, which presently began to be carried on from the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Many perished by enlisting in the military expeditions undertaken in future years against Acadia and the West Indies. The Indians intermarried with the blacks, and thus confirmed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... Peers of Ireland—an arrangement which differed from that which, at the beginning of the century, had been adopted for the representative Peers of Scotland; but he argued, and surely with great reason, that "the choice of Peers to represent the Irish nobility for life was a mode that was more congenial to the general spirit and system of a Peerage than that of their being septennially elected, as the nobility of Scotland were." Of the spiritual Peers, four were to sit in rotation; to the lay Peers a farther privilege was given, which the minister ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... possible without leaving a sting, "that this thing called government only needs a good house-cleaning and the application of a few vermin extinguishers, such as every good housekeeper knows how to administer, to make this country a congenial habitation for the gods of the Twentieth Century—the enlightened, progressive, responsible citizens of a democracy. Come to the Industrial League meeting next Thursday night and you will learn ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... In congenial companionship the day passed quickly. Its close brought us to Dallas. And here began at once an emotional experience which might well be called "a tempest of the heart,"—glimpses of glory once real. "Forms ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... praising himself, for I had followed fairly closely in his footsteps. When I complained of my isolated position in Vienna he remarked what we have since read in his printed works, that man can do efficient work only in the company of likeminded or congenial spirits. If he and Schiller had attained universal recognition, they owed it largely to this stimulating and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... violence was threatening to gain the upper hand. Shouts of boisterous merriment reached the princess from the street. From the adjoining wing of the palace, too, other sounds, almost equally boisterous, fell on her ear at intervals. The fair Cyrene was entertaining a company of congenial spirits. ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... wants an "equal" but an angel. If Satan himself should decide to marry he wouldn't go around looking for a congenial little Satanette, but for a paragon who had a pull ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... live their own lives in the midst of the whirl and the riot—women for whom that squirrel-like circulation round and round the fashionable wheel has no charm—women who only receive people they like, only go into society that is congenial. But Lady Kirkbank was not one of these. The advance of age made her only more keen in the pursuit of pleasure. She would have abandoned herself to despair had the glass over the mantelpiece in her boudoir ceased to be choked and littered with cards—had her book of engagements shown ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... I am fitter for this world than you; you for the next than me:—that is the difference.—But long, long, for my sake, and for hundreds of sakes, may it be before you quit us for company more congenial to you and ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... United States." This modest prediction, however, was not to be fulfilled, for after completing a course at the Harvard Law School in 1840 and practicing with but slight interest and success for two years, he gave up the law for a more congenial occupation. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... calculations from "the number of a man" and other such of the more definite utterances of Daniel and St John, the day of judgment must without fail fall upon the next Sunday week. Whence this announcement came no one knew. But the truth is, every one was willing it should remain shrouded in the mystery congenial to such things. On the door of the parish-church, it found an especially suitable place; for that, not having been painted for many years, still retained the mourning into which it had been put on occasion of the death of the great man of the neighbourhood, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... noticeable atmosphere of hospitality and easy friendliness; here too were many Southern visitors and Southern customs; for in those days of difficult travel Philadelphia seemed much nearer to Virginia than did New York. Even with such a congenial environment Martha Washington, with her innate domesticity, was constantly thinking of life at Mount Vernon, and in the midst of festivities and assemblies of genuine diplomatic import, would stop to write to her niece at home such a ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... congenial to an Irishman, probably because it has licences almost as great as he likes to take, and has a vague, irresponsible way of putting things, much akin ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... said he, "they want me very much at North Bizzy, in Connecticut. They pay there $1,500 a year. It is a manufacturing town. I do not think either the society or the work would be as congenial as in Wheathedge. I like the quiet of your rural parish. I appreciate the advantages it would afford me for study. But $300 is a good deal of money. I do not want to be mercenary, Mr. Laicus, but I do not want to ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... than in the selection of the men who are to accomplish the work. Even when the expedition has a scientific basis, academic distinction becomes secondary in the choice of men. Fiala, as a result of his Arctic experience, truly says, "Many a man who is a jolly good fellow in congenial surroundings will become impatient, selfish and mean when obliged to sacrifice his comfort, curb his desires and work hard in what seems a losing fight. The first consideration in the choice of men for a polar campaign should be the moral ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... importance is now military, not theological. M. Pierre de la Gorce, the accomplished historian of the Revolution of 1848, who lived here seven years as a magistrate, and who still resides here because he finds in the place 'a still air of delightful studies' congenial to his tastes and favourable to his historical labours, told me, in the course of a most interesting afternoon which I passed here with him, that the town is full of families living here on their incomes; and in going about the streets I was struck with the general air of quiet and unobtrusive well-being ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... negotiations for a colossal statue of Andrea Doria, which they desired to obtain from the hand of Michelangelo. Its execution must have been seriously contemplated, for the Senate of Genoa banked 300 ducats for the purpose. We regret that Michelangelo could not carry out a work so congenial to his talent as this ideal portrait of the mighty Signer Capitano would have been; but we may console ourselves by reflecting that even his energies were not equal to all tasks imposed upon him. The real matter for lamentation is that they suffered so much waste ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... inconvenience. The air was likely to be frosty and sharp, but these would not incommode one who walked with speed. A nocturnal journey in districts so romantic and wild as these, through which lay my road, was more congenial to my temper ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... church to church trying to find a congenial congregation, and finally he stopped in a little church just as the congregation read ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... expression form and content often emerge in unison, the thought itself being a word and the word a thought; so in artistic creation, the mother mood out of which the creative act springs, finds immediate and forthright embodiment in a congenial form. Such a spontaneous and perfect balance of matter and form is, however, seldom achieved without long and painful experimentation and practice, both by the artist himself in his own private work, and by his predecessors, whose ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... easily be imagined, had no sooner begun to apply his natural ingenuity to his new fancy, than he succeeded in growing the finest tulips. Indeed; he knew better than any one else at Haarlem or Leyden—the two towns which boast the best soil and the most congenial climate—how to vary the colours, to modify the shape, ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... hard-headed, busy individual, who was quite unable to sympathize with his wife's finer aspirations. Her first husband had been clever and dissipated; this one was worthy and dull. And thus deprived of congenial friendships, without books or art or that social home life which goes to make up a woman's world, and longing for the safety of close sympathy and tender love, with no one on whom her intellect could strike a spark, she keenly felt the ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Bell's glass?" was Miss Greene's very natural inquiry. It would seem, indeed, that two such congenial souls would have welcomed the closer union this suggestion invited, but Raymond ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... the board meetings of one or two governing bodies to which he belonged. They figured in his scheme of existence as his hours of work, the sterner, more serious occupation which justified his hours of leisure. The rest of that leisure was spent in happy, congenial uniformity: a morning ride, followed by some time in his comfortable study, during which he might be supposed to be writing his book; an hour or two at his club; a game or two of chess, a pastime in which he excelled; and behind all this ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... satisfied with my share, and did not want any more. But my father would never listen to my arguments. The last time we got on the subject he called me a mean-spirited fellow, and said he was sorry I had ever been born; whereupon I expressed regret that he had not been blessed with a more congenial and satisfactory son, and tried to point out that it was impossible to change my nature. Then I urged all the old arguments over again, and wound up by saying that even if I were to become possessor of the whole of his business to-morrow, I would sell it off, take to painting as a ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... to Simpson's Ranges. The weather was fine, the country was picturesque, and the company highly congenial. He liked the Peetrees better in his present mood, and his interest in the popular movement that was to culminate at Eureka was deepening daily. He had even addressed a small meeting of miners on the subject of the rights ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... along he read the inscriptions upon their tombs, and found in them all the same strong faith and lofty hope. These he loved to read, and the fond interest which Honorius took in these pious memorials made him a congenial guide. ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... morality which we seem now to inculcate from the authority of human reason. We no longer possess any such independent morality. The spirit of a higher, purer, moral law than man could discover, has been breathed over the world, and we have grown up in the air and the light of a system so congenial to the highest feelings of our human nature, that the wisest spirits amongst us have sometimes been tempted to forget that its ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... counsel for the peculiar mental susceptibilities of the invalid. The collection of Maxims and Observations was designed to be 'an useful gift to her children, gleaned from her own reading and reflection.' Though not intended for publication, they found their way into a few congenial circles, and one at least of those who were educated at Dr. Carpenter's school at Bristol can remember these maxims being read aloud to the boys, and the impression that their wisdom and morality ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... indignation, he felt the horrible doubt which had diffused itself around him, and seemed to be looking at him out of everybody's eyes. In such a state of mind one bethinks one's self of one's relations—those friends not always congenial, but whom one looks to instinctively, when one is young, in the crisis of life. He knocked at his aunts' door almost without knowing it, as he went down Grange Lane, after leaving Mrs Morgan, with vague sentences of his sermon floating in his mind ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... fur trader and fur trapper were far more congenial to them, and it was upon these that they chiefly depended. The half-savage life of toil, hardship, excitement, and long intervals of idleness attracted them strongly. This was perhaps one among the reasons why they got on so much better with the Indians than did the Americans, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... shows you have not been very long in this country, and are yet ignorant of its customs. In Mexico we have some callings not congenial to your people. Know that stilettoes can here be purchased cheaply, with the arms of assassins to use them. Do ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... Locke or Dugald Stewart, indeed, had they been cognisant of the tailor's triumph, might have illustrated the principle on which he succeeded; as to ourselves, we can only conjecture it. Our own opinion is that they were both animated with a congenial spirit. Biddy was the very pink of pugnacity, and could throw in a body-blow or plant a facer with singular energy and science. Her prowess hitherto had, we confess, been displayed only within the limited range of domestic life; but should she ever find it ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... couldn't please my father. I guess I put no real heart in my work. The fact was I didn't know how to work. The governor and I didn't exactly quarrel; but he hurt my feelings, and I quit. Six months or more ago I came West, and have knocked about from Wyoming southwest to the border. I tried to find congenial work, but nothing came my way. To tell you frankly, Mr. Belding, I suppose I didn't much care. I believe, though, that all the time I didn't know what I wanted. I've ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... ways congenial to the Roman spirit, but in one direction it had an inspiring influence which has been of lasting moment to the world. Up to the time of Panaetius and the Scipionic circle the Roman idea and study of law had been of a crabbed practical character, wanting in breadth of treatment, destitute ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... young man gained the most congenial of the subjects that were to fill his summer months. The second, something bigger, though hardly more complex, was another opera—already bespoken by several impresarii, and founded on a translation of Keats's "Isabella." Into ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... their fingers were endured to hardness, had sometimes to abandon their tasks. Orderic Vitalis tells us that his fingers were so numbed by the cold in a hard winter that he was obliged to leave his writing until a more congenial season. ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... conspiracy was the true test of the strength of Medicean government. It succeeded a time of high prosperity in Florence, when her ruler was honoured by the recognition of many foreign powers, and felt his position so secure that he might safely devote much leisure to the congenial study ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... magnets that attracted her heart, and next to the hours spent before the altar, none yielded her such pure delight as those passed among the lowly, suffering members of her dear Saviour. She found no company so congenial as theirs; no occupation so agreeable as the humble services which their desolate condition required. She fed, clothed and consoled them, and even sometimes partook of their poor fare, reserving for her own share their remnants ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... when the weather is in a congenial mood for rambling, lingering, or picnicking, or, in other words, when the sun is not too hot, nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our start towards the hills. We go on wheels—it is unimportant ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... talked about, and mentally swore that, as soon as by means of such stuff they could get places, and fill their pockets, they would be as Jacobite as the Jacobs themselves. As for Tories, no great change in them was necessary; everything favouring absolutism and slavery being congenial to them. So the whole nation, that is, the reading part of the nation, with some exceptions, for thank God there has always been some salt in England, went over the water to Charlie. But going over to Charlie was not enough, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... were assembled, who were eager to put into practice the subjects taught in their school. Previous to these exciting times not the most kindly feelings, and but little intercourse had existed between the two bodies of young men. The secession element in the College, however, finding more congenial company among the cadets, opened up the way for quite intimate and friendly relations between the two institutions. In January, 1861, the corps of cadets had been ordered by Governor Wise to be present, as a military guard, at the execution of John Brown at Harper's Ferry. After ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... in life is not congenial to me. Oh, how I hate this living death which has swallowed all my teens, which is greedily devouring my youth, which will sap my prime, and in which my old age, if I am cursed with any, will be ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... from well herself, arrangements had to be made to leave her in the companionship of some suitable and congenial woman, until her "boys" came home—one from the front, if he were still alive, the other from captivity. A girl friend offered to take Hansie's place at Harmony and promised not to leave Mrs. van Warmelo until the country was in a ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... of this character very frequently, and though I believe that the stiff formality of the past age was more congenial than the present to the formation and growth of these peculiar beings, there are still a sufficient number of the species in existence for the philosophical cosmopolite to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... that he has exhausted the subjects. This, however, is quite a common occurrence and occasions no dilemma in the mind of the talented gentleman. It is his custom in such cases to fill up the space with an imaginary character or two, the analysis of which is a task most congenial to his mind. He bows his head in thought for a few moments, and then writes ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... private property, a great many people are enabled to develop a certain very limited amount of Individualism. They are either under no necessity to work for their living, or are enabled to choose the sphere of activity that is really congenial to them, and gives them pleasure. These are the poets, the philosophers, the men of science, the men of culture—in a word, the real men, the men who have realised themselves, and in whom all Humanity gains a partial ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde
... free' is no part of their 'wicked political system.' On the contrary, they labour to excite a general disgust of truth, and in defence of bad governments preach fine sermons from some one of the many congenial texts to be gathered ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... minds of both nations are congenial and filled with the same noble virtues, the same impatience of servitude, the same magnanimity, courage, and prudence, the same genius for policy, for navigation and commerce, for sciences and arts. Yet, notwithstanding this happy conformity, ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... he did. He was by no means an amusing companion. Lazy, gentle, and ineffective, Doris quickly perceived that he was entirely eclipsed by his wife, who, now that she was relieved of Mrs. Meadows, was soon surrounded by a congenial company—the Home Secretary, one or two other politicians, the old General, a literary Dean, Lord Staines, a great racing man, Arthur Meadows, and one or two more. The talk became almost entirely political—with a dash of literature. Doris saw at once that Lady Dunstable was the centre of it, ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... Mr Bailey, having shut him in, mounted the box beside the coachman, and smoked his cigar with an air of particular satisfaction; the undertaking in which he was engaged having a free and sporting character about it, which was quite congenial to his taste. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... She is a little woman, of a genteel appearance, and uncommonly mild and well-bred[538]. To see Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great champion of the English Tories, salute Miss Flora Macdonald in the isle of Sky, was a striking sight; for though somewhat congenial in their notions, it was very ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... adjournment of the Woman's Congress Miss Anthony left the Palmer House, which had been its headquarters, and, accepting the invitation of Mrs. Lydia Avery Coonley, enjoyed the congenial atmosphere of her beautiful home for a month. At the conclusion of her visit with Mrs. Coonley she went for six weeks with Mr. and Mrs. Sewall, who had taken a large house for the season. This was a social center and the weekly receptions ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... of the life with young men of congenial tastes were completely fulfilled. Most of them belonged to the nobility, but the beloved "blue, white, and blue" removed all ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... an hour, every thing would be packed, the canoes laden, and the paddles moving to some "merry old song." In this manner passed the day, six hours of rest, to eighteen of labour, a tremendous disproportion, even to the sturdy Englishman, or the active Irishman, but perfectly congenial to the sinews and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... had come to us, and, in the midst of other distractions, I was occupied in disposing of their numerous boxes, barrels, and pictures. There was a universal feeling that there would be a degree of safety in numbers, and we could not possibly have enjoyed more congenial companionship than that of our cousins, the Burgwyns. Upon that day we prepared twenty lunches, which were most thankfully received. I recollect that towards evening some hot tea was made for our old friend, Mr. John Robinson. He had been at work ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... lightning, followed by a crash of thunder that made the lofty crag tremble beneath their feet. To a martial soul like that of Hengist, this warring of the elements presented a more spirit-stirring and congenial spectacle, than all the tranquil beauties of the previous prospect, and he pointed out to the admiration of his comrades the fiercer features of the scene, shouting with delight as a huge mass of the next projecting ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... and all that he saw aroused his aversion. These old Jewish institutions displeased him, and the necessity of conforming to them gave him pain. He who gave forgiveness to all men, provided they loved him, could find nothing congenial in vain disputations and obsolete sacrifices, and apparently he brought from Jerusalem one idea thenceforth rooted in his mind—that there was no understanding possible between him and the ancient Jewish religion. He no longer took his stand as a Jewish reformer, but ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... to appreciate her. The gentlemen are unendurable. The moment I accost one he assumes a diplomatic countenance, and thinks of what he can answer without saying too much, and what he can write home concerning my utterances. Those who are not so I find still less congenial; they talk equivocally to the ladies, and the latter encourage them shamefully. It makes a less morbid impression on me if a woman falls thoroughly for once, but preserves a sense of shame at heart, than if she takes ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... 1753, and was educated in Trinity College, Dublin. After leaving college he purchased a commission in the 51st Regiment of foot, but the duties of a military officer were ill suited to his temperament and disposition, and the young soldier soon resigned his commission to pursue the more congenial occupation of law student. He was called to the bar in 1790; his brother John, his junior by three years, who had adopted the same profession, obtained the rank of barrister-at-law two years previously. The brothers differed from each other widely in character and disposition. Henry was gentle ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... (less often perhaps now than a dozen years ago) that certain ancient pursuits congenial to man will be lost to him under his new necessities; thus men sometimes talk foolishly of horses being no longer ridden, houses no longer built of wholesome wood and stone, but of metal; meat no more roasted, but only baked; and even of stomachs grown too weak ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... much more freely with me than either parent.... From a pod of the above-mentioned mule, to which no pollen but its own had access, I had a large batch of seedlings in which there was no variability or difference from itself; and it is evident that the mule planted by itself, in a congenial climate, would reproduce itself as a species; at least as much deserving to be so considered as the various Calceolarias of ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... boyish face looked abashed. He was a country boy, absolutely frank and reliable, of fair education and intelligence—one of the small army of American youths who turn a natural aptitude for mechanics into the special field of the automobile, and earn good salaries in a congenial occupation. ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that I would accept my duties in another spirit I did all that a wife can do to strengthen the purer part in him. I interested myself in whatever he undertook; I suggested subjects of study which I thought congenial to him and studied them together with him, putting aside everything of my own for which he did not care. And for a time I was encouraged by seeming success. He was grateful to me, and I found my one pleasure in this absolute devotion of myself. I choose my ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... depended much on the society of some personal favourite. Decazes was young and an agreeable companion; his business as Police-Minister gave him the opportunity of amusing the King with anecdotes and gossip much more congenial to the old man's taste than discussions on finance or constitutional law. Louis came to regard Decazes almost as a son, and gratified his own studious inclination by teaching him English. The Minister's enemies said that he won the King's heart by taking private lessons from some obscure Briton, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... filled me with the greatest disgust, as to my mind it all seemed so dry. For me music was a spirit, a noble and mystic monster, and any attempt to regulate it seemed to lower it in my eyes. I gathered much more congenial instruction about it from Hoffmann's Phantasiestucken than from my Leipzig orchestra player; and now came the time when I really lived and breathed in Hoffmann's artistic atmosphere of ghosts and spirits. With my head quite full of Kreissler, Krespel, and other musical ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... under the same point of view as the first, and to derive them from the same source are in vain. That He has delight in the fear of the Lord, is the consequence of the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord resting upon Him,—He loves what is congenial [Pg 116] to His own nature. That He does not judge after the sight of His eyes, &c., is the consequence of His having the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. It is thereby that He is freed from the narrow superficiality which is natural to man, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... him. If the thought were exhilarating, it had also a serious side. He was not afraid, he was too young for that, but he had sense enough to know it was a big thing to uproot a life and plant it in a new spot more congenial to growth. ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... work was going on at that moment: his girl was on the tentacles of expectation about it. He also hoped that Humphreys had slept the sleep of the just, and that we should be favoured with a continuance of this congenial weather. At luncheon he enlarged on the pictures in the dining-room, and pointed out the portrait of the constructor of the temple and the maze. Humphreys examined this with considerable interest. It was the work of an Italian, and had ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... of liberal officers was still most trying. In the streets and among the people they were in a congenial atmosphere; behind the closed doors of the drawing-rooms, in the society of ladies, and among their fellows in the mess, there were constraint and suspicion. Out of doors all was exultation; in the houses of the hitherto privileged ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... electricity and other kindred mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds for ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... may say of the superior genius of Bach's first wife's children, it was in his second wife that he seems to have found his more congenial and appreciative helpmeet. Bach's father had remarried after seven months of widowering, and lived two months longer. Bach waited from July 7, 1720, to December 3, 1721, and he lived nearly thirty ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... the profits of its trade, and empowered the new governor, whom he appointed, to exercise his authority with the most undisguised usurpation of those rights which the colonists had heretofore enjoyed. Harvey's disposition was congenial with the rapacious and cruel system which he pursued, and he acted more like the satrap of an Eastern prince than the representative of a constitutional monarch. The colonists remonstrated and complained; but their ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... which occupied and agitated all, it was impossible that Barneveldt should not choose the congenial temperance and toleration of Arminius. Maurice, with probably no distinct conviction or much interest in the abstract differences on either side, joined the Gomarists. His motives were purely temporal; for the party he espoused was now decidedly as much political ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... Thanksgiving morning they spent in the church of which Eric Burroughs the actor-minister was pastor, and in the afternoon they motored through Central Park and far out Riverside Drive. Aside from this, the rest of their stay found the thoroughly congenial household gathered about their borrowed fireside, treasuring the precious moments that flitted by ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... be understood that the monotony of domestic service in this country is not altogether congenial to the tastes of many of these girls, who have been accustomed to a life of excitement and freedom. This can be easily understood. To be shut up seven days a week with little or no intercourse, either with friends or with the outside world, beyond ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... The congenial reader has already, I doubt not, anticipated that I am about to introduce that nondescript book bearing the running title—and it never had any other—of Silver Drops, or Serious Things; purporting, in a kind of colophon, to be "written by William Blake, housekeeper to the Ladies' ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... influence on negro students. It is not in any sense an industrial centre; the people are for the most part Government officials, professional people, and persons of means who settle there because the surroundings and society are congenial. The temptation to coloured students was to assume too lofty airs, to despise any occupation other than a profession, and to think that the President and his Government were bound to find openings ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... that I had no chance for a longer conversation with this wise old lady. I felt that we were congenial spirits, and had a lot to tell each other. For she and I are not among those who fill the mind with garbage; we make a better use of that divine and adorable endowment. We invite Thought to share, and by sharing ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... were not surprised that he had come back to live in Corbitant, which was so manifestly the best place in the world, and which, if somewhat lacking in opportunity, was ample in the leisure they believed more congenial to him than success. Some of his lady patients at the hotels, who felt at times that they could not live without him, would have carried him back to the city with them by a gentle violence; but there ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... had ever met; but the sore feeling in his heart of hearts with regard to Florence never deserted him, and it was her image which rose before his eyes when he looked at Kitty, and it was about Florence he liked best to speak. Kitty added to all her other charms by being delighted to talk on this congenial theme. She and Trevor often went away for long walks together, and during those walks they talked of Florence, and Trevor gradually but surely began to give some of his confidences to his young companion and to tell her ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... Seeking nothing that is not right and determined to submit to nothing that is wrong, but desiring honest friendships and liberal intercourse with all nations, the United States have gained throughout the world the confidence and respect which are due to a policy so just and so congenial to the character of the American people and to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... distributed throughout this portion of the forest, without exclusively occupying any considerable area, or even making extensive groves. It ascends to about 5000 feet on the warmer hillsides, and reaches the climate most congenial to it at about from 3000 to 4000 feet, growing vigorously at this elevation on all kinds of soil, and in particular it is capable of enduring more moisture about its roots than any of its companions, ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... same time hospitable and generous; passionately fond of his daughter, often thwarting her in seeming, but always yielding to her in fact. The early attachment between Matilda and the Earl of Huntingdon had given the baron no serious reason to interfere with her habits and pursuits, which were so congenial to those of her lover; and not being over-burdened with orthodoxy, that is to say, not being seasoned with more of the salt of the spirit than was necessary to preserve him from excommunication, confiscation, and philotheoparoptesism, [1] he was not sorry ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... some writers that Anacreon and Sappho were contemporaries; and the very thought of an intercourse between persons so congenial, both in warmth of passion and delicacy of genius, gives such play to the imagination that the mind loves to indulge in it. But the vision dissolves before historical truth; and Chamaeleon, and Hermesianax, who are the source of the supposition, are considered as having merely ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... intellectual pursuits will always attract certain people and band them together in those cliques which are called 'social sets,' They are not secret societies; they have no rules of exclusion; congenial minds are ever welcome to their ranks. This is a natural coalition, in no way artificial. Can you ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... earnest teachers. I have been made to see the power of a good education. My mind, heart, and soul have been broadened; and now I am able to look upon humanity from a broader point of view. It has certainly given me a more congenial spirit, and wherein I may have been conceited, I am not now. One very important influence is that I have decided to never stop short of the very best possible education. I have been made to believe that morality is the only standard ...
— American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 9, September, 1896 • Various
... Rosita, but they did not become more intimate than at first. The Senora was swinging in a hammock half-asleep, with a cigarette between her lips, all the morning; and when she emerged from this torpid state, in a splendid toilette, she had too many more congenial friends often to need her step-daughter in her visits, her expeditions to lotteries, and her calls on her old friends the nuns. On a fast-day, or any other occasion that kept her at home, she either arranged her jewels, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... possess more of the characteristics of a stinging nettle, than of the flower whose name she bore, and she was glad when her week was out, and she could leave her charming society, for that which she fondly hoped might be more congenial. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... on the pianoforte. They met and struck up an acquaintance in 1834, one prize day at a boarding-school; and so congenial were their ways of thinking and living, that Pons used to say that he had found his friend too late for his happiness. Never, perhaps, did two souls, so much alike, find each other in the great ocean of humanity which flowed forth, in disobedience to the will ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... last word of human experience. To certain smoke-dried spirits matter and motion and elastic aethers, and the hypothesis of this or that other spectacled professor, tell a speaking story; but for youth and all ductile and congenial minds, Pan is not dead, but of all the classic hierarchy alone survives in triumph; goat-footed, with a gleeful and an angry look, the type of the shaggy world: and in every wood, if you go with a spirit properly prepared, you shall hear ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... service. But, except for the more serious offenses, particularly those which by their nature also violate the civil code, it does not flatly prescribe trial and punishment. Military law, in this respect, has more latitude, and is more congenial, than civil law covering minor offenders. Rarely arbitrary in its workings, it premises the use of corrective good judgment at all times. It regards force as an instrument only to be used for conserving the general good of the establishment. The essential ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... souls at least congenial meet, Nor can thy lot my rank disgrace; Our intercourse is not less sweet, Since worth of ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... exemplified in a prominent point of Leibnitian philosophy. Stewart says: "The zeal of Leibnitz in propagating the dogma of Necessity is not easily reconcilable with the hostility which he uniformly displays against the congenial doctrine of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... be faced resolutely, in spite of the shrieks of the romantic. There is no evidence that the best citizens are the offspring of congenial marriages, or that a conflict of temperament is not a highly important part of what breeders call crossing. On the contrary, it is quite sufficiently probable that good results may be obtained from ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... strong discipline, the spirit of the Academy was so congenial that the cadets were able to get into personal relations with the instructors. There was never the faintest overstepping of the most rigid rule, there was nothing remotely resembling familiarity between any cadet and an instructor, but, at the same time, the heartiest good ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... our story was well known; indeed, they had several times called to see us; and of course, as sailors and congenial spirits, they ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... agreed that the key to the problem is furnished by the occurrence of the glacial period. In the ice-free belt, between the northern ice-sheet and the vastly extended glaciers of the Alps, the two floras must have found a common refuge and congenial conditions of existence; and this view is confirmed by direct palaeontological evidence. With the return of a milder climate, the so-called northern forms of the present alpine flora were split in two, one portion following close on the northern ice in its gradual retreat to the Arctic, the other ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... marriage?' he exclaimed. 'Before another two years Catherine will be following her sister's example. They all go the same way, and as they end by marrying, they snap their fingers at every one. These Artauds flourish in it all, as on a congenial dungheap. There is only one possible remedy, as I have told you before: wring all the girls' necks if you don't want the country to be poisoned. No husbands, Monsieur le Cure, but a good ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... her sympathy for all living beings, as fervent as ever; nor did her ardent desire for and belief in the ultimate religious and moral improvement of mankind diminish. She always retained her habit of study, and that pursuit, in which she had attained such excellence and which was always the most congenial to her,—Mathematics—delighted and amused her to the end. Her last occupations, continued to the actual day of her death, were the revision and completion of a treatise, which she had written years before, on the "Theory of Differences" (with diagrams exquisitely drawn), and the study of ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... feelings on general subjects must be CONGENIAL with your own. This is a very important matter. Persons of great worth, whose views and feelings, in relation to the common concerns of life are opposite, may render each other very unhappy. Particularly, if you possess a refined sensibility yourself, you must look ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... her reckless father and her fanciful mother a violent and passionate nature; the blonde was tractable and good like Michel, but resolute and firm like Madame Desvarennes. These two opposite natures were congenial, Micheline sincerely loving Jeanne, and Jeanne feeling the necessity of living amicably with Micheline, her mother's idol, but inwardly enduring with difficulty the inequalities which began to exhibit themselves in the manner ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the wag, indecorously witty, Who first in a statute this libel conveyed; And thus slyly referred to the selfsame committee, As matters congenial, Religion ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... keep, And close confined to their own palace, sleep. From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die) Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky. As into air the purer spirits flow, And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below, So flew the soul to its congenial place, Nor left one virtue to redeem her race. But thou, false guardian of a charge too good! Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood! See on these ruby lips the trembling breath, These cheeks now ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... were, always watching him with a sort of secret discontent. He did not suit her—was not congenial to her. Especially was she exasperated now more than ever by his bookish tastes. Possibly she was doubly jealous of his books; at any rate, unless he had been constantly on his guard, she would have hidden them, or done them ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to leave the High Commissioner with complete freedom of initiative, but with a no less complete responsibility for the complex and difficult task of economic and administrative reconstruction which now awaited him. How this task—at once more congenial and more especially his own—was discharged is a matter that must be left for a second volume. In the meantime the conclusion of the Surrender Agreement is no unfitting stage at which to bring the review ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... honours of public singing who ignores the demand of this quasi-musical Turpin that she should sing his songs. For, having become in the meantime a musical critic, he will devote all his talents to the congenial task of abusing her voice in his organ—which is naturally the more powerful instrument of the two. Should she, however, submit to his extortionate requests, he will deem himself entitled to embitter the rest of her existence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... taken aback by the introduction of so congenial a theme from so unexpected a quarter, "I've not played very much lately. Jill and I had a little punt about yesterday; but we did it quite slowly, you know, and I had my crape on ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... Kit's assent, Bet raced up the path, her hair flying in disorder, then she disappeared in the shrubbery. In a short time she returned with the good news that Kit was to spend the afternoon and evening with the girls. Mrs. Stacey was more than delighted that her young charge had found so congenial a group of friends. Not having children of her own, she hardly knew what to do with Kit. And when Bet promised to look after her, she was greatly relieved, for everyone in Lynnwood knew the bright little daughter of Colonel Baxter ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... inhabitants. This republic could by no means maintain itself against the monarchies of Europe, unaided by France. Napoleon, surrounded by hostile kings, deemed it essential to the safety of France, to secure in Italy a nation of congenial sympathies and interests, with whom he could form the alliance of cordial friendship. The Italians, all inexperienced in self-government, regarding Napoleon as their benefactor and their sole supporter, looked to him for a constitution. Three ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... divided the kingdom, he passed for dull, insensible, and uninfluenced by the feeling of religion or of patriotism. No conclusion, however, could be more unjust; and the reasons of the neutrality which he had hitherto professed had root in very different and most praiseworthy motives. He had formed few congenial ties with those who were the objects of persecution, and was disgusted alike by their narrow-minded and selfish party-spirit, their gloomy fanaticism, their abhorrent condemnation of all elegant studies or innocent exercises, and the envenomed rancour of their political hatred. But his mind was ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the thinly disguised professional cards of lonely ladies whose unhappy lot could be mitigated only by congenial ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... are debated both in the press and in personal correspondence. The correspondence of members is one of the most valuable features of the United, for through this medium a great intellectual stimulus, friendly and informal in nature, is afforded. Congenial members are in this way brought together in a lettered companionship, which often grows into life-long friendship, while persons of opposed ideas may mutually gain much breadth of mind by hearing the other side of their respective opinions discussed in a genial manner. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... province, they may at least be serviceable in training and developing the understanding. Not to dwell longer on this little eccentricity of opinion, which is simply one of idiosyncrasy, let us follow the author into some of the more congenial sections of his dissertation. The following passage, on 'The three essential qualities of an author,' seems ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... theme.* By this time Froude had acquired a great name, and was known all over the world as the most brilliant of living English historians. Although his uncompromising treatment of Mary Stuart had provoked remonstrance, his eulogy of Knox and Murray was congenial to the Scottish temperament, with which he had much in common. It was indeed from St. Andrews alone that he had hitherto received any public recognition. He was grateful to the students, and gave them of his best, so that this lecture may be taken as an epitome of his moral ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... noticed. The plant often produces in the autumn small plants upon the leaves, and by the means of these little parasites the plant is increased, and even if the leaves are detached from the plant, and laid upon moist congenial soil, young plants will be produced. This is a process that is well known to gardeners in the propagation of Begonias, and it is familiar to us in the proliferous Ferns, where young plants are produced on the surface or tips of the fronds; and Dr. Masters records "the ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... were held, protocols drawn up, and much time and ink wasted in discussing trivialities. Neither Edward nor Philip wished to push matters to extremities. To the former the policy of drift was always congenial. The latter was content to wait until the pear was ripe. It seemed that in a few more years Gascony would become as thoroughly subject to the French crown as ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... were by no means essential for a mind like hers. Dishonest tradesmen took advantage of her inexperience and extreme easiness, and swelled their bills to an enormous amount; but her greatest, and far most congenial outlay, was in the relief of the distressed. She could not endure to deny the petition of any whom she believed to be suffering from want; and this tenderness of heart was often imposed on by the artful and rapacious. Those who, from interested motives, desired to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... remain for ever engraven on the memory of the public, that paint images to the mind, or express the passions, and are for that reason called the speaking airs, because more congenial to nature, which can never be justly imitated but by a beautiful simplicity, that will always bear away the palm from the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... to say, he took her out with him, and after lecturing her angrily because of the shabbiness of her bonnet, bought her a new one, and gave her a dinner that made her ill, and then sent her home in a cab, while he finished the evening in more congenial society. But if the times were bad for the vulture tribe—O, then, what a gloomy companion for the domestic hearth was the elegant Horatio! After smiling his false smile all day, while rage and disappointment ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... done so already, but many of them still remain on the most remote parts of their lauds, having no longer the means of enjoying themselves at their village, or of satisfying the avarice of priests and traders. Here they pursue, without restraint or interruption, the mode of life most congenial to their habits. ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... Mercury," he answered, "in the Park? Three pathways intersect; there they have made a seat and raised the statue. The spot is handy and the deity congenial." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of which Hugh was genuinely proud. There were plenty of men in the chapter whom he did not like or toward whom he was indifferent, but he had learned to ignore them and center his interest in those men whom he found congenial. ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... gradually, but none the less surely, a change came over the Homestead. The gathering of congenial spirits, who knew they would be undisturbed by a roistering element, grew less frequent in the grill and Tudor rooms. And ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... much of the real genius of republican institutions. The centralization and tyranny of centuries brought revolt and hatred of the past, but did not prepare the people for self-government; while here the principles of civil liberty, transplanted from the mother country and flourishing in congenial conditions under colonial administration, found apt and natural expression in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The event of republican institutions twice tried in France failed to show that even the leaders understood the principles of liberty as they were understood ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... with this act of gallantry, so congenial to his own mind, inquired the name and family of the stranger; and not only repossessed him of his patrimonial estates, but took ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... never permitted his mind to permanently desert his calling; he found family matters a congenial study, and he thought of his swine a good deal, off and on. One day while baiting them amongst the hills, he observed a cloud of steam ascending from the valley below. Having always believed steam a modern invention, ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile) |
