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More "Complaisance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his but theirs, and that although he thinks its execution is still possible, the true policy is, "if Egypt is to be quiet, that the Mahdi must be smashed up." The hopes that had been based on Gordon's supposed complaisance in the post of representative on the Nile of the Government policy were thus dispelled, and it became evident that Gordon, instead of being a tool, was resolved to be master, so far as the mode of ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... thought they were paying for some complaisance on the part of the master of Abbey Burnfoot. But his light burned steadily up in his study window. He had never looked down on the flitting torches, the turmoil of the loading, the black figures crossing and recrossing the glimmering strips of sand, the clinking of shod feet ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... of to-day, and not at all of to-morrow. Beware of the high and hold fast to the safe. Dismiss conviction, and study general consensus. No zeal, no faith, no intellectual trenchancy, but as much low-minded geniality and trivial complaisance as ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... countenance; her sisters went to meet him, and, notwithstanding their endeavours to appear sorrowful, their joy, felt for having got rid of their sister, was visible in every feature. A moment after, everything disappeared, with Beauty's apprehensions at this proof of Beast's complaisance. ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... both on his home ranch and on the trail, had sharpened Larkin's wits for emergencies, and it was with really no spirit of humble complaisance that he faced the future. Much, however, depended on the ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... for the answer which Apollo gave the Athenians, when Xerxes was about to attack Greece with all the strength of Asia. The Pythian declared, that Minerva, the protectress of Athens, had endeavoured in vain to appease the wrath of Jupiter; yet that Jupiter, in complaisance with his daughter, was willing the Athenians should secure themselves within wooden walls; and that Salamis should behold the loss of a great many children, dead to their mothers, either when Ceres was spread abroad, or gathered together. At this Oenomanus loses all patience with ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... that the servant's eyes were upon him, smiled at this question, "looked superior down;" and though with reluctant complaisance he leaned his body to this side or to that, as Queasy pulled or swayed, yet he appeared totally regardless of the man's vulgar reflections. He had seen every thing as he passed, and was surprised at all he saw; but evinced ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... ingenuousness, and manly confidence. The natural fire and haughtiness of his eye were carefully subdued, and he seemed, at least to a superficial view, the very model of good-nature and disinterested complaisance. His bright and flowing hair parted on his brow, and formed into a thousand ringlets, waved to the zephyrs as he passed along. There was something so delicate and enchanting in his whole figure, as to tempt you to compare it to the ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... 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 parrot proclivities of their years and race added their shrill: ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... she in her turn evidently admires enormously her friend's social capabilities and cleverness, and she is impulsively eager to make some return for Mrs. Stuart's kindness—an eagerness which shows itself in the greatest complaisance towards all the Stuarts' friends, and in a constant watchfulness for anything which will ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... great complaisance, and very civil to all that have occasion to make use of his wife. He married a wife as a common proxy for the service of all those that are willing to come in for their shares; he engrossed her first by ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... humanity, which is what we express by the word good-breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimicry of good nature, or, in other terms, affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper, reduced into an art. These exterior shows and appearances of humanity render a man wonderfully popular and beloved, when they are founded upon a real good nature; but, without it, are like hypocrisy ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... Livonian had happened to meet Madame Marneffe instead of Lisbeth Fischer, he would have found a protectress whose complaisance must have led him into some boggy or discreditable path, where he would have been lost. He would certainly never have worked, nor the artist have been hatched out. Thus, while he deplored the old maid's grasping avarice, his reason bid him prefer her iron hand to the life of idleness and peril ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... she looked back at him in an arch, smiling way, fixing her mouth in a potent line. Cowperwood was captivated. Was she vulnerable? was his one thought. Did that faint smile mean anything more than mere social complaisance? Probably not, but could not a temperament so rich and full be awakened to feeling by his own? When she was through playing he took occasion to say: "Wouldn't you like to stroll into the gallery? Are you fond of pictures?" He gave her ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... that Australians and Africans have been known to show less "jealousy" of whites than of their own countrymen, finds an easy explanation in the greater ability of the white man to pay for the husband's complaisance. In some cases, in the absence of a fine, the husband takes his revenge in other ways, subjecting the culprit's wife to the same outrage (as among natives of Guiana and New Caledonia) or delivering ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... way of his, 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
... living on her own resources or in a shop, not in service) nor is Rose in Jean, but both have the requirements of the type—minois chiffonne (including what is absolutely indispensable, a nez retrousse), inexhaustible gaiety, extreme though by no means promiscuous complaisance, thorough good-nature—all the gifts, in short, of Beranger's bonne fille, who laughs at everything, but is perfectly capable of good sense and good service at need, and who not seldom marries ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... nothing like Major Pendennis to be found from Trolhatten to Messina, and yet Pendennis is a class with us; and it is in the nicely-blended selfishness and complaisance, the egotism and obligingness, that we find the ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... back in her chair and looked at Mrs. Skene with a curious expression which soon brightened into an irrepressible smile. Mrs. Skene smiled very slightly in complaisance, but conveyed by her serious brow that what she had said ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... make before I proceed further to details. The appearance, and especially the motions, of my aerial visitors were intimately connected, either as cause or effect, I cannot determine which, with certain sensations of my own. Their countenances generally expressed pleasure or pain, complaisance or anger, according to the mood of my own mind: if they moved from place to place without moving their limbs, with that gliding motion appropriate to spirits, I felt in my stomach that peculiar tickling sensation which accompanies a rapid, progressive movement through the air; and if they went ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... to revere, Must sure become the creature; But still the preaching cant forbear, And ev'n the rigid feature: Yet ne'er with wits profane to range, Be complaisance extended; An atheist-laugh's a poor exchange For ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... strange that the idea, thus planted, should grow in Mr. Price's favor as he proceeded. He had been surprised at Jethro's complaisance, and he wondered whether, after all, he had done well to help Chester stir people up at this time. When he reached Harwich, instead of presenting himself promptly at the spinster's house, he went first to the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... their life, sanguine of the ultimate triumph of his manoeuvres, and at times still influenced by his companion, the demeanour of the young Emir of Lebanon to his friend resumed something of its wonted softness, confidence, and complaisance. They were once more in sight of the wild palace-fort of Astarte; spurring their horses, they dashed before their attendants over the plain, and halted at the huge portal of iron, while the torches were lit, and preparations were made for the passage ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... American girl of the super-refined class, and whose baleful norm in the crypt was asleep at the wheel in her first blind youth, finds herself disappointed in the most intimate partnership that exists, the complaisance, voluntary at the beginning, drifts into habit, more and more grimly endured. Some have the moral courage to put an end to it as they would to any false situation, but if individuals were not rare in this world we should have chaos, not a civilization ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... carriage for the better half of the way. The man was only too willing to seize the chance thus divinely given him. His irritation at Lewis's projects had been tempered by Alice's kindness at lunch and Wratislaw's unlooked-for complaisance. Things looked rosy for him; far off, as on the horizon of his hopes, he saw a seat in Parliament and a fair ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... break through that dividing line, to find him, to battle by his side, to die at his feet! Her Beltran! so grave, so good, so heroic! and the thought of him in all his pride and beauty and power, in all his lofty gentleness and tender passion, in his strength tempered with genial complaisance and gracious courtesy, sent the old glad life, for a second, spinning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... arrived, having been bailed out after some difficulty, for the police were frightened and ugly, foreseeing that this swift vengeance upon the notorious gang, meted out by a private hand, would throw a vivid light upon their own inefficiency and complaisance. Happily the District Attorney's office was engaged in one of its periodical feuds with the Police Department over some matter of graft gone astray, and was more inclined to make a cat's-paw than a ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... 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 ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... manner above the comprehension of those whom we address, is unquestionable pedantry; but surely complaisance requires, that no man should, without proof, conclude his company incapable of following him to the highest elevation of his fancy, or the utmost extent of his knowledge. It is always safer to err in favour of others than of ourselves, and therefore we seldom hazard ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... he never was in good company till late in life, and, consequently had been confirmed in coarse and ferocious manners by long habits, is wholly without foundation. Some of the ladies have assured me, they recollected him well when a young man, as distinguished for his complaisance. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... would bring a physical misery to match his mental state. Though this was wisdom, it added to his sense of being lost in black space like a wandering star. In the end he had gone into a cafe and drunk manzanilla, and with the limp complaisance of a wrecked seasick man whose raft has shivered and left him to the mercy of an octopus he had suffered adoption by a party of German engineers, who had made very merry with stories of tipsy priests and nuns who had not lived up to their position as the brides of Christ. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... uncommon, sir, for gentlemen to exercise their abilities, and employ their pens, upon political questions, and when they have produced any thing, which their complaisance for themselves equally hinders them from owning and suppressing, they are known to procure some person of inferiour rank, to take upon him, in publick, the character of the author, and to stand the danger of the prosecution, contenting ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... 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 would be excessive ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... Smyrna to furnish him with a ship fitted for that guerre de course, which he desired to pursue against the Christians. The value of the corsair as an auxiliary was beginning to be recognised among the high Turkish officials. For the complaisance of Khorkud there were two reasons: in the first place, he was acting in the interests of his brother in sending to sea any really capable man to make head against his enemies, and the fact that Uruj was a pirate pure and simple did not weigh for a feather in the balance; in ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... 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
... desire to return to Paris (I. ii. 42 f.). Hamlet scarcely ever speaks to him without an insult, but he never shows resentment, hardly even annoyance. He makes use of Laertes with great dexterity. He had evidently found that a clear head, a general complaisance, a willingness to bend and oblige where he could not overawe, would lead him to his objects,—that he could trick men and manage them. Unfortunately he imagined he could trick something more ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... limply on 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 her ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... before them in an indolent, insolent fashion, to show them what a great person he was, and to speak of things beyond their ken. Playing this part, he would have enjoyed himself tolerably—nor the less because now and again he let his contempt for the company peep from under his complaisance—but for the obtuseness, or the malice of his friend; who, as if he had only one man and one idea in his head, let fall with every moment some mention of Colonel John. Now, it was the happy certainty of the Colonel's return next day that inspired his eloquence; ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... gurgle of the water had become heavier. We had often noticed a mutinous, complaining note in it at night, quite different from its cheerful daytime chuckle, and seeming like the voice of a much deeper and more powerful stream. Our water had always these two moods: the one of sunny complaisance, the other of inconsolable, ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... perhaps, a serenity of mind undisturbed by anxious occupations and eager passions. They are not tormented by our avarice or our ambition; they appear perfectly indifferent even to the desire of fame; they are capable of great affection, but their love shows itself in a tender and cheerful complaisance, and, while forming their happiness, seems rarely, if ever, to constitute their woe. As the Gy is sure only to marry where she herself fixes her choice, and as here, not less than above ground, it is the female on whom the happiness of home depends; so the Gy, having chosen the ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... 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 ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... sheerly from obeying the commands of a respectable-looking old lady, who once required me to ring the bell, and another time to help the tea-kettle. I have some reason to think she was literally an OLD-STAGER, who laughed in her sleeve at my complaisance; so that I have sworn in my secret soul revenge upon her sex, and all such errant damsels of whatever age and degree whom I may encounter in my travels. I mean all this without the least ill-will to my friend the contractor, who, I think, has approached as near as any one is like to do towards ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... McGuire paused to curse silently at the complaisance of this people. What could he not do if they would help. Ten companies of trained men, armed with their deadly electronic projectors that disintegrated any living thing they reached—and he would clutch at his tousled hair and realize that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... that she had spent a night of wild debauch at Roche-Mauprat. At best, he only deigned to concede that she had yielded only to violence. Edmee commanded too much respect and esteem to be accused of having shown complaisance to the brigands; but she soon passed for having been a victim of their brutality. Marked with an indelible stain, she was no longer sought in marriage by any one. My absence only served to confirm this opinion. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... good a brother as that, your complaisance is likely to bring you into trouble, Mr. Carroll. Come along, Jones, I've got pretty nearly what I wanted from them." Then when they were in the street, he continued speaking to Frank. "Your brother is right, though ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... seated myself in a 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 steps leading from the second storey of the keep to the State apartments. I knew that ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... monarch, delighted with 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 ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... breeding, polish, presence; civility, civilization; amenity, suavity; good temper, good humor; amiability, easy temper, complacency, soft tongue, mansuetude; condescension &c. (humility) 879; affability, complaisance, prvenance, amability[obs3], gallantry; pink of politeness, pink of courtesy. compliment; fair words, soft words, sweet words; honeyed phrases, ceremonial; ,salutation, reception, presentation, introduction, accueil[obs3], greeting, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... glad: but being informed that we were almost killed by the fright, they were vastly sorry; but hearing that we had a very good night, they were extremely glad again. Nothing could exceed their complaisance to my daughters; their professions the last evening were warm, but now they were ardent. They protested a desire of having a more lasting acquaintance. Lady Blarney was particularly attached to Olivia; Miss Carolina Wilelmina Amelia Skeggs (I ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... feeling to include Mrs Grey's guests in the dislike he felt towards herself, or to suppose that they must necessarily share her disposition towards his relations. Perhaps he felt, unknown to himself some inclination to prepossess them in favour of his connections; to stretch his complaisance a little, as a precaution against the prejudices with which he knew Mrs Grey would attempt to occupy their minds. However this might be, he was as amicable with Margaret as his mother was with ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... tempted to decline this peremptory invitation, but curiosity threw its weight into the balance with complaisance, and with a dignified lift of the chin ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... many tokens of 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 ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... good proficient in my favorite study (mathematical and mechanical philosophy), and was rather mortified at finding Mr. Watt so much my superior. But his own high relish for those things made him pleased with the chat of any person who had the same tastes with himself; or his innate complaisance made him indulge my curiosity, and even encourage my endeavors to form a more intimate acquaintance with him. I lounged much about him, and, I doubt not, was frequently teasing him. Thus ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... 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, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... the weakness of the thoughtless, it is the helpfulness of the strong and the wise. To forgive a man will not mean to escape from the trouble of securing his punishment; it will not mean the weak complaisance of indolent tolerance. It will mean thought for his weakness, taking up his burden, doing the brother's part for him, the endeavour to do for him what we would like to have the Father of us ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... 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
... friendship. As to believing that you said this to one, and wrote it to the other, simply for the sake of paying them an agreeable compliment, I have too high an esteem for your courage to be able to imagine that complaisance would cause you thus to betray the sentiments of your heart, especially on a subject in which, as they were unfavorable to me, I think you would have the more reason for concealing them, the affection which I ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... answered Arundel, "that your magistrates are no lambs. Yet of thy complaisance, tell me wherein I am interested in aught that ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... 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 ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... 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 story, and to the latter in the ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... France. 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 had so artfully raised for his support, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... 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 ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... now, and several of them winced and looked frightened at the swift result of their complaisance. One, ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... 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 also ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... help of some Wax in the hollow of his Hand, he drew away several Guineas every time, which he conveyed into a Handkerchief he held in his Left-hand. When the Number was compleated, they parted, with much Complaisance on each side: but when the Banker came the next Morning to settle the Account of his Cash, he found in his Gold a ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... me and now I'm to receive a condescending little pat on the head—and of course must say thank you. Do you know, Mrs. Lafirme—and I don't see why a woman like you oughtn't to know it—it's one of those things to drive a man mad, the sweet complaisance with which women accept situations, or inflict situations that it takes the utmost of a ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... 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 ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... adoring blue eyes, and sped on her mission. The next morning she realised that those thanks had been darling Miss Blake's farewell, and shed bitter tears; but for the moment she was filled with complaisance. ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... who was a good-hearted girl; "'twas your great complaisance for us, not vanity. Oh! oh! oh!" and she began to blubber, to make ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... 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, drifting, and dangerous day; his daughters—his wife ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... 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
... the flowers to grow. And this would lead to moods of weakness and satisfaction—not to that divine discontent, that rage of impatience which Thyrsis craved. It seemed to him that Corydon grew more and more in love with him, and more willing to cling to him; and he was savage because of his own complaisance. They would spend hours, exchanging endearments and whispering youthful absurdities; and then, the next day, he would write a note of protest, and Corydon would be wild with misery, and would tear up his love-notes, and vow in tears that he should never touch her hand ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Complaisance, which is due to the fair Sex, does not excuse the Abuse of copying when it proves prejudicial to the Profession, what ought one then to say of those Men, who, instead of inventing, not only copy others of their own Sex, but also Women. Foolish and shameful!——Supposing ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... in the heart and life, and to induce penitence and contrition and so secure pardon and peace. But too often, my friends," and here his voice became a shade softer, "it results in a self-righteous and sinful self-complaisance. What is required is a simple honesty of mind and spiritual illumination, and the latter cannot be without the former. There are those who are ever searching for 'the marks' of a genuinely godly state of heart, and they have the idea that these marks are ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... who more dissolute in his pleasures? who 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
... retired smoking-room a terrible scene was in progress. The two gentlemen had lit their cigars and were sitting in certain forced attitudes that evinced their non-enjoyment of the weed each had taken out of complaisance to the other, when an old man, strangely serious, strangely at home, yet as strangely a guest of the house like themselves, came in, and ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... longer on my fair visitor's complaisance, but if she have not found the gloom of this apartment insupportable, it would be a charitable action to brighten it once more ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with Dr. Williams, talking about my law 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
... fashion and far too readily; while the extreme humility with which she deferred to John's opinion, and hung on his lips, made another bad impression on Mary. Nor was she alone in her observations. After a particularly glaring example of the widow's complaisance, Tilly looked across and shut one eye, in an ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... for contribution at every ferry; at every caffe and restaurant begging-boxes appeal to charity. Whoever has lifted hand in your service in any way during the past year expects a reward on New Year's for the complaisance, and in some cases the shop-keepers send to wish you a bel capo d'anno, with the same practical end in view. On New Year's Eve and morning bands of facchini and gondoliers go about howling vivas under charitable windows till they open ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... 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 account the king's ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... carried in their depths the allurements of a sorceress, when her limbs have woven Venusberg enchantments which it has taken all my strength to withstand. But tonight, when I take the greatest step and claim her as mine till our lives' end, she yields with the complaisance of an ignorant child and raises up between us the barrier of her innocence. When shall I learn ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... "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 to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... I saw one of the amiablest men in the world, who forms the charm of society, who would be everywhere sought after if he were not King; a philosopher without austerity; full of sweetness, complaisance and obliging ways (AGREMENS); not remembering that he is King when he meets his friends; indeed so completely forgetting it that he made me too almost forget it, and I needed an effort of memory to recollect that I here saw sitting at the foot of my bed a Sovereign who had ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... entertainment on the last day of this year to the King and Queen; who came to the Arsenal with a numerous train, and found the diversions I had provided so much to their taste that they did not leave until I was half dead with fatigue, and like to be killed with complaisance. Though this was not the most splendid entertainment I gave that year, it had the good fortune to please; and in a different and less agreeable fashion is recalled to my memory by a peculiar chain of events, whereof the first link came under my ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... entirely stripped of power and in many instances of land as well. How empty and bottomless the oppressive institutions and how burdensome the taxes which rested on nothing but a paper grant, musty with age and backed only by royal complaisance! Want too was always looking in at the doors of the many, while the few were enjoying the national substance. This year there was a crisis, for before the previous harvest time devastating hail-storms had swept the fields, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... devil your own way. It seems, also, that the 'faithful and spirited likeness' is another of your publications. I wish you joy of it; but it is no likeness—that is the point. Seriously, if I have delayed your journey to Scotland, I am sorry that you carried your complaisance so far; particularly as upon trifles you have a more summary method;—witness the grammar of Hobhouse's 'bit of prose,' which has put him and me into ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... he, at this whimsical picture; and, I am sure, I never shall have reason to include you in these disagreeable outlines; but yet I will say, that I expect from you, whoever comes to my house, that you accustom yourself to one even, uniform complaisance: That no frown take place on your brow: That however ill or well provided we may be for their reception, you shew no flutter or discomposure: That whoever you may have in your company at the time, you signify not, by the least reserved look, that the ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... positively see the chateau," said M. Lacordaire, very impressively; and then after a pause he added, "If madame will have the complaisance to commission me to procure a carriage for this afternoon, and will allow me the honour to be her guide, I shall consider myself one of the most ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... 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
... 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
... quite 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 offer ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in the way that he did for Sylvia, could have borne four mortal hours of a company where she had been, and was not; least of all could have danced a hornpipe, either from gaiety of heart, or even out of complaisance. He felt as if the yearning after the absent one would have been a weight to his legs, as well as to his spirit; and he imagined that all men ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Akenside availed himself of that mixture of complaisance and arrogance by which almost alone a man of no birth can rise in a society graded by birth. He concealed his origin and was ashamed of his pedigree. But the blame for his flunkeyism belongs, perhaps, less to him than to the insolent caste feeling of society, which forced it on him as a measure ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... with your confidence thus far, won't you take the next step, and tell me why you credit Baron von Kerber with such complaisance?" he demanded. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... sans etre en etat de les lire. Il a fallu creer pour eux une sorte de bibliotheque composee d'objets qui, sous la forme exterieure de livres, ne fussent reellement que des raretes, des objets de curiosite, qu'on ne lit pas, mais que tantot on regarde avec complaisance, tantot en montre avec ostentation; et comme apres cela c'est presque toujours le gout des personnes en etat de recompenser qui dirige le but des travailleurs, on ne doit pas etre surpris qu'on se soit plus occupe d'indiquer aux hommes riches dont je parle, des raretes a acquerir, ou de vanter celles ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... youth, and that ardour of desire, which the first sight of pleasure naturally produces, have long ceased to hurry us into irregularity and vehemence; and experience has shewn us that few gratifications are too valuable to be sacrificed to complaisance. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... world. I have a greater taste for war than for peace; but, I am restrained from war by humanity, justice and reason. I shall not allow myself, like Elizabeth, to be pressed into a war. I shall enter upon it when it will prove advantageous to me, but never from complaisance to others." ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... Ralegh about partnership in a privateer. Ralegh in a memorable letter to his wife in July, 1603, spoke of the business association as still subsisting. It is difficult to believe that Cecil reciprocated, unless from complaisance and policy, the ferocity against Ralegh and Cobham, or either, which inspired Henry Howard's venomous canting mystifications, and was echoed by James. His correspondence with Ralegh's cousin, George Carew, countenances the view that his hostility had something in it of hurt affection. He was ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... an invalid; and moreover, as the hatchets had anything but an attractive look, and the handlers of them still less so, it was, therefore, to tell the truth, not without some lurking reluctance, or even shrinking, it may be, that Captain Delano, with apparent complaisance, acquiesced in his host's invitation. The more so, since, with an untimely caprice of punctilio, rendered distressing by his cadaverous aspect, Don Benito, with Castilian bows, solemnly insisted upon his guest's preceding him up the ladder leading to the elevation; where, one ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... 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 of exasperation ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... for my books; first Bunyan's Pilgrim, (As he with thankful pleasure will grin,) Tho' dogleaved, torn, in bad type set in, 'T will do quite well for classmate B——, And thus with complaisance to treat her, 'T will answer for another Detur. The Will ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... flow, but restrain'd, looking all dying, and yet reproaching, while those of the Princess were ever bent to the Earth, and she as much as possible, shunning his Conversation. Yet this did not satisfy the jealous Husband; 'twas not her Complaisance that could appease him; he found her Heart was panting within, whenever Henrick approach'd her, and every Visit more and more ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... much a hindrance to business success as a moral weakness. Yet to the man who does not possess moral courage the most brilliant abilities may prove utterly useless. There is the folly of resistance and the folly of complaisance. There is the tendency towards eternal compromise and the desire for futile battle. Until the mind of youth has adjusted itself between the two extremes and formed a technique which is not so much independent ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... I make a mistake, tell me, I beseech you, beforehand, in what way it would please you to have this affair healed. Shall I speak, Monsieur, according to my conscience, or as usual when near the great? Shall I tell the truth or use a certain complaisance? ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... into the harem of the conqueror, and had captivated him by her beauty. Darius conceived a violent passion for this damsel, and his father was at first inclined to give her up to him, but afterwards, repenting of his complaisance, consecrated her to the service of Mithra, a cult which imposed on her the obligation of perpetual chastity. Darius, exasperated by this treatment, began to contemplate measures of vengeance, but, being betrayed by his brother Ochus, was put to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... him complaisance," he said, "it is possible, of course, that Mr. Sabin might be unkind. But what of it? You are your own mistress. You are a woman of the world. Without him there is an infinitely greater future before you than as his wife ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... carried 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 ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... let other people do as they would without formally and sententiously rebuking them for it. But I would be most firmly resolved not to destroy my own faculties and constitution in complaisance to those who have no ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... wash-day drama comes to an end. We survey with pride and complaisance the piles of clean linen, shining with spotless elegance, and as we read therein a whole sermon on the "Gospel of Cleanliness," we conclude that it is decidedly worth while, and rejoice that fifty-two times a year this is ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... 