"Blandness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The tone of stately blandness which Mrs. Howth erected as a shield between herself and "that class of people" was a study: a success; the resume of her experience in the combat that had devoured half her life, like that of other American house-keepers. "Be gentle, but let them ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... your servants can give the necessary information," replied the urbane official. If I had lost an umbrella he could not have viewed my plight with more inhuman blandness! ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... of the kind was that contracted by Goldsmith with Mr. afterward Sir Joshua Reynolds. The latter was now about forty years of age, a few years older than the poet, whom he charmed by the blandness and benignity of his manners, and the nobleness and generosity of his disposition, as much as he did by the graces of his pencil and the magic of his coloring. They were men of kindred genius, excelling in corresponding qualities of their several arts, for style in writing is what color ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... time, Cicily had come to a realization of the fact that the other women present were every whit as ignorant of parliamentary law as was she herself. So, in this emergency, she did not scruple to make audacious retort. She answered with exceeding blandness: ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... him, directly he had found it, as pompous and priggish; so much so that he was thankful to Chad for taking it only in the right spirit. The young man spoke so immensely to the point that the effect was practically of positive blandness. "Absolutely without reproach. A beautiful life. ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... fierce and lurid passions which he inherited from his nation and his clime, at all times but ill concealed beneath the blandness of craft and the coldness of philosophy, were released in the breast of the Egyptian. Rapidly one thought chased another; he saw before him an obstinate barrier to even a lawful alliance with Ione—the fellow-champion ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... suggested, indeed, a large blue-bottle slung securely in the subtle threads of a spider's web and reduced to torpid acquiescence by the spider's stealthy ministrations. He gazed with mildness, almost with blandness, upon the enchantress, as if some prodigy of nature overtopping all human power of comment had taken place before him. Then in a small, feeble voice he said: "Wass ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... this would happen," he said aloud with brazen blandness. "My poor old master made game of me for wearing black; but I always said I should be ready for ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... mellow "roaring" of the multitude of gentle doves commingling with the aeolian blandness of trees swinging under the weight of the restless birds, became once more an idealistic accompaniment to the book. I read, or rather declaimed inarticulately, to the singularly pleasing strain until light and sound failed—the one as softly and insensibly as the other. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... perceived only afterwards how adroit she had been. He properly perceived something else as well, which complicated his case; he shouldn't have known what to call it if he hadn't called it her really imprudent good-nature. Her blandness, in other words, was not mere policy—he wasn't dangerous enough for policy; it was the result, he could see, of her fairly liking him a little. From the moment she did that she herself became more interesting; and who knew what might happen ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... outraged simultaneously by this passionate burst of grief on the part of her young mistress. He had seen so many of these unprepossessing English waiting-women that he understood the state of her feelings as by instinct. He turned to her with all the blandness possible under the circumstances, and gave her an order which would call ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... parsimonious of ornament, gave ease, correctness, and graceful simplicity even to his most careless writings. In life, also, his tastes were delicate. Indifferent to the pleasures of the table, he relished the delights of music and harmony, of which he enlarged the instruments. His blandness of temper, his modesty, the benignity of his manners, made him the favorite of intelligent society; and, with healthy cheerfulness, he derived pleasure from books, from philosophy, from conversation,—now administering consolation to the sorrower, now indulging in light-hearted gayety. In his ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... the young galoot that's married the gal ain't worth shucks to anybody, and I wouldn't give it to a yaller pup to play with, but the Judge thinks you ought all to promise right here that you'll keep it dark. That's his opinion. Ez far as my opinion goes, gen'l'men," continued Bill, with greater blandness and apparent cordiality, "I wanter simply remark, in a keerless, offhand gin'ral way, that ef I ketch any God-forsaken, lop-eared, chuckle-headed blatherin' idjet ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... can be inimitably pungent, but he can never be simply playful. Addison was too condescending with his pretty pupils; but under Pope's courtesy there lurks contempt, and his smile has a disagreeable likeness to a sneer. If Addison's manner sometimes suggests the blandness of a don who classes women with the inferior beings unworthy of the Latin grammar, Pope suggests the brilliant wit whose contempt has a keener edge from his resentment against fine ladies blinded to his genius by his ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... courteously blank, and something in her was pleased to observe that he looked silly with his affectation of blandness. ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the valleys, the plateaux, the brushwood, the flower-patches, spreading away to the hills that swell afar until the peaks of the Atlas, cool with everlasting snow, close the view. One is tempted to linger there lovingly, though darkness is falling. There is a gift of blandness and briskness in the very breathing of the air. When you have had your fill of the beauties on the land side, turn to the sea, meet the evening breeze that comes floating up with a flavour of iodine ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... horses were sturdy brutes, not at all cruelly checked; but the saint could not rise superior to habit. Unfortunately she made the request with that blandly patronizing tone which in time becomes second nature to kindergartners. Its insinuating blandness ruffled our Jehu, who opined that his horses were all right, and that he could look after their comfort without any assistance. He did not say anything about old maids, but the air was surcharged with his unexpressed convictions, so ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... to the citizens if I pulled my wallet and settled the damage?" inquired the first selectman, with baleful blandness ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... as it obliged him to take his solitary tea and supper in the schoolroom. She consented, as she did to almost everything that I requested of her; and that afternoon I brought up to her the penitent hand-presser. Her natural good temper, and blandness of manner, soon put him again at his ease, and his love-speeches flowed as ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... 'eadache, Sir Isaac," said Mr. Snagsby with extreme blandness. "She asked me to acquaint you. She 'as ordered tea in ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... kindly prepossessing than the genial good-nature of some patriarchal German, who will condescend to forget his sixteen quarterings in the pleasure of doing you a favour,—yet these specimens of the suavity of their several nations are rare; whereas blandness and polish are common attributes with your Italian. They seem to have been immemorially handed down to him, from ancestors emulating the urbanity of Caesar, and refined by ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gold-laced cuff, trotted beside him, inquiring at the end of every quarter of a mile whether they were 'nearly there.' To these interrogations Mr. Bumble returned very brief and snappish replies; for the temporary blandness which gin-and-water awakens in some bosoms had by this time evaporated; and he ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... rich in cadence and sweet in rhythm; but that beauty must be for one alone. It cannot, like music, be shared with others. The best of friends may, as rivals, become the bitterest foes. Fernando did not like the Englishman, for, with all his blandness, he thought he could observe a pompous air and self-consciousness of superiority, disgusting to sensible persons. This might have been prejudice or the result of imagination, yet he realized that he was in the presence of an ambitious rival, who would ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... Mayor and all the Councillors rode down To give them greeting, while the blue-eyed team Drawn in Cobb's glittering chariot of pure gold Careered it from the station.—But the Mayor - Thou shouldst have seen the blandness of the man, And watched the effulgent and unspeakable smiles With which he beamed upon them. His beard, by nature tawny, was suffused With just so much of a most reverend grizzle That youth and age should kiss in't. I assure you He ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler |
