"Pleasantness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for you out of one of his most careful plates.[AB] You think it very ugly. Well, so it is. Don't be afraid to think so, nor to say so. Frightfully ugly; vulgar also. It is the head, simply, of a fat Dutch girl, with all the pleasantness left out. There is not the least doubt about that. Don't let anybody force Albert Duerer down your throats; nor make you expect pretty things from him. Stothard's young girl in the swing, or Sir Joshua's Age of Innocence, is in quite angelic ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... of the pleasure which Ulysses has in this landing and resting, contains uninterruptedly the reference to the utility and sensible pleasantness of all things, not to their beauty. After his first grateful kiss given to the corn-growing land, he considers immediately how he is to pass the night; for some minutes hesitating whether it will be best to expose himself to the misty chill from the river, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... neck long and spare and eyes that Kohl wear; her side face shows the Anemones of Nu'uman, her mouth is like a seal of cornelian and flashing teeth that lure and stand one in stead of cup and ewer. She is cast in the mould of pleasantness and between her thighs is the throne of the Caliphate, there is no such sanctuary among the Holy Places; as saith in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... happy or sorrowful. She sat in her low chair and thought of yesterday, of the night and her dream, of old Mr. Leigh sitting alone in his dreary house so many hours each day, of his pleasure at seeing her, of Mr. Percy's absence; finally, of the comfort and pleasantness of sitting there undisturbed and hearing the voices of her mother and Maurice gradually subsiding into a drowsy hum. The next thing she knew Maurice was saying softly, "She is asleep. Don't wake her, Mrs. Costello. Good-night." ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... of days is in her right hand; In her left hand are riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: And happy is every one ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... wit, Shuaaeh, Queen of the Fourth Sea, who is vice-queen of my kingdom. When she was present at the wedding and saw thee and heard thy singing, she sent to me, giving me to know of thee and setting forth to me thine elegance and pleasantness and the goodliness of thy breeding and thy singing. So I am come to thee, for that which I have heard of thy charms, and this shall bring thee great worship in the eyes ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... causes your tender heart to shudder. Mourn not for these departed; for would we not wish to meet them there, when, ere long, this mortal shall have put on immortality? Grieve not because that gentle one has passed away! say not that she met with an untimely end, when in her summer of life all was pleasantness before her. Think of her not as one gone far away, never to be on earth more; cast her not from your heart, where, during her little day here, in innocence she entwined herself within its recesses. Oh, no, for she is nearer to us now; she is not dead, ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... them and strengthened them against the temptations of Satan; it was of matters so personal and vital that they spake to one another. "And methough they spake as if you had made them speak; they spoke with such pleasantness of Scripture language, and with such appearance of grace in all they said, that they were to me as if they had found a new world—as if they were 'people that dwelt alone, and were not to ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... has a Sunday shine about it. The cows standing in the shallow brook have a reverent air about them. They never look like that on any other day. Why the very sunshine is Sabbath sunshine, and seems to bring more peace and more pleasantness than on any other day of the week. And all the trees seem to ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... according to his promise, give him power to become a child of God. The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, shall be given unto him, to teach him the knowledge of the Scriptures, and to become a principle of holiness in his heart. Then shall he find that wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths peace; then shall he experience the blessedness of that man whose God is the Lord; then is the way open for communion and converse with God the Father, ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... energies and harmonizes them. In the second place come games and sport, which may enter into their right if fatigue can be avoided. Harmonious joyful company, as different as possible from the depressing company of the sanitariums, will add its pleasantness. ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... old-fashioned for Lord Byron's taste, and he quizzed it accordingly; but he admitted the kindliness of it, and the amiability which made guests glad to go there and sorry to come away. His special records of Miss Milbanke's good-humor, spirit, and pleasantness indicate the source of subsequent misrepresentations of her. Till he saw it, he could not conceive that order and dutifulness could coexist with liveliness and great charms of mind and manners; and when the fact was out of sight, he went back to his old notion, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... objections. Besides, was he not educating the boy? And education, philosophers are agreed, is the most philosophical of duties. What can be more heavenly to poor mankind than to have one's hobby grow into a duty to the State? Then, indeed, do the ways of life become ways of pleasantness. Never had the Doctor seen reason to be more content with his endowments. Philosophy flowed smoothly from his lips. He was so agile a dialectician that he could trace his nonsense, when challenged, back to some ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and now 'tis Aries: He that's born under that sign has much cattle, much wooll, and to that a jolt-head, a brazen-face, and will be certainly a cuckold: There are many scholars, advocates, and horned beasts, come into the world under this sign. We praised our nativity-caster's pleasantness, and he went on then again: The whole Heaven is Taurus, and wonder it e'er bore foot-ball-players, herds-men, and such as can shift for themselves. Under Gemini are foaled coach-horses, oxen calved, great baubles, and such as can claw both sides are born. ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... look well ahead. At first I was too much horrified by what I considered his barbarities, too much puzzled by his shifting humours, and too frequently annoyed by his small vanities, to regard him otherwise than as the cross of my existence. It was only by degrees, in his rare hours of pleasantness, when he forgot (and made me forget) the weaknesses to which he was so prone, that he won me to a kind of unconsenting fondness. Lastly, the faults were all embraced in a more generous view; I saw them in their place, like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he comes all Beauty dies, And where he halts all Greenery fades. Pleasantness flies where'er he plies His ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... differently from what was anticipated. It is an infinitely higher and holier and happier thing than our childhood fancied. The world that lay before us then was but a tinsel toy to the world which our firm feet tread. We have entered into the undiscovered land. We have explored its ways of pleasantness, its depths of dole, its mountains of difficulty, its valleys of delight, and, behold! it is very good. Storms have swept fiercely, but they swept to purify. We have heard in its thunders the Voice that woke once the echoes of ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... as grey ribbed stockings and shining paste shoe-buckles, rusty velvet small-clothes and a coatee of blue cloth. But the wearer carried off this anomalous costume with an easy, condescending air, full of pleasantness, humour, and grace. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... sun, and talking about the things of God.... But they were far above, out of my reach; for their talk was about a new birth, the work of God on their hearts, also how they were convinced of their miserable state.... And methought they spake as if joy did make them speak; they spake with such pleasantness of Scripture language, and with such appearance of grace in all they said, that they were to me as if they had found a new world, as if they were people that dwelt alone, and were not to be reckoned ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... himself by the pleasure he gives, unless he knew that friendship admitted the pleasurable element? It would be impossible to say. But just as spurious and mock gold only imitates the brightness and glitter of real gold, so the flatterer seems to imitate the pleasantness and agreeableness of the real friend, and to exhibit himself ever merry and bright, contradicting and opposing nothing. We must not however on that account suspect all who praise as simple flatterers. For friendship requires praise ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... pleasantness of our trip for the first twenty-four hours. There were some officers, old friends, among the passengers. We had plenty of books. The gentlemen read aloud occasionally, admired the solitary magnificence of the scenery around us, ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... the isle, sadly lessened by the dispensation of justice, and not materially recruited by matrimony, began to fill his mind with sad mistrust. Some way the population must be increased. Now, from its possessing a little water, and its comparative pleasantness of aspect, Charles's Isle at this period was occasionally visited by foreign whalers. These His Majesty had always levied upon for port charges, thereby contributing to his revenue. But now he had additional designs. By insidious ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... with the affairs of his master, that nobody could expect any thing from him but what related to his ministry, and his profound capacity to manage the most knotty negotiations; yet all the weight of his employment diminished nothing of his inimitable pleasantness, which charmed his friends, and was agreeable even to those barbarous nations with whom that great man did treat. After the loss of him, which to me is irreparable, I could not address myself to any ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... Jerry inquired, with aggravating pleasantness. "It ain't my fault you're starving, and you got all night to cook what YOU want—after I'm done. I don't care if you bake a layer cake and freeze ice-cream. You can put your front feet in the trough and champ your swill; you can root and waller in it, for all of ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... you." Instead of returning a direct answer, "Would," said they, "we had never seen or known you! Several gentlemen have honoured us with their company before you; but never one of them had that comeliness, that sweetness, that pleasantness of humour, and that merit which you possess; we know not how to live without you." After they had spoken these words, they began to weep bitterly. "My dear ladies," said I, "have the kindness not to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... to attempt excursions among the country-towns and villages, their opinion would be wofully altered.—The forest of Feuillee extends about four leagues on each side of the road, between Rouen and Gournay. It adds little to the pleasantness of the ride: the trees are planted with regularity, and the side-branches are trimmed away almost to the very tops. Those therefore who expect overhanging branches, or the green-wood shade, in a French forest, will be sadly disappointed. On the contrary, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... starlit garden, with friends on all sides of her, it seemed an incredible thing that she had got to sow suspicion and discord. Trouble and sorrow seemed so remote, so utterly alien. Security and serenity had here their proper home; it was a place of pleasantness and friends and rest. She felt much inclined to yield to its influences, to put off the execution of her scheme, saying to herself that it was wiser to think over it again, and see if there was not, as surely there must be, some other possibility of detaching Daisy ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... pleasant fellow, seemingly of that negative pleasantness that lies in inoffensiveness, but otherwise dull and of an untutored mind—rustic, as might be expected in one the greater part of whose life had been spent in his native province, and of a rusticity rendered all the more flagrant by the very ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... and paradise of pain! Bodies and souls therein indeed are born again. I marvel at a house, whose pleasantness for aye Doth flourish, though the flames beneath it rage amain. A sojourn of delight to those who visit it It is; the pools on them their tears in ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... "Canarie-wine, which beareth the name of the islands from whence it is brought, is of some termed a sacke, with this adjunct, sweete; but yet very improperly, for it differeth not only from sacke in sweetness and pleasantness of taste, but also in colour and consistence, for it is not so white in colour as sack, nor so thin in substance; wherefore it is more nutritive than sack, and less penetrative." Via recta ad Vitam longum. 4to. 1622. In Howell's time, Canary ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... this love she spoke of never came to me. I tried to do my duty, and I endured all the hardships of my life in, I hope, a cheerful spirit. But the dry monotony of the studies had no element of pleasantness, and I used to wonder how Miss Susan could derive pleasure—as it was evident she did—from the exercise of her authority over those hapless scholars who had the misfortune to belong to her class. Day after day they heard ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... that men and women do so much to destroy the pleasantness of their days,' said she, interrupting him. 'It is a pity that there should be so ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... pail on my head. The people love to use the word Abu, [father] or Im, [mother]. They call a musquito Abu Fas, the father of an axe. The centipede is "Im Arba wa Arb-ain; "The mother of forty-four legs." The Arabic poet Hariri calls a table the "father of assembling;" bread, the "father of pleasantness;" a pie, "the mother of joyfulness," salt, "the father of help," soap the "father of softness;" Death is called by the Arab poets, "Father of the Living," because all the living are ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... then a fugitive to Holland. Lord Harrington, who had once acted as governor to the princess, and won her affection, was James Harrington's uncle, and she now cordially welcomed the young student of life for his uncle's sake, and for his own pleasantness of outward wit and inward gravity of thought. Harrington was taken with him by the exiled and plundered Prince Elector, when he paid a visit to the Court of Denmark, and he was intrusted afterward with the chief care of ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... the store, sweeping him, as she swept the counter, with her clear, cold glance, and once Sally Burwell ran in to do an errand for her mother and nodded with distant pleasantness as she met his eyes. At such times he flushed and ground his teeth, but after Mrs. Webb came farmer Turner, who ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... have prescribed so just a term of life that they would not suffer men to exceed it; and yet I have some intermissions, though short and inconstant, so clean and sound as to be little inferior to the health and pleasantness of my youth. I do not speak of vigour and sprightliness; 'tis not reason they should ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... sufferings have not been in vain," she modestly declared. "May the new light which you so readily notice in my face add to the pleasantness of our journey and the profit of our lives." Their conversation grew more and more pleasant as they passed through a long stretch of woodland. They could see beyond, them, and in the rear, the legions that were traveling the same path and in ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... across the prairie in the glorious morning air, the sunshine, the lowing of the cattle on the hills, and the songs of the birds in the trees along the Sweetwater had banished all depressing thoughts, and her mind dwelt on her love for Jack and the pleasantness of the lines in which her life ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... comply with these requests. I was in the gallery on Monday, and can testify to the pleasantness of the little installation, to the dexterity with which customers were led there, and to the grace with which the canvasser dipped the pen in the handsome silver inkstand. The county squire, the owner of racehorses, the undergraduate, and the Brixton spinster, are ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... rule, with Master Herbert, that he was not to go to the apple stand with her unless he had first put by a penny for a purchase. And so unflinchingly she adhered to this determination, that sometimes weeks went by—hard, weary weeks, without a bit of pleasantness for her; weeks of sore pining for a morsel of heart food—before she was free of her own conscience to go ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... of effusion and abandonment (then so full of pleasantness), had said more than once: "If I have any physical beauty, I owe it to the Queen, my mother; if my daughters have any beauty, they owe it to me: it is only fine ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... wise man has very justly singled out constancy and faithfulness as the principal; to these, others have added virtue, knowledge, discretion, equality in age and fortune, and, as Cicero calls it, morum comitas, a pleasantness ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... cropped its store Of succulent grass on many a mead and lawn; And strayed to distant uplands in the dawn. And she has had some dark experience Of graceless man's ingratitude; and hence Her ways have not been ways of pleasantness, Nor all her paths of peace. But her distress And grief she has lived past; your giddy round Disturbs her not, for she is learned profound In deep brahminical philosophy. She chews the cud of sweetest revery Above your worldly ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... me about the camp, and then we walked upon the surrounding hills overlooking the great city of white tents and sleeping soldiers. Very little was spoken between us, beyond a few words as to the pleasantness of the morning or similar casual observations. Lincoln seemed to be peculiarly serious, and his quiet, abstract way affected me also. It did not seem a time to speak. We walked slowly and quietly, meeting here and there a ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Pentland Hills against the south horizon, the idea that at death one dies utterly and is buried in the earth, were patterns cut from the stuff of reality. They were relevant to fate, typical of life, in a way that gayer things, like the song of girls or the field-checked pleasantness of plains or the dream of a soul's holiday in eternity, were not; And in the bitter eloquence of this pale woman she rapturously recognised ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... the Bible does not compare the Christian's path as one of hard labor. But Solomon says wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness and her paths are peace. Under the word transgressor are included all those that disobey their maker, or, in shorter words, the ungodly. Every person looking around him will see many who are transgressors and whose ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... her raciness—"when I talk of life I think I mean more than anything else the beautiful show of it, in its freshness, made by young persons of your age. So go on as you are. I see more and more how you are. You can't," he went so far as to say for pleasantness, "better it." ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... of their hearts Daphne and Barty squeezed each other's hand to express the joy and elation they felt at the pleasantness of everything. She was his little sister once more, from whom he had so long been parted, and they loved each other ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... unseasonable or uncourtly approach; she was never offended with the most impudent or importunate petitioner. Nor was there any thing in the whole course of her reign that more won the hearts of the people than this her wonderful facility, condescension, and the sweetness and pleasantness with which she entertained all ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... and, again, a word may be short and yet fail to tell exactly what we wish to say. The verse you copy is not a convincing example of the power of short words, although it shows that much may be done with them. Frequently a word is chosen for its rhythmic quality—the pleasantness and ease with which its sound fits in with the context—rather than because it is long or short. Mr. Longfellow's poem, "The Three Kings" published in the last Christmas number of ST. NICHOLAS, is an example of a fine poem in simple and rhythmical language, the study of which will improve your ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... before about the gates, it is not so easy as it looks to walk the broad road, nor so hard as it seems to tread the narrow one. For 'her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace'; and, on the other hand, licentiousness and liberty are not the same thing, and true freedom is not to do as you like, but to like to do as you ought. Besides, the path ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... carpenters called it "the pool hall". There were two long windows, like doors, opening upon the porch roof, and in the sloping ceiling were two dormer windows, one looking north to the timber claim and the other south toward Lovely Creek. Gladys at once felt a singular pleasantness about this chamber, empty and unplastered as it was. "What a lovely ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... the farm. Something that runs through everything, as you might say. The beasts do their work as well again, and the sun shines brighter, and the flowers bloom prettier, and there's a kind of a pleasantness about the place. I can't set it down to anything, any more than I know why the sky's blue, but it's there all the same. So I thought over it a deal, and one day I was up in the High field, and all of a sudden it rapped into my head what Grannie Dunch says about the brownie as used ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... lily-dotted lakes delight your eye; May shade-trees bid the heat of noonday cease; May soft winds blow the lotus-pollen nigh; May all your path be pleasantness and peace. ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... on to accompany Mrs. Ellison to the masquerade. Here, I must confess, the pleasantness of the place, the variety of the dresses, and the novelty of the thing, gave me much delight, and raised my fancy to the highest pitch. As I was entirely void of all suspicion, my mind threw off all reserve, and pleasure only filled my thoughts. Innocence, it is true, possessed my heart; ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... is only a kind somewhat more brilliant than that which I have called clear. By one kind we are made to understand, but by the other one we actually appear to see. But the kind of speaking which is agreeable, consists first of all of an elegance and pleasantness of sounding and sweet words, secondly, of a combination which has no harsh unions of words, nor any disjoined and open vowels, and it must also be bounded with limited periods, and in paragraphs easily to be pronounced, and full of likeness ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... assigned the first division of natural beauty to sound, which we distinguish from diction in that propriety and force of meaning are looked to in this; in sound it is the pleasantness or harshness that is regarded, flattering or offending the ear, or it is a kind of imitation of the subject-matter—sad things recited tearfully, excited rapidly, or harsh harshly. This is common enough in the spoken word; in writing, however, with which we are chiefly concerned here, it is ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... fortune would be something thrilling, but according to the old darky, it's to be the tamest of all. She said, 'I see a rising sun, and a row of lovahs, but I don't see you a-taking any of 'em, honey. Yo' ways am ways of pleasantness and all yo' paths am peace, but I'se powahful skeered dat you'se gwine to be an ole maid. I ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... can strike their coin anywhere, with only a wooden anvil, and their engraver is ready on the instant to make such change in the stamp as may record any new triumph. Consider the vigour, popularity, pleasantness of an art of coinage thus ductile to events, and easy ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... the old Rob back again at the first hint of trouble, the old Rob, with no trace of the laboured pleasantness of the past weeks, but with eyes full of faithful friendship. Peggy gave a gasp of relief, and clutched his ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... the last echo of his sultan's step has died away, and Starbuck, the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated, then Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along the planks, and, after a grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some touch of pleasantness, Dinner, Mr. Stubb, and descends the scuttle. The second Emir lounges about the rigging .. awhile, and then slightly shaking the main brace, to see whether it be all right with that important rope, he likewise takes up the old ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... his conquest of India, Alexander remembered the advice, and on his return journey from the Sea of India to the Sea of Oman, he stopped at Socotra, which he greatly admired for its fertility and the pleasantness of its climate. Acting on the advice of Aristotle, Alexander removed the inhabitants from their island, and established in their place a colony of Ionians, to whom he entrusted the care of cultivating aloes. These Greeks were converted when the Christian ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... from outside of theory, and his keen enjoyment of the unexplained facts of life. He did not pour himself out in every strife. We have but little of this negative capability. The ruddy qualities of delightfulness, of pleasantness, are all 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... inconsecutiveness of English conversation. He made now what he felt was quite a good hop, and he dropped his voice to a confidential undertone. (It was probably Adam in his first conversation with Eve, who discovered the pleasantness of dropping into a confidential undertone beside a pretty ear with a pretty ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... complete the pleasantness and enjoyment of the dessert, and serve, as it were, to satisfy pleasure. They are brought, while the table is still laid, in a handsome box on a salver, like those given by the ancients to be carried home.[1] Sometimes, also, they are handed round after the hands have been ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... woman come in time?" Upstairs I knew the matron bed Held her whose name confirms all joy To me; and tremblingly I said, "Ah! will it be a girl or boy?" And, soothed, my fluttering doubts began To sift the pleasantness of things; Developing the unshapen man, An eagle baffled of his wings; Considering, next, how fair the state And large the license that sublimes A nineteenth-century female fate— Sweet cause that thralls my liberal rhymes! And Chastities ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of poetry, then, in accomplishing this moral end lies in its pleasantness. The poet, says Sidney, in that most famous passage which ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... a life of privation, Peter Bines had been strangely happy. Rich and of consequence in a community where the ways were all of pleasantness and peace, Peter Bines became restless, discontented, and, at ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... imagine that by this speech Mrs. Rogers was greatly embarrassed. Dr. Priestley, observing this, instantly relieved her by saying, and with all that benevolent expression of countenance and pleasantness of manner for which he was remarkable, 'Well, well, Madam, you and I can be cordial; and Dr. Rogers will soon be with us, Mr. —— and he can converse together, so that we shall all be very comfortable.' ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... curious air, as of a highly transcendental Cremorne. There could be no doubt, however, that the Faithful were enjoying themselves amazingly—"right lucky fellows," as we read in the new translation of the Koran. Yet even here all was not peace and pleasantness, for I heard my name called by a small voice, in a tone of patient subdued querulousness. Looking hastily round, I with some difficulty recognized, in a green turban and silk gown to match, my old college tutor and professor of Arabic. Poor old Jones had been the best and the ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... to accumulate the necessary force for honest speaking at the expense of pleasantness. 'It was the telegram that began ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... quoted as though they were the utterance of the Bridegroom, but we believe erroneously. The bride says in effect, Thou callest me fair and pleasant, the fairness and pleasantness are Thine; I am but a wild flower, a lowly, scentless rose of Sharon (i.e. the autumn crocus), or a lily ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... He struggled up to air and life at last, with many gasps for breath, and once more clutched at the rocks behind him. It all seemed like the terror of a dream, not real and threatening. Was he to be drowned? Some sudden thought of the pleasantness of life, of dear friends across this same cruel, ravenous sea, of Uncle Richard and his warning, came to him here. To be drowned in this dark, chill, raging flood? Oh! no, no! Then he saw, out in the gloom and ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... The pleasantness of his humour, and the manner in which he had gained upon me, were sufficient to insure him a compliance with this request. I had the money in my pocket, gave it him, and we bade each other adieu; with a promise on his part that 'he would soon ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... about the place, as his father had left them to him. To the last Gervase would aim at keeping up the place, to his mother's drawing-room, his father's study, Miles's pantry and cellar, even the modern housekeeper's room, and the maids' gallery, in comfort and pleasantness. Only his own rooms—dining-room, smoking-room, bedroom—had been suffered to show traces of many a brawl and fray. It was as if he had deemed anything good enough for a scapegrace and beast like him, and thought to pay the whole price in his own person. It would not be with his will if ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... is far away yet. The glamour of the thing, its risk, its pleasantness, are over her as yet. Officers of the Mercantile Marine are not squeamish in a home port, nor are they scarce. Baby's rings are worth good money. The sordid bickerings of the trade are in the future, the callous ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... The ways of thieving were not ways of pleasantness. Oh, why had he an idiot brother? Oh, why, in general, was the world so constituted that a man could not take his mother's guineas comfortably? David became ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... to see the Strid again—not seen these many years. It is curious that life is embittered to me, now, by its former pleasantness; while you have of these same places painful recollections, but you could enjoy them ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... and pleasantness of living, there is nothing like a sojourn in a well-appointed country house, peopled by well-assorted guests. The guests at Millstead Manor were not perhaps particularly well-assorted; but nevertheless ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... every tone of his voice he was telling the son that he was a bastard, and the father that he was destroying the inheritance of the family. But yet they bore with him, and endeavoured to win him back to pleasantness. Soon after the cloth was taken away he took his leave. He had work to do at home, he said, and must go. His uncle went out with him into the hall, leaving Ralph alone in the parlour. "It will be for the best in the long run," said the Squire, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... Such as it is—you made it not, nor I; I mean to take it as it is—and you, Not so you'll take it—though you get naught else. I know the special kind of life I like, What suits the most my idiosyncrasy, Brings out the best of me and bears me fruit In power, peace, pleasantness and length of days. I find that positive belief does this For me, and unbelief, no whit of this. —For you, it does, however?—that, we'll try! 240 'T is clear, I cannot lead my life, at least, Induce the world to let me ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... old-time stage feasting his eyes at the halting-places along the southern shore. At any point between Babylon and the place at which we stand the scenery has the same general character—a picturesque pleasantness devoid of disturbing grandeur. However loudly the ocean may thunder upon the outer shore, the bay seldom changes its dimpling smiles for a rougher aspect, and never wears in wrath the scornful look of the outer deep. A strong wind may sometimes give ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... as if they conversed with each other. At the top of it was a golden image of a lion, and above the peak of the entrance another, golden too, of the Goddess Flora, carrying a cornucopia of flowers, to symbolise that this tent was a summer abode for pleasantness. ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... spring, the air pure and the temperature remarkably even. There is a story of a Mexican woman, who, settling in this part of the country, broke her thermometer because the mercury never moved and she therefore concluded that it was out of order. The pleasantness of the climate struck me particularly on one occasion, after a prolonged stay in the invigorating though windy climate of the sierra. I had caught a cold the night before, and was not feeling very well ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... that it would be injustice to communicate his ideas in any words but his own. "No other sort of abode," says he, "seems to contribute so much both to tranquillity of mind and indolence of body. The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of the smell, the verdure of plants, the clearness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking; but above all, the exemption from care and solicitude, seem equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... afternoon induced him to swagger forward to shake hands with me with a flash insolent leer on his face. I took pains to be especially nice to him, treating him with deference, and making remarks upon the extreme heat of the weather with such pleasantness that he was nonplussed, and looked relieved when able to escape. I smiled to myself, and apprehended no further ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... writings were altogether in a differing style and form; taking liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may call it) lawfulness of the phrase or word. And again, because the great labour then was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say, Execrabilis ista turba, quae non novit legem), for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... Up welled the swift unaccustomed tears, while the robin, with increasing enthusiasm, continued his song. His theme, doubtless, was of the flicker of sunlit shrubberies, the warmth of summer, the glory of spring, the sweetness of the revolving seasons. For cure of heart-ache, he suggested the pleasantness of garden nooks, and the repose that lingers about a dew-sprinkled lawn. All these things were warmly commended to the human being whose song of ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... hanging on the branches of the vines; on all sides discoveries were made of grain shut up, not in barns, but in subterranean vaults; and the trees were laden with fruit." These facilities of existence, the softness of the climate, the pleasantness of the places, the frequency of leisure, partly pleasure and partly care-for-nothingness, caused amongst the crusaders irregularity, license, indiscipline, carelessness, and often perils and reverses. The Turks profited thereby to make sallies, which threw the camp into ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a woman, oh how you would admire me! cry up every word I said, and screw your face into a submissive smile; as I have seen a dull gallant act wit, and counterfeit pleasantness, when he whispers to a great person in a play-house; smile, and look briskly, when the other answers, as if something of extraordinary had past betwixt them, when, heaven knows, there was nothing else but,—What a clock does your lordship think it is? And my lord's repartee is,—It is almost park-time: ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... did not look good-humoured or pleasant. There was that in his old eye which was the very opposite to good-humour and pleasantness. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... of two minds to be satisfied, is so apt to double itself again and again. The two so speedily become four, and six! And then there is the feeling that that kind of semi-poverty, which has in itself something of the pleasantness of independence, when it is borne by a man alone, entails the miseries of a draggle-tailed and querulous existence when it is imposed on a woman who has in her own home enjoyed the comforts of affluence. As ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... only been considering the use and pleasantness of iron in the common earth of clay. But there are three kinds of earth which in mixed mass and prevalent quantity, form the world. Those are, in common language, the earths of clay, of lime, and ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... he walked back to Reminitsky's to supper, Hal thought about this girl; not merely her pleasantness to the eye, so unexpected in this place of desolation, but her personality, which baffled him—the pain that seemed always just beneath the surface of her thoughts, the fierce pride which flashed out at the slightest suggestion of sympathy, ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... your back collar-stud, you don't take any notice of it. It's all a game. If a manager swindles you, he wins the hole and takes the honor. If you foil him, you are one up. In either case, it makes no difference to the pleasantness of your relations. You go on calling him by his first name, and he gives you a couple of cigars out of his waistcoat pocket and says you're a good kid. There is nothing personal in it. He has probably done his best friend out of a few thousand dollars the same morning, and you see them lunching ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... poetry is, with its praise of slaughter and its lament over death, there is much also of a gentle beauty, a childlike saying over of wind and wave and the brightness in the tops of green things, as a child counts over its toys. In the 'Song of Pleasant Things' there is no distinction between the pleasantness of sea-gulls playing, of summer and slow long days, of the heath when it is green, of a horse with a thick mane in a tangle, and of 'the word that utters the Trinity.' 'The beautiful I sang of, I will sing,' says Taliesin; and with him the seven senses become in symbol 'fire ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... early we pursu'd our Voyage, finding the Land to improve it self in Pleasantness and Richness of Soil. When we had gone about ten Miles, one of our Company tir'd, being not able to travel any farther; so we went forward, leaving the poor dejected Traveller with Tears in his Eyes, to return to Charles-Town, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... else but "the ways of death," and go down to the chambers of hell; that they will delude and deceive us, and so in end destroy us;—if we might once believe this with our heart, there were some hope that we would break off from them, and choose the untrodden paths of godliness, which are pleasantness and peace. However, this is the condition of all men, once to be under sin, and under a sentence of death for sin. It is the unbelief of this, and a conceit of freedom, that securely and certainly destroys the world, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of the pleasantness I call aesthesis; but the exulting, reverent, and grateful perception of it I call theoria. For this, and this only, is the full comprehension and contemplation of the beautiful as a gift of God, a gift not necessary to our being, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... approve, because, though soft and loose, have not the mellow feel above mentioned. For though they both handle soft and loose, yet we know that the one will make fat and the other will not; and in this lies the difficulty of the explanation. We clearly find a particular kindliness or pleasantness in the feel of the one much superior to the other, by which we immediately conclude that this will make fat, and the other not so fat; and in this a person of judgment, and in practice, ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... To add to the pleasantness of our situation, there have been gangs of women going about to rob and plunder. Miss Kirwans went on Friday afternoon to walk in the Museum gardens, and were stopped by a set of women, and robbed of all the money they had. The mob had proscribed the mews, for they said, "the king should not have ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... neighbors, she came to the conclusion that they had lost in sprightliness what they had gained in moral worth. Fink was rather profane, but very amusing; Anton had a certain equipoise of goodness and pleasantness; Baumann was the best of them all, but also the most silent. Her conversation with him, though edifying enough, was never exciting. On Mondays, indeed, they had a mutual interest in discussing the Sunday's sermon, but there was another ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the Green Shadows of Trees, waving to and fro with the Wind, and Herds of Deer among them in Miniature, leaping about upon the Wall. I must confess, the Novelty of such a Sight may be one occasion of its Pleasantness to the Imagination, but certainly the chief Reason is its near Resemblance to Nature, as it does not only, like other Pictures, give the Colour and Figure, but the Motion ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... laughed, and Elfride laughed, and Knight laughed, in the midst of which pleasantness a man shouted to them from some position between their heads and the sky, and they found they were close to the Juliet, into which ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... the exhaustion, but by the administration of them and the power,—you can direct the acts—command the energies—inform the ignorance—prolong the existence, of the whole human race; and how, even of worldly wisdom, which man employs faithfully, it is true, not only that her ways are pleasantness, but that her paths are peace; and that, for all the children of men, as well as for those to whom she is given, Length of days is in her right hand, as in her ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... literature are not certainly the paths of pleasantness or of peace even—so far as ever I heard. Somebody said you were going in ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... off the branches, and scattered all the leaves about, and it looks no better than a gallows tree. I am afeared,' said he, 'I tremble to think on it, but I am afeared our ways will no longer be ways of pleasantness, nor our paths, paths of peace; I am, indeed, I vow, Mr. Slick.' He looked so streaked and so chop-fallen, that I felt kinder sorry for him; I actilly thought he'd a boo-hoo'd ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... to us of the nineteenth century that we should care so much for him as to read yet another book? Nevertheless, Hamlet was moved because the tale was well told. There is matter in the earnestness, the pleasantness, the patriotism, and the tragedy of the man's life to move a reader still—if the story could only be written of him as it is felt! The difficulty lies in that, and not in the nature of ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... from this journey, I contemplated with great pleasure on the fruitfulness of that valley, and the pleasantness of the situation, the security from storms on that side of the water, and the wood; and concluded that I had pitched upon a place to fix my abode, which was by far the worst part of the country. Upon the whole, I began to consider of removing my habitation, and to look out for a place ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... way across the hall to the room on the opposite side—a large, well-appointed, and spotlessly-neat kitchen. Ellen could not help exclaiming at its pleasantness. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... in that state of mind when the pleasantness of a contemplated object excludes any inquiry whether it is true or false, good or evil; and, in spite of Paul's fatalism, she was satisfied that it was with Walter's own free will that he had done what he had ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... out of the window, breathing in the tonic smell of the oak leaves on the grass beneath her, and the freshness of the mountain air. Then, as she turned back to the white-walled raftered room with its bright fire, she was seized with the pleasantness of this place which was now her home. Insensibly it had captured her heart, and her senses. And who was it—what contriving brain—had designed and built it up, out of the rough and primitive dwelling it ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... been generally performed conscientiously. The heart of every worthy American woman is in her home. That home, with its manifold interests, is especially under her government. The good order, the convenience, the comfort, the pleasantness, the whole economy of the house, in short, depend in a very great measure on her. The food of the family is prepared by her, either directly or by close supervision. The clothing of the family passes through ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... throughout the free and cheery style of Copperfield. The masterpieces of Dickens's humour are not in it; but he has nowhere given such variety of play to his invention, and the book is unapproached among his writings for its completeness of effect and uniform pleasantness ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... every one that came to him, then it was that the whole multitude that had remained in the city, with their wives and children, came into the road, and waited for him there; and for those whom he passed by, they made all sorts of acclamations, on account of the joy they had to see him, and the pleasantness of his countenance, and styled him their Benefactor and Savior, and the only person who was worthy to be ruler of the city of Rome. And now the city was like a temple, full of garlands and sweet odors; nor was it easy ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... his work, he did not go on with alacrity, and of course made very slow progress. He ought to have gone rapidly forward, and not thought any thing about the pleasantness or unpleasantness of it, but only been anxious to finish the work, and please his father. Instead of that, he only lounged over it—looked at the heap of nails, and sighed to think how large it was. He could not sort all those, possibly, he said. ...
— Rollo at Work • Jacob Abbott
... presently assuring him, in all pleasantness, that the seed of Cain, descended through Ham, would, by reason of the curse of God, be a "servant of servants" unto the end; while Solon was assuring her, with equal good nature, that this scriptural law had been repealed by ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... is to be admitted that it is always well that a man should be agreeable. Pleasantness is always a pleasing thing. And a sensible man, seeking by honest means to make himself agreeable, will generally succeed in making himself agreeable to sensible men. But although there is an implied compliment, to your power, if not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... generalizing, even to herself, on the state of the family. The English comfort which she brought into the Limenian household was one element of peace; and her brisk, energetic habits produced an air of ease and pleasantness that did much to make home agreeable to her father, and removed many cares which oppressed her mother. To her, Mary was all the world-daughter, comforter, friend, and nurse, unfailing in deeds of love or words of cheer, and removing all sense of dreariness ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... personal adventure it was just as much in its place as in the evocation of great perspectives of feeling. For her, as he again perceived when they were seated at their table in a low window above the Seine, Paris was "Paris" by virtue of all its entertaining details, its endless ingenuities of pleasantness. Where else, for instance, could one find the dear little dishes of hors d'oeuvre, the symmetrically-laid anchovies and radishes, the thin golden shells of butter, or the wood strawberries and brown jars of cream that gave ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... still followed, unheedingly, the long, unbroken quay. He had left Paris behind him, and he was almost in the country; he was in the pleasant suburb of Auteuil. He stopped at last, looked around him without seeing or caring for its pleasantness, and then slowly turned and at a slower pace retraced his steps. When he came abreast of the fantastic embankment known as the Trocadero, he reflected, through his throbbing pain, that he was near Mrs. Tristram's dwelling, and that Mrs. Tristram, on particular occasions, ...
— The American • Henry James
... soon to intervene and try to undo her own work. She would watch and wait, and hope still that the infinite beauty and preciousness of a childlike faith would touch the stony heart that nothing had touched, and win back the wandering feet to the ways of pleasantness. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... [Capability of giving pleasure; cause or source of pleasure.] Pleasurableness. — N. pleasurableness, pleasantness, agreeableness &c. adj.; pleasure giving, jucundity[obs3], delectability; amusement &c. 840. attraction &c. (motive) 615; attractiveness, attractability[obs3]; invitingness &c. adj[obs3].; harm, fascination, enchantment, witchery, seduction, winning ways, amenity, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... which he had found pleasant and had filled with pleasantness for others, after an illness that was happily brief. He passed, in the words of that great physician, Sir Thomas Browne, "in drowsy approaches of sleep;... believing with those resolved Christians who, looking on the death of ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... regions, which combine facility of defence with pleasantness of climate, that the principal cities of the district have at all times been placed. The earliest known capital of the region was Pasargadae, or Persagadae, as the name is sometimes written, of which the ruins still exist near Murgab, in lat. 30 deg. 15' long. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... Bear-garden and the Swan Theatre, for instance, the artist has managed to throw over his minute plate a wonderful air of pleasantness, a light which, though very delicate, is very theatrical. The river and its tiny craft, the little gabled houses of the neighbourhood, with a garden or two dropped in, tell delightfully in the general effect. They are worthy to rank with Cruikshank's illustrations of Jack Sheppard and The Tower ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... great surprise, this climate and scene. I had expected chill skies and bleak shores: I found the perfect pleasantness of summer in the air, and a coast-scenery with which that of New England in general ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... were, joined together (whence I called it a chain) a hard bondage held me enthralled. But that new will which had begun to be in me, freely to serve Thee, and to wish to enjoy Thee, O God, the only assured pleasantness, was not yet able to overcome my former wilfulness, strengthened by age. Thus did my two wills, one new, and the other old, one carnal, the other spiritual, struggle within me; and by their discord, undid ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... the floor, sat the president of the society of United Irishmen. He alone was covered, and though plainly dressed, there was an air of high breeding and distinction about him; while in his bland smile were exhibited, the open physiognomy of pleasantness, and love-winning mildness, which still mark the descendants of the great Anglo-Norman Lords of the Pale, the Lords of Ormond, Orrery, and Arran, the Mount Garrets, and Kilkennys,—in former times, the great oligarchs of Ireland, ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... returned the latter, trying to speak with perfect pleasantness of tone and manner; "and he isn't one of the impatient ones, who can never bear to be kept waiting a minute, like myself," she added with a smile. "Now, Uncle Ben, drive pretty fast, so that we won't be so very ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley |