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; and that he ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... 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 ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... "He has complaisance enough to make the passage with nothing but a Christian name, I believe. In truth, it was by a mere accident that I turned usurper in this way. He took the state-room for me, and being required to give a name, he gave his own, as usual. When I ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... But his natural 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 ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... 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 ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... homewards, as I told you, in none of the best of moods,—pshawing and pishing all the way down,—yet he had the complaisance to keep the worst part of the story still to himself;—which was the resolution he had taken of doing himself the justice, which my uncle Toby's clause in the marriage-settlement empowered him; nor was it till the ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... the battle of the window, 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 ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... view it with absolute aversion; and though moved, by the King's representations of the embarrassed condition he should be reduced to if the supply were refused, to yield a subsidy of seventy thousand pounds a month for eighteen months, they forced him to pay a high price for their complaisance by extorting his consent to the "Test Act." By the operation of this act, the Duke of York, the inveterate enemy of the Dutch, and Sir Thomas Clifford, the minister who had the most zealously pushed forward the business of the war, were forced to resign their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... master, fell prone in the drifts and lay there till his thin life-current froze and his tired heart stopped. More than one frenzied, despairing father, forgetful for the moment of the divine right of property, rushed at a guard and madly strove with him, only to be clubbed into complaisance, or, perchance, be left in a welter of crimson on the drifting snow. Carmen saw it all. She had been to see Pillette that same morning, and had been laughed from his presence. She did not understand, she was told, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... intelligent, accomplished, and thoughtful—naturally and without effort. He was sincerely courteous, and capable of all complaisance. The display of these qualities reached to the four extremities of the empire, and extended from earth to heaven. He was able to make the able and virtuous distinguished, and thence proceeded to the love of the nine classes of his kindred, ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... his agreements and kept honourable promises so long as some material advantage flowed from his complaisance. Within a month he was again haunting the vicinity of the white mansion. One night he leaned against the fence and watched a procession of guests alighting from their vehicles. Splendid motors dashed up, and ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... Damon was impressed with the most exalted ideas upon the subject of filial duty. Had his heart been pre-engaged, before the affair of Miss Frampton was proposed to him, he might not perhaps have carried his complaisance so far, as to have married the indifferent person, in spite of all his views and all his prepossessions. But in his estimate, the actual entering into a connection for life in opposition to the will ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... sometimes the discomforts. Habit and prejudice are sister hand-maidens; and I never see one of these gentlemen from home, taking extraordinary interest in any of our peculiarly colony usages, but I distrusted an extra amount of complaisance, or a sort of enjoyment in which ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... would profess 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
... to give me a proof of your great complaisance, by using your hand-rostrum (ruler) (not Rostrum Victoriatum) to rule 202 lines of music for me, somewhat in the style I now send, and also on equally fine paper, which you must include in your account. ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... impatiently. "Does it not lie in our power to go at once? What think you? Have we not our swords? They have not dared to take them from us! They tremble before us, and honor, in our persons, the nations we represent. Look at the complaisance and consideration with which we are met on all sides. The King of Prussia fears his powerful enemies, and does all in his power to conciliate them. Suppose that to-night, as soon as the royal family are assembled, we draw ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... dressed in a white damask night-gown, with less negligence than for some days past. I was sitting with my pen in my fingers; and stood up when I first saw her, with great complaisance, as if the day were still her own. And ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... all Thorpe's martial spirit. Now at last the mystery surrounding Morrison & Daly's unnatural complaisance was riven. It had come to grapples again. He was glad of it. Meet those notes? Well I guess so! He'd show them what sort of a proposition they had tackled. Sneaking, underhanded scoundrels! taking advantage of a mere boy. Meet those notes? You bet he would; ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... congratulating themselves in commencing their married life in a manner so consistent with that which they had hitherto led. They were victorious as usual; and the only persons having occasion to rue the complaisance of the Count and his bride, were the two strangers, one of whom broke an arm in the rencontre, and the other ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... been any question of religion between them; she never confessed, but merely consulted him in cases of difficulty, because he was shrewd and discreet, and she preferred him, as she sometimes said, to shady business men redolent of the galleys. The abbe, on his side, manifested inexhaustible complaisance. He looked up points of law for her in the Code, pointed out profitable investments, resolved her moral difficulties with great tact, recommended tradespeople to her, invariably having an answer ready however diverse and complicated her requirements might be. ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... respected General Epanchin was himself so fascinated by Nastasia Philipovna that his feeling for her amounted almost to passion. What he thought to gain by Gania's marriage to the girl it was difficult to imagine. Possibly he counted on Gania's complaisance; for Totski had long suspected that there existed some secret understanding between the general and his secretary. At all events the fact was known that he had prepared a magnificent present of pearls for Nastasia's ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... cannot fail of giving rise to very serious thoughts: "That, supposing it agreed among ourselves that the board shall not hear any charges or complaints against a member of it, a case or cases may hereafter happen, in which, by a reciprocal complaisance to each other, our respective misconduct may be effectually screened from inquiry; and the Company, whose interest is concerned, or the parties who may have reason to complain of any one member individually, may be left ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... eagerly, and with more earnest sincerity than complaisance; "there are some things to which you cannot advise me, Aunt Judith. It is a case—pardon me, my dear aunt— a case ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... be thinking of utility, like our hostess at La Rochelle, when she took us to a grand sight, which turned out to be no other than a washing-establishment. The French have, it is acknowledged, no taste for the picturesque, and it appeared to me as if the complaisance of the English abroad led them to agree that anything is pretty which pleases ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... minutes behind his time, but the Earl was all complaisance: the arrangements that he had made for his son; the unexpected facility with which Lord Sherbrooke had apparently entered into those arrangements; the political importance of the alliance with the Duke; the immense accession of wealth to his family; the ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... 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 for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... 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
... formerly maid of honour, that had been set aside, as we have before mentioned, upon her leaving the duchess's service, had recourse to Lady Castlemaine's protection: she had a very entertaining wit: her complaisance was adapted to all humours, and her own humour was possessed of a fund of gaiety and sprightliness which diffused universal mirth and merriment wherever she came. Her acquaintance with Miss ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... that she was rapturously happy, but, while intellectually she accepted the fact, no genial warmth pervaded her consciousness. The entrance to her new life was too brier-sprinkled for bliss. Daily to face her mother's mingling of complaisance, self-pity and fault-finding; to meet Dick's friends, whom Lena, in her suspicions, regarded as thinly-disguised enemies; to scrimp together some little show of bridal finery for her quiet wedding; all this filled her with mingled irritation ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... write on two subjects in particular namely, on the splendour and luxury of the casinos to be found in the Rhenish towns, and on the heaps of gold which are daily to be seen lying on their tables. Those journalists are not paid for doing so: they write thus merely out of a spirit of disinterested complaisance. For there is nothing splendid about the establishments in question; and, not only are there no heaps of gold to be seen lying on their tables, but also there is very little money to be seen at all. Of course, during the season, some madman or another may make his appearance—generally an Englishman, ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... replied with some complaisance that she endeavored to have her girls think for themselves. Sociology was a field in which lessons could not be taught by rote. Each must work out her own conclusions, and ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... Graville had lent himself to the service of an ignoble craft, he justified it by a better reason than complaisance to his lords; for, knowing William well, his hasty ire, and his relentless ambition, he was really alarmed for Harold's safety. And, as the reader may have noted, in suggesting that policy of intimidation, the knight had designed ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... practices of mankind, is in some degree the duty of a social being; because by compliance only he can please, and by pleasing only he can become useful: but as the end is not to be lost for the sake of the means, we are not to give up virtue to complaisance; for the end of complaisance is only to gain the kindness of our fellow-beings, whose kindness is desirable only as instrumental to happiness, and happiness must be always ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... these things how they may, a self-respecting man must preserve his individuality also, and though I consented to enter a pavilion of crimson cloth, specially erected to shelter me till the Empress should deign to arrive, there my complaisance ended. Again the matter of clothes was harped upon. The three gorgeously caparisoned chamberlains, who had inducted me to the shelter, laid before me changes of raiment bedecked with every imaginable kind of frippery, and would have me ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... 