"Complaisance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his complaisance a step farther, and dispatched the letter to Paris by the hands of his own son, an intelligent lad of nineteen. It was late in the afternoon of that perfect August day when young Rougane presented himself at ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... which had gained him such favor with women. He begged her to unmask; she at first affected reluctance, and would not. He then told her who he was; and said, He hoped she would not refuse, when two Kings begged her to show them this complaisance. She thereupon took off her mask, and showed them one of the loveliest faces in the world. August seemed quite enchanted; and said, as if it had been the first time he ever saw her, He could not comprehend how so bewitching a beauty had ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... retired corner, was soon lost in consideration of my own fortunes past and to come. The hour grew late; the gentlemen and ladies of the Court, having offered and accepted compliments and gallantries till invention and complaisance alike were exhausted, dropped off one by one, in search of supper, wine, or rest. I sat on in my corner. Nothing was to be heard save the occasional voices of the two musketeers on guard on the ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... of feathers, and he had on his head a very large and high head-piece, in the form of a grenadier's cap, with prickles like a porcupine; and he made a certain noise which resembled the cry of an alligator. Our people skipped amongst them out of complaisance, though some could not drink of their tourrie; but our rum met with customers enough, and was soon gone. The alligators were killed and some of them roasted. Their manner of roasting is by digging a hole ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... said. This one she had on now was something that brightened her dull complexion, and brought out the best effect of her eyes and mouth, and seemed the effluence of her personal dash and grace. It made the most of her, and she liked it beyond all her other negligees for its complaisance. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... pricked up his ears, and the Devil gave him a significant side-glance. Faustus thereupon took the Bible from the casket, handed it over to the senators, and said, with some degree of complaisance, ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... had a peculiar elegance in them; and in old times to hold the elbow out well, and yet not to stick it out, was a point of early discipline. Then her glossy black hair set off a superb neck and shoulders; and, moreover, she was gay, full of mirth, life, complaisance, perfect in all the acts of politeness, and invariable in her gracious and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... disguise you, as you will, I know you, You were too honest, knight, to be more civil; A girl all feeling, and a she-attendant All complaisance, a father at a distance - You valued her good name, and would not see her. You scorned to try her, lest you should be victor; For that I ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... may take the mare to the water, no given number of men can make her drink; so, having accepted my place, I determined my complaisance should end there, and, in spite of all Lady Holland's conversational efforts, and her final exclamation, "Allen! do get Mrs. Butler to talk! We really must make her talk!" I held my peace, and kept the peace, which I could have done upon no other conditions; but the unnatural and unwholesome ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... be trusted not to harm him. In the first course that was run the count shattered his spear against the shield of Jacques, who raised his own weapon and passed without touching his adversary. This complaisance displeased the duke, who sent word to the knight that if he proposed to play with his adversary he had better withdraw at once. They ran again. This time both splintered their spears, and both kept their seats, much to the delight of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... the absurd emotion that led her to shirk her companion's scrutiny: she was so taken aback by this unexpected complaisance in a quarter where she was prepared for opposition that she turned and laid a grateful hand on the ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... when they wanted a syllable. And buxom, which means only obedient, is now made, in familiar phrases, to stand for wanton; because in an ancient form of marriage, before the Reformation, the bride promised complaisance and obedience, in these terms: "I will be bonair and buxom in bed and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Frank—" She looked wistfully into his face as she addressed him, as though half afraid to go on, and begging that he would receive with complaisance whatever she found ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... the first chair and studied the toes of her shoes. At last she roused and looked at Nancy Ellen, waiting in smiling complaisance as she returned the picture to ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... as this Lady was young, beautiful, and gay, so those that were given to censure, pass'd a Judgment upon her which she no Ways merited, since she was a Woman of strict Honour and Virtue; and tho' she might be agreeable to his Lordship in every Particular, that noble Peer's Complaisance to her, proceeded wholly from the great Esteem he had for her Wit and most exquisite Understanding, as will appear from what relates to her in his Will at the Close of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... been long observed, that men do not suspect faults which they do not commit; your own elegance of manners, and punctuality of complaisance, did not suffer you to impute to me that negligence of which I was guilty, and [for] which I have not since atoned. I received both your letters, and received them with pleasure proportioned to the esteem which so short an acquaintance strongly impressed, and which I hope to confirm by nearer knowledge, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... with the gathering, their uniforms, well-worn, even shabby, unlike the spick and span regimentals from the costumier. With bronzed faces and the indubitable air of campaigns endured, they were the objects of lively interest to the fair maskers, nor were themselves indifferent to the complaisance of their entertainers. Hands, burned by the sun, looked blacker that night, against the white gowns of waists they clasped; bearded faces more grim visaged in contrast with delicate complexions; embroidery and brocade whirled around ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... and toying Nature to speak ere proceeding to the final and critical act. In England it is very different. I have heard of brides over thirty years old who had not the slightest suspicion concerning what complaisance was expected of them: out of mauvaise honte, the besetting sin of the respectable classes, neither mother nor father would venture to enlighten the elderly innocents. For a delicate girl to find a man introducing himself into her bedroom and her bed, the shock ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... acquiesced, therefore, without complaint, in these proceedings, and was even present as a consenting spectator on the occasion of Harold's coronation, which ceremony was performed with great pomp and parade, at St. Paul's, in London, very soon after King Edward's death. Harold rewarded Edgar for his complaisance and discretion by conferring upon him the honor of knighthood immediately after the coronation, and in the church where the ceremony was performed. He also conferred similar distinctions and honors upon many other aspiring and ambitious men whom he wished to secure to ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... journals were filled with recollections of the Revolution, raked up for the purpose of connecting with past crimes the individuals on whom it was now wished to cast odium. It was decreed that a hundred persons should be banished; and the senate established its character for complaisance by passing a 'Senatus-consulte' conformable to the wishes of the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... no wise indebted to you for your complaisance," replied the empress; "for your ink has changed itself into blood, and your stupid vagaries, hatched in the comfortable quiet of your own room, have driven my poor soldiers from their homes, out into the pitiless ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... rail at Hocus that has saved that clod-pated numskulled ninny-hammer of yours from ruin, and all his family? It is well known how he has rose early and sat up late to make him easy, when he was sotting at every alehouse in town. I knew his last wife: she was a woman of breeding, good humour, and complaisance—knew how to live in the world. As for you, you look like a puppet moved by clockwork; your clothes hang upon you as they were upon tenter-hooks; and you come into a room as you were going to steal ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... would have been unmistakable, nor could I discern Pye. But why were they there? I could only answer my question on the assumption that they had found the treasure and were making merry. Yet it was not like Holgate to give them the reins so completely unless he had some purpose to serve by his complaisance. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... so far from envying the happiness of his brother, that he made it his whole business to please him, and effected it without much difficulty. Schahriar, who had naturally a great affection for that prince, was so charmed with his complaisance, that, out of an excess of friendship, he would needs divide his dominions with him, and gave him the kingdom of Great Tartary: Schahzenan went immediately and took possession of it, and fixed the seat ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... It showed a true paternal care— Five thousand guineas in her purse; The doctor might have fancied worst,— Hardly at length he silence broke, And faltered every word he spoke; Interpreting her complaisance, Just as a man sans consequence. She rallied well, he always knew; Her manner now was something new; And what she spoke was in an air, As serious as a tragic player. But those who aim at ridicule, Should fix upon some ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... of horses, and worshipped by the Brahmanas, became an assistant at the sacrifice. And then the high-souled Samvarta ascending the altar, and looking radiant as the second embodiment of the blazing fire, loudly addressing the gods with complaisance, offered oblations of clarified butter to the fire with incantation of the sacred hymns. And then the slayer of Vala first drank the Soma juice, and then the assembly of other gods drank Soma. And ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... with their own hearts, and keep them down, In complaisance to all the fools in town. O how they tremble at the name of prude! And die with shame at thought of being good! For, what will Artimis, the rich and gay, What will the wits, that is, the coxcombs, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... had been much disgusted with himself for his complaisance the day before. Although Wolf had come to escort Barbara to the Emperor's lodgings, he had accompanied his child to the Golden Cross, where she was received by Maestro Appenzelder. Then, since he could only have heard the singing under conditions which seemed unendurable ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... we must admit that there are many women, in all classes of society—not mercenary women—who extend to men a certain measure of sex complaisance and feel no deep regret for this behavior, so long as things ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... interior arrangement, instead of being characteristic, instead of revealing something of the tastes and feelings of the owner, is rigorously conformed to every other interior. The same hollow and tame complaisance rules in the intercourse of society. Who dares say precisely what he thinks upon a great topic? What youth ventures to say sharp things, of slavery, for instance, at a polite dinner-table? What girl dares wear curls, when Martelle prescribes puffs or bandeaux? What specimen ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... virtues. Besides fortitude and temperance, already described, liberality is a mean between prodigality and stinginess; magnificence between vulgar display and pettiness: magnanimity between vainglory and pusillanimity; truthfulness between exaggeration and dissimulation; friendship between complaisance, or flattery, and frowardness,—and so of the rest. The golden mean must be taken in relation to ourselves, because in many matters of behaviour and the management of the passions the right amount for one person ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... fear the jeering to repay. The village oracle, and simple maid, Jest in their turns, and raise the ready laugh; For there authority, hard favour'd, frowns not; All are companions in the gen'ral glee, And cheerful complaisance still thro' their roughness, With placid look enlightens ev'ery face. Some more advanced raise the tow'ring rick, Whilst on its top doth stand the parish toast In loose attire, and swelling ruddy cheek; With taunts and harmless mock'ry she receives The toss'd-up heaps from the brown ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... what it containeth and the belly and what it compriseth; and think of death and doom ere it ariseth. Saith Ali (whose face Allah honour!), 'Beware of the wickedness of women and be on thy guard against them: consult them not in aught;[FN264] but grudge not complaisance to them, lest they greed for intrigue.' And eke quoth he, 'Whoso leaveth the path of moderation his wits become perplexed'; and there be rules for this which we will mention, if it be Allah's will. And Omar (whom ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... ballot will bring to woman a higher education, larger industrial opportunities, a wider field for thought and action, a sense of responsibility in her relations to the public welfare, and, in place of mere complaisance and flattery, the higher and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... being weary of waiting so long for the crown he was to inherit, took occasion to blame his father's conduct, and found some reason for censuring all his actions; he even proceeded so far as to give orders sometimes contrary to the Emperor's. He had embraced the Catholic religion, rather through complaisance than conviction or inclination; and many of the Abyssins who had done the same, waited only for an opportunity of making public profession of the ancient erroneous opinions, and of re-uniting themselves to the ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... very wonderful?" said Sheila with a grave complaisance. "I am pleased that the Lewis has produced such a fine thing, and perhaps you would like me to tell you its history. It was my papa bought a piece of blue serge in Stornoway: it cost three shillings sixpence a yard, and a dressmaker ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... whitest are blacker than any negro," she remarked. "Eh, bien! I thank you, Keed, mon ami, for your complaisance. You are very amiable to submit to the whim of a silly girl who suddenly becomes afraid ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... already observed, and securely contemplated those features which were most to her liking, while the rest of the company believed her regards were disposed in a quite contrary direction. With what humility of complaisance did she receive the compliments of those who could not help praising the elegance of the banquet; and how piously did she seize that opportunity of commemorating the honours of her sire, by observing that it was no merit in her to understand something ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... another time, I would sacrifice it to his interest, and warn him of his faults before they were committed. For a time was coming when our relations would be changed, and the severity of the tutor must succeed to the complaisance of an equal. This change should be gradual; everything must be ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Nancy's saving habits; the consequence was, that her welcome to him was extremely sincere—"from the teeth out." Father Ned saw perfectly through her assumed heartiness of manner, but acted as if the contrary was the case; Nancy understood him also, and with an intention of making up by complaisance for their niggardliness in other respects, was a perfect honeycomb. This state of cross-purposes, however, could not last long; neither did it. Father Ned never paid, and Nancy never gave credit; so, at length, they came to an open rupture; she threatened ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... request and gesture—both sufficiently rude after such sweet complaisance. She obeys, however; and moves off from the spot—not without reproach in her glance, and reluctance in her steps. Before reaching the path she pauses, turns in her track, and glides swiftly ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... sense of obligation to the bay, the fjord, and Mr. Arbuton, for their complaisance, and Kitty remembered that he had somewhat snubbed her the night before for attributing any suggestive grace to the native scenery. "Then you've really found something in an American landscape. I suppose we ought to congratulate it," she said, in ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... the complaisance of his clerical subjects, did not hesitate to accede to all the petitions the Cardinal offered, and declared that, "so far as concerned heresies, he was determined not to endure them, but would cause them to be wholly extirpated and driven from his kingdom," inflicting ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... figure, the girl in response to pleadings which she had adroitly incited, reluctantly promised to grant the earl the private interview he so much desired if he could suggest some means for bringing it about. Leicester was in raptures over her complaisance and glowed with triumph and delightful anticipation. But he could think of no satisfactory plan whereby his hopes might be brought to a happy fruition. He proposed several, but all seemed impracticable to the coy girl, and she rejected them. After ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... promises to make our residence here as agreeable as possible, we left the President, and concluded the day in pleasant society at the house of our host Mendiburu, who on the following morning accompanied us back to Talcaguana. He had the complaisance to surrender for our accommodation and the convenience of our astronomical observations, a large house belonging to him in Talcaguana, which had once been inhabited by La Perouse. I took immediate possession of it, and our time was now very agreeably divided between ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... found him under arrest for debt, and engaged in violent altercation with his landlady. Taking from him the Vicar of Wakefield, then just written, Johnson proceeded with it to Newbery the Bookseller, from whom he obtained sixty pounds for his friend; and Goldsmith's good humour, and the complaisance of his hostess, returning with this accession of wealth, they spent the remainder of the day together in harmony. In this novel, like Fielding and Smollett, he exhibits a very natural view of familiar life. Inferior to the first in the artful management of his ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... the establishment was English. The window-boxes, from basement to garret; the way the curtains hung in rigid complaisance; the significant name-plate on the middle panel of the door: "Joseph Grinaldi, Esq."; the minute plot of grass alongside the steps that led to the basement, with a treasured rose-bush in the corner thereof. You were positive, without looking, that Joey had a back yard which he called a garden, ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... back and a few unsalable modern novels. I read them all most conscientiously and gratefully, and would not listen for a moment to Mr. Hammond's jests about them; but, a few weeks afterwards, I almost repented of my complaisance, when Tom Salyers took me at an advantage while rowing me down to Louisa one afternoon, and, seeing a long stretch of river before him without shoal or sand-bar, leisurely laid up his oars, and, letting the boat float with the stream, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... cavalcade and rollicked through the moonlight nights, merely to make fun for their conquerors by playing on the superstitious fear of the sable allies of the Northmen. Never before was such good-natured complaisance, such untiring effort to please. So the North laughed, the South chuckled, and the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... Society, he took from all its religious permission to minister in Jesus de la Pena; and on March 10, 1687, he declared that the lawful parish priest of the mission of Jesus de la Pena was the prior of Pasig, a religious of St. Augustine. In this spoliation concurred also, through complaisance, the governor Don Gabriel Curuzelaegui, who on March 23 of the said year decreed that Don Juan Pimentel, alcalde of Tondo, should begin proceedings against the Society in the mission of Jesus de la Pena, as the king commanded; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... street, but some friend will come up and inflict a narration, limited entirely to his own view of a case in which he is interested or aggrieved, practically ignoring that there can and must be another way of stating it. And so great is the complaisance of mankind, that no one thinks of intimating any necessity for consulting another authority before giving judgment. Here the vicious habit of thoughtless pronouncing is doubly bad, as it involves ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... disputes which would probably have begun in some small household disarrangement, and bred only dislike and religious offense. Her Methodism had neither been cowardly nor demonstrative, but had been made most conscious to all by her sweet complaisance and charitable concessions. ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... the days of the Expedition a change for the better has come over the gentil sesso. The traveller is no longer in the "dilemma of Frere Jean," and, except at the river-mouth and at the adjacent villages, there is none of that officious complaisance which characterizes every hamlet in the Gaboon country. The men appear peculiarly jealous, and the women fearful of the white face. Whenever we approached a feminine group, it would start up and ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... freedom of the life charmed me, and with rumours of war with the French there seemed enough to do, whether with the sword or in the House of Burgesses, where Governor Dinwiddie said his say with more force than complaisance. So taken was I with the life—my first excursion into the wide working world—that I delayed my going back to Glasgow, the more so that some matters touching my property called for action by the House of Burgesses, and I had to drive the affair to the end. Sir John had done better by me than ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... music-room, and here we were joined by a beautiful gray Angora cat, the pet and pride of his mistress, and a very important personage indeed. He has a trick of climbing to Miss Goodson's shoulder, from which point of vantage he surveys the world about him with all the complaisance of which an animal of ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... your ears would be offended with the sound of such a match. But consider that Rome was very different in my time from Rome in yours. The ferocious pride of our ancient republican senators had bent itself to the obsequious complaisance of a court. Berenice made no doubt, and I flattered myself that it would not be inflexible in this point alone. But we thought it necessary to defer the completion of our wishes till the death of my father. On that event the Roman Empire and (what ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... popularity, or a wish to be thought above narrow prejudices. The Chancellor alone is fixed and immoveable. Is it want of understanding or of principle? No—it is want of imagination, a phlegmatic habit, an excess of false complaisance and good-nature ... Common humanity and justice are little better than vague terms to him: he acts upon his immediate feelings and least irksome impulses. The King's hand is velvet to the touch—the ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... time, by keeping up a friendly correspondence with the father and son; therefore, though he could have wished Ali Baba would have declined the dance, he pretended to be obliged to him for it, and had the complaisance to express his satisfaction at what he said, which ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... the very "Rod and Fly," with the tap open to the roaring, jubilant public; a score of healths were drunk upstairs with all the honours, the bride and bridegroom being king and queen of the company: even Uncle Barnet owned that Sam Winnington was very complaisant—rather exceed in his complaisance, he supplemented scornfully; but surely Sam might mend that fault with others in the bright days to come. It is only the modern English who act Hamlet minus the Prince of Denmark; sitting at the bridal feast without bride or bridegroom. They say hearts are often caught on the ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... And why should I not trust him only this time, 20 Who have always trusted him? What, then, has happened, That I should lose my good opinion of him? In complaisance to your whims, not my own, I must, forsooth, give up a rooted judgment. Think not I am a woman. Having trusted him 25 E'en till to-day, to-day too will I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... highest rank, attended his audience; and were received," says Formey, nowhere free from spite on this subject, "in a sufficiently lofty style (HAUTEUR ASSEZ DEDAIGNEUSE). [Formey,—Souvenirs,—i. 235, 236.] A great Prince had the complaisance to play chess with him; and to let him win the pistoles that were staked. Sometimes even the pistole disappeared before the end of the game," continues Formey, green with spite;—and reports that sad story of the candle-ends; bits of wax-candle, which should ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... publisher, undertook the publication of the two volumes of the "Sketch-Book," and also of the "Knickerbocker" history, which Mr. Lockhart had just been warmly praising in "Blackwood's." Indeed, he bought the copyright of the "Sketch-Book" for two hundred pounds. The time for the publisher's complaisance had arrived sooner even than Scott predicted in one of his kindly letters ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... explain the interest with which the nation threw itself into the question, and to remove the scandal with which, had nothing been at stake beyond the inclinations of a profligate monarch, weary of his queen, the complaisance on such a subject of the lords and commons of England would have coloured the entire ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... the most unbounded faith in the creed of the planters, and would crowd their favorite temples located on our own soil. But this would not be a real bond of union between us, but merely an exhibition of servility and fawning hypocrisy. And so the Northern complaisance toward slavery has in no degree tended to avert the disaster which has overtaken us, but only to breed self-reproach on the one side, and hauteur with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... that the house of representatives, which had disregarded his recommendation, would now approve his project? It is impossible that the president or his advisers could have believed they would carry their complaisance so far. They must have known that the subject would be referred to the same committee, composed of the same persons, as that of the preceding year, and who would be likely, if they reported at all, not only to support their first opinions by further arguments, but to express their disapprobation ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... usual quiet and gloomy fashion, and, after a day's leave for the purpose of arranging the affairs of a sick aunt in Camberwell, came back only a little less gloomy than before. It was also clear that Mr. Swann's complaisance was nearly at an end, and a letter, couched in vigorous, not to say regrettable, terms for a moribund man, expressed such a desire for fresh air and exercise that Hardy was prepared to see him at ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... too, with all her boundless charity and good will, was, upon this occasion, induced to limit their excess; and they did not extend so far as to reach poor Rushbrook. She even, and in reality, did not think him handsome or engaging in his manners—she thought his gaiety frivolousness, his complaisance affectation, and his good humour impertinence. It was impossible to conceal those unfavourable sentiments entirely from Matilda; for when the subject arose, as it frequently did, Miss Woodley's undisguised heart, and Sandford's undisguised countenance, told them ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... looked surprised at this, and said inquiringly, "I thought he had gone to America, to pass the rest of his days." On my explaining the true state of the case, he merely observed, "He is a great man;" and yet I thought the remark was made coldly, or in complaisance to us. ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Smollett was much impressed by the mortifying indifference of the French innkeepers to their clients. "It is a very odd contrast between France and England. In the former all the people are complaisant but the publicans; in the latter there is hardly any complaisance but among the publicans." [In regard to two exceptional instances of politeness on the part of innkeepers, Smollett attributes one case to dementia, the other, at Lerici, to mental shock, caused by a recent earthquake.] ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... yielding to those temptations that beset a girl who is at once poor and charming. Fortunately for her, those in closest authority over her were not so deeply smitten as to make obligatory on her a choice between complaisance and loss of position. She knew of situations like that, the cul-de-sac of chastity, worse than any devised by a Javert. In the store, such things were matters of course. There is little innocence for the girl in ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... right, my dear; but what induced you to bring him to Buisson? I should have gone to see and thank him the first time I went to Paris, and meanwhile a letter would have been sufficient. Did he carry his complaisance and interest so far as to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... so experienced, so learned in the ways of women, numbers of whom had passed through his hands, doubtless, soon perceived this uneasiness, and, without approving, or liking me the better for it, had the complaisance to indulge me. ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... mischievous. They are on the alert for any sign of overstepping the limits of lawful authority on the part of the teacher, and they have no compunctions about forcing him to recognize that he rules by the consent of the governed, and that he must not mistake their complaisance for servility. On the other hand, they have, with rare exceptions, a respect for the value of a teacher's opinion in the subjects which he teaches, and will seldom contradict or oppose him in matters that ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... were at once full of plans and preparations for their outfit on the road. Nor did they reckon without their host; for the commissary assented to their joining him the moment it was proposed. Colonel Bradshawe might amuse himself and his cronies by expressing astonishment at his blindness or complaisance, but Shortridge had good reasons for what he did. Since he had made money, both his wife and himself felt a strong craving for social promotion; and Colonel L'Isle and Lady Mabel were just the persons to lend them a helping hand in their efforts to ascend the social ladder. ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... combinations, which would have commanded her deep respect had she seen them on any other table, and which she naturally relied on to produce the same effect on her guest. Whether or not the desired result was achieved, Madame de Treymes' manner did not specifically declare; but it showed a general complaisance, a charming willingness to be amused, which made Mr. Boykin, for months afterward, allude to her among his compatriots as "an old friend of my wife's—takes potluck with us, you know. Of course there's not a word of truth in any of those ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... Devils incarnate; I say, let us not be alarm'd, for Satan does not get these Advantages by Encroachment, and by his infernal Power or Art, no not at all; but 'tis the Man himself does it by his Indolence and Negligence on one Hand, and his Complaisance to the Devil on the other; and both Ways he, as it were, opens the Door to him, beckons him with his very Hand to come in, and the Devil has nothing to do but enter and take Possession: Now if it be so, and Man is so frank to him; you know the Devil is no Fool not to take ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... irremediable fate, thought Corilla: "This is a charming theme which the good Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn for me. I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his promise, he inserted in the paper. This cardinal is an agreeable imp, and I must give him a kiss for his complaisance. Besides, the Tasso rhyme will ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... complaisance to an end. His mercurial disposition counselled flight, and, deceiving his guards, he slipped from the palace and fled to the sea-shore. Here he found all avenues of escape closed, and so diligent was ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... stall spread with cotton cloth and bought enough for several skirts, the result of her complaisance being a siege of itinerant vendors that nearly deafened her. The big women were literally covered with their young ("pic'nees"), who clung to their skirts, waist, hips, bosoms; and these mites, with ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... But the constable, in the mean time, without even the privity of his master, entered into negotiations for his marriage with the princess Isabella, granddaughter of John the First of Portugal; and the monarch, with an unprecedented degree of complaisance, acquiesced in an arrangement professedly repugnant to his own inclinations. [37] By one of those dispensations of Providence, however, which often confound the plans of the wisest, as of the weakest, the column, which the minister ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... with him the scythe and spades—the whole of which he insisted upon carrying—more through fear, it seemed to me, of trusting either of the implements within reach of his master, than from any excess of industry or complaisance. His demeanor was dogged in the extreme, and "dat deuced bug" were the sole words which escaped his lips during the journey. For my own part, I had charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand contented himself with the scarabus, which he carried attached to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... steamers are to-day. Therefore, galleys were necessary; but the galley is moved only by the galley-slave; hence, galley-slaves were required. Colbert had the commissioners of provinces and the parliaments make as many convicts as possible. The magistracy showed a great deal of complaisance in the matter. A man kept his hat on in the presence of a procession—it was a Huguenot attitude; he was sent to the galleys. A child was encountered in the streets; provided that he was fifteen years of age and did not know where he was to sleep, he was sent to the galleys. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... as lovers, coxcombs, footmen, sailors, mechanics, merchants, and chambermaids; and others lie out of complaisance or necessity, as courtiers, chaplains, &c. In short, it were endless to enumerate them all, but this sketch may be sufficient to give us some small imperfect idea ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... official, to whom non-complaisance in the matter of inspection was unprecedented, "you certainly will not put any obstacle in the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... shall be a scene of marriage a la mode. But when I remember the beginning, it is bare courtesy to speak in sorrow. Be just, madam: you would think me strangely uncivil to recall these days without the decency of a regret. Be yet a little juster, and own, if only in complaisance, that you yourself regret ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... killed by a pistol shot, a man was brained with a slung shot, and a man named Reeder was also disposed of permanently. Some matters in the Enterprise account of the killing of Reeder are worth nothing—especially the accommodating complaisance of a Virginia justice of the peace. The italics in the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... church. I have often been at Mount Vernon on Sabbath morning, when his breakfast table was filled with guests; but to him they furnished no pretext for neglecting his God and losing the satisfaction of setting a good example. For instead of staying at home, out of false complaisance to them, he used constantly to invite them to ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... considered the serious problems of life, against which my fulminations were apt to be directed. I may have clung to him instinctively as a wholesome corrective. At all events, he submitted, in the main good-humouredly, to my frequently personal diatribes, and, by his very complaisance and merry indifference, supplied me again and again with point and illustration ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... i' the lassie, he'll be comin' here. Maybes he's comin' up the loan this verra meenit. Get me my best kep [cap], the French yin o' Flanders lawn trimmed wi' Valenceenes lace that Captain Wildfeather, of his Majesty's—But na, I'll no think o' thae times, I canna bear to think o' them wi' ony complaisance ava. But bring me my kep—haste ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... you," said Janet, genuinely persuading herself for the moment that Edwin was quite exceeding the usual bounds of complaisance. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... nomination at Chicago did not in the least disturb my equanimity or my allegiance to the great party to which I belonged, and for the success of which I had devoted my life since 1854. I listened with complaisance to the explanations made as to the wavering of the Ohio delegation on the Saturday previous to the nomination, and as to the unexpected action of the New York delegation and the curious reasoning which held them together in the hope that they could persuade their leader to ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... mournful subject for my Muse: His masters lost, he'd oft in turn deplore, And kindly add,—"Heaven grant, I lose no more!" Yet, while he spake, a sly and pleasant glance Appear'd at variance with his complaisance: For, as he told their fate and varying worth, He archly look'd,—"I yet may bear thee forth." "When first"—(he so began)—"my trade I plied, Good master Addle was the parish-guide; His clerk and sexton, I beheld with ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... more patient in his toils? who more rapacious in robbing? who more profuse in giving? Above all things, this was remarkable and admirable in him. The arts he had to acquire the good opinion and kindness of all sorts of men, to retain it with great complaisance, to communicate all things to them, to watch and serve all the occasions of their fortune, both with his money and his interest, and his industry, and if need were, not by sticking at any wickedness whatsoever ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... unyielding manner which is apparently the right—at all events, the successful—conduct for a whilom foe. If the Yugoslavs, in simply accepting the judgment of their Allies, acted against their own ultimate advantage, they can, at any rate, believe that their complaisance, their extraordinary lack of chauvinism, will be recognized. It is true that when, on former occasions, such as during the prolonged d'Annunzio farce at Rieka, they displayed a similar and wonderful forbearance, they did not manage to free themselves ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... visited, and was given the freedom of the burgh of Dumfries. On the ninth of June, 1787, he was back at Mauchline; and, calling at Armour's house to see his child, he was revolted by the "mean, servile complaisance" he met with—the result of his Edinburgh triumphs. His disgust at the family, however, did not prevent a renewal of his intimacy with Jean. After a few days at home, he seems to have made a short tour in the West Highlands. July was spent at Mossgiel, and early in ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... we ginerally gits the p'ints of an animal,' returned Baldy, with great complaisance, as he seated himself upon a bench ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... the mishap that befell me in the runaway of my horse prevented my appearance at the review, and had I waited your return from the field it would have compelled me to break my engagement with our friends the Allertons. Under the circumstances I felt sure of your complaisance. ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... improves by experience. When young, he thinks himself of great consequence, and every thing of importance. As he advances in life, he learns to think himself of no consequence, and little things of little importance; and so he becomes more patient, and better pleased. All good-humour and complaisance are acquired. Naturally a child seizes directly what it sees, and thinks of pleasing itself only. By degrees, it is taught to please others, and to prefer others; and that this will ultimately produce the greatest happiness. If ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... usual fault of his gratuitously adopted coarseness, it is admirably imitated in the "Plain Dealer," of Wycherly. Alceste is an upright and manly character, but rude and impatient even of the ordinary civilities of life and the harmless hypocrisies of complaisance, by which the ugliness of human nature is in some degree disguised. He quarrels with his friend Philinte for receiving the bow of a man he despises; and with his mistress for enjoying a little harmless ridicule of her friend, when her back is turned. He tells a conceited ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... city, and the use of every thing lying out in common, they say that all passengers, both those known and those unknown indiscriminately, were invited to lodgings, and that conversation was adopted between persons at variance with complaisance and kindness, and that they refrained from disputes and quarrels; their chains were also taken off those who were in confinement during those days; that afterward a scruple was felt in imprisoning those to whom the gods had brought such aid. In the mean while the alarm was multiplied at ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... unselfish cordiality, for further manifold proofs of political complaisance, to be reviewed by me in detail later, proofs of a sincere desire to be enduringly united with a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... In his complaisance and indifference Francis I. attended to his sister's wishes, and appeared to support Berquin in his appeal for a fresh and definite investigation of his case. On the other hand, Parliament, to whom the matter was referred, showed a disposition to take into ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... patio; and the public still surged outside the iron-grated door in the hope of further insight into the private lives of the travelling menagerie; but our luggage had been carried to the rooms which were now ready (thanks to the complaisance of the dazzled commercial gentlemen), and there were garden seats, on which we settled ourselves in spite of the chill in the ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... short notice as I have after preparation; if indeed there be any of you who have never heard the trifles I toss off on the spur of the moment. You will listen to them with the same critical exactitude that I have bestowed on their composition, but with greater complaisance, I hope, than I can feel in reciting them. For prudent judges are wont to judge finished works by a somewhat severe standard, but are far more complaisant to improvisations. For you weigh and examine all that is actually written, but in the case of extempore speaking ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... mother, who is wintering on the Riviera, that he has become engaged to be married, the natural course for her to pursue, if she approves of the step, is to wire her congratulations and good wishes. When for these she substitutes a curt announcement that she is returning immediately, a certain lack of complaisance seems to ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... foregone conclusion; and though the learned lawyer duly prepared a very fine speech and pocketed some monstrous fees with a great deal of complaisance, he was honest enough not to hold out the smallest hope of being able to save ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... and the few things which he had left. During the evening, fresh questions were put to him respecting the cruel wars which desolated France; he was obliged to trace the account of them, on the sand in Arabic letters. It was this extreme complaisance, and his pretended quality of the son of a Christian and of a Mahometan woman, which caused him to be upon very good terms with Prince Muhammed, and in general, with all the Moors whom he met with, on his journey. Every moment ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... day with his own proper unction and power. One story of him I must give; my father, who heard it not long before his own death, was delighted with it, and for some days repeated it to every one. Uncle Ebenezer, with all his mildness and general complaisance, was, like most of the Browns, tenax propositi, firm to obstinacy. He had established a week-day sermon at the North Ferry, about two miles from his own town, Inverkeithing. It was, I think, on the Tuesdays. It was winter, and a wild, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... general, his lady, and two sons; the youngest of whom is the person you have just seen, the other was several years older. Pardieu! I felt myself very comfortable in that house, and every individual of the family had all kind of complaisance for me. It is singular enough, that though I have been turned out of so many families, I was never turned out of that; and though I left it thrice, it was of my own free will. I became dissatisfied with the other servants or with the dog or the cat. The last time I left ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... any one of them all ever did, or ever would do, anything likely to bring any one of the authors of these murders to the bar of justice. Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates are held and bound by the essential conditions of their political existence to treat with complaisance the most extreme and violent men of their party. Nor is this true ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... businesses, and thence took him to my brother's, and there gave him a glass of wine, and so parted, and then by coach with my wife home, and Sir J. M. and Sir W. B. being come from Chatham Pay I did go see them for complaisance, and so ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... well-informed, inobtrusive, and that sturdy old English character, a lover of truth and justice. I never knew Mounsey approve of anything unfair or illiberal. There is a candour and uprightness about his mind which can neither be wheedled nor browbeat into unjustifiable complaisance. He looks straight forward as he sits with his glass in his hand, turning neither to the right nor the left, and I will venture to say that he has never had a sinister object in view through life. Mrs. Battle (it is recorded ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... spring morning, Pomona, still a young woman, and Jonas, not many years older, but imbued with a semi-pathetic complaisance beyond his years, embarked for England and Scotland, to which countries it was determined to limit their travels. The letters which follow were written in consequence of the earnest desire of Euphemia to have a full account of the travels and foreign impressions of her former handmaiden. ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... betrayed his surprise at the complaisance, but he gave his pledge and his thanks with what courtliness he could muster, and releasing his passive prisoner, pushed her gently into the safe-keeping of the old cniht. Yet he was not so obtuse as to step back, as though the ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... determines.] La France et l'Angleterre au contraire ont manifeste leur determination de la sauver et de l'assurer contre ces attaques. C'etait la la cause de la guerre; c'etait la le but de la paix; mon Gouvernement n'oserait le sacrifier vis-a-vis de mon peuple par complaisance envers l'Empereur de Russie. Un coup d'oeil sur la Carte, par exemple, demontre qu'en detruisant Ismail, Kilia, etc., etc. [(acte auquel nous ne venons qu'a present d'apprendre que la France avait donne son assentiment a notre insu)] ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... verb."—Alexander's Gram., p. 53; Emmons's, 26. "You is of the Plural Number, even though used as the Name of a single Person."—W. Ward's Gram., p. 88. "Altho' the Second Person Singular in both Times be marked with thou, to distinguish it from the Plural, yet we, out of Complaisance, though we speak but to one particular Person, use the Plural you, and never thou, but when we address ourselves to Almighty God, or when we speak in an emphatical Manner, or make a distinct and particular Application to a Person."—British Gram., p. 126; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... tolerated and even welcomed such a flood of verse as was poured forth over Great Britain during the first three years of the war. Those years saw the publication, as I am credibly informed, of more than five hundred volumes of new and original poetry. It would be the silliest complaisance to pretend that all of this, or much of it, or any but a very little of it, has been of permanent value. Much of it was windy and superficial, striving in wild vague terms to express great agitations which were obscurely felt by the poet. There was too much of ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... guilty to a certain indictment you were pleased to bring against me. As I am convinced of my own innocence, and, though conscious of high imprudence and egregious folly, can lay my hand on my breast and attest the rectitude of my heart, you will pardon me, Madam, if I do not carry my complaisance so far as humbly to acquiesce in the name of "Villain" merely out of compliment to your opinion, much as I esteem your judgment and warmly as I ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the harebrained attempt to march five hundred riotous men through the city directly in front of the Prefecture, where lay unlimited reserves, civil and military, under arms. The royalists had somewhat overstrained the complaisance of the authorities. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... gathered from her writings, about this time, that the salutary change proceeded not out of complaisance to the lover, but by reception of a fulness of light from heaven. Clearness, zeal, and love mark her Meditations and Disquisitions on the Holy Trinity; the Godhead and Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ; the Personality and Work ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... Preciosa, mindful of the portfolios that Little O'Grady had lugged downstairs and had opened in Festus Gowan's studio. "Leave them all behind," she added, feeling as keenly as ever the smart of her feeble complaisance toward ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... Accidents, for the most simple Action may engage the Reader by the Circumstances that attend it; it enters into all the Motions and Disquiets of the Actor, when they have well express'd to him the Character. If he be Jealous, the Look of a Person he Loves, a Mouse, a turn of the Head, or the least complaisance to a Rival, throws him into the greatest Agitations, which the Readers perceive by a Counter-blow; if he be very Vertuous, and falls into a Mischance by Accident, they Pity him and Commiserate his Misfortunes; for Fear and Pity in Romance as well as Tragedies are the ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... combat, in his general's sight. In consequence of all this he had several honors conferred upon him; and once when at an entertainment a question arose about commanders, and one of the company (whether really desirous to know, or only in complaisance) asked Scipio where the Romans, after him, should obtain such another general, Scipio, gently clapping Marius on the shoulder as he sat next him, replied, "Here, perhaps." So promising was his early youth of his future greatness, and so discerning was ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Compliance, if not Subservience, to his Vices, must be the Measures of your Conduct. When it comes to that, the unnatural State a Man lives in, when his Patron pleases, is ended; and his Guilt and Complaisance are objected to him, tho the Man who rejects him for his Vices was not only his Partner but Seducer. Thus the Client (like a young Woman who has given up the Innocence which made her charming) has not only lost his Time, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... help them to proceed, without letting it be known to the audience they were out; but if they run quite out of character, they must be called off the stage, and receive parts more suitable to their genius. Servile complaisance shall degrade a man from his honour and quality, and haughtiness be yet more debased. Fortune shall no longer appropriate distinctions, but nature direct us in the disposition both of respect and discountenance. As there are tempers made for command and ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... life a real scourge of the human race, imagines that his conscience can be tranquillized, if, in order to expiate so many crimes, he will have wept at the feet of a priest, who will have the cowardly complaisance to console and reassure a brigand, whom the most frightful despair would punish too little for the evil which he has done ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... should be accompanied by Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD, whose peculiar views upon the questions of war and peace have so recently been repudiated by the Government and the House of Commons, makes it still more extraordinary. In the circumstances it was almost surprising to learn that the complaisance of the Government did not extend to furnishing Mr. MACDONALD with a war-ship ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... complaisance induced him at least to feign himself asleep; whereupon. Paul, laying down "Poor Richard," rose from his chair, and, withdrawing his boots, began walking rapidly but noiselessly to and fro, in his stockings, in the spacious room, wrapped in Indian meditations. Israel furtively eyed him from ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... fy, Laura, a Lady bred at Court, and Yet want complaisance enough to entertain A Gallant in private! this coy Humour Is not a-la-mode.—Be not so peevish with a Heart ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... which I had opened to its farthest extent. After he had got over the first surprise and shock of finding me on the chairs instead of in the bed, for whose comfort he vouched enthusiastically, he became confident that it was merely out of complaisance to him and his comrade that I had opened the window, and assured me that they really did not care for fresh air, even if they could feel the difference in the alcove, which he declared they could not. As soon as that was arranged to my satisfaction, the ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... me divine, but chimerical; Rousseau, more impassioned than inspired, greater by instinct than by truth; while Bossuet, with his golden eloquence and fawning soul, united, in his conduct and his language before Louis XIV., doctoral despotism with the complaisance of a courtier. From these studies of history and oratory I naturally passed on to politics. The remembrance of the imperial yoke which had just been shaken off, and my abhorrence of the military rule to which we had been subjected, impelled me towards liberty. On the other hand, family recollections; ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... this, that Isabella walking in the Streets of Urbino, in the close of the Evening, a Foreign Count, of luscious Inclinations passing by her, gave her an amorous Look, and addressing her with a great deal of Complaisance, she seem'd for his Purpose, and indeed she long'd for a pleasing Variety, having met with no uncommon ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... white troops harder to raise, and black ones more heartily despised; Union victories more coldly received, and reverses productive of less despondency, than right among that portion of the voting population and its adjuncts which control the local elections in this District? With what complaisance the social elements of this capital fostered the brood of traitors who rushed hence to the service of the rebellion in 1861! Are these fruits ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... should like rather to go alone to see the house, because I always fancy I can judge better by myself of the accommodation, and I can stay as long as I like, and ascertain the sizes of all the rooms without the disagreeable feeling upon my mind, which no amount of complaisance on your part, could ever get me over, that I was most unaccountably detaining somebody from more important business of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... now be told, that there was nothing of the slightest importance occurred at this repast, except that it gave me an opportunity of studying Mrs. Berry in many different ways; and, in spite of the extreme complaisance which she now showed me, of forming, I am sorry to say, a most unfavourable opinion of that fair lady. Truth to tell, I would much rather she should have been civil to Mrs. Muchit, than outrageously complimentary to your humble ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he had endured, his loyalty remained unshaken, and when the War of 1812[55] broke out he responded to the call for volunteers by shouldering his musket and doing his devoirs like a man at the battle of Queenston Heights. Even this obtained for him neither complaisance nor immunity from abuse. He found himself ruined in fortune, opposed and hated by those in authority, without any prospect before him but starvation. It is not singular that a man subjected to such conditions should become disheartened. In a moment ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... not, however, carry his complaisance so far as to embrace Sir Geoffrey's side during the Civil War. On the contrary, as an active Justice of the Peace, he rendered much assistance in arraying the militia in the cause of the Parliament, and for some time ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... attended to, the teacher issues his orders and thinks himself master, but it is the child who is really master. He uses the tasks you set him to obtain what he wants from you, and he can always make you pay for an hour's industry by a week's complaisance. You must always be making bargains with him. These bargains, suggested in your fashion, but carried out in his, always follow the direction of his own fancies, especially when you are foolish enough to make the condition some advantage he is almost sure to obtain, ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... than to find the Writings of many of our Modern Divines, not only Stiff and Harsh, but full of Rancour, and to find an easy Propensity and Complaisance in the Writings of the Laity; a Gentleman without the Gown commonly Writes with a genteel Respect to the World, abundance of good Temper and a condescension Endearing; when a brawny Priest, shall shew a great deal of Ill-nature, give indecent Reflections, and affrontive Language, and oftentimes ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... I. John and Joseph (thought I had discharged the latter,) and my dame, following me, to show their complaisance to a stranger. ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson |
