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More "Complaisant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prophecy, by all preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for any one but the decorous and the complaisant. Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and motionless on the ground, and when Jet had prepared a gag he was even so complaisant as to open ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... belabours him in presence of his intended victim and of a roomful of company. But setting aside any moral tendency which goodwill towards such a vastly pleasant author as De Bernard may induce us, by the aid of our most complaisant spectacles, to discover in his writings, his gentlemanly tone is undeniable, his pictures of French life, especially in Paris, are beyond praise. In the most natural and graphic style imaginable, he dashes off a portrait typifying a class, and in a page gives ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... only about 67 members had been added by June, 1886. The receipts for the year to March, 1886, were no More than L35 19s., but as the expenditure only amounted to L27 6s. 6d., the Society had already adopted its lifelong habit of paying its way punctually, though it must be confessed that a complaisant printer and a series of lucky windfalls have contributed to ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... here, and my spirit and my health, too. To be exposed to the blind hatred of an unhappy child whose sorrows drive him to insanity; to be the table companion of a priest without dignity or moral elevation, who silently swallows the greatest outrages; to become the intimate, the complaisant friend of a great lord, whose past is suspicious, of an unnatural father who hates his son, of a man who at times transforms himself into a specter, and who, stung by remorse, or thirsting for revenge, fills ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... forest, the heat of the southern day, the woodland fragrances of which the air was full, and the sense of being intimately alone with her, set up within him a turbulent vibration, half of delight, half of pained suspense. And the complaisant informality with which she met him played a sustaining counterpoint. 'What luck, what luck, what luck,' were the words which shaped themselves to the strong beating of his pulses. What would happen next? Whither would it lead? He had ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... grave, not so much perhaps at the difficulty of resolving the question, as at the probability of never obtaining a knowledge of the business so long as the duenna had the free use of her tongue; to quiet therefore her anger, the complaisant old cavalier kindly soothed her apparently wounded feelings, by allowing that she by no means deserved ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... to wish for anything so intensely. There are wishes the gratification whereof is fatal. There are a dozen old stories in the classics to show that; to say nothing of all those mediaeval legends in which Satan is complaisant to ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... addressed, he answered, if at all, with a thunderclap. Since then he has ceased to reply. Zeus was more complaisant. One might enter with him into the intimacy of the infinite. The father of the Graces, the Muses, the Hours, it was natural that he should be debonair. But he had other children. Among them were Litai, the Prayers. In the Vedas, where Zeus was born, the Prayers upheld ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... grey-haired, good-looking man, who had once been very handsome. He had married, let us say for love;—probably very much by chance. He had ill-used his wife, and had continued a long-continued liaison with a complaisant friend. This had lasted some twenty years of his life, and had been to him an intolerable burden. He had come to see the necessity of employing his good looks, his conversational powers, and his excellent manners on a second marriage which might be lucrative; ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Maintenon. His confidence in his own power of bringing talent out of mediocrity was certainly refreshing. Among his pupils was the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, who said to him one day, "I wish to have esprit."—"Eh bien, Madame," replied the complaisant chevalier, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... out his purse to look for the halfpence: 'Fifteen shillings, sir, if you please,' said the shopman. Now do write soon, and speak particularly of your health, and take care of it and don't be too complaisant to visitors. May God bless you, my very dear ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... who sat ready to begin where he left off, turned to his complaisant listener and resumed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... cried the creature, "what has led you so many thousand miles from your own kingdom? What is it you look for, and what induces you to travel into the kingdom of the Emmets?" The prince, who was excessively complaisant, told her the whole story three times over, for she was hard of hearing. "Well," says the old fairy, for such she was, "I promise to put you in possession of the white mouse with green eyes, and that immediately too, upon one condition." "One ...
— The Story of the White Mouse • Unknown
... how glad I was of their absence, they would not have seemed so complaisant," he thought, recalling the happy day he had spent with Dainty; while he resolved to make sure of more like it by inviting some other fellows to Ellsworth, so that Olive and Ela might be provided with escorts, and not keep him from ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... yellow press shrieked and lied. The saloon-keepers and the sharers of their illicit profits wriggled and squirmed. But the saloons were closed. The law was enforced without fear or favor. The Sunday sale of liquor disappeared from the city, until a complaisant judge, ruling upon the provision of the law which permitted drink to be sold with a meal, decreed that one pretzel, even when accompanied by seventeen beers, made a "meal." No amount of honesty and fearlessness in the enforcement of the law could prevail against ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... and make the first dash, that they may profit by her pretended fault. I know who will not be the last to come and station herself amongst the furniture of your apartment. The marechale de Mirepoix was too long the complaisant friend of madame de Pompadour not to become, and that very soon, the friend of the comtesse du Barry." "Good heaven," I exclaimed, "how delighted I should be to have the friendship of this lady, whose wit and ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... very complaisant towards my lady's gentlewoman, the immaculate Mrs. Hannah, whom he used to speak of in a way that I do not choose to mention. Whether she has the same suspicions with Master Simon or not, I cannot say; but she receives his civilities with no better ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... was that the proud King flung himself to earth and kissed the dust in abject submission,—then Sah-luma, carelessly complaisant, bent the knee and smiled to himself mockingly as he performed the act of veneration, ... then the enormous multitude with clasped hands and beseeching looks fell down and worshipped the glittering beast of the field, whose shining, emerald-like, curiously sad eyes roved ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... proceeded to organise a complaisant Senate, a mute legislative body, and a Tribunals which was to have the semblance of being independent, by the aid of some fine speeches and high-sounding phrases. He easily appointed the Senators, but it was different ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... reaction—relief that she should be so reasonable, so complaisant—and a sort of holiday spirit after the day's hard work. Oddly enough, and not so irrational as may appear, Sidney formed a part of the evening's happiness—that she loved him; that, back in the lecture-room, eyes and even mind on the lecturer, her ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... squire, of the Squire Western type. The House of Lords stood in the way of the Commons when, in the Tory reaction of 1701, the Commons proposed to impeach Somers, the Whig Chancellor, a high-minded and skilful lawyer, "courteous and complaisant, humane and benevolent," for his share in the Second Partition Treaty of 1699, and this was the beginning of a bitter contest between the Tory Commons and the Whig Lords. An attempt was made by the Commons to impeach Walpole on his fall in 1742, but the Lords threw out a Bill proposing ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... in my travelling closet, which Glumdalclitch held in her lap, in a kind of open sedan, after the fashion of the country, borne by four men, and attended by two others in the queen's livery. The people, who had often heard of me, were very curious to crowd about the sedan, and the girl was complaisant enough to make the bearers stop, and to take me in her hand, that I ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... sleeve reminded him of a thoroughbred horse stepping on to turf, so full of life, of electric thrill, of excitement was it. But then, Karl Steinmetz was a cynic. No one else could have thought of comparing Etta's self-complaisant humor to that of a horse in a ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... in a complaisant manner, and gave some order, when half a dozen of the courtiers darted off as fast as their legs could carry them, eager to obey it. On seeing Hendricks, he desired him to approach. The hunter advanced without considering it necessary to make a salute in the style the black king's subjects adopted; ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... relapse of what he termed the "Warlock dyspepsia," was waging dire war with the remains of the beef and pudding, which he tearfully assured his physicians "were lurking in his constitution." As Mauleverer, though complaisant, like most men of unmistakable rank, to all his acquaintances, whatever might be their grade, possessed but very few friends intimate enough to enter his sick-chamber, and none of that few were at Bath, it will readily be perceived that he was in blissful ignorance of ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... here comes a difference. Fortune is blind, but the poet has his eyes open, and is besides as complaisant as fortune is capricious. He makes every thing turn out exactly as we would wish it. He gratifies us by representing those as hateful or contemptible whom we hate ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... personally obsequious, lent her recitations an attentive ear, and was ever ready with the expected commendation. It is not likely that her ladyship found much, difficulty in collecting around her a crowd of critics more docile than Thomson and quite as complaisant as Shenstone. ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... can snare them without being too intrusive," assented Collins, who, since the success of his stratagem of the afternoon before, had been in an unusually complaisant mood. ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... too complaisant. I hope I shall have de pleasure to make your acquaintance. Je m'appelle Monsieur Auguste de Poivre. J'ai l'honneur de vous presenter une carte d'adresse. I live on de top of my mother's,—sur l'entresol. My mother live on de ground—rez-de-chaussee. Madame ma mere ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... he was attentive, he was something like what he had been to her cousins: he wanted, she supposed, to cheat her of her tranquillity as he had cheated them; and whether he might not have some concern in this necklace—she could not be convinced that he had not, for Miss Crawford, complaisant as a sister, was careless as a woman ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... complaisant mood: "I once hinted my mind to her on a few things, as nearly as a battered frame dared to do so to such a froward piece. You all know, neighbours, what a man I be, and how I come down with my powerful words when my ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... not better, nor wiser in their generation (forbid it, Manchester!), nor even more daring in confronting danger than the thousands whose grandsires are creations of a powerful fancy or of a complaisant king-at-arms. In that terrible charge which swept away the Russian cavalry at Eylau, three lengths in front of the best blood in France rode the innkeeper's son. The "First Grenadier" himself was not ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... described to her the Continental latitude (the good-humoured marriage, in which complaisant couples mutually agreed to form the cloak for each other's infidelities), and gave her to understand that in this way alone she could have a peaceful and friendly life with him, she answered him simply, 'I am too truly ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... didn't Satisfie me, yet I soon found I must have him or none; For having been brought up too high to make a working Tradesmans Wife, that Portion now was gone that should have helpt me to a better Husband. And therefore making a vertue of Necessity, I began to be more Complaisant to my Inamorato then I had been formerly; which quickly won his heart to that degree, that in a short time after we were married—And tho the first Night that I went to Bed with him, I was a Maid, and so knew nothing of that which a new Married couple ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... of the natural and complaisant steps of the sentry who came to relieve me brought me completely back to myself. I detached myself from the spot where I had seemed riveted and went ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... difficulty as to the ceremonies to be observed in welcoming his family home. For he had no notion of leaving the house in possession of his suspicious uncle while he went down to the station. Nor could he bear the idea of not being at the station to meet them. So he compromised matters by taking his complaisant relative with him, much to that ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... matter," said the complaisant Mr. Price; "you say what you like. I sha'n't interfere ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... on and so on, until at last the brothers pluck up determination, and make choice of an employer. So our Caledonian friends begin to gather together their traps and make preparations to accompany their complaisant and well-satisfied boss to his farm on the banks of the Waikato. And an indescribable joy is in their hearts, for they are to receive six shillings and sixpence a day, and to be provided with comfortable lodging and lavish "tucker" withal; and though, no doubt, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... shelf broke its neck. "Hand me yonder cup," he said easily, "and we'll drink to his home-coming. Good fellow, I am Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and I am glad to find so honest a man in a place of no small trust. Long absence and somewhat too complaisant a reference of all my Virginian affairs to my agent have kept me much in ignorance of the economy of my plantation. How long ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... sang out the complaisant Perk, cheerfully, "on'y I wanted to let you know I was over there in the same line and had the good luck to send down a few o' you Hun pilots in a blazin' coffin. Wondered now if me'n an' you mightn't a had a private scrap o' our own in them bully times. Allers did hanker ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... equally complaisant on the Mount of Olives. He would willingly have avoided the ascent could he have done so without displeasing his son; but George made a point of it. A donkey was therefore got for ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... this: let me ask you, is Mr. B.'s conduct to you as respectful, I don't mean fond, when you are alone together, as in company?—Forgive me—But you have hinted two or three times, in your letters, that he always is most complaisant to you in company; and you observe, that wisely does he act in this, as he thereby does credit with every body to his own choice. I make no doubt, that the many charming scenes which your genius and fine behaviour furnish out to him, must, as often as they happen, inspire him with joy, and even ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... had doubts, they were dissipated by a certain constraint in his manner, and the importance he seemed to be attaching to his departure, and she was warned to go within her defenses. Even the most complaisant women like at least the appearance ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... spent most of his evenings at the Blights', who took compassion on his loneliness and were complaisant of his obvious attachment to Honor. Mrs. Bright, in her tactful way, gave him many opportunities of having Honor to himself in the drawing-room while she betook herself to her husband's own particular sanctum to indulge in confidential ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... dear," Mrs. Ambler answered, complaisant as always, and when Betty triumphantly declared, "You feel better now—you know you do, ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... friend behind phenomena"; that Anglican deity had been rather a vague flummery behind court and society, wealth, "respectability," and the comfortable life. And even while he had lived in lipservice to that complaisant compromise, this true God had been here, this God he now certainly professed, waiting for his allegiance, waiting to take up the kingship of this distraught and bloodstained earth. The finding of God is but the stripping of bandages from ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... oblivious of the ceremony of installation. Poised upon a chair, she idly thrust her fingers through the gilded bars of the cage that hung from the rafters and gently stroked the head of the now complaisant bird. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... been so kind and complaisant with my humble self as to grant me the use of a few words before any one else of those here present, I shall take advantage of this permission, so generously granted, and shall talk. In imagination I fancy myself in the midst of the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... buckle, was slipped on over the headstall of the so-called watering bridle, whose toggled and detachable snaffle bit was generally "toted" from start to finish of a field scout in the saddle bags,—a twist of the flexible lariat, Indian fashion, between the complaisant jaws of his pet, being the troop's ready substitute. Add to this that, full, free and unmutilated, in glossy waves the beautiful manes and tails tossed in the upland breeze (for the heresies of Anglomania never took root in the American cavalry) ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... And so the complaisant but still considerate valet bowed himself out of a dilemma, that he found, as he muttered to himself, while ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... that it did not for a moment tolerate that a father should kill his daughter, no matter how guilty she was; and in all our records of that period no instance occurs. As to husbands, we have repeated complaints in the literature of the day that they had grown so complaisant towards erring wives that they could not be induced to prosecute them.[92] A typical instance is related by Pliny.[93] Pliny was summoned by the Emperor Trajan to attend a council where, among other cases, ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... anybody would far rather sit and chatter with him, or hear him play a valse on the piano, or a bit of the "Boheme," than bend over a table all by himself. And Artois always welcomed him. He liked him. But it was not only that which made him complaisant. Doro was a type, and ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... among unequal as well as among equal things. Moreover, when a democratic State, athirst for liberty, is controlled by unprincipled cupbearers, who give it to drink of the pure wine of liberty and allow it to drink till it is drunken, then if its rulers do not show themselves complaisant and allow it to drink its fill, they are accused and overthrown under the pretext that they are traitors aspiring to an oligarchy; for the people prides itself on and loves the equality that confuses and will not distinguish between those who should rule and those who should obey. Is ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... malice and revenge were the predominant passions with him; and that he was determined but to settle his affairs, and then take his resolutions, as you phrase it.—Yet, if we are to meet [for I know what my option would be, in his case, on such a letter, complaisant as it is] I wish he had a worse, I a better cause. It would be a sweet revenge to him, were I to fall by his hand. But what should I be the better ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... du Chatelet he fled to Civey, where was the tumbledown chateau of the Marquis—the Madame's complaisant husband. Voltaire advanced the Marquis sixteen hundred pounds to put the place in order, and then on his own account fitted up two sumptuous apartments, one for himself and one for Madame. The Marquis went away with his regiment, and occasionally came ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... referred to Cissy's new hat, and to the young girl the coherence was perfectly plain. Miss Tibbs looked at "it" severely. It would not do for a protegee to be too complaisant. ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... then it is surely by dress; if a woman never does a foolish thing in any other way, yet at least she errs in her habiliments; if she be fickle at all, (and speak to the fact, ye disappointed bachelors and ye complaisant husbands!) in what is she more fickle than in dress? We might waste a life in finding a suitable simile for her volatility in this matter: rainbows with changing colours, water on a windy day, the wind itself in the month of March, the much-desiderated perpetual motion; all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... differently in the two Houses. Still the Senator was tranquil, for he knew that there is an esprit de corps in the Senate which does not exist in the House, the effect of which is to make the members complaisant towards the projects of each other, and to extend a mutual aid which in a more vulgar body ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... restraint, and eager for independence. By a bold stratagem, an ambitious prelate, Hanno, archbishop of Cologne, carried off the young king, and assumed the guardianship over him. He had a rival in the person of Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, whom Henry liked best, as being more indulgent and complaisant, and who at length became his chosen guide. But in 1066 the princes caused Adalbert to be banished from court. They obliged Henry to marry Bertha, the daughter of the margrave of Turin, to whom he had been betrothed by his father. The union ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... evil. Accordingly, if a man were to wish always to speak pleasantly to others, he would exceed the mode of pleasing, and would therefore sin by excess. If he do this with the mere intention of pleasing he is said to be "complaisant," according to the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 6): whereas if he do it with the intention of making some gain out of it, he is called a "flatterer" or "adulator." As a rule, however, the term "flattery" is wont to be applied to all who ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the theater that day at an unusually early hour, and seemed to be in excellent spirits and in an excellent humor. He was very complaisant to all around him, and very lively, affable, and gay. After performing certain ceremonies, by which it devolved upon him to open the festivities of the day, he proceeded to his place, with his friends and favorites about him, and Chaerea, with the other officers ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... growing late, and people had begun to leave, when it struck him that, through no active fault of his own, other than a certain complaisant indolence, he had as yet exchanged only the briefest of greetings with Lady Garnett, while of Miss Masters only a glimpse had been vouchsafed to him, at the further end of the crowded supper-room. He wandered into the studio, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... don't affect surprise; you know very well whom," continued the Abbe. "But, faith, I fear I have been too complaisant with them, though these two children are really interesting in their love. I fear for him more than for her; I doubt not he is acting very foolishly, judging from the disturbance this morning. We must consult together ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... being a polite Nation; and indeed those amongst them who have travell'd, are very complaisant, full of their Professions of Friendship, and Offers of Service, tho' it's the first time they ever set Eyes on the Party to whom they make them; but if he takes this for any more than the Effects of good Breeding, and reminds a Courtier of his Promise, ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... establishment, for I am exceedingly fond of fine linen," he observed, casting a complaisant glance on the embroidered folds of his shirt. "I therefore found frequent occasion to admire you god-daughter; I think her beautiful ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... come to those corpses full of fluid blood, and whose beard, hair and nails had grown again. One may dispute three parts of these prodigies, and be very complaisant if we admit the truth of a few of them. All philosophers know well enough how much the people, and even certain historians, enlarge upon things which appear but a little extraordinary. Nevertheless, it is not impossible to ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... imaginary woes, which never fail to grow up in minds unexercised and unemployed. To get rid of these, it is said, there are who betake themselves to distilled spirits. And it is not improbable they are led gradually to the use of those poisons by a certain complaisant pharmacy, too much used in the modern practice, palsy drops, poppy cordial, plague water, and such-like, which being in truth nothing but drams disguised, yet coming from the apothecaries, are considered only ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and very likely Pius IX. had not voluntarily disappointed his countrymen, who may have expected too much. But then the French had been there fifteen years, and were to be there another fifteen years yet. Now they are gone, with the archbishop's red coach, and the complaisant grocer, and the young man of twenty-seven in Via del Gambero, and the rest of the things that the sun looked on and will look on the like of again, no doubt, in our monotonous ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... Vance, taking up the dis course. "Mr. Rugge, this morning, was willing,—I understand that your grandchild refused. We are come here to see if she will be more complaisant under your own roof, or Under Mr. Merle's, which, I take it, is the same thing for the present."—Sophy had sidled up to Lionel. He might not have been flattered if he knew why she preferred him to Vance. She looked on him as a boy, a fellow-child; ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not complaisant, it is the cad the canaille adore. In spite of everything, Nero had been beloved by the masses. For years there were roses on his tomb. Under Vespasian there was an impostor whom Greece and Asia acclaimed in his name. The memory of his festivals was unforgetable; regret for ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... though not without great difficulty, and much bloodshed, either to suppress altogether, or to obstruct very much, the progress of the reformation in their dominions. It was well enough inclined, too, to be complaisant to the king of England. But from the circumstances of the times, it could not be so without giving offence to a still greater sovereign, Charles V., king of Spain and emperor of Germany. Henry VIII., accordingly, though he did not embrace himself the greater ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... other acts collaterally and accidentally affecting the See of Rome; for the repeal of which the court was no less anxious than for the repeal of the Act of Supremacy, where the parliament were not so complaisant. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... disposition. This opinion, which had been long entertained of him, Vitellius confirmed by some late practices; having kissed all the common soldiers whom he met with upon the road, and been excessively complaisant in the inns and stables to the muleteers and travellers; asking them in a morning, if they had got their breakfasts, and letting them see, by belching, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... seeing in a Carnaval but one Theatre provided with eminent Performers, without Hopes of[98] an approaching Remedy. Let them take it for their Pains. Let the World learn to applaud Merit; and (not to use a more harsh Expression) be less complaisant to Faults. ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... cross-pieces to which, conforming rigidly to the Washington rule of contrariety, are fastened to the bottom instead of the top of the upright. Your theory is, that the destinies of the nation are to be hanged on these monstrous gibbets, and you wonder whether the laws of gravitation will be complaisant enough to turn upside down for the accommodation of the hangman, whoever he may be. It is not without pain that you are forced at last to the commonplace belief that these remarkable mountings of the Public Buildings are neither masts nor booms, but ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... went by easy Stages to Cologne, a dirty, foul-smelling place, but very Handsome in Buildings, and saw all that was to be seen, that is to say, the churches, which Abound Greatly. The Jesuits' Church is the neatest, and this was shown us in a very complaisant manner, although 'tis not the custom to allow Protestants to enter it. Our Cicerone was a bouncing young Jesuit, with a Face as Rosy as the sunny side of a Katherine Pear; but it shocked me to hear how he indulged in Drolleries and Raileries in the very ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... letters of the sixteenth century. Perhaps Buchanan's temper was less compliant, his character less easily adaptable to the society in which he found himself, than most; but it may be doubted whether this was the cause of the very small advancement in life to which he had come, since he was complaisant enough to indite many fine verses in praise of people who gave him a banquet or a shelter, and he seems to have gone nowhere without making friends. He had got abundant reputation, however, if not much else, and was known wherever he went as the celebrated poet, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... Catherine (for we may now call her by the name she made so famous) was removed from his favourite's household and installed in the Imperial harem where, for a time at least, she seems to have shared her favours indiscriminately between her old master and her new—"an obscure and complaisant mistress"—until Menshikoff finally resigned all rights in her to ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... principles; what a shame, then, for her, that the Countess could not have been guaranteed against the effects of it! Now, the Marquise has a strong reason the more for contributing to the defeat of her friend; she has become positively ugly, and consequently obliged to be more complaisant in retaining a lover. Will she suffer another woman to keep hers at a less cost? That would be to recognize too humiliating a superiority, and I can assure you that she will do the most singular things to bring her amiable widower ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... the name of Cogia Houssain, and, as a new-comer, was, according to custom, extremely civil and complaisant to all the merchants his neighbours. Ali Baba's son was, from his vicinity, one of the first to converse with Cogia Houssain, who strove to cultivate his friendship more particularly. Two or three days after he was settled, Ali Baba came to see his ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... said nothing that night, and she had to wait for a while. The weather, which had certainly shown the most graceful politeness to the Surrey week, was still in a complaisant frame of mind when Monday morning dawned, and the tents were put up for the school children, and the Aunt Sallies and other instruments of amusement were posed in their places about the garden, without any ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... compensation amidst the various humbling circumstances of their contact with the Greeks; and it put into formal shape a befitting dogmatism of morality, which, like every well-bred system of morals, combined with the most rigid precision as a whole the most complaisant indulgence in the details.(9) Its practical results can hardly be estimated as much more than that, as we have said, two or three families of rank ate poor fare to please ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of extreme carefulness to treat the hand. The other knaves fell into the joke, and the Spaniard had no option but to submit; though his scowling face showed that he bore Maignan no good-will, and that but for my presence he might not have been so complaisant. La Trape was bringing his surgery to an end by demanding a fee, in the most comical manner possible, when the King returned to our part of the court. "What is it?" he said. ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... fluttered by their leave-taking that I thanked God that Jim was not in my place. There would have been division in our ranks at once; for it seemed to me that her conduct to Cornish was too complaisant by far. ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... If these sex-complaisant women were really filled with remorse, burdened with a sense of shame, we should all know it. Their eyes, their voices, their daily lives would reveal it. Could a million women be in physical pain, say ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... hand, we must not deceive ourselves as to the real value of this complaisant bill. Let it transform itself as it pleases into all manner of forms for the better fulfilment of its task, it makes, at the best, but a very poor instrument for mastication; nay, to say the truth, it ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... year, the C-C ranch had changed hands. All day long Craig and the prospective buyer had driven about the place. One by one the cowboys had given testimony of the fraction of the herd intrusted to their care. At first resignedly complaisant, as the hours drifted by Craig had grown cumulatively impatient at the inevitably dragging inventory. Nothing but necessity absolute in the shape of an imminent foreclosure had brought him back to this land at all. ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... deceived. Her "American" might be a British assassin in disguise. She had had to make herself responsible—she, Felice!—for my innocence and honor. She had also been obliged to show Gaston the piece of gold I had given her and to assure him there would be another for him if he were complaisant. I judged, also, that she had found it necessary to offer him a bribe quite as tangible as the gold piece but less mercenary, for her face was rosier and her eyes brighter and her hair a little more disheveled than when I had first ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... my Laura, you will never be satisfied till I have ceased to be Babylonian," said the duchess, smiling and fondling Vittoria, to whom she said, "Am I not a complaisant German?" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... her attention was really bent upon her critic—her only critic in this assembly; and he discovered various attempts to draw him into conversation. And when Lord Lackington, discomfited by Meredith, had finished discharging his literary recollections upon him, Sir Wilfrid became complaisant; Julie ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with a smiling face. He felt unusually complaisant, having succeeded in his designs against ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Isabel where she lived, and since her father would never consider moving to any other locality nor rebuilding the rather patriarchal homestead which he had occupied for twenty-five years, it was just as well that the daughter was so complaisant. She, moreover, was the only person who looked upon John M. Hurd with a clear understanding of his habits of thought. She could herself accomplish things with him, when her way did not conflict too directly with his own, but she gained her points first by concentrating her attack ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... not knowing what to say in answer to this charge brought against her,—thinking, perhaps, that the questioner would allow his question to pass without an answer. But Vavasor was not so complaisant. "If there be any reason, Alice, I think that I have a ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... in a state of convalescence, I became more ardent than before, in search of an immediate opportunity of embarking. My complaisant doctor introduced me to the captain of a running felucca, and I hired his vessel for ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... Bill,—very generous in its enlargement of the franchise,—but no ballot. Mr. Turnbull expressed his doubt whether this would be satisfactory to the country; but even Mr. Turnbull was soft in his tone and complaisant in his manner. As there was no reporter present,—that plan of turning private meetings at gentlemen's houses into public assemblies not having been as yet adopted,—there could be no need for energy or violence. They went to Mr. Mildmay's ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... conscious man among them that here was something uncommonly like the Golden Age, unless that epoch had been flattered. There had been reading and praising of odes and sonnets the whole blessed afternoon, and now he cried out to the complaisant, canorous company, "Behold Arcadia ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... from my friend. I look round at the translucent opal of the bay, the glittering white of the surf on the reef, the downward swoop on an albatross, and I listen to the dull roar of the breakers, to the solemn tang-tang of the bell-buoy on the bar, and the complaisant "ah-ha-a-a" of some argumentative penguin. Even the drab-coloured African hills in the distance, and the corrugated Catholic church (shipped in sections) with the sun blazing on its windows, are beautiful to me to-day, for ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... not to be blamed so much as Tom Faggus himself was. Annie was very grateful to me, and kissed me many times, and begged my pardon ever so often for her rudeness to me. And then having gone so far with it, and finding me so complaisant, she must needs try to go a little further, and to lead me away from her own affairs, and into mine concerning Lorna. But although it was clever enough of her she was not deep enough for me there; and I soon discovered that she knew nothing, not even the name of my ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... have had spirits enough to go and see all that is curious in the town, that is to say, the churches, for here is nothing else worth seeing. This is a very large town, but the most part of it is old built. The Jesuits church, which is the neatest, was shewed (sic) me, in a very complaisant manner, by a handsome young Jesuit; who, not knowing who I was, took a liberty in his compliments and railleries, which very much diverted me. Having never before seen any thing of that nature, I could not enough admire the magnificence of ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... Square, and esteemed themselves fortunate in picking up a cruising taxi-cab with a driver sufficiently complaisant to drive them in the direction they ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... motives. And now, let us talk of something more amusing. You see that woman in old rose brocade—she is sitting with a bald-headed man at the third table on your left. Well, that is the Countess of Porthcawl, and the man with her is Roger Ducrot, the banker. Porthcawl is a most complaisant husband. He never comes within a thousand miles of Millicent. She is awfully nice; clever, and witty, and the rest of it—quite a man's woman. We are sure to meet her in the lounge after dinner and ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... discoverer's name partly that schoolboys may remember him, or not, in their prayers. It was Al-Khalil Ibn Ahmad who, at Mecca, had besought Allah to bestow upon him a science hitherto unknown. Allah being in a complaisant mood, it followed that not long after, walking in the bazaar, Al-Khalil invented prosody as he passed a coppersmith's and heard ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... venture to love them, except, perhaps, the two eldest; I no longer venture to look at them, to call them to me, to kiss them; I cannot take them onto my knee without asking myself: 'Can it be this one?' I have been correct in my behavior towards you for six years, and even kind and complaisant; tell me the truth, and I swear that I ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... is he that is complaisant to his wife's humours; Ring and Dinn's is he whom his wife scolds; John Knox's is he whom his ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... glad to find your lordship is so close an observer," returned the complaisant Dutton; "a certain sign, my lord, that your lordship will make a ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... loveless life had turned in another direction at the signpost of a woman's face, and down the new vista the lover saw flowering meadows, silver streams, bowers of roses, and all the landscape of Arcadia. He was a piping swain and Diana a complaisant shepherdess; but they had not yet entered into the promised Arcadia, and might never do so unless Diana was as kindly as he wished ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... and all are ridiculously remote from real life. It was bad enough that boys' time should be wasted thus, but the evil was further emphasized by the practice of recitation. These exercises, duly corrected and elaborated, were often recited by their youthful authors to an audience of complaisant friends and relations. Of such training there could be but one possible result. 'Less and less attention was paid to the substance of the speech, more and more to the language; justness and appropriateness of thought came to be less esteemed ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... a change of sentiment prevailing. Although failing in no observance of courtesy, Mrs. Briscoe had been a little less than complaisant toward the departed guest. This had been vaguely perceptible to Briscoe at the time, but now she ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the house whenever possible; avoided their father with an almost physical effect of dodging an expected blow; when with him, watched his mood to forestall with hasty attention or divert with strained wit, with timorous hilarity when he proved complaisant. The possibilities for harm to them were numberless. She and Sam were losing the children, and the children were ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... parables, but the nature and purpose of which is overt enough in all respects but the nomenclature. It is not unlikely that even this Japanese usufruct and tutelage runs on somewhat less humane and complaisant lines than a well-advised economy of resources would dictate for the prospective German usufruct of the ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... "After his first communion, we saw disappearing little by little all the faults which, in his infancy, caused us great misgivings as to the future," writes Madame de Maintenon. "His piety has caused such a metamorphosis that, from the passionate thing he was, he has become self-restrained, gentle, complaisant; one would say that that was his character, and that virtue was natural to him." "All his mad fits and spites yielded at the bare name of God," Fenelon used to say; "one day when he was in a very bad temper, and wanted to hide in his passion what he had done ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... rights and feelings of his quarry than the gunner gives to the rights and feelings of his birds. From the beginning of the prohibition campaign, for example, the principle of compensation has been violently opposed, despite its obvious justice, and a complaisant judiciary has ratified the Puritan position. In England and on the Continent that principle is safeguarded by the fundamental laws, and during the early days of the anti-slavery agitation in this country it was accepted as incontrovertible, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... ought to be very complaisant, or else very much ashamed of yourselves. You send in an order: "The kind of girl that I like is a Methodist without bangs." And some nice girl begins to look up Methodist tenets and buys invisible hairpins and side combs. Or you say, "Give me an athletic girl." And, presto! some girl who would ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... Hissing, which you have among you, I do not know any thing of; and their Applauses are uttered in Sighs, and bearing a Part at the Cadences of Voice with the Persons who are performing. I am often put in Mind of those complaisant Lines of my own Countryman, [1] when he is calling all his Faculties together to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... me, always directing to me by the name of "Mary Cranstoun," and sent me some very handsome presents of Scotch linen. He also obliged his eldest sister, Mrs. Selby,[27] and her husband, to write to me as their sister. Lady Cranstoun likewise wrote to my father in a very complaisant style, thanking him for the civilities he had shewn her son; and hinting, that she hoped it would be in her power to return them to me, when she should have the pleasure of seeing me in Scotland, which she begged might be soon. Lord Cranstoun, his brother, also wrote to my father, ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... consul, was in the prime of life, and of an easy, prodigal disposition. This opinion, which had been long entertained of him, Vitellius confirmed by some late practices; having kissed all the common soldiers whom he met with upon the road, and been excessively complaisant in the inns and stables to the muleteers and travellers; asking them in a morning, if they had got their breakfasts, and letting them see, by belching, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... every stimulus to appear at her best on this particular evening, for the audience, frivolous, volatile, taking its character from the loose, weak king, was unusually complaisant through the presence of the first gentleman of Europe. As the last of the Georges declared himself in good-humor, so every toady grinned and every courtly flunkey swore in the Billingsgate of that profanely eloquent period that the actress ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... poor lady's to be pitied; for it must have been but a melancholy sight to her, to see her spouse cut off so in the flower of his youth, as one may say: and you ought to scorn to take exceptions at a lady's proudness when she's in so much trouble. To be sure, I can't say myself as she was over- complaisant to make us welcome; but I hope I am above being so unpitiful as for to owe her a grudge for it now she's so down ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... to cry this minute—cry just as hard as I could, and scream, and beat my head against something hard—how do you do, Mrs. Asbury?—but instead, I have to bow from the windows to people, and remember that I am supposed to be the complaisant bride-elect of the catch of the season. It is a judgment on me, Ruth, to find that I have a heart, when I have always gone on the principle that nobody had any. Yes—how-de-do, Miss Culpepper? excuse me a minute, Ruth, while I hate that girl. What ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... be able to account for everything, even for things it used not to be thought sensible to believe in, like ghosts and haunted houses. Keats remarks in one of his letters with great admiration upon what he christens Shakspeare's 'negative capability,' meaning thereby Shakspeare's habit of complaisant observation from outside of theory, and his keen enjoyment of the unexplained facts of life. He did not pour himself out in every strife. We have but little of this negative capability. The ruddy qualities of delightfulness, of pleasantness, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... plunging gladly into her native element, discussed the whole house from attic to kitchen. Mr. Harper listened with a complaisant and amused look. Beginning to discern the sterling good there was in the little woman, he passed over her harmless small-mindedness; knowing well that in the wide-built mansion of human nature there must be always a certain order of beings honourable, useful, and ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... his new rival. He called the priests into his counsel and demanded to know where the Christ should be born. Too often has the priest been subject to the beck and call of the king. Bad men will use the church for their own evil purposes when they can, and will then grow condescending and complaisant towards the minister and liberal in their gifts. We must be ready to receive and help any man, but we must beware of men that push their way into the church for sinister ends. The church is no man's ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... Decatur. When handled just right he was wonderfully complaisant. But after a whole week of Mabel he decided that the limit had been reached. Seizing an occasion when Mabel was in the hands of the hairdresser and manicurist, he led her mother to a secluded veranda corner and boldly plunged into ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... about him in a complaisant manner, and gave some order, when half a dozen of the courtiers darted off as fast as their legs could carry them, eager to obey it. On seeing Hendricks, he desired him to approach. The hunter advanced without considering it necessary to make a salute ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... tears still lingering in the long dark lashes that veiled her sad and downcast eyes. The Captain was rocking to and fro in an easy chair, smoking his pipe and glancing first towards his daughter, and then at her starch prim-looking aunt, with no very complaisant expression. ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... if they are not very desirous that one of them shall devote herself, and make the first dash, that they may profit by her pretended fault. I know who will not be the last to come and station herself amongst the furniture of your apartment. The marechale de Mirepoix was too long the complaisant friend of madame de Pompadour not to become, and that very soon, the friend of the comtesse du Barry." "Good heaven," I exclaimed, "how delighted I should be to have the friendship of this lady, whose wit and amiable manners are so greatly talked ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... was gallant, he was attentive, he was something like what he had been to her cousins: he wanted, she supposed, to cheat her of her tranquillity as he had cheated them; and whether he might not have some concern in this necklace—she could not be convinced that he had not, for Miss Crawford, complaisant as a sister, was careless as a woman ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... his eyes as the train rolled away. He had said good-by to all of them—to Joey and Ruby and Casey, and they had wished him good luck with that complaisant philosophy which was ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... are kindly disposed, or to murderous inclinations if we are not. On the other hand, he who is silent moves us not at all. In any and every case, however, we entirely fail to comprehend why, if Neaera is obdurate, our swain does not go afield and find, as assuredly he can, some complaisant Amaryllis. ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... an obscure lineage, and an every-day vocation. He instituted a comparison between himself and the prince. He was obliged to confess that the latter was a man of very lively aspect; that fine sparkling eyes belonged to him, a boldly-arched nose, a gentlemanly, complaisant demeanor, in a word, all the external accomplishments, which every one is wont to commend. But numerous as were the charms he found in his companion, still he was compelled to acknowledge to himself, that a Labakan would be no less acceptable to the royal ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... remained two other acts collaterally and accidentally affecting the See of Rome; for the repeal of which the court was no less anxious than for the repeal of the Act of Supremacy, where the parliament were not so complaisant. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... must learn to parse my lesson, for the present, and be quiet. Yes, yes; she shall find me very complaisant. I must be so, for live without her I cannot. She must she shall be mine. It is a prize which I am born to bear away from all competitors. This is what flatters ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... two friendly females. He wanted to get acquainted, that was all. But the old male, after grumbling for several minutes, got himself worked up into a rage, and came floundering over the rocks to do up the visitor. Roughly he pushed the two complaisant females off into the water, and then, with a savage lunge, he ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... smiled, and, as she locked the door of her laboratory, her spirits revived and her thoughts once more reverted to the ambitious dreams of the morning. When she had reached her boudoir again, and the complaisant mirror had resumed its place, she drew the flask from her bosom, removed the glass stopper, inhaled for a moment its perfume, and then, raising it to her lips, drained the contents to their ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... casual writers, but to Australians themselves it is always a question whether these kindnesses are not outbalanced by the inaccuracies which surround them. For it may as well be said at once that the younger colonists do not relish being denied all native individuality, and depicted with a complaisant condescension as mere imitators of English life. It is well to be a Briton, they say, but better to be an Australian. And who shall say that their self-satisfaction is not ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... especially if the good outweighs the evil, as it did in the King our master. I am of opinion that the troubles he was involved in in his youth, when he fled from his father and resided six years together with Philip, Duke of Burgundy, were of great service to him; for there he learned to be complaisant to such as he had occasion to use, which was no slight advantage of adversity. As soon as he found himself a powerful and crowned king, his mind was wholly bent upon revenge; but he quickly found the inconvenience of this, repented by degrees ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... most obscure—who would accept a money bribe in order to modify his judgment. That is the glory of our country's magistracy and its special virtue. But a great number of our magistrates are ready to be complaisant—even to give way—when it is a question of making themselves agreeable to an influential elector, or to the deputy, or to the minister who distributes appointments and favors. Universal suffrage is the god and the tyrant of the ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... tokens of deference on the part of her new lord, now fell on her knees and entreated his permission to pass a few moments in private with her former husband, and the request was instantly granted by the complaisant Saracen. Sir Isumbras still smarting from his bruises, was conducted with great respect and ceremony to his wife, who, embracing him with tears, earnestly conjured him to seek her out as soon as possible in her new dominions, to slay his infidel rival, and to take possession ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... them might stand us in good stead should difficulties arise between us and these people. Take, for example, the matter of the four Spirits of the Winds. If we were to judiciously exhibit some knowledge of them and their doings, this king might be inclined to be a great deal more complaisant than he otherwise would be. ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... a somewhat doubtful career as a medical "expert." Only two years had passed since the police and the reporters of the Tenderloin had ceased calling him "Doc." In a celebrated criminal case in which Gaylor had acted as chief counsel, he had found Rainey complaisant and apparently totally without the moral sense. And when in Garrett he had discovered for Mr. Hallowell a model servant, he had also urged upon his friend, for his ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... association with royalty. Margaret of Navarre was his early friend, and at a later period had occasion to complain of his ingratitude. He was at this time fifty-five years of age, severe, stern, fond of arms, complaisant to royalty, but harsh and overbearing in his relations with inferiors. Of his personal valor there can be no doubt, and he was generally regarded as the ablest general in France—an opinion, it is true, which his subsequent ill-success contributed much to shake.[527] But his martial ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... never faltered in his loyalty to duty, came to regard the political situation, if not from the point of view of his opponents, at least from a point of view which was eminently statesmanlike and discreet. Influenced by a broader comprehension of affairs, and by a more complaisant regard for the country's rulers, who had done and were doing much for the young commonwealth, however sorely the political system pressed upon the people, Dunlop placed a check upon his gift of parliamentary raillery, and refrained ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... Chinese affairs in 1897-99 may with some confidence be prescribed as a sedative and lowering diet. It seems probable that the weakness of British diplomacy induced the belief at St. Petersburg that no opposition of any account would be forthcoming. With France acting as the complaisant treasurer, and Germany acquiescent, the Czar and his advisers might well believe that they had reached the goal of their efforts, "the ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Cogia Houssain, and, as a newcomer, was, according to custom, extremely civil and complaisant to all the merchants his neighbors. Ali Baba's son was, from his vicinity, one of the first to converse with Cogia Houssain, who strove to cultivate his friendship more particularly. Two or three days after he was ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... in political concerns. It is said, that they had an interview at Delphi, and another at Corinth, by the procurement of Periander, who made a meeting for them, and a supper. But their reputation was chiefly raised by sending the tripod to them all, by their modest refusal, and complaisant yielding to one another. For, as the story goes, some of the Coans fishing with a net, some strangers, Milesians, bought the draught at a venture; the net brought up a golden tripod, which, they say, Helen, at her return from Troy, upon the remembrance of an old prophecy, threw ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... friends, and bid them farewell. Some were aware of the trick that had been played upon him: others were not; but the poor little man's credulity was so great, that it was impossible to undeceive him; and he went from house to house bewailing his fate, and followed by the complaisant marshal's officer. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mantua and Rome, and clear to France when necessary. When he arrived in a town he would soon become a favorite with other skilled workers. Naturally he would be introduced to their lady friends. These ladies were usually "complaisant," to use his own phrase. Soon he would be on very good terms with one or more of them; then would come jealousies; he would tire of the lady, or she of him more probably; then, if she took up with a goldsmith, Benvenuto ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... sort. Doubly distinguished by the perfect simplicity of her apparel, and by her tall, supple, commanding figure, she took rank at once as the most remarkable woman in the room. Moving nearer to her through the crowd, under the guidance of the complaisant Major, young Linwood gained a clearer view of her hair, her complexion, and the color of her eyes. In every one of these particulars she was the living image of the woman ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... nothing that night, and she had to wait for a while. The weather, which had certainly shown the most graceful politeness to the Surrey week, was still in a complaisant frame of mind when Monday morning dawned, and the tents were put up for the school children, and the Aunt Sallies and other instruments of amusement were posed in their places about the garden, without any fear arising ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and beset with barriers. His ambition had become impatient. Now that he was a figure of local power and importance, temptation began to assail him with offers of rapid elevation if only he would be complaisant. In this situation, the father in him rose into the ascendency; he had compromised and yielded, though always managing to keep his dubious transactions secret. And now at length ambition ruled him—though as yet not undisturbed, for conscience sometimes rose in unexpected revolt ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... Raja, was powerful in Mahoba in the time of Akbar. It is rather an indication that he was poor and weak. If he had been rich and strong, he would probably have refused his daughter to a Gond, even though complaisant bards might invent a Rajput genealogy for the bridegroom. The story about the army of fifty thousand men cannot be readily accepted as sober fact. It looks like a courtly invention to explain a mesalliance. The inducement really offered ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... them the jovial Friar of Copmanhurst. Arthur-a-Bland, with a gold chain about his neck, given him by the knight Sir Richard, walked with Middle the Tinker on his left and Much the Miller on his right. Close behind trotted the small complaisant Midge, dressed up very fine in a livery of purple ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... took me to see the Mazzoli, formerly a dancer, and then mistress to the Chevalier Raiberti, a hardheaded but honest man, who was then secretary for foreign affairs. Although the Mazzoli was by no means pretty, she was extremely complaisant, and had several girls at her house for me to see; but I did not think any of them worthy of occupying Leah's place. I fancied I no longer loved Leah, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... as a rule, heavy to carry, to say nothing of its being next to impossible to secure more when the supply is exhausted. Some chocolate and condensed milk which I ordered from Chihuahua did not reach me until seven months after the date of the order. Besides, the Indians are not complaisant carriers, least of all ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... tired of birds that come fluttering into my hands and cling to me when I no longer desire them. Upon my word, I like you the better for it. Come, I'm sorry I frightened you. I can say no more than that; it is the fault of your sex, which is so complaisant." ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... travelling-closet; which Glumdalclitch held in her lap in a kind of open sedan, after the fashion of the country, borne by four men, and attended by two others in the queen's livery. The people, who had often heard of me, were very curious to crowd about the sedan, and the girl was complaisant enough to make the bearers stop, and to take me in her hand, that I might be more ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... members had been added by June, 1886. The receipts for the year to March, 1886, were no More than L35 19s., but as the expenditure only amounted to L27 6s. 6d., the Society had already adopted its lifelong habit of paying its way punctually, though it must be confessed that a complaisant printer and a series of lucky windfalls have contributed to ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... court-yard, there is a great noise heard in the house, of servants running up and down stairs, the jacks going, and a great clattering of plates and dishes. Thus he spends an hour or two every midnight, in living well, after he has been some years dead; but is complaisant enough to leave every thing, at his departure, in the same position ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... discourse with that grace which was natural to him, "I believe, Madam," says he, "I may venture to think you were speaking of me as I came in, that you had a design to ask me something, and that Madam de Cleves is against it." "It is true," replied the Queen-Dauphin, "but I shall not be so complaisant to her on this occasion as I was used to be; I would know of you, whether a story I have been told is true, and whether you are not the person who is in love with, and beloved by a lady of the Court, who endeavours to conceal ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... with complaisant vanity at these words, and, drawing near the queen, looked silently at a collar of pearls, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... find your lordship is so close an observer," returned the complaisant Dutton; "a certain sign, my lord, that your lordship will make a ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... be induced to take the risk; and such a bookseller was not readily found. Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript unless he were intrusted with the name of the author. A publisher in Fleet-street, named Lowndes, was more complaisant. Some correspondence took place between this person and Miss Burney, who took the name of Grafton, and desired that the letters addressed to her might be left at the Orange Coffee-house. But, before the bargain was finally struck, Fanny thought it her duty to obtain her father's ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... himself E. S. Aurifex. Specimens of his handicraft occur fairly often in the market; as to their merit, opinions differ. But after all, there is a soupcon of gratification in having a Baronet to your binder; and we understand that Sir Edward is complaisant enough to accept ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... told that the Landhofmeisterin, like some evil giant tree, seemed to grow more beautiful, more resplendent each year. It was not true; for Time had set his cruel fingermarks upon Wilhelmine, but her wonderful health and her complaisant knowledge of success gave her a seeming youth. True, the pert little French dressmaker could have told the Duchess of violent scenes over gowns made to the measurements of former years, which could not ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... mentioned with praise for his sustaining power as a pillar of finance, for his judicious benevolence, for his support of wise and prudent reform movements, for his discretion in making permanent public gifts—"the Weightman Charities," one very complaisant editor called them, as if they deserved ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... meanings fused by the smile of La Gioconda. And our satisfaction, too, in work of this kind is best expressed by that ambiguous curve of the lip which says: I feel your charm, but I am not your dupe; I see the illusion both from within and from without; I yield to you, but I understand you; I am complaisant, but I am proud; I am open to sensations, yet not the slave of any; you have talent, I have subtlety of perception; we are quits, and ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... been a time of rejoicing and mental ease. It should have been a time of stirring hope. A moment for complaisant contemplation of a great purpose achieved. But the man at the window regarded the thing he looked upon without any display of pleasurable feeling. The sight of it literally seemed to deepen the unease which looked out ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... affable and extremely complaisant, though an egotist and somewhat loquacious; but nature had, nevertheless, bestowed upon him a prepossessing exterior with an enviable pair of jet black whiskers, and the most expressive eyes; he could sing a tonadilla divinely; dance the fandango ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... the evening he was affable and complaisant and forbearing. She made no attempt to conceal her dislike of him. Concealments were not familiar to Margie's nature. She was frank ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... at the head of the stairs listening, felt the magnetic charm of his personality. It seemed, why she could hardly say, that a real personage had arrived. The house was cheerier. The attitude of her mistress was much more complaisant. Everybody seemed to feel that something must be done for ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... colonization scheme taken by the Times of London, of the same date, is less complaisant. "The latest commercial sensation is a proposed company for the seizure of New Guinea. Certain adventurous gentlemen are looking out for one hundred others who have money and a taste for buccaneering. When the company has been completed, its share-holders are to place themselves under military ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... humour, dull, perverse, or otherwise than well-disposed to all his desires. Far from that, every Friday he gave thanks in the mosque for the gift of such an admirable wife—grave, discreet, pious, amorous, chaste, obedient, nimble, complaisant, and most beautiful, as he hereby declared that he found her. Being a man of the greatest possible experience, this was high praise; nor had he been slow in making up his mind that she was to be trusted. He was about to prove his deed ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... the fiery ball to Eastman, and to Mr. Adams, the mate, and learned that the object which gave me such a fright was not of very unfrequent occurrence during a gale of wind. It was known among seamen by the name of CORPOSANT, or COMPLAISANT, being a corruption of "cuerpo santo," the name it received from the Spaniards. It is supposed to be formed of phosphorescent particles of jelly, blown from the surface of the water during a storm, and which, clinging to ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Queen Mary (January 1543). He promoted the act permitting the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and was one of the commissioners appointed to arrange a marriage treaty between the little queen and the future Edward VI. In London he was not considered so complaisant as some of the other commissioners, and was not made privy to all the engagements taken by his colleagues (ib. i. 834). But Beton "loved him worst of all," and, when Arran went over to the priestly party, Balnaves ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... and had created a man of dust. She had later repented her scandalous conduct in sackcloth and ashes; but it did not prevent her from abruptly leaving the chapel on a subsequent Sunday when another divine, this time a complaisant Methodist, quite satisfied with his theories of endless future rewards and fiery punishments, dwelt at length upon the traditional idea that the sorrows of the world are God-sent ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... stratagem, an ambitious prelate, Hanno, archbishop of Cologne, carried off the young king, and assumed the guardianship over him. He had a rival in the person of Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, whom Henry liked best, as being more indulgent and complaisant, and who at length became his chosen guide. But in 1066 the princes caused Adalbert to be banished from court. They obliged Henry to marry Bertha, the daughter of the margrave of Turin, to whom he had been betrothed ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... as Mademoiselle Heger, co-directress of the pensionnat, and "wholly at our service." In response to our apologies for the intrusion and explanations of the desire which had prompted it, we received complaisant assurances of welcome; yet the manner of our kind entertainer indicated that she did not appreciate, much less share in, our admiration and enthusiasm for Charlotte Bronte and her books. In the subsequent conversation it appeared ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... telling the Yorkshireman all sorts of stories about the pauvre Colonel, whom she seemed ready to change for a younger piece of goods with a more moderate appetite; and finding Mr. Stubbs more complaisant than he had been in the diligence, she concluded by proposing that he should accompany the Colonel and herself to a soiree-dansante that evening at a friend of hers, another Countess, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... place in Madrid during Borrow's absence. The Carlists had actually appeared before its gates, although they had subsequently retired. Liberalism had been routed and a Moderado Cabinet, under the leadership of Count Ofalia, ruled the city and such part of the country as was sufficiently complaisant as to permit itself to be ruled. As the Moderados represented the Court faction, Borrow saw that he had little to expect from them. He was unacquainted with any of the members of the Cabinet, and, what was far ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... have his money's worth in the shape of an accurate presentation of his face and form. It is an old quarrel between artist and public. Mr. Abbey had to face it in his Coronation picture; Mr. Bacon had to face it in his Return of the C.I.V.'s; perhaps the only folk who solved the problem were the complaisant gentlemen who designed panoramas of cricket matches in the last century, where each member of the company blandly faces the spectator. Much water had flowed under Burgomaster Six's bridge since Rembrandt painted The Anatomy Lesson. Then he was the obedient student. Now he ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... them, can secure us with certainty against the extravagance of her present rulers. I think, therefore, that while we do nothing which the first nation on earth would deem crouching, we had better give to all our communications with them a very mild, complaisant, and even friendly complexion, but always independent. Ask no favors, leave small and irritating things to be conducted by the individuals interested in them, interfere ourselves but in the greatest cases, and then not push them to irritation. No matter at present existing between them and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... equally capricious occurrence strikes one as odd. I mention the discoverer's name partly that schoolboys may remember him, or not, in their prayers. It was Al-Khalil Ibn Ahmad who, at Mecca, had besought Allah to bestow upon him a science hitherto unknown. Allah being in a complaisant mood, it followed that not long after, walking in the bazaar, Al-Khalil invented prosody as he passed a coppersmith's and heard ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... scarce can think it, but am told), There are, to whom my satire seems too bold: Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough, And something said of Chartres much too rough. The lines are weak another's pleased to say, Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day. Timorous by nature, of the rich in awe, I come to counsel learned in the law: You'll give me, like ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... already drawn up the lettre de cachet which was to consign him to the Bastile. About the middle of June, 1691, Louvois met the king in his council chamber, and, though the monarch was unusually complaisant, Louvois so thoroughly understood him that he retired to his residence in utter despair. Scarcely had he entered his apartment ere he dropped dead upon the floor. Whether his death were caused by apoplexy, or by poison administered by his own hand or ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... nor wiser in their generation (forbid it, Manchester!), nor even more daring in confronting danger than the thousands whose grandsires are creations of a powerful fancy or of a complaisant king-at-arms. In that terrible charge which swept away the Russian cavalry at Eylau, three lengths in front of the best blood in France rode the innkeeper's son. The "First Grenadier" himself was ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... gunner gives to the rights and feelings of his birds. From the beginning of the prohibition campaign, for example, the principle of compensation has been violently opposed, despite its obvious justice, and a complaisant judiciary has ratified the Puritan position. In England and on the Continent that principle is safeguarded by the fundamental laws, and during the early days of the anti-slavery agitation in this country it was accepted as incontrovertible, but if ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... White became a great deal more cheerful; and she was very complaisant to them all at luncheon. And quite by accident she asked Macleod, who had returned by this time, whether they talked ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... Hanse Towns, Swiss from the Valais, which was now incorporated with France, and Italians from the confiscated states of the church had taken their seats in the Corps Legislatif. With conscious pride Napoleon also declared to these "complaisant tools of tyranny," that French dominion during the last year had been extended over sixteen departments, containing five millions of people; the mouths of the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt, together with the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... savages lived together in thousands with a harmony which civilization might envy. This was in good measure due to peculiarities of Indian character and habits. This intractable race were, in certain external respects, the most pliant and complaisant of mankind. The early missionaries were charmed by the docile acquiescence with which their dogmas were received; but they soon discovered that their facile auditors neither believed nor understood that to which they had ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... at some future period. I happened to be in a very good humour just then; but, though I was complaisant and gracious enough, I took care not to compromise myself in any possible way. But, however, the conceited wretch chose to interpret my amiability of temper his own way, and at length presumed upon my indulgence so far—what do you ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... large; his Eyes full and lively, with Eye-Brows and Beard pretty thick; of a dark brown Colour; and his Skin was clear, his Shoulders were strong and well set, and Limbs rather large than small, but exactly shap'd: He was perfectly good natur'd, complaisant in his Behaviour, and gallant in his Amours, his Dress was easy and genteel, his Approaches sprightly, and his Conversation the most endearing. Amaryllis was extremly fond of Sempronius and Sempronius was fond of Amaryllis, without each other ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... on one occasion at least, they keep the unhappy monks of the convent where they are staying (who do not seem to dare to begin vespers without them) waiting a whole hour while they are finishing not particularly edifying stories. The less complaisant casuists, even of the Roman Church, would certainly look askance at the piety of the distinguished person (said by tradition to have been King Francis himself) who always paid his respects to Our Lady on his way to illegitimate assignations, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... could neither steer nor go aloft, and there fell to him, naturally, all the work of the ship that was ignominious or unpleasant or merely menial. It was the Dago, with his shrug and his feeble, complaisant smile, who scraped the boards of the pigsty and hoisted coal for the cook, and swept out the fo'c'sle while the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... certain good, or of avoiding a certain evil. Accordingly, if a man were to wish always to speak pleasantly to others, he would exceed the mode of pleasing, and would therefore sin by excess. If he do this with the mere intention of pleasing he is said to be "complaisant," according to the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 6): whereas if he do it with the intention of making some gain out of it, he is called a "flatterer" or "adulator." As a rule, however, the term "flattery" ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the complaisant but still considerate valet bowed himself out of a dilemma, that he found, as he muttered to himself, while ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... The complaisant and contented, the adjusters and compromisers, the advocates and flatters of God, those who shun anxiety and stop their ears against too blatant a truth - they had better read something else; there are plenty of pleasant and ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... went and stood at the door, that I might divine as much as I could for myself: for though it was night, in London there is scarcely such a thing as darkness. While I was standing here, a gentleman of a more complaisant temper came up and fell into conversation with me, answered my inquiries, and informed me the king's palace was at no great distance. The king's palace was indeed a tempting object, and he good-naturedly offered to walk ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... on the horses. John Thomas paid each time, so she could but be complaisant. He, of course, sat astride on the outer horse—named 'Black Bess'—and she sat sideways, towards him, on the inner horse—named 'Wildfire'. But of course John Thomas was not going to sit discreetly on 'Black Bess', holding the brass bar. Round ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... Never was there more complaisant chaperone than Hennie Penny. For, you see, she took no little credit to herself for having helped to bring about their happiness, and the very least she could do was to further it in every way in ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... prosecution which had been found necessary. For there was good reason to believe that the Afghan commander and his force, whose strength was estimated at about 5000 men, were in the vicinity of Urgundeh, about midway between Macpherson at Karez and Baker in the Maidan valley. If Mahomed Jan would be so complaisant as to remain where he was until Macpherson could reach him, then Roberts' strategy would have a triumphant issue, and the Warduk general and his followers might be relegated to the category ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... you could become hurtful as an enemy. All this, and much more to the same purpose, was strenuously insisted upon by the worthy pair; and your friend was obliged to take his leave, perfectly convinced that, unless you assumed a more complaisant bearing, or gave a more decided pledge, to the new minister, it was hopeless for you to expect any thing from him, at least, for the present. The fact is, he stands too much in awe of you, and would rather keep you out of the House than contribute an iota towards obtaining ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the so-called watering bridle, whose toggled and detachable snaffle bit was generally "toted" from start to finish of a field scout in the saddle bags,—a twist of the flexible lariat, Indian fashion, between the complaisant jaws of his pet, being the troop's ready substitute. Add to this that, full, free and unmutilated, in glossy waves the beautiful manes and tails tossed in the upland breeze (for the heresies of Anglomania never took root in the American cavalry) ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... Jack?" she finished. "You and I are so made that we can't be neutral. We've got to be thoroughly in accord, or we have to part. There's no chance for us to get back to the old way of living. I don't want to; I can't. I could never be complaisant and agreeable again. We might as well come to a full stop, and ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... mamma's good opinion, than hers!—Every body, she owned, admired her mother's conversation; but he was mistaken if he thought respect to her mother only would do with her. And then, for his own sake, surely he should put it into her power to be complaisant to him, if he gave her reason to approve of him. This distant behaviour, she must take upon herself to say, was the more extraordinary, as he continued his visits, and declared himself extremely desirous to cultivate ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... you say to be true. Let us return to my ring, or rather to yours. You shall take half the sum that will be advanced upon it, or I will throw it into the Seine; and I doubt, as was the case with Polycrates, whether any fish will be sufficiently complaisant to bring it back ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... rigidly to the Washington rule of contrariety, are fastened to the bottom instead of the top of the upright. Your theory is, that the destinies of the nation are to be hanged on these monstrous gibbets, and you wonder whether the laws of gravitation will be complaisant enough to turn upside down for the accommodation of the hangman, whoever he may be. It is not without pain that you are forced at last to the commonplace belief that these remarkable mountings of the Public Buildings are neither masts ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... Mid-Glamorgan bye-election in May 1910 the local organization, against the advice of the chief Liberal Whip, nominated a Liberal candidate, and succeeded in retaining the seat although it had been "ear-marked" by the Labour Party. In Scotland, where Liberalism is less complaisant than in England, no seat has been surrendered to the Labour Party without a fight, and when a Labour candidature was threatened in December 1910, in the Bridgeton division of Glasgow, the Liberals retaliated by ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... was a great favourite in the service, having had something uncommonly mild and complaisant in his manner; and his loss was therefore universally regretted. The circumstances of his case were also peculiarly distressing to his mother, as her husband, who was a seaman, had for three years past been confined to a French prison, and the deceased was the chief support ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... exist or is temporarily in abeyance: (b) free love, the relationships of the unmarried: (c i.) temporary polyandry or polygyny of married people, where the unions are limited and recognised by custom: (c ii.) marital licence where the husband is complaisant in the face of public opinion: (c iii.) adultery where neither the husband nor ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
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