"Pleasing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arm through hers, happy at the thought of pleasing her. And he felt, besides, a great relief at seeing that she leant against him with the confidence of a friend. They were going to part and nothing would tarnish the pure memory of that day. It was a comforting impression, which nevertheless caused him a certain sadness. Duty fulfilled ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... that you will hear truth, child? Well, have your way. Will you join us, Nell—the business is a pleasing one, for these knaves have the tricks of their trade. But harkee, friends, give no real heed to ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... the general voice, and their eulogia established by the concurring suffrage of nations. The monuments of their genius, formed by their own hands, will perish only with the ruins of nature.—We shall only add, we are not aware that any one has been admitted which will not be pleasing to persons of every religious denomination, and which is not calculated to increase the spirit of piety, or of pure ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... ladies call the beau ideal of the melancholy Dane, dwells also on Nineteenth street. He has acquired a fortune, and is, without doubt, a frankly loyal gentleman. He could not well be otherwise from his membership in the Century Club where literature and loyalty, are never dissolved. Correct and pleasing without being powerful or brilliant, he has led a plain and appreciated career, and latterly, to his honor, has been awakening among dramatic authors some emulation by offering handsome compensations for original plays. Junius Brutus Booth, the oldest of them all, most resembles in feature ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... careful, above all, that you please Master Waller. He is a guest worth pleasing. He is a gentleman. ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... in the pit of despondence. He supported every one by his goodness, overset the designs of evil-minded men by his authority, tied the hand of oppression with the strong bandage of justice, and by these means expanded the pleasing appearance of happiness and joy over us. He reestablished justice and impartiality. We were during his government in the enjoyment of perfect happiness and ease, and many of us are thankful and satisfied. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... than any personal joy from the renewed friendship, we will have the smile of God on our life. We will know that we have done what is well pleasing in His sight. Sweeter than the peace which comes from being at one with men, is the peace which comes from being at one with God. It settles on the soul like the mist on the mountains, enveloping and enswathing it. It comes to our fevered life as a great calm. Over the broken waters there ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... said Gerard, pointing to a cottage recently built, and in a pleasing style. Its materials were of a fawn-coloured stone, common in the Mowbray quarries. A scarlet creeper clustered round one side of its ample porch; its windows were large, mullioned, and neatly latticed; it stood in the midst of a garden ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... a warning. The life of the apprentice to any art is both unstrained and pleasing; it is strewn with small successes in the midst of a career of failure, patiently supported; the heaviest scholar is conscious of a certain progress; and if he come not appreciably nearer to the art ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fears, their prospects, their pursuits, their rivalries; all these are now come to an end. One builds a house, and its roof is not finished; another buys merchandise, and it is not yet sold. And all their virtues and pleasing qualities which endeared them to their friends are, as far as this world is concerned, vanished. Where are they who were so active, so sanguine, so generous? the amiable, the modest, and the kind? We were told that they were ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... period I fell into a state of partial insensibility, during which the most pleasing images floated in my imagination; such as green trees, waving meadows of ripe grain, processions of dancing girls, troops of cavalry, and other phantasies. I now remember that, in all which passed before my mind's eye, motion was a predominant idea. Thus, I never fancied any stationary ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... castle," and, ni fallor, by the author of the picturesque description of Virginia Water, in the Magazine for September, last. As the whole article is much too long for our space, we have abridged it, taking care to retain the most characteristic portion of the writer's very pleasing reminiscences:— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... could the Doctor extract from him, and little the Doctor cared. He examined the throat of the convalescent carefully, idling over the hideous scar with the lingering, half-caressing fondness of a parent. It was not a particularly pleasing sight. An angry line circled the throat—for all the world as though the man had just escaped the hangman's noose—and, disappearing below the ear on either side, had the appearance of completing the fiery periphery at the ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... throne strengthened for the protection of the people, without trenching on their liberties, all foreign cabal banished, by changing the crown from elective to hereditary; and what was a matter of pleasing wonder, we have seen a reigning King, from an heroic love to his country, exerting himself with all the toil, the dexterity, the management, the intrigue, in favour of a family of strangers, with which ambitious men labour for the ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... business matters, the instigator, and scapegoat; but we know better than that nowadays. We put, 'Apply at the offices of the Company, such and such a number, such and such a street,' where the public find a staff of clerks in green caps, about as pleasing to behold ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... him; but he finds a mighty difference in his congregation when I and my daughters are out of the parish. But if he goes away, there they are all the same, or perhaps even more, to get a change from him. That will show which of us they care about pleasing." ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... second of these children, was born in Dorchester, now a part of Boston, Massachusetts, on the 15th of April, 1814. A member of his family gives a most pleasing and interesting picture, from his own recollections and from what his mother told him, of the childhood which was to develop into such rich maturity. The boy was rather delicate in organization, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... act, and one which was pleasing to the Mother of God, to whom the king was entirely devoted." He added, "that subjects were born for the king; and that, as he reigned upon earth as Heaven's vicegerent, he had a right to dispose of them according to his pleasure, ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... bairn!" she exclaimed, when she heard the tale, "the castle is a grand place to be sure, but I wish ye dinna a' desire to be back in the quiet braes of Glendearg before the play be played out." But this natural reflection, springing from maternal anxiety, was soon forgotten amid the busy and pleasing task of examining and admiring the new habitation ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... a pleasing and noble plan," applauded Najib when Kirby finished the divers ramifications of his discourse. "And I do not misdoubt but what that cruel general betrembled himself inside of his boots when they threatened to strike. If the stroking ones may not be lawfully attackled by the pashalik troops, ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... its existence not only has the Touring Club de France helped the tourist find his way about, but also has taken a leading part in the clearing away of the debris in many a moss-grown ruin and making of it a historical monument as pleasing to view as Jumieges on the Seine, or world-famed ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... his eager interest had been dashed with disappointment. But only slightly, as Watson could see; the man was of such culture and intellect as to have perfect control over his emotions. In his balance and poise he was very like Avec, and he had the same pleasing manner. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... endeavor she did not fail, but she failed signally in winning any recognition, and the ill-concealed importunity of her eyes hastened Graydon's departure with Madge, and gave time for the long interview described in the previous chapter. She grew cold with dread. It was the impulse of her self-pleasing nature to want that most which seemed the most denied, and she reasoned, "He is angry because Arnault is at my side as usual, in spite of all he said. He is determined to bring me to a decision, and won't approach me at Arnault's side. Yet I dare not openly ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... friend deny that the death of Jesus was wilfully incurred? The "orthodox" not merely admit, but maintain it. Their creed justifies it by the doctrine, that his death was a "sacrifice" so pleasing to God, as to expiate the sins of the world. This honestly meets the objections to self-destruction; for how better could life be used, than by laying it down for such a prize? But besides all other difficulties in the very idea of atonement, the orthodox creed startles us by ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... impossible, and ends in spiteful disappointment, sour grievance, cynicism, and misanthropic resistance to any attempt to better a hopeless world. The wise man knows that imagination is not only a means of pleasing himself and beguiling tedious hours with romances and fairy tales and fools' paradises (a quite defensible and delightful amusement when you know exactly what you are doing and where fancy ends and facts begin), ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... and where he died peaceably in 1836, when he was eighty-one years old. He is described as a tall, handsome man, of an erect figure and carriage, a fair complexion, and a most attractive countenance. "He had," his biographer tells us, "a soft, tremulous voice, very pleasing to the hearer, and laughing gray eyes that appeared to fascinate the beholder," except in his rare moments of anger, when their fiery glance would curdle the blood of those who had roused his wrath. He was above all the heroes of Ohio history, both ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... the bees were still at work, gathering new sweets from the late blooming flowers. Many baskets of ripe apples and choicest pears, many a bunch of grapes, with melons, found their way up the narrow stairs to the room of the Night-Hawks. There was a pleasing excitement in gathering the apples and pears under the windows of the unsuspecting people fast asleep, or in plucking the grapes from garden trellises at midnight. But people began ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... let us discuss the matter. What all-powerful charms have been bestowed upon her? Tell me how, by the least of her looks, she has acquired honour in the great art of pleasing? What is there in her person that can inspire such passion? What right of sway over all hearts has her beauty given her? She has some comeliness, some of the brilliancy of youth; we are all agreed upon that, and I do not gainsay it. But must we yield to her because we are her ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... the height of suffocating heat, the countenance of Djalma brightened, his bosom heaved, his half-opened lips drank in the grateful air, and he fell into a sleep only the more invincible, because it had been at first disturbed, and was now yielded to under the influence of a pleasing sensation. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... It is pleasing to trace the rewards[145] bestowed by Henry on his companions in arms at Agincourt, and the measures which he adopted to preserve their names from oblivion. With this view he doubtless caused a roll to be made recording their names; though only a transcript ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... the bridge from below is as pleasing as the top view is awful. The arch from beneath would seem to be about two feet in thickness. Some idea of the distance from the top to the bottom may be formed, from the fact, that as I stood on the bridge and my companion beneath, neither of us could speak sufficiently loud to be heard by the ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... to be, some time, a fine one, as it is so well situated; and they have good building material—a yellow brick, very pleasing to the eye. It seems to grow before you, and has indeed but just emerged from the thickets of oak and wild roses. A few steps will take you into the thickets, and certainly I never saw so many wild roses, or of so beautiful a red. Of ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... what cause and to what end she had dared so bold a venture. She besought his aid and blessing, and declared that the inward voice, which he had taught her to obey, gave her assurance that the purpose she had in hand was pleasing in the eyes of God and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in squeezing out their money. Go for the swell-fronts and south-exposure houses; the folks inside are just as good as other people, and the pleasantest, on the whole, to take care of. They must have somebody, and they like a gentleman best. Don't throw yourself away. You have a good presence and pleasing manners. You wear white linen by inherited instinct. You can pronounce the word view. You have all the elements of success; go and take it. Be polite and generous, but don't undervalue yourself. You will be useful, at any rate; you may just as well be happy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... back into the old time, and could see it all. The sound of the piano became mixed, as she sat half dozing, with the smell of the lilies of the valley which—according to a pleasing fiction of Dolly Wardle—that little person's doll had brought upstairs for her, keeping wide awake until she see 'em safe on the table in a mug. But the sound and the smell were of the essence of the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... ... "—pleasing was his shape, And lovely never since of serpent kind Lovelier; not those that in Illyria changed Hermione and Cadmus, nor ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... "It is pleasing indeed," replied the boy, for he ardently desired to see the famous artificer, his people, his furnaces, and his engines. "But let me first, I pray thee, see this our game brought to an end, for the boys await my return. After that I will follow ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant sons defended their religion and freedom above fourscore years, and at length capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect—a column in a scene of ruins—a pleasing example that the path of honor and safety may sometimes be the same." Vol. ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... out of his pocket a short clay pipe, blew through it, filled it, and began to smoke, while Phyllis sighed at the thought of the cool liquid gliding down her throat, and with the pleasing recollection gently stroked her stomach. Then Corydon spat, and ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... thou he for sake of pleasing Nanna Would e'er have deign'd to guard thee from destruction, If he had much regarded Hother's anger, And if thy love one ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... and other Government property; indeed, had he been so, as he had heard Jack observe that by doing so the war would be the sooner brought to a conclusion, he would have considered that he was doing what would be well pleasing to the colonel and ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... hold her ground, "there's watches, pop, and clocks that jew'lers sells. They're useful. We got to have watches and clocks. Millinery is only pleasing ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... and easily domesticated. Some of the species are favourite pets—on account of their pleasing manners, and the docility of their nature. The old males, however, scarcely deserve this reputation, as they will bite freely ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... tall, well-formed, and of great physical strength. His manners were pleasing, his conversation agreeable to a degree. Indeed, he had profited so well by the lessons of the excellent-hearted Father Marco, that his mind was well stored with intellectual wealth. He was, moreover, a finished musician, and played the violin, at that period a rare accomplishment, to perfection. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... travelled with Lord Tatham the day he had taken her to Green Cottage. The cottage where the yellow-haired girl lived lay beyond that nearer hill. Ah! but nobody spoke of that yellow-haired girl now. Nobody sent flowers or books. Nobody so much as mentioned her name. It was strange—but singularly pleasing. Felicia raised herself triumphantly on tiptoe, as though she would peer over the hill into the cottage; and so see for herself how the Signorina Penfold took this sudden and ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not, my son, that we are made poor: for thou hast much wealth, if thou fear God, and depart from all sin, and do that which is pleasing in ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... innocence of the blank page. They had never been married (so the illusion suggested). There had been no revelations. They met as strangers in their own house, at their own table. In support of this pleasing fiction he set about his courtship with infinite precautions. He found himself exaggerating Anne's distance and the lapse of intimacy. He made his way slowly, through all the recognised degrees, from mere acquaintance, through friendship to ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... to watch her. It was rather fascinating to see how that artful scrub-rag craftily closed in upon the soapy pool until it engulfed it. Tillie sat back on her knees to wring out the water-soaked rag. There was something pleasing in the sight. Tillie's blue calico was faded white in patches and at the knees it was dark with soapy water. Her shoes were turned up ludicrously at the toes, as scrub-women's shoes always are. Tillie's thin hair was ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... in the series, their reception would have been less favourable than that which it has experienced. It is more polished in its diction, and more regular in its versification; the story is constructed with infinitely more skill and address; there is a greater proportion of pleasing and tender passages, with much less antiquarian detail; and, upon the whole, a larger variety of characters, more artfully and judiciously contrasted. There is nothing so fine, perhaps, as the battle in Marmion, or so picturesque as some of the scattered sketches in the Lay; ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... which is by the side of the cathedral, has rather an amusing and pleasing aspect. In the middle is a pretty triangular fountain of the German Renaissance, which, besides having scepters, nymphs, angels, dolphins, and mermaids, serves as a pedestal to the Virgin Mary. This fountain was ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... sympathizing heart, and a placid spirit. Her presence, like the gentle dew and cheerful light, was felt by all around her. She gave an elevated character to the tone of conversation in the circles in which she moved, and directed attention to themes at once pleasing ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... native talent from its course Cannot be turned aside by force; But poorly apes the country clown The polish'd manners of the town. Their Maker chooses but a few With power of pleasing to imbue; Where wisely leave it we, the mass, Unlike a certain fabled ass, That thought to gain his master's blessing By jumping on him and caressing. 'What!' said the donkey in his heart; 'Ought it to be that ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... me under the particular care of his butler, who is a very prudent man, and, as well as the rest of his fellow-servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they have often heard their master talk of me as ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... promiscuously scattered a few clumps of trees that would have puzzled the most ingenious designer of pleasure-grounds to have arranged more agreeably. While we stopped to contemplate these several beauties of nature in a prospect no less pleasing than unexpected, we gathered some gooseberries and roses in a state ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... Switzerland, so long the final mark and aim of our exertions. We had looked, I know not wherefore, with hope and pleasing expectation on her congregation of hills and snowy crags, and opened our bosoms with renewed spirits to the icy Biz, which even at Midsummer used to come from the northern glacier laden with cold. Yet how could we nourish expectation of relief? Like ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... down with pleasing light Of art and science to the fight, O youth, and there untie The chains that heavy lie, Your spirit ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... is simply delicious, when we get away from the unozoned air of the land. The sky is cloudless, and the water sparkles like the top of a glass of champagne. We intend by and by to sit down and look at it for half a day, basking in the sunshine and pleasing ourselves with the shifting and dancing of the waves. Now we are busy running about from side to side to see the islands, Governor's, Castle, Long, Deer, and the others. When, at length, we find Fort Warren, it is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... lips rich in humour and pugnacity, 'lockes crull as they were layde in presse,' the same look of 'wonderly' activity too, in spite of his short stature and dainty make, as Chaucer lends his squire—the type was so fresh and pleasing that Robert was more and more held by it, especially when he discovered to his bewilderment that the supposed stripling must be from his talk a man quite as old as himself, an official besides, filling what was clearly some important ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Presently, however, this pleasing piece was interrupted. Suddenly there was a slight commotion, and a large powerful woman, whom I had noted as one of the most vigorous of the dancers, came, made mad and drunken with unholy excitement, bounding and staggering towards us, shrieking ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... nostrils. Turning his head, he espied ten and more red plum trees, over at Miao Y's in the Lung Ts'ui monastery. They were red like very rouge. And, reflecting the white colour of the snow, they showed off their beauty to such an extraordinary degree as to present a most pleasing sight. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... object of my surprise. Many curious and interesting facts are buried in oblivion: the three great historians of Rome have been transmitted to our hands in a mutilated state, and we are deprived of many pleasing compositions of the lyric, iambic, and dramatic poetry of the Greeks. Yet we should gratefully remember that the mischances of time and accident have spared the classic works to which the suffrage of antiquity had adjudged the first place of genius and glory; the teachers of ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... a coquettish prettiness that is quite common in France, in which air and manner are mingled with a certain sauciness of expression that is not easily described, but which, while it blends well enough with the style of the face, is rather pleasing than captivating. It marks the peculiar beauty of the grisette, who, with her little cap, hands stuck in the pockets of her apron, mincing walk, coquettish eye, and well-balanced head, is a creature perfectly sui generis. Such a girl is more like an actress imitating the character, than ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... tell you," she was saying—not offensively, though her voice seemed to imply that she had no time to waste in pleasing—"in all my dealings with them I've found it best to treat them ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... communion with God are careful to preserve their physical health. When one continues using a certain article of food and drink because it is pleasing to the taste, and yet hurtful to the body, he will soon by such selfishness destroy his spiritual life. "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Cor. 10:31. "But I keep under my body, ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... stage of its existence. Moreover, if the magical rite was formerly the universal practice we may well ask what induced the tribes which believe in its efficacy to adopt a new form of marriage. Ex hypothesi, it is pleasing to Mungan, or good against disease; knowing this, they have not hesitated to abolish group marriage, but apparently without incurring Mungan's wrath, or bringing ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... remember. Lady Tennyson is an invalid, and though nothing could be more gracious than her reception of us both, I fear it may have cost her an effort which she would not allow to betray itself. Mr. Hallam Tennyson and his wife, both of most pleasing presence and manners, did everything to make our stay agreeable. I saw the poet to the best advantage, under his own trees and walking over his own domain. He took delight in pointing out to me the finest and the rarest of his trees,—and there were many beauties among them. I ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... replied Timotheus. "And the god will let those fall into your hands who have sinned against your sacred majesty. Any punishment, even the severest, will be pleasing in his sight which you may inflict on those guilty of high-treason, for you wear the purple as his gift and in his name; those who insult you sin also against the god. I myself, with my small power, will help to bring the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the anato and chica derive its origin from the desire of pleasing, and the taste for ornament, so common among the most savage nations? or must we suppose it to be founded on the observation, that these colouring and oily matters with which the skin is plastered, preserve it from the sting of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... moment the King of the World is in contact with the thoughts of all the men who influence the lot and life of all humankind: with Kings, Czars, Khans, warlike leaders, High Priests, scientists and other strong men. He realizes all their thoughts and plans. If these be pleasing before God, the King of the World will invisibly help them; if they are unpleasant in the sight of God, the King will bring them to destruction. This power is given to Agharti by the mysterious science ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... The art of pleasing is more based on the art of seeming pleased than people think of, and she disarmed the prejudices of her enemies by the unaffected delight she appeared to take in themselves. You may think very ill of a woman, but ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... numbered few women among his imitators. The women of his day and country affected pleasing delineations of superficial motives, and Rembrandt's earnestness and intensity were seemingly above their appreciation—certainly far above their ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... connection between man and the rest of the animate creation is regarded by many as derogatory to our dignity. But we have already had to exchange the pleasing conceptions indulged in by poets and theologians as to the high position in the scale of being held by our early progenitors for humble and more lowly beginnings, the joint labours of the geologist and archaeologist ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... old brick church to the railroad station at West End. They were impressed with its inviting hills as the ideal situation for country residences. The excellent water from unlimited springs, the cool breezes and pleasing prospect from the hilltops overlooking hot and dusty Washington in the distance, persuaded them to make their homes in this ideal place. At that time the railroad facilities to Washington were most unpromising. The coaches were little better than the present freight ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart
... for they are written with different views, and in a variety of style greater than he has elsewhere shown; but most of them contain touches of what is peculiar in his talent, and are full of that rich eloquence and of those pleasing descriptions of natural scenery which always flow so easily from his pen. They have little in common with the graceful story-telling spirit of Boccaccio and his followers, and still less with the strictly ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... secure, he gave a promise to build one—felt a twinge of compunction, and a glow of generosity, but blushed hotly when Mr. Craik observed that the old church, being put in decent repair, and chiefly used for marriages and for the burial service, it might, perhaps be a pleasing testimony, a filial act, to dedicate the new one to St. Elizabeth, "Simply in reverend recollection, you know, Melcombe, of that having been—been your ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Picardy a century and a half ago. And the Picard has very little, except his religion, in common with the Irish Celt. But the sentiment of this simple and pleasing little ditty glowed deep in the Picard heart long before the Revolution of 1789. The 'earth hunger,' which has given the act of 'land-grabbing' the first place in the category of human crimes, invented, long ago in Picardy, and especially in that part of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... now very extensive and clearly defined and its shape reminded one of a mulberry leaf. It was suddenly covered with coarse grass, pleasing to the flocks, and with willows, ancient figtrees, and mighty oaks. This fact is attested by the Venerable Bede and several other ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... kangaroo dogs that can be taught to show game, and those that do so are therefore highly prized. It is a very pleasing sight to observe how proud a dog is of this accomplishment. He will come quietly back to his master, and oftentimes lay himself down as if he were afraid the other dogs should suspect he had got something to tell, and would run off in search of it. And when his master gives the signal, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... an ebbing tide that left Strewn with dead miracle those eldest shores, 420 For men to dry, and dryly lecture on, Thyself thenceforth incapable of flood? Idle who hopes with prophets to be snatched By virtue in their mantles left below; Shall the soul live on other men's report, Herself a pleasing fable of herself? Man cannot be God's outlaw if he would, Nor so abscond him in the caves of sense But Nature stall shall search some crevice out With messages of splendor from that Source 430 Which, dive he, soar he, baffles still and lures. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... can nearly always supply them. There is reason to hope that this will not be the case much longer. As the mysteries and superstitions environing the orchid are dispersed, our small and select throng of buyers will be swamped, no doubt; and if a certain pleasing feature of the business be lost, all who love the flower and their fellow-men alike ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... style, which bears some relation to the domestic Gothic or English Elizabethan architecture. Whatever may be said against the abuses of the artificial landscape—gardening, a mixture of pure art in a garden scene adds to it a great beauty. This is partly pleasing to the eye, by the show of order and design, and partly moral. A terrace, with an old moss—covered balustrade, calls up at once to the eye the fair forms that have passed there in other days. The slightest exhibition of art is an evidence of care ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... his journey Sundown had enjoyed the pleasing local flavor of the morning and his imaginings. The vinegar, which was to represent "hard luck," had not as yet been added to ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... spirit, and hardly knowing whether what she had heard should make her glad or sorry, leaned back against the door-post, and carelessly listened to the voice, as it came nearer and nearer. In a minute the words fell with pleasing distinctness ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... darkness—who trembles at day-light, and whose throne rests upon ignorance and despotism. Compare this mild, peaceful intellectual policy, with the dreadful, savage alternative of going to war, and the difference must surely be evident to everyone. In the former case, we calmly enjoy, first of all, the pleasing reflection, that our country is generously imparting to the nations of Europe the blessing she is tranquilly deriving from the purification of civilization to her own mind;—far from wishing to exterminate, we are gradually illuminating ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... conscious of the female image of himself by her exquisite unlikeness. She completed him, added the softer lines wanting to his portrait before the world. He had wooed her rageingly; he courted her becomingly; with the manly self-possession enlivened by watchful tact which is pleasing to girls. He never seemed to undervalue himself in valuing her: a secret priceless in the courtship of young women that have heads; the lover doubles their sense of personal worth through not forfeiting his own. Those were proud and happy days when he rode Black Norman over to Upton Park, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the aspect which things thus wore for ourselves was in one respect quite illusory. They may say that the idyllic contentment which we thus attributed to the cottagers was the very reverse of the truth, and that the thatch of their dwellings, however pleasing to the eye, really shrouded a misery to which history shows few parallels. Such an objection, even if correct, would, however, be here irrelevant; for I am dealing now not with things as they actually were, but merely with the ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... deep red-coloured cliffs that form the projecting heads of the coast; the wood near the sea had not the appearance of being of large growth; but the abundance and the verdure of the trees gave this part a pleasing and picturesque character. At the bottom of the opening was a remarkable flat-topped hill under which the waters of the inlet appeared to flow in a south-east direction. The entrance may possibly form a convenient port, for ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... recommendation of its name. After Curacoa there are many others liqueurs, of every gradation of strength and flavor, with which an expert winebibber can indulge in every style of intoxication, slight, heavy, noisy, or stupid, and whereby he can dispose his brain to see the world in the manner most pleasing to his humor, much as one would do with an optical instrument by changing the color of ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... made every inquiry for Emily and the little boy, but could not trace in what direction they had gone. It was remarkable that all the information she obtained about the wreck of the Royal George was from her cousin, and he seems thoroughly to have won her confidence by his apparently frank and pleasing manners.'" ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... furniture or books, all the amusement is to be found either out of doors, or in large parties in the house; and the unostentatious hospitality which exists in this and some other of the old families, is a pleasing remnant of Spanish manners and habits, now falling into disuse, and succeeded by more pretension to refinement, and less of either real ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... was the place where Joyce had brought her to select her Christmas present, and there inside the window was the pleasant saleswoman who had sold them to her. She had been so nice and friendly and seemed to take such an interest in pleasing them that Joyce had spoken ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... hope that there was "something in" its having been left to crop up with such suddenness. There seemed somehow a possibility that the ground or, as it were, the air might, in a manner, have undergone some pleasing preparation; though the question of this possibility would probably, after all, have taken some threshing out. The truth, moreover—and there they were, already, our pair, talking about it, the "truth!"—had not in fact quite ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... up his shoulders. "They say, the Mennonites," he made answer, "that all pleasing of self is contrary unto God's Word. I must do nothing that pleases me. Are there two dishes for my dinner? I like this, I like not that. Good! I take that I love not. Elsewise, I please me. A Christian man must not please ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... Her entertainments were, one might say, superb. She delighted in masked balls, and it was her pleasure to move in the crowd of guests, masked, without being recognized. As her wish in this was made known to her guests, the pleasing illusion was kept up till the hour for ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... raised to aesthetic expression and that none need of necessity be so raised, is an idea which presents itself only when all the other ways out of the difficulty have been tried. But whoso imagines that the aesthetic fact is something pleasing to the eyes or to the hearing, has no line of defence against him who proceeds logically to identify the beautiful with the pleasurable in general, and includes cooking in Aesthetic, or, as some positivist has done, the ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... information concerning cowboy life, but at the same time seem to breathe the adventurous spirit that lives in the clear air of the wide plains, and lofty mountain ranges of the Wild West. These tales are written in a vein calculated to delight the heart of every lad who loves to read of pleasing adventure in the open; yet at the same time the most careful parent need not hesitate to place them in the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... laid beside her mother. Many said that Hugh buried his heart with Jennie and had not been the same man since. He was reserved, except to one or two intimate friends. Shaggy, beetle-browed and unshaven, his looks were anything but pleasing to those who did not fully ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... time the predominant business of the Jews was trade.... At this period too we encounter the peculiar antipathy of the Occidentals touards this so thoroughly Oriental race and their foreign opinions and customs. This Judaism, although not the most pleasing feature in the nowhere pleasing picture of the mixture of nations which then prevailed, was, nevertheless, an historical element developing itself in the natural course of things,... which Caesar just like his predecessor Alexander fostered as far as possible....They did not, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... non-existent if Science had its full way. If gold, silver and other precious minerals could be "picked up" as on the fabled Tom Tiddler's ground, by a ray of light, then the striving for wealth would cease and work would be reduced to a minimum. The prospect was stupendous, but hardly entirely pleasing. If there were no need for effort, then the powers of mind and ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... contemplation because he had been trained to look for it; and Henry had found sorrow because he had been overwhelmed by the suddenness of the revelation and his men unpreparedness. Sir John adds that it is difficult to know which of the two lives would be more pleasing ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... nobody