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 with faded uniforms; and ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... and depraved as to be capable of such madness: as if human nature were taking the smallest trouble to put on any disguise before them, to beguile them into a good opinion; as if it could be cajoled by their flattery to assume even a semblance of deserving it; as if it had the complaisance to check one bad propensity, to save them from standing contradicted and exposed to ridicule for speaking of it with indulgence or respect; as if it stayed or cared to thank them for their pains in attempting to make out a plausible extenuation. It has, and keeps, and ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... tray upon a heavy oak table, and then stood looking at him with the same expression as before. There was something in all this which was flattering to the vanity of Russell; arid he stood regarding the woman with very much complaisance. And as he looked at her, he thought to himself that she was a ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... 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 ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... wisely—that coin sometimes goes far in the Tokelaus. For instance, the truly unctuous native Christian may ask a dollar for two fowls, but he will also lease out his wife for a similar amount. Time was, in the Ellices, when the undue complaisance of a married woman meant a sudden and inartistic compression of the jugular, or a swift blow from the heavy, ebony-wood club of the wronged man. Nowadays, since the smug-faced native teacher hath shown them the Right Way, such domestic troubles are condoned by—a dollar. ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... hostile and the neutral were to be punished. The noble lords were busy settling amongst themselves who should be consuls for several years to come, and how the confiscated villas of the proscribed Caesarians should be divided. As to the military situation, they were all complaisance. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... me a very great service,—and you will do it, I am sure, with that perfect and obliging complaisance by ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... nevertheless, you say (which but is aerugo mera, a rust which spoils the good metal it grows upon)—but you say you would advise me not to precipitate that resolution, but to stay a while longer with patience and complaisance, till I had gotten such an estate as might accord me—according to the saying of that person, whom you and I love very much, and would believe as soon as another man—cum dignitate otium. This were excellent advice to Joshua, who could bid the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... Pleasure;— Upon such an Attack, no Resentment or Anger could have been decently shewn by Horace, As the Person thus pestering him, was all the while intending the highest Compliment; And must therefore be received, and attended to, with perfect Complaisance; The Humour of this Person would have been very entertaining, in the strange Conceit which he held of his own Abilities, and of the paticular Pleasure he was granting to Horace, in condescending to give him so much of his Company; In these Sentiments he should ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... man, and therefore he should not pitch his soaring thoughts beyond the level of mortality, but imp the wings of his towering ambition, and obligingly submit and condescend to the weakness of others, it being many times a piece of complaisance to go out of the ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... views, low aims, had been imbibed, and not one fault corrected while young; and self-experience, which rectifies in most so much that is wrong, seemed to do nothing for her. There was no substance to work upon. Mrs. Fisher was soon heartily tired of her, and could have regretted her complaisance to Mrs. Danvers' wishes in receiving her against her judgment; but she was too good to send her away. She laughed, and accepted her as a penance for her sins, she said—as a thorn in the flesh—and she let the thorn rankle there. She remembered her honored ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... at the complaisance of the King in consenting to a family arrangement, by which a cadet was put over the head of his elder brother; but the time of the monsters had arrived. Berwick bought an estate that he created under the name of Fitz-James. The King, who allowed him to do so, was shocked by the name; and, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... the steps which led to the Esplanade, regretting that he had not asked the guard how many there were of them, which the man, in his official complaisance, would not have failed to ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... 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
... and of forgetting one another's faults, as {263} a man in engaging in this state seeks a companion for life, the saint observes that nothing is busier than for him to make it an affair of traffic, or a money job. A wife with a moderate fortune usually brings more complaisance and submission, and blesses a house with peace, union, and friendship. How many rich men, by marrying great fortunes, in seeking to increase their estates, have forfeited the repose of their minds for the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... excluded rigorously from office every opponent of the baleful system, it is certain that the shrug of the polite Frenchman who listened to our demonstration that ours, after all, was not a slaveholding country, was an indication of complaisance rather than of conviction. To prove this nothing of the sort, while Brazil was placed at the head of modern slaveholding countries, was to overtax the ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of Celimene and her petticoaterie. But perhaps Alceste came nearest to the heart of our young maid as she grew up. She said to herself over and over again that "C'est n'estimer rien qu'estimer tout le monde." She refused "d'un coeur la vaste complaisance qui ne fait de merite aucune difference," and declared that "pour le trancher net l'ami du genre humain n'est point du tout mon fait." No doubt there was unconscious or only half conscious affectation in this, as there ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... There were three officers, one of whom, Captain Joncaire, informed me that he had the command of the Ohio; but that there was a general officer at the near fort, where he advised me to apply for an answer. He invited us to sup with them, and treated us with the greatest complaisance. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... McKinley's apparent vacillation and of his complaisance toward men and interests representing wealth was due to an endowment of exquisite finesse which stooped to conquer, which led by seeming to follow, or by yielding an inch took an ell. In him was rooted ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... to reduce Coleridge's assertions to that standard we must abate nearly as much from his praise of Taylor as from his abuse of Gibbon—an abuse, by the way, which is strangely contrasted with praise of "Junius." It is not true that, except by great complaisance of the reader, Jeremy Taylor's long sentences are at once understandable. They may, of course, and generally can be understood kata to semaino menon, as a telegram with half the words left out may at the other end of the scale be understood. But they constantly ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... so often menaced, that it was very natural to fear some snare or surprise, and imagination takes the reins when beset by such fears. Prince Murat swore and cursed with all his might, sometimes the imprudence of his Majesty, then his gallantry, then the lady and her complaisance. I was not any better satisfied than he, but being calmer I tried to quiet him; and at last, unable longer to restrain his impatience, the prince sprang out of the carriage, and I followed; but, just as his hand was on the knocker of the door, the Emperor came ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... she became aware that he was gazing at her, and then she looked back at him in an arch, smiling way, fixing her mouth in a potent line. Cowperwood was captivated. Was she vulnerable? was his one thought. Did that faint smile mean anything more than mere social complaisance? Probably not, but could not a temperament so rich and full be awakened to feeling by his own? When she was through playing he took occasion to say: "Wouldn't you like to stroll into the gallery? Are you fond of pictures?" ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... their States and their people by turning him aside from his proclaimed policy of punishing a great number of rebels with the utmost severity of the law. Johnson's wrath was evidently appeased by the complaisance shown by leading men of the South. He was not especially open to flattery, but it was noticed that words of commendation from his native section seemed ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... 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 Allah accept!) saith, 'There are three kinds ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... carry it on. Notwithstanding all that 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 of exasperation he deserted the ranks where he had ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... expected, 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 ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... land animals delight in their youth and strength. Presently a mother rolled lazily over on her side, permitting its calf to suck. Others followed this example; and then the leader of the herd ceased his passage to windward, but began to circle the spot, as if in complaisance to those considerate nurses who thus waited on the wants of their young. At this interesting moment, the boats came glancing ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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
... and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, the greed that with perfect complaisance devours all things, The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows, The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and the wonders that fill each minute of time forever, What have you reckon'd them for, camerado? Have you reckon'd them ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... 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 herself forced ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... this lady on a ride in the Park, sir. It might—if she be willing—be arranged that your sister, Mistress Talbot, should spend the time in your company, and methinks the lady will thereto agree, for she is ever ready to show a certain carnal and worldly complaisance to the wishes of her attendants, and I have observed that she greatly affects the damsel, more, I fear, than may be for the eternal welfare of ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unnatural situation social laws and the laws of nature are in conflict, but the young girl obediently abandons herself to it, and, from motives of self-interest, suffers in silence. Her obedience is a speculation; her complaisance is a hope; her devotion to you is a sort of vocation, of which you reap the advantage; and her silence is generosity. She will remain the victim of your caprices so long as she does not understand them; she will suffer from the limitations of your character until she has studied it; she will sacrifice ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... 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 many ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... stolen property. Had the white man paid a dollar he had done wisely—that coin sometimes goes far in the Tokelaus. For instance, the truly unctuous native Christian may ask a dollar for two fowls, but he will also lease out his wife for a similar amount. Time was, in the Ellices, when the undue complaisance of a married woman meant a sudden and inartistic compression of the jugular, or a swift blow from the heavy, ebony-wood club of the wronged man. Nowadays, since the smug-faced native teacher hath shown them the Right Way, such domestic troubles are condoned ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... do not fade. We gather the blossoms with joy and hurry home; but the stars light us on our way and make our homes beautiful. Talent has something familiar and social in its impression and greeting; but Genius receives us with a calm dignity that transfigures courtesy and complaisance, and makes our relations healthy and grand. The whole tone of Artot's violin differs from Bull's. I felt they must not be compared, and so listened delightedly, but with a pale, ghastly joy. When I heard Ole, I could not sleep. ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... Countess slightly turned round, her face wearing a smile of great complaisance, and Mr. Bumpkin could have seen at once that she was a person of great distinction even if he had not been informed of her rank. Well, taken for all in all, it was a night he would never forget, and his only feeling of regret was that Mrs. Bumpkin was not ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... affections, should forget that she appears to him adorable, and should consider her merely as a mortal, subject to disorders, caprice, and ill temper; he should arm himself with fortitude, to bear the loss of her beauty, and should provide himself with a fund of complaisance, which is requisite to support a constant intercourse with a person, even of the highest understanding and the greatest equanimity. The wife, on the other hand, should not expect a continued course of adulation and ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... 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
... this reason, those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offence. The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... more meditative humour, more anxious to be left to my own dreamings, than when I ascended the railroad car with my companion to return to Jersey city; we were the only two in that division of the car, and my friend, who understood me, had the complaisance to go fast asleep. I made sure that, for an hour or two, I could indulge in my own castle-buildings, and allow my fleeting thoughts to pass over my brain, like the scud over the moon. At our first stoppage a third party stepped in and seated himself between us. He looked at my companion, who ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... no part in the discussions. But when all the theories had been presented to the public, he set about refuting them. He made himself very merry, in the seventh edition of 'Questions sur l'Encyclopedie distibuees en forme de Dictionnaire (Geneva, 1791), over the complaisance attributed to Louis XIV in acting as police-sergeant and gaoler for James II, William III, and Anne, with all of whom he was at war. Persisting still in taking 1661 or 1662 as the date when the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... thrown out of gear in another way. Fraeulein's lack not only of amatory complaisance but of social polish or even facility kept him dubious and disconcerted. She brusquely alternated between a sisterly tenderness of familiarity, almost exaggerated, only to follow it by a sudden, disquieting flop over on the side of a ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... danger, I should detest him, if in his senses, as a perfidious man. And if any clergyman should in compliance with the humours or designs of a man in power, echo such a false declaration in the church of GOD, he would in my opinion do well seriously to consider, whether an excessive complaisance may not have betrayed him into the sin of Ananias and Saphira, in lying against the Holy Ghost! This is a most weighty consideration: But the times require plain dealing. We hope and believe, nay we know that there are more than seven thousand who will never bow the knee to Baal, ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... some complaisance that she endeavored to have her girls think for themselves. Sociology was a field in which lessons could not be taught by rote. Each must work out her own conclusions, and act ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... mais il le desire, mais sa tendresse la plus constante n'est qu'a ce prix. Si vous lui faites l'effet d'un autre enfant, si vous partagez ses passions, ses vacillations continuelles, si vous lui rendez tous ses mouvements en les augmentant, soit par la contrariete, soit par un exces de complaisance, il pourra se servir de vous comme d'un jouet, mais non etre heureux en votre presence; il pleurera, se mutinera, et bientot le souvenir d'un temps de desordre et d'humeur se liera avec votre idee. ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... in my favorite study (mathematical and mechanical philosophy), and was rather mortified at finding Mr. Watt so much my superior. But his own high relish for those things made him pleased with the chat of any person who had the same tastes with himself; or his innate complaisance made him indulge my curiosity, and even encourage my endeavors to form a more intimate acquaintance with him. I lounged much about him, and, I doubt not, was frequently teasing ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... prevented by God himself after he had commanded it. We then had only one idee fixe—namely, to find again in the dark mass of the religious books of the Hindu, the original account of that event. We should never have succeeded but for 'the complaisance' of a Brahman with whom we were reading Sanskrit, and who, yielding to our request, brought us from the library of his pagoda the works of the theologian Ramatsariar, which have yielded us such precious assistance in ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... servant's eyes were upon him, smiled at this question, "looked superior down;" and though with reluctant complaisance he leaned his body to this side or to that, as Queasy pulled or swayed, yet he appeared totally regardless of the man's vulgar reflections. He had seen every thing as he passed, and was surprised at all he saw; but evinced not the slightest symptom of astonishment. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... all the companies he comes in; and if he gets nothing else by it, the pleasure he receives in reflecting on the applause which he knows is secretly given him, is to a proud man more than equivalent for his former self-denial, and overpays self-love, with interest, the loss it sustained in his complaisance ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... generally was perfect; her elbows 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 ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... beautiful 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 ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the road, and from which there is a very extensive view. I was very anxious for admission only to the garden, and pleaded the manly appearance of my riding-hat, which would prevent all scandal were I seen from a distance; but the complaisance of the good prior would not go quite so far as that, so I sat in the sacristy and conversed with a good- natured old monk with a double chin, whilst the others wandered through the grounds. They afterwards gave us ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... 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 for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... of Cunaxa, had been taken into the harem of the conqueror, and had captivated him by her beauty. Darius conceived a violent passion for this damsel, and his father was at first inclined to give her up to him, but afterwards, repenting of his complaisance, consecrated her to the service of Mithra, a cult which imposed on her the obligation of perpetual chastity. Darius, exasperated by this treatment, began to contemplate measures of vengeance, but, being betrayed by his ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... chair and looked at Mrs. Skene with a curious expression which soon brightened into an irrepressible smile. Mrs. Skene smiled very slightly in complaisance, but conveyed by her serious brow that what she had ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Reformers went even further in the marriage question, true enough, only for opportunist reasons, and out of complaisance towards the Princes whose strong support and permanent friendship they sought to secure and keep to the Reformation. The friendly Duke of Hessen, Philip I, had, besides his legitimate wife, a sweetheart, willing to yield to his wishes, but only under the ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... him an opportunity of staying away. Ethelberta also was by this time doubting if she had not been too eager with her proposal. To go on such a sentimental errand might be thought by her friends to be simply troublesome, their adherence having been given only in the regular course of complaisance. She was still comparatively an outsider here, her life with Lady Petherwin having been passed chiefly in alternations between English watering-places and continental towns. However, it was too ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... enlightened the Count in relation to the consequences of his daring conduct, and for the first time he despaired of the result. One morning his door opened as usual at meal time; but instead of withdrawing, the keeper approached Monte-Leone kindly, his ugly face, on account of the complaisance which lit it up, seeming ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... as it would seem, joined the jolly 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 ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... new uncle very pleasant. There was a silver-tongued suavity about him in striking contrast to the growing preoccupation of Judge Hildreth, and a sort of airy self complaisance which took it for granted that he should be well treated by ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... picture; and, I am sure, I never shall have reason to include you in these disagreeable outlines; but yet I will say, that I expect from you, whoever comes to my house, that you accustom yourself to one even, uniform complaisance: That no frown take place on your brow: That however ill or well provided we may be for their reception, you shew no flutter or discomposure: That whoever you may have in your company at the time, you signify not, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... original motion of using the "earliest opportunity of mediation," and the pleasant reception given by Russell scarcely justified any great hope of decided benefit for the South. It must now have been fairly apparent to Lindsay, as it certainly was to Mason, that all this complaisance by Palmerston and Russell was but political manipulation to retain or to secure support in the coming contest with the Tories. The two old statesmen, wise in parliamentary management, were angling for every doubtful vote. Discussing with Lindsay the prospects for governmental ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... can. Do as you would be done by, is the surest method that I know of pleasing. Observe carefully what pleases you in others, and probably the same things in you will please others. If you are pleased with the complaisance and attention of others to you, depend upon it the same complaisance and attention, on your part, will equally please them. Take the tone of the company you are in, and do not pretend to give it; be serious or gay, as you find the present humor of the company. This is an attention ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... be said that the people, or rather the many different nations, abandoned their religions out of complaisance to their sovereign, I answer, Why do we not see the same thing repeated when Julian wished to reverse the experiment? They were not so pliant then; then was it seen very dearly that the people were, as in every other case, unwilling, as regards ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... walk, I touched my hat to every one I met. I conferred the honour of a salute on midshipmen, master's mates, sergeants of marines, and two corporals. Nor was I aware of my over complaisance, until a young woman, dressed like a lady, who knew more of the navy than I did, asked me if I had come down to stand for the borough? Without knowing what she meant, I ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... complaining note in it at night, quite different from its cheerful daytime chuckle, and seeming like the voice of a much deeper and more powerful stream. Our water had always these two moods: the one of sunny complaisance, the other ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... chests into the warehouse, and the sailors hard at work hoisting out the rest. We began about 7 o'clock, and had by 12 about half the tea in the warehouse, and the rest before the door. There was not the least disturbance; the gentlemen that came on the wharf behaved with their usual complaisance and good nature to me, and I believe the same to the rest of the officers that were there. I thought it my duty to exert myself on this occasion, which I did with great pleasure, (as I was serving my old masters,) as well as doing my duty ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... respect to the character of the Count, which, he thought, was represented as that of a gambler, and an unprincipled one too. In fact, Grammont, like many an old gentleman, seems to have recollected the gaieties of his youth with more complaisance than was necessary, and has drawn them in pretty strong colours in that part of the work which is more particularly his own. He laughed at poor Fontenelle's scruples, and complained to the chancellor, who forced the censor to acquiesce: the license ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... some seventy years. The missions to China were entirely in the hands of the Jesuits until 1631, when Dominicans entered that country, and Franciscans in 1633. The new missionaries soon began to accuse the Jesuits of undue complaisance and conformity with heathen customs, and made complaint against them at Rome. For a time the Holy See permitted the practice of the Chinese rites, but frequent contentions arose on this subject between the Jesuits and the other orders, which were not definitely settled ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... but august, monarch must have been well pleased with the complaisance of his fair ward, and the face of the fool, glowing and eager, became on the instant hard and cold. Did he experience now the first pangs of that sorrow Jacqueline had vividly portrayed as the love-portion of ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... might be as good for her reputation as for her husband's. She did indeed—as good women do a kindness—surrender herself entirely, and pretended that the surrender was her own desire and her husband's complaisance a thing he ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... but she was too much the actress not to swallow his qualities with complaisance, seeing that she must suffer his ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... gilded firescreen, to the humble thread-paper and shirt-button. Mrs. Fox was a fine, fashionable-looking woman, with a smooth skin, and still smoother address. She received her visitors with that overstrained complaisance which, to Mary's nicer tact, at once discovered that all was hollow; but poor Miss Grizzy was scarcely seated before she was already transfixed with admiration at Mrs. Fox's politeness, and felt as if her whole life would be too short to repay such kindness. Compliments over—the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... or seemed to see, the arched apartments, the procession of venerable matrons, the consecrated vestments: the very temple began to rise upon my sight, when a Dutch porpoise approaching to make me a low bow; his complaisance was full as notorious as Satan's, when, according to Catholic legends, he took leave of Calvin or Dr. Faustus. No spell can resist a fumigation of this nature; away fled palace, Hecuba, matrons, temple, etc. ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... 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 looked—'I yet may bear ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... them. In their guilt Pedro Alvarez, war and government notary, appeared to be implicated. One of his friends, an ecclesiastic, named Joan Cevicos, tried to prove himself leader of this affair, in order perhaps to clear him and the auditors, according to what I understand and many believe. In complaisance to Doctor Don Alvaro de Meso, or for other objects, the auditors took it into their heads that the notary of war did not belong to the military jurisdiction; and that the master-of-camp had not the right of first instance in his cause, but that it belonged to me, in order that appeals might ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... serenity of mind undisturbed by anxious occupations and eager passions. They are not tormented by our avarice or our ambition; they appear perfectly indifferent even to the desire of fame; they are capable of great affection, but their love shows itself in a tender and cheerful complaisance, and, while forming their happiness, seems rarely, if ever, to constitute their woe. As the Gy is sure only to marry where she herself fixes her choice, and as here, not less than above ground, it is the female on whom the happiness ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and she does not refuse it, but she in her turn evidently admires enormously her friend's social capabilities and cleverness, and she is impulsively eager to make some return for Mrs. Stuart's kindness—an eagerness which shows itself in the greatest complaisance towards all the Stuarts' friends, and in a constant watchfulness for anything which will please and ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be promoted. The republican principle demands that the deliberative sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the managements of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests. It is a just observation that the people ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... 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
... desperate scheme if he had not received some encouragement from Miss Collingsby. She confessed to me that she had listened to him once before, when he suggested an elopement; but she was now, as she began to reap the fruits of complaisance, convinced of her own imprudence. It was necessary for the bold schemer to get rid of me; and he was prepared to part company with me in the most summary manner. If he could do so, it was possible that he might win ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... confine him,—yet without bearing the least malice against him who may have injured him. He is obedient, obliging, and yielding; but the man who accuses him wrongfully, or asserts to be true what he believes to be untrue, need not expect, that, from mere complaisance, or from other considerations, he will submit to injustice or to falsehood; he will always modestly, but firmly, insist upon his right; or perhaps, if the other seems inclined obstinately to maintain his ground against him, he ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... the muse must own In this pursuit they court not fame alone; But join to that a more substantial view, "From thinking free, to be free agents too." They strive 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 say? They heaven defy, to earth's vile dregs a slave; Thro' cowardice, most execrably brave. With ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... Sakra, the lord of the gods, possessed 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 then in happiness and with the king's permission they returned home and well-pleased and delighted. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... 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 Scipio to detect ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... proposals to me, and I had sent friends to discuss the matter with the ladies. But when they got to Rome the betrothal had taken place. This, I hope, will be a better match. I fancy the ladies were very much pleased with the young gentleman's complaisance and courtesy, but do not look for the thorns." The "thorns," however, were there. A friend who kept Cicero acquainted with the news of Rome, told him as much, though he wraps up his meaning in the usual polite phrases. ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... 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 Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... 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 would be excessive for another, according to varieties ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... since we have learned from effeminate France To eat their ragouts, as well as to dance, We are fed up with nothing but vain complaisance. O, the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... There have been days when her eyes have carried in their depths the allurements of a sorceress, when her limbs have woven Venusberg enchantments which it has taken all my strength to withstand. But tonight, when I take the greatest step and claim her as mine till our lives' end, she yields with the complaisance of an ignorant child and raises up between us the barrier of her innocence. When shall I learn the soul ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... her brother, Lady Suffolk could succeed but in very subordinate recommendations. Her own acquisitions were so moderate, that, besides Marble Hill, which cost the King ten or twelve thousand pounds, her complaisance had not been too dearly purchased. She left the court with an income so little to be envied, that, though an economist and not expensive, by the lapse of some annuities on lives not so prolonged as her own she found ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... 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.] Idleness and dissipation confront ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... she, angrily, "you might as well have had the complaisance to ask me before; for, I assure you, I don't approve of no such rudeness: however, you may keep your tickets to yourself, for we ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... confessed that Miss Baker had allowed her plans to be altered by the arrival of the Bertrams at Jerusalem; and confessed also that Miss Baker's complaisance in this respect had been brought about by her niece's persuasion. Their original intention had been to go on to Damascus. Then Miss Baker had begged off this further journey, alleging that her clothes as well as her ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... passions too often led him to yield to the temptations by which he was surrounded, it was but natural that, in the consciousness of her own power to charm, she should be now and then piqued into an appearance of retaliation, and seem to listen with complaisance to some of those numerous worshippers, who crowd around such beautiful and unguarded shrines. Not that she was at any time unwatched by Sheridan,—on the contrary, he followed her with a lover's eyes throughout; and it was believed of both, by those who knew ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... this world, and only happy that my knowledge of it, and its ways, is such as your lordship has not scorned to avail yourself of. Now I would fain know whether the obligation lies on my lady or on you in this fortunate union, and which has most reason to show complaisance to the other, and to consider that other's wishes, conveniences, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... 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
... fellow I am at heart." In most of Captain Ducie's actions there was some ulterior motive at work, however trivial many of his actions might appear to an outsider, and in the present case it was not likely that he acted out of mere complaisance to a man whom he had never seen nor heard of ten ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... a man of good heart, supported the loss with resignation, and the gain without insolence. He began by accustoming the public to sound the final i of his name so little, that by the aid of general complaisance, he was soon called nothing but M. Cropole, which is quite a French name. He then married, having had in his eye a little French girl, from whose parents he extorted a reasonable dowry by showing them what there was beneath ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ironically. He was a fit figure of a man, clean-cut and vigorous, from the steadfast outlook of the gray eyes and the firm, smooth-shaven jaw to the square fingertips of the strong hands, and his smile was of good-natured contempt. "As you say, it is an outrage on filial complaisance. All the same, with the right-of-way fight in prospect, Quartz Creek Canyon may not prove to be such a valley of dry bones ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... go and come freely, to go out and return just as he pleased, as long as he displayed humility, submissiveness, and complaisance toward the conquerors. ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... 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 in the earth, and filling ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... that, 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 foreseen, and that ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the 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 ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... age at the time of His crucifixion. [387:2] The opinion of this same writer in reference to angels is still more extraordinary. He maintains that some of these beings, captivated by the beauty of the daughters of men, came down from heaven and married them; and that, out of complaisance to their brides, they communicated to them the arts of polishing and setting precious stones, of preparing cosmetics, and of using other appliances which minister to female vanity. [387:3] His ideas upon topics of a different character are equally singular. Thus, he affirms that the soul ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Before taking their leave they learned from her where the lady was, whose marvellous beauty they had heard lauded so often; and being eager to see her, they besought the Duke to afford them an opportunity. Forgetful of what a like complaisance had cost the Prince, he consented, and next morning brought them to the villa where the lady lived, and with her and a few of his boon companions regaled them with a lordly breakfast, which was served in a most ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... late. But I am inclined to think that they were open all the time, that, at all events, they were what the French call 'entr'ouvert', that enough light for practical purposes came sifted in through his eyelashes. At a later time, being reminded of Miss Wilkes, he said with a certain complaisance, 'Ah, yes! she proffered much entertainment during my widowed years!' He used to go down to her boarding-school, the garden of which had been the scene of a murder, and was romantically situated on the edge of a quarried cliff; he always took me with him, and kept me at his side all through ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... Now the nobility were entirely stripped of power and in many instances of land as well. How empty and bottomless the oppressive institutions and how burdensome the taxes which rested on nothing but a paper grant, musty with age and backed only by royal complaisance! Want too was always looking in at the doors of the many, while the few were enjoying the national substance. This year there was a crisis, for before the previous harvest time devastating hail-storms had swept the fields, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... the wash-day drama comes to an end. We survey with pride and complaisance the piles of clean linen, shining with spotless elegance, and as we read therein a whole sermon on the "Gospel of Cleanliness," we conclude that it is decidedly worth while, and rejoice that fifty-two times a year this is ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... amusement of watching two great sword-fish sunning themselves on the surface of the water. I sent out a boat, in the hope that the powerful creatures would, in complaisance, allow us the sport of harpooning them, but they would not wait; they plunged again into the depths of the sea, and we had ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... were disquieting enough in themselves; but what made the disappearance of any prospect of spontaneous reform in the Transvaal still more serious to the High Commissioner for South Africa, was the complaisance with which President Krueger's reactionary policy was regarded by the Dutch subjects of the Crown. It was just here that Lord Milner's observations must have yielded the most startling results. We know that the days which had ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... reprimanding a boy who might be playing "hookey,"—though was not,—and shaking his fist at old Whitey, taking her accustomed stroll in and out of inviting dooryards. Yet when he came to the wider yard before the stone house something of his complaisance left him. "He and Eunice Maitland had never hitched." She was always perfectly courteous, and never failed to attend the sewing-meetings of the church when they were held at his house, and she had even been heard to say that she had "a great respect for Mrs. Pettijohn." She ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... though much against his will. At the age of fifteen so great was his desire to learn the arts of design that his father placed him under the care of the goldsmith Marcone. At the same time he tells us in his memoirs: "I continued to play sometimes through complaisance to my father either upon the flute or the horn; and I constantly drew tears and deep sighs from him every time he heard me." While engaged in the workshop of Marcone, Benvenuto came to blows with some young ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... No complaisance to our Court, or to our age, can make me believe nature to be so changed but that public liberty will be among us, as among our ancestors, obnoxious to some person or other, and that opportunities will be furnished for attempting, at least, some alteration to the prejudice of our constitution. ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... upon you that all the changes that have taken place in Paris have been sudden. There is now a moment of calm, but if thro' any over complaisance to the persons you converse with on the subject of my liberation, you omit procuring it for me now, you may have to lament the fate of your friend when its too late. The loss of a Battle to the Northward or other possible accident may happen ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... she began to search wearily, indifferently, for the kind of shop that might answer her purpose. The receiving of letters which, for one reason or another, must be dispatched to a secret address, is a very ordinary complaisance on the part of small London stationers; hundreds of such letters are sent and called for every week within the metropolitan postal area. It did not take Monica long to find an obliging shopkeeper; the first to whom she applied—a decent woman ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... 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 ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... use, but their abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure) by diverting the mind from its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... my books; first Bunyan's Pilgrim, (As he with thankful pleasure will grin,) Tho' dogleaved, torn, in bad type set in, 'T will do quite well for classmate B——, And thus with complaisance to treat her, 'T will answer for another Detur. The Will ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... law for such a piece of complaisance, in a time of profound peace. I am not to be caught ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... of a narrative of a direct war between Satan on the one side and the Royal Commissioners on the other, "because," says Councillor de Lancre, with self-complaisance, "nothing is so calculated to strike terror into the fiend and his dominions as a commission ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 offer you ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sign of extraordinary complaisance, were Captain Ludlow to apply to the girls of the colony for instruction in his duty! We may be secret encouragers of the contraband, but surely we are not to be suspected of any greater familiarity with their movements. These hints may compel ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... long after 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
... the Sight, I take it for a peculiar Happiness that I have always had an easy and familiar Admittance to the fair Sex. If I never praised or flattered, I never belyed or contradicted them. As these compose half the World, and are by the just Complaisance and Gallantry of our Nation the more powerful Part of our People, I shall dedicate a considerable Share of these my Speculations to their Service, and shall lead the young through all the becoming Duties of Virginity, Marriage, and Widowhood. When it is a Woman's Day, in my Works, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... that so far from any obstacle being opposed to their prodigality, almost unlimited indulgence is offered, nay, actually pressed upon them, by the trades-people of their wealthy relations; who take especial care that their charges shall be of a nature to repay them for any complaisance or long suffering, as it regards the term of credit, they may be called upon to display. But independently of the additional expense into which the Heir Presumptive is often seduced by the operation of these temptations, and his anxiety to live in a style in some degree accordant with his expectations, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... fact must 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 servant; and as she professed not to know what on earth there ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... though his ardor may abate, but to retain at least that general civility towards his own lady which he is so willing to pay to every other, and not show a wife of eighteen or twenty years old, that every man in company can treat her with more complaisance than he, who so often vowed to her ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... domestick Affairs. But 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 ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... sufficient Guard and Pioneers and Gentlemen, with a sufficient Stock of Provision, with abundant Fatigue passed these Mountains, and cut his Majesty's Name in a Rock upon the Highest of them, naming it MOUNT GEORGE; and in Complaisance the Gentlemen from the Governor's Name, called the Mountain next in Height, ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... 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 here be the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... of pure complaisance, to make room for the removal of the dishes, or possibly for the ranging of the dessert. This, by degrees, grew into a duty; till, at length, as the fashion improved, the good man found himself cut off from the Third part of the entertainment: and, if the arrogance of the Patron ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... been a word spoken. Miss Stanbury had muttered something as she was curtseying, and Barty Burgess had made some return. Then she began: "Mr. Burgess," she said, "I am indebted to you for your complaisance in coming here at my request." To this he bowed again. "I should not have ventured thus to trouble you were it not that years are dealing more hardly with me than they are with you, and that I could not have ventured to discuss a matter of deep interest otherwise than in my own room." ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... of them lived in or near the town of Halifax, working for the inhabitants, or teaching dancing, or fencing, or their own language. Some were employed as butchers and cooks; others as nurses in the hospital; and they were every where favoured for their complaisance, obedience, and good humour. They had the character of behaving better towards the British officers and inhabitants than the Americans, and I believe with reason; for our men seem to take a delight in plaguing, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Venia placuit Ingenium, says Seneca. The Genius, that gives us the greatest Pleasure, sometimes stands in Need of our Indulgence. Whenever this happens with regard to Shakespeare, I would willingly impute it to a Vice of his Times. We see Complaisance enough, in our own Days, paid to a bad Taste. His Clinches, false Wit, and descending beneath himself, seem to be a Deference paid to reigning Barbarism. He was a Sampson in Strength, but he suffer'd some such Dalilah to give him ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... distance, and, having seated myself in a 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 steps leading from the second storey of the keep to the State apartments. ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
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