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Pleasing   Listen
noun
Pleasing  n.  An object of pleasure. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pleasing" Quotes from Famous Books



... absorption. Her face was hidden from view, and all that could be seen was a trim little figure in a trim white gown, a pair of trim little feet, a sleek brown head, and a well-rounded cheek. No one could deny that it was a pleasing figure, but the lordly stranger was too much ruffled in his feelings to be influenced by appearances. His manner was perhaps a trifle less haughty than it would have been, had the thief taken the shape ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... some particularly pleasing toy Georgina would trot off happily to find it; but to-day she stood with her face drawn into a rebellious pucker and scowled at her mother savagely. Then throwing herself down on the rug she began kicking her blue ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... at beauty in the costumes of the masqueraders. Here and there some girl achieved a novel and pleasing effect; but on the whole they strove for cheaper and more stirring things in the line ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand

... bread and meat: better than any collegiate diet that I have known in Europe. We had also drink of three sorts, all wholesome and good; wine of the grape; a drink of grain, such as is with us our ale, but more clear; and a kind of cider made of a fruit of that country; a wonderful pleasing and refreshing drink. Besides, there were brought in to us great store of those scarlet oranges for our sick; which (they said) were an assured remedy for sickness taken at sea. There was given us also a box of small grey or whitish pills, which they wished ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... with pleasing excitement, "there is a young lady coming here to visit me next week. Her name is Miss Lucille Delany, and she is my ideal woman. She is grand, brave, ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... mind. When you understand why certain foods are valuable in diet and are able to prepare them skilfully, you may learn to enjoy them. To discover that foods which you previously considered commonplace and uninteresting are tasty, is really a pleasing experience. ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer

... a most pleasing tableau, and represents the good angel, in whose existence and controlling power there is scarce any one so rude as not to believe, attending a young boy, who looks reverently upward, to heed the admonitions of his celestial companion. The lady who personates ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... well-made, manly looking boy, not tall for his years, which were fourteen, but in such good proportion as to give promise of growing into a strong and vigorous man. His face was intended by nature to be a very pleasing one. The features were all good; there was nobility in the broad forehead, and candour in the bright dark eyes, and—sometimes—sweetness in the mouth. But this "sometimes" had for long been becoming of less and less frequent ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth

... he said with an evil sneer, "meseems that explanations had best come from you. Here," he added, pointing significantly at the cards which he had just dropped out of his own hand, "here is a vastly pleasing collection ... aces and kings ... passing serviceable in a quiet ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... sample of the kind of receptions which were henceforth to await Burns wherever his coming was known. If such welcomes were pleasing to his ambition, they must have been trying both to his bodily and ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... during the latter half of a week of good news. First, Mr. Thomas Redworth was returned to Parliament by a stout majority for the Borough of Orrybridge: the Hon. Percy Dacier delivered a brilliant speech in the House of Commons, necessarily pleasing to his uncle: Lord Larrian obtained the command of the Rock: the house of The Crossways was let to a tenant approved by Mr. Braddock: Diana received the opening proof-sheets of her little volume, and an instalment of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... in many respects a remarkable man, and came near to being a great one. His name originally was Lorenzo Smith, to which in later years he added that of Desborough—partly for euphony, partly because the initials made to his mind a pleasing combination, partly also in pursuance of his theory of life, that he best succeeds who makes others work for him. By annexing the Desborough patronymic—which, however, he tactfully spelled Desboro', to avoid conflict with the family prejudices—he added, at the ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... working, careful man—should have all these feelings; but I will tell you wherefore such as I sometimes have them, nurse them, brood on them, more than you lords and gentlemen, with all your graceful arts in pleasing. We know no light loves! no brief distractions to the one arch passion! We sober sons of the stall and the ware are no general gallants,—we love plainly, we love but once, and we love heartily. But who knows not the proverb, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... in commenting on this subject, was wont to observe that everything in life, no matter how small, afforded matter of thought to philosophical men. He had himself found a pleasing subject of study each morning in the fact that some of the pipes survived the fall of the previous night. This led him to consider the nature of clay pipes in general, and to test them in various ways. It is true he did not say ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... it. Just as it carries our sight instantaneously to the object of vision, so without the least interval, with a rapidity that thought can not conceive, it receives these rays of light in its uttermost limits. With light the ether becomes more pleasing and the waters more limpid. These last, not content with receiving its splendor, return it by the reflection of light and in all directions send forth quivering flashes. The divine word gives every object a more cheerful and a more attractive appearance, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... of lovers and friends, well known to each other by public report and familiar description, yet never seen in the flesh till now, and of others long parted by distance and by misconception of aims and motives. But however pleasing it might be to dwell at length upon the details of such a meeting, and its delightful contrast to the horrors of unsparing war and merciless destruction, there is now no space to do so, for the original limits of this history of the near future have ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... religious import; the decoration is even carried into a remarkable series of hidden passages and chambers or crypts made in the solid walls for the reception of its most valuable treasures. The architectural style is dignified and pleasing in design and proportions. The interior of the building has been completely cleared: from the outside, however, its imposing effect is quite lost, owing to the mounds of rubbish amongst which it is sunk. North-east of the entrance is a "Birth House" for the cult of the child Harsemteu, and behind ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... fine Shakespearean temper when I carried her off up-stairs. Reserves were impossible between us; her right to any privacy in her own affairs had been given away from the start; that was one of the pleasing features ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... enables this art of sounds to move in sympathy with our feelings. I have no wish to go into detailed analysis of the subject; but a superficial survey of it may clear up certain points with regard to the potency of music that we are too often willing to refer back to the mere pleasing physical sensations ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... Besso, which was of great extent, appeared to be built in their midst. No other roof or building was in any direction visible, yet the house was truly in the middle of the city, and the umbrageous plane trees alone produced that illimitable air which is always so pleasing and effective. The house, though lofty for an eastern mansion, was only one story in height, yet its front was covered with an external and double staircase. This, after a promenade in the garden, the guests ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... 1431 this tower replaced the original one which fell in the earthquake of 1405. It is conjecturally similar, a heavy rectangle which quite overweighs the church; plain, with its stiff pilasters and two stories of rounded windows; without grace or proper proportion, but pleasing by the unblemished severity of its lines. Above the balustrade with which the tower may be properly said to terminate, the religious art of the XIX century has erected as its contribution to the Cathedral ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose

... is kept by the man whose name it bears; it is a rambling ill-built, but withal pleasing-looking edifice, built chiefly of weather-board and shingle, with a verandah all round. The whole is painted white, and whilst at some distance from it a passing ray of sunshine gave it a most peculiar effect. In front of the principal entrance is a thundering ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey

... to ride since childhood," she replied rather shortly, and I was conscious of a restraint in her manner far from pleasing. Yet I ventured upon one more ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... muslins and uncovered heads for the women, and white linen garb for the men, are the rule in church, for the slatternly undress of sarong and pyjamas is happily inadmissible within the walls of the sanctuary, where the fair fresh faces and neat array compose a pleasing picture which imagination would fail to evolve from the burlesque ugliness of the slovenly deshabille wherewith the Dutch colonist disguises every claim to beauty or grace. On alluding to the shock experienced by this grotesque travesty of native ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... on them, and kept them at arm's-length, Fanny Dover included. It was really comical to see with what perfect coolness and cynical apathy he parried the stealthy advances of this cat-like girl, a mistress in the art of pleasing—when ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... quietly Will did take his place in the household, never pleasing his uncle more than when he sometimes unconsciously gave an order to the servants, and so took upon himself the duties which would have devolved upon him had he been his son ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... unshaved pirate, and Her Majesty's Marine had nothing to do but to form the usual admiring and applauding background. Then, rallying round me the remnant of my faithful crew, I selected a fresh cutlass (I had worn out three already) and plunged once more into the pleasing carnage. ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... and deference to this woman from members of the crowd, however they were absorbed in the fight. She was what is called a "chunky" woman, short and thick, with a rosy skin, low but pleasing forehead, coal-black hair, a rolling way of swaying and moving herself, a pair of large black eyes, at once daring, furtive, and familiar, and a large neck and large breast, uniting the bull-dog and the dam, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... watched him attentively. "Foscari called to him, and, touching his hand, asked him whose son he was. He answered, 'I am the son of Messer Marin Memmo.'—' He is my dear friend,' said the Doge; 'tell him from me that it would be pleasing to me if he would come and see me, so that we might go at our leisure in our boats to visit the monasteries'" (The Two Doges, by A. Weil, 1891, p. 124; see, too, Romanin, Storia, etc., ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... they must be friends. Convinced that she was right, she made me worship with her, bowing my head down to the sand, and going through the same forms, which of course I did not understand the meaning of; but I prayed to my God, and therefore made no objection, as it was pleasing to her. This apparent conformity in religion recommended me more strongly to her, and we became more intimate, and I was certainly attached to her by every tie of gratitude. I was quite happy in the friendship and kindness she showed towards me; the only drawback ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... The twilight will the night forerun, And night itself be soon begun. Upon thy knees devoutly bow, And pray the Lord of glory now To fill thy breast, or deadly sin May cause a blinder night within. And whether pleasing vapours rise, Which gently dim the closing eyes, Which make the weary members blest With sweet refreshment in their rest; Or whether spirits[158] in the brain Dispel their soft embrace again, And on my watchful bed I stay, Forsook by sleep, and waiting day; Be God ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... thousands of his countrymen. Upon a partial perusal of the Commentary, I became satisfied that it would repay a more attentive study; and finding, upon investigation, that it had never been translated into English, I set myself to the task which had been so long neglected. The pleasing labor was accomplished, and the manuscript laid aside for several years. The conviction, confirmed by a re-perusal of it, that others besides myself would be interested in the work, has led me to determine on ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... time when he was in active service as a volunteer, "I must own that to one who has, like myself, la tete un peu exaltee, the pomp and circumstance of war gives, for a time, a very poignant and pleasing sensation."[16] And you feel this all through Marmion even more than in The Lay. Mr. Darwin would probably say that Auld Wat of Harden had about as much responsibility for Marmion as Sir Walter himself. "You will expect," ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... One pleasing feature of the evening was the presentation by Rev. W. E. Rogers, County Superintendent, of State diplomas to ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 3, July, 1900 • Various

... reached (in a trap) at eight o'clock, these demonstrations were more imposing, but less pleasing; the soldiers, too, were being drilled and exercised, and the whole scene was one of the greatest animation, such as Frenchmen know how to exhibit on the morning ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... greenhorn's part To cheat the inexperienced fair, Sometimes by pleasing flattery's art, Sometimes by ready-made despair; The feeble moment would espy Of tender years the modesty Conquer by passion and address, Await the long-delayed caress. Avowal then 'twas time to pray, Attentive to the heart's first beating, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... navigation is there carried on, we doubted not that we should be speedily cheered with the moderate gales, the smooth water, and the temperate air, for which that portion of the globe is so renowned. Under the influence of these pleasing circumstances, we hoped to experience some compensation for the complicated sufferings, which had so constantly beset us for the last eight weeks. Yet here we were again miserably disappointed; for, in the succeeding month of May, our sufferings rose even to a much higher pitch than they had ever ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... angel." I do not know how others feel; but if I had stood in that situation, I never would have exchanged it for all that kings in their profusion could bestow. I did hope that that day's danger and honor would have been a bond to hold us all together forever. But, alas! that, with other pleasing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... and admiration. Shelley and I walked to Lerici, and made a stretch off the land to try her: and I find she fetches whatever she looks at. In short, we have now a perfect plaything for the summer.'—It was thus that short-sighted mortals welcomed Death, he having disguised his grim form in a pleasing mask! The time of the friends was now spent on the sea; the weather became fine, and our whole party often passed the evenings on the water when the wind promised pleasant sailing. Shelley and Williams made longer excursions; they sailed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... Josephine and for all the rest if there were no station and no passing trains. The elder women were uniformly ugly, but not repulsive like the Mojaves; the place swarmed with children, and the babies, aged women, and pleasing young girls grouped most ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner

... to get it—I am supplied with funds, Daisy—and your father has entrusted to me the making of all arrangements which are in any way good for your comfort. I think, with your leave, I shall reverse these bargains. Have you been all this time pleasing Margaret and not yourself?" ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... over now and then to the Four Corners, a pleasant place for a man to spend an evening or a Sunday when the weather was fair and the fields green. The dinners were long and rich; the wines good; and if old Ellwell was a somewhat scandalous host, pleasing only to the coarser lads, there were other members of the family—the two ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick

... of poetry of this sort, says: "Such were the rimes of Skelton (usurping the name of Poet Laureat), being in deede but a rude, rayling rimer, and all his doings ridiculous; he used both short distances and short measures, pleasing onely to the popular eare; in our courtly maker we banish them utterly."—Arte of English Poesie, 1589, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... the Professor and Mr. Snider had extracted from the water, right there at Rogers's Island, by their secret, chemical process. It had been in tiny particles then, like dust, but they had sent it somewhere, and had it made into these nuggets,—plump and pleasing! They had a letter from someone in the Treasury to prove that it was solid and pure, and of the very best quality. No one needed the letter. The nuggets spoke for themselves,—they were so heavy! I held two of them, one in each hand, and weighed them. We all ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson

... Madam," said Heliodore. "It seems to me that the course I took was right and one pleasing to God, since it has given me my husband for myself, although, it is true, wickedly robbed of ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... I sought his body during that night. Many an upturned face, some with pleasing smile, and others with vengeance depicted, seemed to meet ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... middle stature, she looks, walks, and moves, like a woman of superior rank. Her countenance is expressive; her eye so full of information, that the passion is told from her look before she speaks. Her voice, though not so harmonious as Mrs. Cibber's, is strong and pleasing: nor is a word lost for want of due articulation. She excels all performers in paying due attention to the business of the scene. Her eye never wanders from the person ahe speaks to, or should look at when ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway

... yield, but an anxious flush rose to her cheek for the result of this dreaded interview. She had not visited Miss Thusa since her return from school, for she had no pleasing associations connected with her to draw her to her presence. Since her memorable journey with her wheel, Miss Thusa had taken possession of her former abode, and no entreaties could induce her to resume her wandering life. She never revealed the mystery of the advertisement, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... well, and what will surprise you, bear their mother's absence with great philosophy, as I doubt not they would mine, and turn all their little affections towards those who were about them and good to them; this may not be a pleasing reflection to a fond parent, but is certainly wisely designed by Providence for the happiness ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... This demand was not pleasing to Thaddeus, but he good-humoredly replied, "I knew not till you were so kind as to inform me that a man's ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... speeches of this young tribune. He was almost as gifted with his pen as with his tongue. His letters abound with pathos, and poetry of thought and feeling; his descriptions are graphic and lifeful; his analysis of character accurate and discriminating; his aspirations noble and pure. There was a pleasing fascination in his oratory and writing which never passed away. One can hardly think of his sad story without remembering also the simile of his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... bearing pines from which the marking labels have become lost, and I shall not be able to determine the species until they bear cones. One of them is very beautiful, with long leaves and pleasing bluish green foliage. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... delightful spot, And that before satiety we've got; For true it is, with love as with our meat; If we, variety of dishes eat, The doctors tell us inj'ry will ensue, And too much raking none can well pursue. Let us some pleasing fair-one then engage, To serve us both:—enough she'll ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... and nickel forks—the plate of the Paris poor; a basket full of potatoes and dirty linen, with a smart gauze cap on the top; a rickety wardrobe, with a glass door, open and empty, and on the shelves sundry pawn-tickets,—this was the medley of things, dismal or pleasing, abject and handsome, that ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... justice was highly pleasing to the populace of Paris. Even M. de Quincampoix, as they called Law, came in for a share of their approbation for having induced the regent to shew no favour to a patrician. But the number of robberies and assassinations did not diminish; no ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.—COL. ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... extremes of tyranny and anarchy. If they exhibit occasional calms, these only serve as short-lived contrast to the furious storms that are to succeed. If now and then intervals of felicity open to view, we behold them with a mixture of regret, arising from the reflection that the pleasing scenes before us are soon to be overwhelmed by the tempestuous waves of sedition and party rage. If momentary rays of glory break forth from the gloom, while they dazzle us with a transient and fleeting brilliancy, they at the same time admonish us to lament ...
— The Federalist Papers

... sorts of lively and profuse attentions. I could hear them laughing in the kitchen. Mammy, the old cook, was singing; Jenny, the maid, came in and out of the dining room with dancing eyes, which she cast upon me, and scarcely less upon Douglas, who was talking in his usual brilliant way. It was pleasing to me to hear Mrs. Clayton agree with him about so many things. She was disturbed by the slavery agitation. She feared for the peace of the Southern States. She dreaded a negro rebellion. She commented upon the fact that even the domestic ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... a man of commanding figure, large but well proportioned. His head was of unusual size, his eyes deep-seated and lustrious, and had a voice powerful yet pleasing; his action, while not remarkably graceful, was easy and impressive. His social tastes were very strong and he possessed marked conversational power. He lived in an age of great legislators and it is needless to add ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... until the contents of the keg had circulated for some time; then an additional keg, and a few more presents, completed the bargain, and I was transferred to Net-no-kwa. This woman, who was then advanced in years, was of a more pleasing aspect than my former mother. She took me by the hand, after she had completed the negotiation with my former possessors, and led me to her own lodge, which stood near. Here I soon found I was to be treated more indulgently than ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... life. Her self-will was only intensified by opposition. John had often enough experienced this, but hitherto the points at issue had been trifles, matters in which the father could yield for the sake of pleasing his child. Serious resistance brought out for the first time all the selfish forces of her nature. She was prepared to go all lengths rather than submit, now the question of her liberty had once been broached. Already there was a plan in her mind for quitting ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... Tully's Books of Philosophy seem to breathe out something divine; yet that Treatise of Old Age, that he wrote in old Age, seems to me to be according to the Greek Proverb; the Song of the dying Swan. I was reading it to Day, and these Words pleasing me above the rest, I got 'em by Heart: Should it please God to give me a Grant to begin my Life again from my very Cradle, and once more to run over the Course of my Years I have lived, I would not upon any Terms accept of it: Nor would I, having in a Manner finished my Race, run ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... working bull, though perhaps not so pleasing to the eye as a fat one, (for fat sometimes covers a multitude of defects,) is a surer stock-getter; and his progeny is more likely to inherit full ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale

... 18, 1768, the first two volumes of "A Sentimental Journey" appearing on February 27th. The "Journey" proved equally as fascinating and as popular as "Shandy." Walpole, who described the latter as tiresome, declared the new book to be "very pleasing though too much dilated, and marked by great good nature and strokes of delicacy." Like its predecessor, the "Journey" is intentionally formless—narrative and digression, pathos and wit, sentiment and coarse indelicacy, all ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... sheds, Such a hurly-burly in country inns, Such a clatter of tongues in empty heads, Such a helter-skelter of prayers and sins! Of all the contrivances of the time For sowing broadcast the seeds of crime, There is none so pleasing to me and mine As a pilgrimage ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... at the old castles, and remembered the pre-historic raiders that the landlord had told him about. He came across the stones to which the lake dwellers had tied their boats, and these signs of ancient Ireland were pleasing to Bryden in ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... run; the result is, that prominent parts of one's body are continually in collision with the seat or sides of the machine, coming down from various altitudes, according to the nature of the ground and the humour of the inquisitors. After getting over about six miles in this graceful and pleasing manner, we reached the first of the fir-trees, and as we rose still higher a delicious breeze came over the hills, as precious to the parched and travel-stained pilgrim from the plains as a drop of water to the thirstiest ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... frequently been found to shut their eyes against the plainest truths, to wrestle with their own convictions, and positively refuse even to listen to evidence. The same thing may happen with regard to education;—and this is no pleasing prospect to the lover of peace, who sets himself forward as a reformer in this noble work.—Change is inevitable. Teaching is an art; and it must, like all the other arts, depend for its improvement upon the investigations of science. Now, every ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... though a rapid, was by no means a pleasing one. M'Mahon had not only refused to lend him the money he stood in need of, but actually quarrelled with him, as far as he could judge, for no other purpose but that he might make the quarrel a plea for refusing him. ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... such loud authority, leaving 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. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... "'Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue By female eyes and lips; that is, I mean, When both the teacher and the ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... contempt (pity he called it,) for Carrie, who, in an elegantly embroidered double-gown confined by a rich cord and tassels, which almost swept the floor, treated his mother with a fawning servility as disgusting to him as it was pleasing to the lady in question. Accustomed to the utmost deference on account of her wealth and her husband's station, Mrs. Graham had felt as if something were withheld from her, when neither Mrs. Livingstone nor her daughters rushed ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... to notice that there was less appearance of neglect and decay: some wild roses gave a smile to the gray walls; and in the centre there was a fountain, in which the waters still trickled coolly, and with a pleasing murmur, from the jaws of a gigantic triton. Here he was met by Mejnour with ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... one notices that he does not disclose what is done to those who fail to find pleasing mates in the six months allowed after notification for the making of a choice. Apparently it is then that the so-called nationalization of women comes in, and the statesman forgot to say a word about the only peculiarity of the system that ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... of the landscape passed unperceived. But the road was full of pleasing reminiscences. As they passed through Croydon dear old Laura pointed out an hotel where she used to go every Sunday with the dear Earl, and in the afternoons they played cribbage in the sitting-room overlooking the street. And some miles further on the sweetness of the past burst ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... and excellent conceited Comedie, of Syr Iohn Falstaffe, and the merrie Wiues of Windsor. Entermixed with sundrie variable and pleasing humors, of Syr Hugh the Welch Knight, Iustice Shallow, and his wise Cousin M. Slender. With the swaggering vaine of Auncient Pistoll, and Corporall Nym. By William Shakespeare. As it hath bene diuers times Acted by the right Honorable my Lord Chamberlaines seruants. Both before ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg

... seas. When a big one lifted ahead, he slowed down. He kept one hand on the throttle control, whistling under his breath disconnected snatches of song. Stella studied his profile, clean-cut as a cameo and wholly pleasing. He was almost as big-bodied as Jack Fyfe, and full four inches taller. The wet shirt clinging close to his body outlined well-knit shoulders, ropy-muscled arms. He could easily have posed for a ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... said, "are dropping off so often that it becomes more and more pleasing to know that some still survive whom we esteem and by whom we are not forgotten.... Certainly we can look back on each other now for forty years, and I can do so as to you with great pleasure and satisfaction, when, besides the grounds ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... plenty of corpses, but scarcely a life upon it. Also he felt (from the comfort to his feet, and the increasing firmness of his spinal column) that the heavy British guns upon the lower decks had ceased to throb and thunder into his own poor ship. With a bound of high spirits he leaped to a pleasing conclusion, and shouted, "Forward, my brave sons; we will take the vessel ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... so characteristically marked by constructional features as nets and wicker baskets. The twisting, interlacing, knotting, and stitching of filaments give relieved figures that by contact in manufacture impress themselves upon the plastic clay. Such impressions come in time to be regarded as pleasing features, and when free-hand methods of reproducing are finally acquired they and their derivatives become essentials of decoration. At a later stage these characters of basketry influence ceramic decoration in a somewhat different way. By the use of variously-colored fillets the ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes

... with suspicion, jumping to the very natural conclusion that only some pleasing information concerning the Schoolmarm would account for it. When, a few minutes later, he saw the three starting away together, each with a tin or pasteboard box, he realized that ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... offer you my congratulations on the important event announced by the United States, in Congress, in the enclosed Proclamation for the cessation of hostilities; an event, which is not only pleasing, as it relieves us from the accumulated distresses of war in the bowels of our country, but as it affords the fairest and most flattering prospects of its future greatness and prosperity. I need not, I am persuaded, Sir, use any arguments to urge your Excellency and the State over which ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... its color, and by an indefinable, flowing line in the jacket above the rippling folds of an undergarment that gathered smoothly at her knees. He knew only that she made a lovely picture, surprisingly appealing, and that her smile was a compensation for the less pleasing visage ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... North America and other parts of the northern hemisphere, never going very far south, and making his summer home in the Arctic regions. He is a noisy, lively, sociable Duck, who has in spring some pleasing notes, so mellow and musical that he may almost be said to sing; but he is not choice or dainty in his food, and the flesh is too rank for House People to eat. He has many ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... frequently to wrestle with barren antiquarianism, and was lost to us at the gates of that paradise which had hardly opened on him. These were the true founders of that more elegant literature in which France had preceded us. These works created a more pleasing species of erudition:—the age of taste and genius had come; but the age of philosophical thinking was yet but in ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... satisfaction in observing among us the humble rudiments and embryos of societies spreading everywhere, the recent foundation of our towns, and the settlements of so many rural districts. I am sure that the rapidity of their growth would be more pleasing to behold, than the ruins of old towers, useless aqueducts, or ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... again, my fair young friend, by a most fortunate train of circumstances. What, may I ask, was the subject of your contemplations, when I disturbed you? Judging by the sweet tranquillity of your countenance, your thoughts were of the most pleasing description." ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... bought two long guns and three pistols three feet long and a Moorish costume for afternoon teas. I shall look fine. My guide's idea of pleasing me is to kick everybody out of the way which always brings down curses on me so I have to go back and give them money and am so gradually becoming popular and much sought after by blind beggars. You can get ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... brother scholar ever came near him, and would make Greek iambics as he walked along the lanes. His memory was stored with poetry, though no book ever came to his hands, except those shorn and tattered volumes which lay upon his table. Old problems in trigonometry were the pleasing relaxations of his mind, and complications of figures were a delight to him. There was not one of those prosperous clergymen around him, and who scorned him, whom he could not have instructed in Hebrew. It was always a gratification to him to remember ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... murder of my father Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks; I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be the devil: and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy,— As he is very potent with such spirits,— Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds More relative than this.—the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... looked both genteel and benevolent. The white stone steps and window-sills and the white fan over the door gave a certain effect of clean linen that was singularly pleasing. The young doctor, unlike Doctor Johnson, had a passion for clean linen. The knocker, too, was of the graceful long oval shape he liked, and burnished to the last point of perfection, and the shining windows were so placed as to give an air of cheerful interrogation ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards

... been anticipated, the stranger called to see if she had recovered from her fright, and spent a considerable time in very pleasing conversation. Her father happened to be in the writing office at the time, and did not see him. These calls were repeated from time to time, till at last it became evident to all about the castle, that the young heir of Middlefield, in Cumberland, was deeply ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... the Government thought the amendment a singularly pleasing one. He accepted it and would like it understood that the words isosceles triangle were not meant in ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... whole group of islands bathed in the sunlight of summer, I have seen them covered with rich vegetation, I have seen the waves shine bright as they leaped on the many-coloured cliffs, and make sweet music as they played around the innumerable rocks. Seen in this way they are pleasing to all who can enjoy a strange and lovely beauty, but on the day of which I am writing they were gloomy beyond all the power ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... describe Griffith Donne, one would hardly feel inclined to describe him as being imposing in personal appearance. He was a thin, undersized young man, rather out at elbows and shabby of attire, and with a decided air of Bohemia about him; but his youthful face was singularly pleasing and innocent, and his long-lashed, brown-black eyes were more than good-looking,—they were absolutely beautiful in a soft, pathetic way,—beautiful as the eyes of the loveliest ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... of Jesus Christ one does not need to point out. It is simply amazing that the followers of him who prayed, in his last prayer, that his disciples might all be one, in order that the world might believe in his divine commission, should imagine that they can be pleasing Christ while they ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden

... he ate scarcely any thing, he rarely spoke, and more than once Mrs. Parker regretted that the proposal had been made. In vain Edith brought him plants from the little greenhouse, fine camellias, pots of snow-drops, and lovely anemones. They seemed rather to awaken painful than pleasing remembrances and associations, and once even when he had lain long looking at a white camellia he burst into tears. It is a great trial of temper, a great test of the sincerity of our purpose, when the means we use to please and gratify seem to have just the contrary ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... good hive are durability, simplicity, ease of construction and of working, and pleasing to the eye. We think the Langstroth embodies these. It was invented by the father of modern bee-culture. He gave to the world the movable frame; without its use, we might as well keep our bees in hollow logs, as our fathers did. Different ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... "A pleasing picture; a good contrast to the one we have left behind us. I like contrasts, and I should like ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford

... of the house must be considered, if the picture framed by the shrubs and vines is to be a pleasing one. The house should be painted in a soft brown or dark green to blend with the landscape of oaks and pines. The paint will help to preserve the house, but its colour must be carefully chosen ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... the fairy Teach-all, speaking with a very sweet smile and a soft, pleasing voice, "you shall be taught to find pleasure in every sort of exertion, for I delight in activity and diligence. My young friends rise at seven every morning, and amuse themselves with working in a beautiful garden of flowers, rearing ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... seven-fold. He is actually giving to that noble cause seven guineas daily, or upwards of $10,500 a year, during this year, 1853; in addition to which he has just given one thousand guineas to the fund above referred to." "It is pleasing to add," says the writer, "that this remarkable ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... Tuesday; contains 36 columns of reading matter; and in addition to the Commercial and General News of the day and the Prices Current in Augusta, it contains an attractive variety of pleasing Miscellany, Tales, Sketches, Poetry, etc. The WEEKLY ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... Christ, viewed in the light of its historical and spiritual causes, is (i) the revelation of the malignity of sin. There we see our favourite sins stripped of all pleasing disguise, and revealed in their true horror, and cruelty, and selfishness. The Incarnate Son of God put Himself at the disposal of sinful men, and His violent and shameful death was the result. There is the true meaning of the sins in which we delight. ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz

... populace of the capital. Even at this 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 ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... from our office or some other department. I never saw more than two or three visitors there, always the same. They talked about the excise duty; about business in the senate, about salaries, about promotions, about His Excellency, and the best means of pleasing him, and so on. I had the patience to sit like a fool beside these people for four hours at a stretch, listening to them without knowing what to say to them or venturing to say a word. I became stupefied, several times I felt myself perspiring, I was overcome by a sort of paralysis; ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky

... the hall." The companions are an old decayed gentlewoman housekeeper—a far away cousin of the squire's—and a young French child, Jane's pupil, Mr. Rochester's ward and reputed daughter. There is a pleasing monotony in the summer solitude of the old country house, with its comfort, respectability, and dulness, which Jane paints to the life; but there is one circumstance which varies the sameness and casts a mysterious feeling over the scene. A strange laugh is heard from time to time in a ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... than the incorporated law books, and this may be regarded as characteristic; in the Priestly Code it is quite the other way. But what is specially important is that, according to the Jehovistic history, the praxis of sacrifice, and that too of the regular and God-pleasing sort, extends far beyond the Mosaic legislation, and, strictly speaking, is as old as the world itself. A sacrificial feast which the Hebrews wish to celebrate in the wilderness is the occasion of the Exodus; Moses already builds an altar at Rephidim (Exodus xvii.), and, still before the ratification ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... many years, and I welcome a season of rest, or at least a change of labor. But when your hope goes farther, and points to our return here by the votes of enfranchised women, and our welcome from a sisterhood of co-representatives in the halls of Congress, I confess the prophecy is so pleasing and the picture seems so tempting that its realization would completely reconcile me to my restored place in the House of Representatives, or even to a seat in that smaller body at the other end of the Capitol. And I am not lacking in the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... carrying out the mandate, one picked out a pleasing fish or string of fish, all nicely wrapped in leaves, and one asked, "A ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... view or not—whether it is workable—the future will show; I am here discussing tendencies, not their ultimate outcome. But it would be too much to expect that this or any other eclectic policy should be pleasing ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... considerable 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 hands of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... nose, and a chin sloping inward, combined to give him a cold, repulsive countenance, fraught with expressions denoting selfishness and insincerity. The other occupant of the same seat was, on the contrary, a young man of an unassuming demeanor, shapely features, and a mild, pleasing countenance. The remaining two gentlemen of the party were much older, but scarcely less dissimilar in their appearance than the two just described. One of them was a gaunt, harsh-featured man, of the middle ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... yards distant, a ten-inch howitzer, that had just been wheeled round, and now stood gaping at us. In the rear of the gun stood a body of artillerists, and on their flanks a larger body of what appeared to be light infantry or rifles. It would have been anything but a pleasing sight, but that a small flag with red and white stripes was playing over the gun; and our party, heedless of their orders, leaped their horses on the ridge, and, pulling off their caps, saluted it with ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... worthy, have neglected the cultivation of their manners; while there are very many, destitute alike of talent and education, who seem to be adepts in the art of politeness. However, this may be cultivated. A person of good sense, who appreciates its importance, may soon acquire a courteous and pleasing address, by mingling with ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... an imitation of what was the rude dialect of some parts of Pike County, Indiana. One must not be too critical of the roughness and the apparent irreverence of some of the lines, for the sentiment is a pleasing one. An ignorant man who believes in "God and the angels" may be forgiven for the crudity of his ideas, and the mistakes he makes in bringing up his boy, especially as he "never ain't ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... doubt that the Lady Mayoress was a singularly pretty and attractive lady, and despite her well-dressed head of iron-grey hair, looked fully fifteen years younger than her age, which is invariably a pleasing reflection for a woman who has passed ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... many pleasing passages that I met with in its pages, two in particular struck me as being remarkable for their beauty; but I find that neither of them is cited by either Ellis or Campbell. (See Ellis, Specimens of the Early English Poets, 4th edition, corrected, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various

... according to d'Indy, was so-called because pleasing to the ladies who played an important part in the elaborate ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... deficiency which has been so long and so seriously felt in the imperfect education of youth in the elementary knowledge of their own language. By a simple, familiar, and lucid method of treating the subject, he has rendered what was before irksome and unprofitable, pleasing and instructive. In one word, the grammar of Mr. Kirkham furnishes a clew by which the youthful mind is guided through the intricate labyrinth of verbs, nouns and pronouns; and the path which has ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... when the only method possible is adopted of making you do what is right and just and honest! Your conduct makes me ashamed of being a woman. A thoroughly bad woman I can understand, but not a woman like you, who trade on the fact that you are a woman, and that you are pretty, and that you have a pleasing manner. You use those qualities as a thief or a counterfeiter would use the peculiar talents God had given him. How dare you pretend for a moment that your case is similar to Mr. Wentworth's? Mr. Wentworth is an honourable man, engaged in an honourable business; ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... a tarter,—and, if a natural woman, is not a pleasing representative of her sex." She "will provoke her Benedicke to give her much and just conjugal castigation," says Campbell. Is he right, and will Benedicke feel so?—or is Swinburne right, who says she is "a ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke

... three recesses are held aloft by pedestals, on pillars of twisted and of spiralled trunks, a formation reviled by Ruskin, but producing an effect much more pleasing than some galleries of effigies we have seen, where the figures appear as if hung up by the hair of their heads, or are clinging to the walls by invisible spurs at their heels, or, as is not infrequently the case, are ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... pieces, like the pitchers mentioned above, are not as pleasing aesthetically as the earlier ones, and they are much more closely allied with the exuberance of the Victorian era than they are with the classical lines of ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor

... publishing of whose writings the people were moved, and enlisted themselves chiefly under this sect, either because the doctrine was more easily understood, or because they were invited thereto by the pleasing thoughts of amusement, or that, because there was nothing better, they laid hold of what was offered them. And after Amafinius, when many of the same sentiments had written much about them, the Pythagoreans spread over all Italy: but that these doctrines should be so easily understood ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... and pleasing to the ears, slowly and confidently spoken, meticulously articulated. I looked around in its direction and saw a short, elderly gnome with a long white beard reaching to his chest and a short crop of hair on his oblong head, which was outfitted with a sharp, angular nose, a pair of sparkling ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn

... form and substance. But little practised in the world or its disappoinments {sic}, the visionary girl had already figured to herself a person to suit these qualities, and the animal was no less pleasing, than the moral being of her fancy. What principally delighted Julia in these contemplations on the acquaintance of Anna, was the strong inclination he had expressed to know herself. This flattered her tendency to believe in the strength of mutual sympathy, and the efficacy ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... begun with fairly close imitation of his model and only gradually diverged into a more independant style, he at no time showed himself content with the earlier poet's simplicity of motive.[13] The eclogue in which he followed Theocritus most closely, the eighth, is equally, perhaps, the most pleasing of the series. It combines the motives of the love-lament and incantation, and the closeness with which it follows while playing variations on its models is striking. One instance will suffice. Take the passage in the second Idyl ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... been carried out of the house in his coffin! A wine-presser was there who told something about an old woman who had vehemently prayed the prophet to cure her sickness. Thereupon Jesus said: "You are old and yet you wish to live! What makes this earth so pleasing to you?" and she replied: "Nothing is pleasing to me on this earth. But I do not want to die until the Saviour comes, who will open the gates of Heaven for me." And He: "Since your faith is so strong, woman, you shall live to see the ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... Mr. Colburn was decidedly pleasing. His height was five feet ten, and his figure was well proportioned. His face was one not to be forgotten; it indicated sweetness of disposition, benevolence, intelligence, and refinement. His mental operations were not rapid, and it was only by great patience and long continued ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... to ask God for what we want. If we don't want a thing, we are only acting like pagans to speak as if we did, and call it prayer, and think we are pleasing him." ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... planted on my grave, nor wither there; And when, on travel bound, some rhyming guest Roams through the churchyard, whilst his dinner's drest, Let it hold up this comment to his eyes; Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies; Whilst (O, what joy that pleasing flatt'ry gives) Reading my Works ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... Whereat he in a great Tosse, but I willing to smoothe all betwixt him and my Lady do tell him the honourable words she have spoke of him to myself and others, the more especially of his Velvet suit with scarlet ribands. The which pleasing him, we fall to discourse of what to do with the Spoons and Porringer, resolving the spoons do go to Betty Michell where certayne it is I do stand Godmother, and the Porringer to Mrs Lane, whose name I know not but will come at shortly, and he do cry her up for a sober and God-fearing ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... Malyoe suited our hero's taste so ill, the granddaughter was in the same degree pleasing to him. She had a thin, fair skin, red lips, and yellow hair—though it was then powdered pretty white for the occasion—and the bluest eyes that ever he beheld in all of his life. A sweet, timid creature, who ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle



Words linked to "Pleasing" :   humourous, attractive, ingratiating, humorous, delicious, pleasant, displeasing, sweet, please, beautiful, admirable



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