alone, seemed to find it natural enough to submit to it. The boy, Leonard, was good looking, though insignificant of feature, and stiff in manner. The girl, Rosa, fair-haired, with pretty blue eyes, gentle and affectionate, would have been pleasing especially with the freshness of her delicate complexion, and her kind manner, had her nose not been quite so large or so awkwardly placed; it made her face heavy and gave her a foolish expression. She was like a girl of Holbein, in the gallery at Basle—the daughter ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... the needful volcanic and glacial action) may be such as are dismissed or slurred as fast as possible. Indeed, with the exception of a very few cubes not in themselves especially attractive, I cannot remember any things which do not present quite as many displeasing aspects as pleasing ones. The most beautiful building is not beautiful if stood on its head; the most beautiful picture is not beautiful looked at through a microscope or from too far off; the most beautiful melody is not beautiful if begun at the wrong end. . . . Here the Reader ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... "Corinne," which she had read as a girl. She read all the sentimental love stories it was possible to collect, and her thoughts wandered among tender adventures in which she always figured as the heroine. Her new home was infinitely pleasing to her because it formed such a beautiful framework for the romance of her soul, the surrounding woods, the waste land, and the proximity of the ocean recalling to her mind the novels of Sir Walter Scott, which she had been devouring for some months. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... for every sacrifice, if only they could be brought to play their part in the life of his time.... As the wine and food took effect, all three men were in high spirits, and soon were roaring with laughter at the immense joke in which they all shared, the joke of pleasing the British public. ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... in pleasing talk and lively observations, were come within about a mile of Mrs. Teachum's house, and within view of a nobleman's fine seat, Miss Jenny said, that the next time their governess permitted them to walk ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... great care, and dressed herself in such colors as were pleasing to him, arranging her hair in the way that he had so often praised. The fire diffused a cheerful glow round the comfortable apartment. Annie seated herself by the window, momentarily expecting his arrival. ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... herself? And unless you want her to be that horror of horrors, a strong-minded woman, do you think you can strip her for three months of all her gewgaws and still have her filled with the proper desire to be pleasing in your eyes? No; better let her have the hat pins—and you know they really are useful—and then she will dress up to those hat pins, if it is only with a fresh neck ribbon and a daisy ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... late author, however, observes, that the French do not appear to have imitated any school whatever, but to have adopted a style peculiar to themselves, which though perhaps not a noble one, is nevertheless pleasing. Though it is acknowledged that the French have a particular style, (i.e. a style of their own,) yet their progress in the arts has been exceedingly fluctuating and uncertain, so that it is actually impossible to ascertain who was the first reputable artist amongst them. Cousin was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... neck of the melancholy stag's head in the dining-room. It graced him like a red and white dinner bib for days before the event, causing the Herr Professor to bow before it and say "good appetite" until we sickened of his pleasantry and left the smiling to be done by the waiter, who was paid to be pleasing to ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... offered a seat in a double gig to Baltimore, but the driver, who had become intoxicated, overturned the gig twice, when Scott took the reins and drove the latter part of the journey. On his arrival at Baltimore he received the pleasing intelligence that he had been appointed a lieutenant colonel in the United States army. He was then ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... on the walls of the dining-room Pierre espied various religious prints, and notably a view of the Grotto, which surprised him; in all probability, however, the hairdresser only hung these engravings there during the pilgrimage season by way of pleasing ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... mentioned, a book she longed for, materials for work, besides flowers and fruit and sweets in unlimited quantities. Beth remonstrated, but Bertha begged Beth not to deprive her of the one pleasure she had in life just then, the pleasure of pleasing Beth, and of acknowledging what she never could repay but dearly appreciated—Beth's sisterly sympathy, her consistent kindness! Such sayings were tinged with sadness, which made Beth suspect that Bertha had some secret ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... thoughts are so well connected, and so systematically arranged, that to read a single page, is to insure a close study of the whole volume. We would not study him for his style, for although fair, it is not pleasing; we can not glide over his pages in thoughtless ease; but then, at the close of almost every paragraph, one must ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... well-mannered, and a little, I might say, melancholic in disposition. Though still under forty, he is surfeited with praise. As for his stories, they are—how shall I put it?—pleasing, full of talent, but if you have read Tolstoi or Zola ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... intended his readers to draw their own conclusion, which is so far his, as to the relative quality of the two great classics. Some critics contend that a less literal translation of the "Agamemnon" would have been not only more pleasing, but more true; but Mr. Browning clearly thought otherwise. Had he not, he would certainly have given his author the benefit of the larger interpretation; and his principal motive for this indirect defence ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... from afar, each dim discover'd scene More pleasing seems than all the past hath been; And every form, that Fancy can repair From ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... him from playing his pasquinades every night at the Vaudeville. He makes fun of his ugliness, of his age, of the fact that he is pitted with small-pox—laughs at all those things that prevented him from pleasing the woman he loved, and makes the public laugh—and his heart is broken. Poor red queue! What eternal and incurable sorrows there be in the gaiety of a buffoon! What a lugubrious ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... Rutherford and his companions spent the evening seated around a large fire, while several of the women, whose countenances he describes as pleasing, amused themselves by playing with the fingers of the strangers, sometimes opening their shirts at the breasts, and at other times feeling the calves of their legs, "which made us think," says Rutherford, "that they were examining us to see if ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... it would be pleasing to God if they should burn them; nothing escaped, not even the works of Cicero. The gobernadorcillo was no ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... dignity and moral courage as I thought he had. He should be content to see his wife and daughters respected for neatness, good taste, and attractive manners.' 'This all sounds very well in talk,' replied the lady; 'but, say what you will about pleasing and intelligent girls, nobody will attend to them unless they dress in the fashion. If my daughters were to dress in the plain, neat style you recommend, they would see all their acquaintance asked to dance more frequently than themselves, and not a gentleman ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... had ever seen. In the streets a few Portuguese, magnificently dressed and escorted by guards, moved among a throng of gaily attired natives; whose slight figures, upright carriage, and intelligent faces struck the boys as most pleasing, after their experience of the islanders of the South Seas. The immense variety of turbans and headgear greatly astonished them, as well as the magnificence of the dresses of some of these, who appeared to be ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... Hymen Spring; Hymen, while not the god of husbandry, was the accepted deity of marriage; hence Spring, the incorrigible match-maker, may very, easily be identified with Hymen. Note the pleasing alliteration of the words Hymen and hymning brought so ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... were beautifully ornamented with cocoanut plait, so arranged as to give the appearance of Grecian mouldings, of infinite variety and delicate gradations of colour—black, with the different shades of red and yellow, being those employed. Altogether the effect was very artistic and pleasing. ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... wherewith ordinary mortals hide their nullity. If his attire was simple, it but set off the better the play of his mobile features, and the rich, unfailing flow of his conversation. Perhaps no clearer and more pleasing account of his appearance and his conduct at a reception has ever been given to the world than this sketch of the great man in one of his gentler moods by John Leslie Foster, who visited Paris shortly after the Peace ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. The words are written with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not unusual pattern. You will observe that the paper is torn away at the side here after the printing was ...
— The Adventure of the Red Circle • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the general's friends no one possessed the confidence of Othello more entirely than Cassio. Michael Cassio was a young soldier, a Florentine, gay, amorous, and of pleasing address, favourite qualities with women; he was handsome and eloquent, and exactly such a person as might alarm the jealousy of a man advanced in years (as Othello in some measure was), who had married ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... India-ink—black houses, black passengers, and black sky. Here, on the contrary, is a thousand times more life and color. Before you, shining in the sun, is a long glistening line of GUTTER,—not a very pleasing object in a city, but in a picture invaluable. On each side are houses of all dimensions and hues; some but of one story; some as high as the tower of Babel. From these the haberdashers (and this is their favorite street) ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Captain Brocq had been on intimate terms with this intoxicating young person, who answered to the nickname "Bobinette." Her features, though irregular, were pleasing. Sprung from the people, Bobinette had tried to remedy this by becoming a past mistress of postures, of attitudes. Like others of her kind, from her very childhood she had learned to adapt herself to whatever company she was in, picking up almost intuitively those shades of taste, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... mere moral sense, varying according to education, circumstances, and physical constitution? But even the moral sense in the most virtuous of men may be swept away by a fever. Such at the time I now speak of were the views I held,—views certainly not original nor pleasing; but I cherished them with as fond a tenacity as if they had been consolatory truths of which I was the first discoverer. I was intolerant to those who maintained opposite doctrines,—despised them as irrational, or disliked them as insincere. ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... must be conceived and executed for that purpose. Wrongs must first be righted and then adequate safeguards must be created to prevent their being committed again. We ought not to consider remedies merely because they have a pleasing and sonorous sound. Practical questions can be settled only by practical means. Phrases will not accomplish the result. Effective readjustments will; and whatever readjustments are ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... decoration, and if it was still kept playing, as it was some years ago, 'twould preserve its name with more propriety." In his remarks on the chapel the guide observes, "The raising this chapel on pillars affords a pleasing, melancholy walk underneath, and by night, particularly, when illuminated by the lamps, it has an effect that may be felt, but not described." Of the gardens Mr. Ralph could not speak in high praise, for they were ill-arranged and not so carefully kept as the square; but he ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... a neighboring cook shop. For Festival days, if Malka had subsidized them with a half-sovereign, Esther sometimes compounded Tzimmus, a dainty blend of carrots, pudding and potatoes. She was prepared to write an essay on Tzimmus as a gastronomic ideal. There were other pleasing Polish combinations which were baked for twopence by the local bakers. Tabechas, or stuffed entrails, and liver, lights or milt were good substitutes for meat. A favorite soup was Borsch, which was made with beet-root, fat taking the place of ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill |
