"Amenities" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... foremost place in the curricula of our colleges. It is only by training the student from the start, by fostering literary, dramatic and debating societies where not alone the practical art of speaking is developed, but the social amenities of good society are practised, that the young priest can be equipped to efficiently discharge the high office awaiting him, and so reflect a lasting credit on the Church of God at ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... original population left the place in mass. No human creatures were left save the wife of a freebooter and her paramour, a journeyman blacksmith. This unsavory couple, to whom entrance into the purer atmosphere of Zeeland was denied, thenceforth shared with the carrion crows the amenities ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... address, delivered just after he had begun the practice of law, speaking of conscience and charity: "They must become a part of us and of our existence, as present, in season and out of season, in all the amenities of life, in those daily offices of conduct and manner which add so much to its charm, as also in those grander duties whose performance evinces an ennobling self-sacrifice." It was his own determined and unfaltering devotion to this lofty ideal, that led directly to the success ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... amenities of life, she hurried to his side. His face was dark with something more than anger, and did not lighten as she laid the tips of her ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... Slosson, one could take the last half of the sign either as a poetic rhapsody on the part of the painter, or the yielding to some meaningless convention, for in his person, Mr. Slosson suggested none of those qualities of brain or heart that trenched upon the lighter amenities of life. He was black-haired and bull-necked, and there was about him a certain shagginess which a recent toilet performed at the horse trough had ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... which Blount had been dreading. Now, if never before, the wretched involvement had reached a point beyond which it was impossible to follow his father's plea for a continuance of the kinsman amenities. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... having forgotten the amenities of life in the excitement. Professor Gurlone and his son, still clad in their black suits, but with their helmets off, were standing beside him, clutching ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... scarcely be said to exist in the United States, so all the nice gradations of manner which are elicited by those relations, are wanting also. The social machine rubs on with as little oil as possible—there is but small room for the exercise of the amenities and charities of life. The favours of the great are seldom rewarded by the obsequiousness of the small. No leisure and privileged class exists to set an example of refined and courtly bearing; but there are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... domesticated cats— will affect its prospects in life very little. In the first case, the probability is that the new animal will get on in life, and breed, and multiply above the average; in the second, it is probable that, in the competition for food and other amenities of life, the disadvantage, whatever it is, under which the animal suffers will shorten its career, and abbreviate the tale of its offspring; while, in the third case, an average career may be expected. ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... given a room. It was at the end of a whitewashed corridor, from which pine doors opened on either side into bedrooms. The corridor was bare of carpet, the whole upstairs freezing cold. There were none of the amenities. My room was at the end. It boasted two small windows, with a tiny stand between them containing a tin basin and a pitcher; a bed with one side of the mattress torn open and exposing a heterogeneous ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... them before, and there grew in him slowly a revulsion for what those measurements revealed. The spirit that was growing in him called out for bigger things, for the wild freedom which he had tasted for a time with Gregson—for a life which was not warped by the gilded amenities of the crowded ballroom to-night, by the frenzied dollar-fight to-morrow. No one could understand that change in him. He could find no spirit in sympathy with him, no chord in another breast that he could reach ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... mayoress—we might have been schoolchildren in the same townland we are so cordial. Everything proceeds amid plaudits, and winds up in acclamation. Their Excellencies depart. Great is the no-politics era—you can so quietly spike the guns of many an old politician—and keep him safe. The social amenities do this. Their Excellencies have gone, but they do not forget. There is a warm word of thanks for recent hospitality. Perhaps the mayor has a daughter about to be married, or a son has died; it is remembered, and the cordial congratulation or gracious sympathy comes ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... cause of my discontentment; I never coming from the Count, or Court, but still he filled and possessed me with new causes of discontentments.' The reading of the statement was set in a more than usually decorated framework of Coke's amenities. Ralegh throughout the trial had been for the King's Attorney an 'odious fellow;' the 'most vile and execrable traitor.' He had been stigmatized as 'hateful to all the realm for his pride,' to which Ralegh had retorted: 'It will go near to prove ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... you best thanks for the 'Calamities of Authors,' which has all the entertaining and lively features of the 'Amenities of Literature.' I am just packing them up with a few other books for my hermitage at Abbotsford, where my present parlour is only 12 feet square, and my book-press in Lilliputian proportion. Poor Andrew Macdonald I knew in days of yore, and could have supplied some curious anecdotes ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... upon a violation of treaty obligations, it is nevertheless true that such refusal of transit and the other injurious acts which have been recited constitute a provoking insistence upon rights neither mitigated by the amenities of national intercourse nor modified by the recognition of our liberality and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... vainglory, and pertinacity, and pugnacity that made up the very definite structure of his nature. He dearly loved a lover. He was as sentimental as a girl of eighteen, and he melted instantly into suavest amenities at the first intimation ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... door on him then. He seemed suddenly sordid. Dinner, I thought! Although, as matter of fact, I made a very fair meal when, Granger's suitcase not having gone, in his coat and some other man's trousers, I was finally fit for the amenities. Alison did not come down to dinner, so it was clear she would not go over to the club-house dance. I pled my injured arm and a ficticious, vaguely located sprain from the wreck, as an excuse for remaining at home. Sam regaled the table with ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... operations, and that his objections were well founded it is impossible to deny. The prospect of success depended much upon the weather. Virginia, covered in many places with dense forests, crossed by many rivers, and with most indifferent communications, is a most difficult theatre of war, and the amenities of the Virginian spring are not to be lightly faced. Napoleon's fifth element, "mud," is a most disturbing factor in military calculations. It is related that a Federal officer, sent out to reconnoitre a road in a certain district of Virginia, reported that the road was there, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... were two small cane-chairs, enamelled, on which the women sat, close to each other, both incommoded by the unwholesome sultriness of the only chamber that could be spared for the private use of the house-mistress. This small bedroom was Sarah Gailey's home; its amenities were the ultimate nightly reward of her labours. If George Cannon had obtained possession of the Cedars as an occupation for Sarah, this room and Sarah's pleasure therein were the sole justification of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... was now autumn. All that was gracious triumphed. As the motorcars passed through Summer Street they raised only a little dust, and their stench was soon dispersed by the wind and replaced by the scent of the wet birches or of the pines. Mr. Beebe, at leisure for life's amenities, leant over his Rectory gate. Freddy leant by him, smoking ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... own service. But he soon found that, if slow to thank, they were prompt to blame, and that with no light hand nor disposition to make allowances. He had run his head against various regulations of the bureaucracy; and this let him know, with all the amenities of official censure, that if they could not recognize what he had done well, they were perfectly clear-sighted as to where he ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... than I; for my years I am far older than you; none of the brightness of my boyhood seems to linger about me. Contact with the world is an indurating process; I really did not know how hard I had grown, until I felt my heart soften at sight of you. I need you to keep the kindly charities and gentle amenities of life before me, and, therefore, I have come for you. But for my poverty I never would have given you up so long; I felt that it would be for your advantage, in more than one respect to remain with Mr. Clifton until I had acquired my profession. I knew that you would enjoy privileges here which ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... house individual and different from all the rest. Few of the houses are large; on the other hand, none of them is small: this is the region of the solid middle class, the class which loves comfort and piques itself on its amenities, but is a little ashamed or too timid ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... amenities and gentlenesses of the Southland had fallen away from the three people. Shorn of its glamour and romance, Arctic travel became to them a reality too harsh for their manhood and womanhood. Mercedes ceased weeping over the dogs, being too occupied with weeping over ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... while the ideals native to the body politic, those involved in our natural structure and situation, are either stifled by that alien incubus, leaving civic life barbarous, or else force their way up, unremarked or not justly honoured as ideals. Industry and science and social amenities, with all the congruous comforts and appurtenances of contemporary life, march on their way, as if they had nothing to say to the spirit, which remains entangled in a cobweb of dead traditions. An idle pottering of the fancy over obsolete forms—theological, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... passive than an active character. The affections are strong and their foundations lie deep: but they are not—such affections seldom are—wide-spreading; nor do they show themselves on the surface. Indeed, there is little display of any of the amenities of life among this wild, rough population. Their accost is curt; their accent and tone of speech blunt and harsh. Something of this may, probably, be attributed to the freedom of mountain air and of isolated hill-side life; something be derived from their ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... is sometimes oblivious of the rules of the drawing-room; and inspired Conscience, like the inspiring God, seeing a hypocrite, will take the liberty to say so, and act accordingly. Are the superficial amenities, the soothing fictions, the smotherings of the burning heart,... really paramount in this world, and never to give way? and when a soul of power, unable to refrain, rubs off, though it be with rasping words, all the varnish from ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... labor of love, and to this is owing its strong charm. Carlyle here shows us his "sunny side." We no longer see him breathing out threatenings and slaughter as in the Latter-Day Pamphlets, but moving among the charities and amenities of life, loving and beloved—a Teufelsdrockh still, but humanized by a Blumine worthy of him. We have often wished that genius would incline itself more frequently to the task of the biographer—that when some great or good personage dies, instead of ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... spasmodic industry which takes its impulse from the passing moment. It must be remembered that timeliness is the essential element of right and obligation in many things that ought to be done, especially in all forms of charity, alike in great services, and in those lesser amenities and kindnesses which contribute so largely to the charm of society and the happiness of domestic life. There are many good offices which, performed too late, were better left undone,—courtesies which, postponed, are incivilities,—attentions ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... the literary man, after the day's labour, desires the repose of their elegant conversation; the professional man and the merchant hurry up from down town to shuffle off the coil of heavy duty, and forget the drudgery of life in the agreeable picture of its amenities and graces presented by Mrs. Potiphar's ball. Is this account of the matter, or "Vanity Fair," the satire? What are the prospects of any society of which that tale is the true history? There is a picture ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... she ensconced herself at the top of Margery's seat—which was a much better observatory than her aunt's pew—where every thing could be seen that was interesting and amusing within the four walls. Besides, there were small amenities connected with a seat in nurse's pew which had great attractions for Grace when she was a little girl, and had still a lingering charm for her. In the pew behind there sat a worthy couple, friends of Margery, who exchanged friendly salutations with her on Sunday, always ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... of the Saviour—this the religion of redemption. Salvation is in it. It is the power of God to God; gives its sanction to virtue; adorns the mind with the graces of godliness; sweetens the heart with amenities of goodness, and dignifies the soul with a spiritual assimilation to the Father. Man thus becomes a spiritual child of God. He is by a nature a natural child, and he is thus by grace or love made a spiritual child. ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... and locking away the cipher code and keyword, he went out on the back verandah and shouted for his orderly. The dwellings of Europeans upcountry in India are not luxurious—far from it. Away from the big cities like Bombay, Calcutta, or Karachi, the amenities of civilisation are sadly lacking. The bungalows are lit only by oil-lamps, their floors are generally of pounded earth covered with poor matting harbouring fleas and other insect pests, their roofs are of thatch or tiles, and such luxuries as bells, ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... prompted, in a fashion that suggested brilliant gymnastic powers. To pass a dish to any one, the governess discovered, was construed as an evidence of mental weakness and eccentricity. The family satisfied its appetite without assistance or amenities, but with the skill of a ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... been published in the German and British newspapers from time to time, relative to life at Ruhleben, have dwelt at length upon the social amenities of that imposing colony. People at home have read about the tennis courts, our football field, the theatre, and other forms of recreation. Possibly they think that the Germans have been very generous ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... brain of the poet. Without, the village street was paved with gold; the river ran red with the reflection of the leaves. Within, the faces of friends brightened the gloomy walls; the returning footsteps of the long-absent gladdened the threshold; and all the sweet amenities of social life again resumed ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... side—changes moral, changes physical, changes in the amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost out of recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can take place anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five-and-twenty years there have been no changes in me, and that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to correct when ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume ...
— Lost in Translation • Larry M. Harris
... many matters, and could probably have told many Englishmen much that they didn't know about their own affairs. He had poked his nose everywhere, and had scrupled to ask no question. He had seen the miseries of a casual ward, the despair of an expiring strike, the amenities of a city slum, and the stolid apathy of a rural labourer's home. He had measured the animal food consumed by the working classes, and knew the exact amount of alcohol swallowed by the average Briton. He had seen also the luxury of baronial halls, ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... esoteric approval of Calvinton was a thing apart from these mere fashionable courtesies and worldly amenities—a thing not to be bestowed without due consideration and satisfactory reasons. Leroy Carmichael failed, somehow or other, to come up to the requirements for a leading physician in such a conservative community. In the judgment ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... claim her revenge. That which was once unnatural is now natural to him. The enforced constraint has become a rigid deformity. The spring of his mind is broken. He can no longer lift his mind from the ground. Books and knowledge and wise discourse, and the amenities of it, and the cordial of friendship, are like words in a strange tongue. To the hard, smooth surface of his soul, nothing genial, graceful, or winning will cling; he cannot even purge his voice of its fawning tone, or pluck from his face the mean, money-getting mask which the child ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... house with his amenities; but gradually it became apparent that his most dazzling effects were directed exclusively to Jane. Lethbury and his wife held their breath and looked away from each other. They pretended not to notice the frequency ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... Almanac. The prophecies of storms, fires and disasters were as dull reading then as they are now, but one or two entries in his Life and Times, written by himself, are illuminating, especially his record of family amenities, thus:— ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... showered on the Autonomists by their beloved friends the Magyars, after all the dark electioneering tricks and gutter legislation which for years had been committed by the Magyars to the end that the Autonomists and they should have all the amenities of some one else's house, it surely is the acme of ingratitude to call this tottering benefactor "Hote insalue." If the Autonomists did not desire to reap advantages from any Magyar corruption, they might at any time since November 17, 1868, have torn the swindling piece of paper, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... spiritual needs of his new duties, lest he should have holy oil on his head and a dry and dirty conscience. He gave no time to the menu of the banquet, to the delicacies, the authorities, and the lacquey-smoothed amenities of the new life. He was racked with misery at the bare imagination of the fruitless trouble of palace business exchanged for the fruitful quiet of his cell. He feared that psalms would give way to tussles, holy ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... advantages of modern life had been known. That Marion should have appreciated, and to some extent have appropriated, them as readily as she did, is a matter of surprise, unless her educated Eastern parents are remembered, also the amenities of her parsonage home. Certain it is, that watching her as so many did, and as is the common fate of every new pupil, there was not detected any of the "verdancy" which so often stamps and injures the young girl. It was ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... met Mr. Shvernik in the latter's office at two and they went through the usual amenities. Mr. Shvernik spoke excellent English so Mr. Smith was able to dismiss his interpreter-guide for the afternoon. When he was gone and they were alone Mr. Shvernik went ...
— Revolution • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... repeats Bobby, reassuringly, seeing me blench a little at these disused amenities, pressing the hand that rests on his arm against his stout side; "it is nothing to you! bless your heart, you are the ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... grill for a comforting mutton chop of gargantuan proportions, with an equally huge baked potato. He was a healthy brute, after all his morbid line of activities! Later, at the Club, he submitted to the amenities of the barber, whose fine Italian hand smoothed away, in a skilful massage, the haggard lines of his long vigil. As he left the club house for William Grimsby's residence he looked as fresh and bouyant as though he had enjoyed the conventional eight ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... tells of long experience, manifest great interest in the stranger, whom they greet civilly and with much politeness. Men, women, and children are digging turf in a bog beside the road. All suspend operations and look earnestly in my direction. This is one of the amenities of Irish life. Driving along a country road you see men at work in a field. They stop at the first rumble of the car, and leaning on their spades they watch you out of sight. Then they resume in leisurely style, for work they will tell you is scarce, and, to their credit ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... residence; and he afterwards occupied a farm on the banks of Loch Lomond. Such a region of the picturesque was highly suitable for the development of those poetical talents which had already appeared in young Hector, amidst the rural amenities of Roslin. In his eleventh year, he wrote a drama, after the manner of Gay; and the respectable execution of his juvenile attempts in versification gained him the approbation of Dr Doig, the learned rector of the grammar-school ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... as yet, unspoilt village. One feels nervous for its future, but the good taste of the inhabitants, combined with the formidable barrier of the hills, will, it is hoped, prevent it ever becoming a mere congeries of tea gardens and like amenities. The fine cruciform church has a central tower and is Early Perpendicular; built by Baron de Poynings in the late fourteenth century it has many interesting details. Note the old thurible used as an alms box. The great south window was ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... the Duke of Suffolk became possessed of it. It was such a perfect site that if any place in the country round were inhabited, Ewelme would have been first choice. The flow of water is one of the most striking natural features and amenities of the place. It is a natural spring, coming out from the chalk of the Chilterns, and forming immediately a lovely natural pool, under high, tree-grown banks. This is still exactly as it was in the ancient days. No water company has robbed it, and besides "The King's ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... practical slavery. They could, while bearing the name of freeman, be legally subjected to all the oppressive features of serfdom, peonage, and feudalism combined, without possessing the right to claim, much less the power to exact, any of the prerogatives and amenities belonging to either of those systems of human bondage. All this could be done without violating the letter of the emancipation proclamation; no argument is necessary to prove that it would be a total submission of its spirit. Even upon the presumption that the whites, when again ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... colleges. Students rent rooms in private residences, paying from 50 cents to $2 per week, and find board in families or clubs at a cost of $2 to $3 per week. The students boarding in clubs are comparatively free from restraints, and often fail to cultivate the social amenities and table manners which should characterize a cultivated gentleman. For this reason, boarding in private families, where a woman's presence usually lends grace and dignity to social life at the table, is better ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... women receive, even in Europe, much less in the East, such chivalric deference and respect as are shown to them in America, but the nearer any people imitate us in this respect, the more advanced will they be found in the other refined amenities of social life. ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... unhappy conflict had died away. Now, thank God, the ameliorating influence of time, of commercial intercourse, and, let us hope, of Christian amity, has almost entirely obliterated the bitter memories of that unnatural strife. A continual exchange of international courtesies and friendly amenities, marks the intercourse of the kindred peoples who dwell upon opposite sides of the Niagara River. At the narrowest part of that river, two miles below the Falls, it is now spanned by the fairy-like railway Suspension Bridge—a life-artery along which throbs a ceaseless ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... horse, unused to anything better, the life would not have seemed hard. Of oats and hay there were fair quantities, and there was more or less hasty grooming. But to Silver, accustomed to such little amenities as friendly pats from men, and the comradeship of his fellow-workers, it was like a bad dream. He was not even cheered by the fact that his leg, intelligently treated by the stable-boss, was growing better. What did that matter? Had he not lost his caste? Express ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... short, August and September are trying months for the clubman who is obliged to remain in London. But by October Pall Mall is itself again, and we are glad to be able to state that in certain Clubs the amenities and comforts available will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... These amenities, carefully observed at all levels, contribute more directly to a spiritual uniting of American fighting forces than all of the policies which have been promulgated toward the ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... the January days. Evening dress is reserved for State occasions, and though sarong and kabaja be discarded at the nine o'clock dinner, the blouse and skirt of morning wear in England suffices even at this late hour for the fair Hollander, who also concedes so far to the amenities of civilisation as sometimes to put on her stockings. So much of life in Java is spent in eating, sleeping, and bathing, that but a small residuum can be spared for those outside interests which easily drop away from the European when exiled to a colony beyond ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... more gently. He should have condescended a little to the amenities, for his imperious tone at once dried a generous spring of philanthropy. He was to regret this lack of a mere superficial polish that would have cost ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Boniface Newt, which, unlike that worthy commission merchant, he did not impart to his ma and the partner of his bosom, but locked up in the vault of his own breast. Mr. Van B. gloried in being what he called a self-made man. He was proud of his nasal twang and his want of grammar, and all amenities and decencies of speech. He regarded them as inseparable from his success. He even affected them in the company of those who were peculiarly elegant, and was secretly suspicious of the mercantile paper of all men who were unusually neat in their ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... war? [said he]; you might as well talk of humanizing hell! When a silly ass got up at the first Hague Peace Conference in 1899, and talked about the "amenities of warfare" and putting your prisoners' feet in warm water and giving them gruel, my reply, I regret to say, was considered brutally unfit for publication. As if war could be "civilized"! If I am in command when war breaks out, I shall issue as my orders, "The essence of war is ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... of a deprivation so severe. But upon being reminded of the heavy responsibility resting upon the mind and heart of the patriot who could not withdraw his attention from the great and all-absorbing interests committed to his guidance long enough to think of, much less to practise, the amenities of life, I felt ashamed of my hasty anger, and remembered only that I had been permitted to see and converse with the hero of the battle of Bethel, the first Confederate victory of ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... reason, it appears to me that we all think that peace is a blessing, and war a curse. For under peace commerce and industry prosper; science and the arts flourish; friendships are made and adorn the amenities of life. Moreover, our religious traditions in all Christian countries, and in some non-Christian ones like China, influence us to believe that war is wrong, indefensible, and, in the present year ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... ties, I throw myself upon the candor and magnanimity of the Senate. I ask your attention; I trust not to abuse it. I may speak strongly, for I shall speak openly and from the strength of my convictions. I may speak warmly, for I shall speak from the heart. But in no event can I forget the amenities which belong to debate, and which especially become this body. Slavery I must condemn with my whole soul; but here I need only borrow the language of slaveholders; nor would it accord with my habits or my sense of justice to exhibit them as the impersonation of the institution—Jefferson calls ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... had not mentioned my name I would have been complimented to know that he had read the Good Stuff closely and pondered it well. As brother authors, you will please take notice that we observe the amenities. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... the charge of 'non-committalism' so much made against him. When he spoke at all he spoke explicitly; and he plainly, though without acerbity, exhibited his likes and dislikes. Van Buren scrupulously observed the amenities of debate. He was uniformly courteous towards adversaries; and the calm self-control saved him, as some great orators were not saved, from a descent to the aspersion of motive so common and futile ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... portion and which ended in the disastrous defeat that cost him his life. The flashes of aroused egotism that sometimes blazed out in red-hot words, were only signs of impatience and regret that he had been deprived of opportunity to cultivate the amenities and graces of life and to gain control of the higher powers he consciously possessed. Any one who will take the trouble to-day to read his later writings, his tribute to old friends and his essays like that on "Growing Old Gracefully," ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... well be adjudged nobler, wiser, possibly more urgent than the national prestige; but in the forum of patriotism all these other necessaries of human life—the glory of God and the good of man—rise by comparison only to the rank of subsidiaries, auxiliaries, amenities. He is an indifferent patriot who will let "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" cloud the issue and get in the way of ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... in the midst of a bevy of girls and married women. However, they all seemed to know that I was a desirable match and they gradually transferred their attentions to me, the girls in their own interests and the older matrons in those of their marriageable daughters. Their crude amenities sickened me. One middle-aged woman tried to monopolize me by a confidential talk concerning the social ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... other up the men on both sides exchanged amenities and chaff like the best of friends. Each side sold its papers to the other; and the wall-paper newsprint of Vicksburg made a good war souvenir for both. There was a steady demand for Federal bread and Confederate tobacco. When market time was over the Confederates ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... Frenchwomen—they all seemed clever—turn their backs to their partners to get a good look at the strange American whom Claire de Cintre was to marry, and reward the object of the exhibition with a charming smile. At last, as he turned away from a battery of smiles and other amenities, Newman caught the eye of the marquis looking at him heavily; and thereupon, for a single instant, he checked himself. "Am I behaving like a d—d fool?" he asked himself. "Am I stepping about like a ...
— The American • Henry James
... royal merriment by Carlo Emmanuele I. He put a sprig in his hat, and was imitated by all his court, and the ladies wore the same in their bosom or in their hair. Assuredly it is one of the wonders of the world to see here, amid the amenities and allurements of the country, especially during the summer season, what a continuous festa or holy fair is maintained. For there come and go torrents of men and women of every nation under heaven. Here you shall see pilgrims and persons in ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... vaguely feeling that the Greek had the better of him. At that moment Zorzi returned, and his coming put an end to the exchange of amenities. ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... small fancy-stationer's in a back-street. The windows are plastered with highly-coloured caricatures, designed to convey the anonymous amenities prescribed by poetic tradition at this Season of the Year. A small crowd is inspecting these works of Art ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... again angry, declared that she had misunderstood, and made the worst of it; that Dr. Brownlow was a conceited young ass; that his friend played into his hands; with other amenities of the same kind, to which she listened with mingled irritation and pity for his unreasonableness, and even at the sympathy which he found in Annaple's ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... yet done with her guest of honor. She had evidently been hurt, poor lady, by his failure to observe the amenities of social intercourse, for during the dinner she said to him, "I don't see why men and women of culture come out here and let the people pull them down. What they should do is to raise the people out here to ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in political and social life in Washington. He attains power in politics, and a young woman of the exclusive set becomes his wife, undertaking his education in social amenities. ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... that they are not so interesting as some of those we have passed through. In all, however, there dwell the good old honest labouring folk, toiling hard day by day at "the trivial round, the common task," just earning enough to scrape up a livelihood, but enjoying few of the amenities of life. The village parsons—good, pious men—share in the quiet, uneventful life of their flock. And who shall contemn their lot? As ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... exclusiveness of caste, the pride of birth or wealth, the tendency of family life to divert men from the pursuit of the ideal or the heroic, are as lowering in our own age as in that of Plato. And if we prefer to look at the gentle influences of home, the development of the affections, the amenities of society, the devotion of one member of a family for the good of the others, which form one side of the picture, we must not quarrel with him, or perhaps ought rather to be grateful to him, for having presented to us the reverse. Without attempting ...
— The Republic • Plato
... man came to me who edits a newspaper, and whom I once knew. You will remember when I used to tell you in Portman Square of the amenities and angers of Mr. Slide,—the man who wanted to sit for Loughton. He is the editor. He brought me a long letter from Mr. Kennedy himself, intended for publication, and which was already printed, giving an elaborate and, I may say, a ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... imperative. The obligation of poverty it omits, for the code arose at a time when the spiritual snobbery of the meek and lowly was not pressing the simile about the camel and the eye of the needle. It leads to charming manners and to delicate amenities. It is the opposite of the code of Gallantry, for while the code of Chivalry takes everything with a becoming seriousness, the code of Gallantry takes everything with a wink. If one should stoop to pick flaws with ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... rancor developed between the two parties, both of which had lately been included in the Republican ranks. Henry Clay and John Randolph inaugurated animosities by a duel; and soon, in North Carolina, as elsewhere, social amenities were but little regarded ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... amenities that passed between Haydn and Giardini. "I won't know the German hound," says the latter. Haydn wrote, "I attended his concert at Ranelagh, and he played the fiddle like ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... will at last succeed in forcing himself as a young bird between the teeth of our clerical visitors. This will be a sweet revenge. But with this I have nothing to do; what I have now to do with, is the fact that over every department of life I see the same announcement. In society where the sweet amenities of life are monopolized by the young, the aged beau is met by the flaming inscription, "Old roosters not wanted." In politics we hear the cry that the favorite candidate is a representative of the "Young Democracy" or ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... windowy, bricky,—and the farther in you go, the worse it grows. Why, I pray to know, as the first inquiry suggested by Class-Day, is it necessary for boys' schools to be placed without the pale of civilization? Do boys take so naturally to the amenities of life that they can safely dispense with the conditions of amenity? When I entered those brick boxes, I felt as if I were going into a stable. Wood-work dingy, unpainted, gashed, scratched; windows dingy and dim; walls dingy and gray and smoked; everything ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... every energy and every thought and every desire of every moment. This world is a bridge of straw over the roaring gulf of eternal fire. Is there leisure for sport and business, or room for science and literature, or mood for pleasures and amenities? No: to get ourselves and our friends into the magic car of salvation, which will waft us up from the ravenous crests of the brimstone lake packed with visages of anguish, to bind around our souls the floating cord of redemption, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... aroused, their daily life on board ship and in barracks soon compelled attention. Its homelessness and monotony, its utter lack of quiet and rest, its necessary isolation from all the comforts and amenities of social life, the consequent eagerness with which the men—wearied well-nigh to death, yet full of lusty vigorous life—went anywhere for change, society, and excitement—all these things broke like a revelation on the awakened conscience of the nation. ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... instrumental music; absorbed valuable general information from frequent talks with her father; read with discrimination some of the best works of poetry, romance, and literature; was familiar with the amenities of polite society; yet this girl of twenty seemed totally unconscious of her rare accomplishments, or bewitching perfections of ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... Thorlakson, whom Dr. Henderson found toiling cheerfully with his beloved parishioners in the hay-harvest of the brief arctic summer, combine with the vigorous diction and robust thought of their predecessors the warm and genial humanity of a religion of love and the graces and amenities of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... inconsistency of a man's taking upon himself the sacred name of Christ and at the same time submitting to the dominance of caste. Indian Christian anti-caste organizations are now at work seeking to drive out of the Church of God in India this Antichrist, and to cultivate the true spirit and amenities of ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... organized political government. The school-house stood with a meek aspect, entreating a long truce to war and savage life. Every one finds by his own experience, as well as in history, that the era in which men cultivate the apple, and the amenities of the garden, is essentially different from that of the hunter and forest life, and neither can displace the other without loss. We have all had our day-dreams, as well as more prophetic nocturnal vision; but as for farming, I am convinced that my genius ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... thick and often had withstood the assaults of huge battering rams, back in the dim past when occasion induced the primal baron to seek safety in the east wing, which, after all, appears to have been the real, simon pure fortress. The west wing was merely a setting for festal amenities and was by no means feudal in its aspect or appeal. Here, as I came to know, the old barons received their friends and feasted them and made merry with the flagon and the horn of plenty; here the ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... and the Tibetans were so distressed by the accident that I made very light of it, and only took one day of rest. The following morning some men and animals were carried away, and afterwards the ford was impassable for a fortnight. Such risks are among the amenities of the great trade route from ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... need of hiding when so wounded, worked first through the disorder that let me see none of the amenities of leave-taking, ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... amenities, Paris in the early 'thirties was not altogether a suitable resort for British visitors. The political atmosphere was distinctly ruffled. Revolution was in the air. Sir Jasper sniffed the coming changes; and was tactician ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... (2) its indiscretions of publicity about foreign affairs. We ostentatiously stand aloof from their polite ways and courteous manners in many of the every-day, ordinary, unimportant dealings with them—aloof from the common amenities of long-organized ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... being still suggestive of the amenities proper to a social function, the sergeant major stepped up ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... themselves at first in curious contrast to the primitive surroundings. The struggle between organized life and chaos, the laborious subjugation of nature to the requirements of our complex modern life, for a considerable period absorb the energies of the colonists. The amenities of culture, the higher intellectual life, the refinements of art can, during this period, receive little attention. Meanwhile a new national character is being formed; the people are undergoing the moral training ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... you, and your children, and your wife, for there is the charm of heart about you all: in yourself, in your Maria, in that fine frank youth, and those dear warm girls up stairs" (every word was bravoed to the echo), "in every one of you, all the charities and amenities, all the kindnesses and the cheerfulness of life appear to be embodied; you love both God and man; the rich and the poor alike may bless you, Clements, and your admirable Maria; whilst, as for yourselves, you may both well thank ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... hospitality of the port; and the health officers having visited the ship, arrangements were made for laying in a stock of provisions, and such other articles as were required after the cruise. Nor were the amenities of the Alabama's reception confined to the authorities alone. An enthusiastic greeting awaited her from almost every one; the clubs were placed at their disposal, and invitations a discretion poured in ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... me, old fellow, it's time to drop these amenities," continued Dolokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of this subject which irritated Denisov. "Now, why have you kept this lad?" he went on, swaying his head. "Because you are sorry for him! Don't we know those 'receipts' of yours? You send a hundred men away, and thirty get ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... under which a local authority is enabled to make by-laws, subject to the confirmation of the Home Secretary, regulating (1) the erection of hoardings, &c., exceeding 12 feet in height, and (2) the exhibition of advertisements which might affect the "amenities'' of a public place or ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... laughs, their awful dispositions of their legs when they sit down, their slangy disrespect; they no longer smoke, it is true, like the girls of the eighties and nineties, nevertheless to a fine intelligence they have the flavor of tobacco. They have no amenities, they scratch the mellow surface of things almost as if they did it on purpose; and Lady Palsworthy and Mrs. Pramlay lived for amenities and the mellowed surfaces of things. Ann Veronica was one of the ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... I, "no amenities can take place between us. From this hour on we are strangers, till the time conies when we shall appear before the judgment-seat of God. In that day, neither you nor I can hold back one iota of the truth. Think of this, and repent your part in this awful tragedy of sin, if ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... have belonged to the fortunate few—not to the miserable many; for if a society be large enough to be good, it must also be small enough. The sixty years that preceded the Revolution were the golden age of fireside talk and of those amenities that proceed from the presence of women in whom the social art is both instinctive and acquired. The women of that period were, above all, good company; the fact is attested in a thousand documents. Chenonceaux ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... subsequently described as "the most chawming woman" he had ever met in his life! "Joe" got awfully chaffed about her by all of his brother officers of the wardroom whose rank permitted them to take such a liberty with him; and, though we could take no share in their personal amenities, we youngsters grinned our approval of the various witty remarks and rejoinders that passed to and fro on our way back aboard the following day—the ball having lasted till long after daybreak the next morning, and Simon's Bay being all astir, with plenty of "Simons," ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... flew fearfully to Judge Blodgett and the professor, when Mr. Brassfield went free, with Alderson at heel. And all the time, as the crew of a ship carry on the routine of drill while the torpedo is speeding for her hull, these social amenities went on all unconscious of the ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... law. Otherwise he may find unpleasant surprises in store for him. Had Mr. Mercer made it his business to acquire some rudiments of this useful knowledge, he would never have undergone that outrageous official ill-treatment which has become a byword in the annals of international amenities. And if these strictures be considered too severe, let us see what Italians themselves have to say. In 1900 was published a book called "La Quistione Meridionale" (What's Wrong with the South), ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... the soldiers, discontent with the dictator's policy was as strong as it had been in the praetorium, while its expression was less governed by the amenities of rank. Roman discipline, however severe as to the acts of the legionary, put very few restrictions upon his speech; and the general, as he watched from the rampart the lines and movements of the enemy, heard many comments no less uncomplimentary than those of his master-of-the-horse, and couched ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... a little leaven of memory will sometimes work in the heart. Here was half a regiment of men, who had come to fight the battles of their country. As with one accord they had left the amenities of peaceful life behind them, and assumed the rugged manners of war. Of late they had seemed almost oblivious of the fact that God, and Christian worship, and Christian rules of life were still in existence. But to-day they were reminded. To-day the child was awakened—the ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... weather—happily not restored. When, early in the last century, the seventh Marquess of Merchester very handsomely made it over to a body of trustees, to house a collection of books bequeathed to the public by old Dean Venables, Merchester's most scholarly historian, it was with a stipulation that the amenities of the house should be as little as possible disturbed. The beds, to be sure, were removed from the upper rooms, and the old carpets from the staircase; and the walls, upstairs and down, lined with bookcases. But a great deal of the old furniture remains; and, wandering at ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... bright and memorable Sunday morning he wheeled his new possession through the shop into the road, got on to it with the advice and assistance of Grubb, and teuf-teuffed off into the haze of the traffic-tortured high road, to add himself as one more voluntary public danger to the amenities of the south ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... essentially one of us, used to what we consider needful, bred to our ways. The endless small amenities which make life smooth here have always surrounded her. Can you imagine her, for instance, living with ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... other hand, became to a large extent a fiesta, a festive occasion for the display of social amenities. Much as the Hispanic Americans missed their favorite topic of politics, they found consolation in entertaining the distinguished foreign visitors with the genial courtesy and generous hospitality for which they ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... as the night wore on, and even asking himself if the presence of a stranger in his house might be so intolerable as he had believed. He had seen little of Alban and that little had not been to the young man's disadvantage. If the youth were not all that report had painted him, if the amenities of the house should civilize him and kindness win his favor, then even he might be an advocate for those to whom he owed such favors. This new phase set Gessner thinking more hopefully than at any ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... to welcome any disparity between them and their neighbours which tends to safeguard their leisure and protect them against the social inroads of irrelevant persons. I recall the case of a famous novelist, who, himself jealous of his own proper seclusion, permitted the amenities of his neighbours to pleasure his wife who was more sociably inclined, and smilingly allowed himself to be sacrificed once a week on the altar of a domestic "at home" day. It was amusing to see him in his ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... invention that facilitated labor, the patient pains of science on the edge of great discoveries, the slowly increasing spirit of toleration, pity, and humanity, the gradual spread of education, the widening realms of knowledge, the increasing appreciation of the decencies and amenities of life—all these things make the reign of George the Third the hopeful preface to the reign of greater length, greater glory, greater promise and greater fulfilment that was to dawn when two more sovereigns ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... which made the country are bringing in persons who are particular as to the nature and amenities of their work, and if so be they do not find precisely what they are looking for, they complain in print which makes all ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... words excited Mr. Hutchings; he wanted to be back again in the East as a victor; he longed for the cultivated amenities and the social life of Washington. He ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... he sighed. "As long as the amenities were preserved! We must be as friendly as possible about that sort of thing, or run ...
— The Outbreak of Peace • Horace Brown Fyfe
... part, Fauchery behaved sensibly, avoiding ridiculous jealousy and proving not less pliant than Mignon himself whenever Rose found her opportunity, the mutual understanding between the two men constantly improved. In fact, they were happy in a partnership which was so fertile in all kinds of amenities, and they settled down side by side and adopted a family arrangement which no longer proved a stumbling block. The whole thing was conducted according to rule; it suited admirably, and each man vied with the other in his efforts for the common happiness. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him—its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire—after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... very anxious to make your acquaintance, and that, if your time is not otherwise engaged, he would like you very much to spend a month with him. He is an excellent host, or I shouldn't be here myself. It appears that he knew your mother very intimately, and he has a taste for visiting the amenities of the parents upon the children; the original ground of my own connection with him was that he had been a particular friend of my father. You may have heard your mother speak of him. He is a very strange old fellow, but ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... Are not the laws of society and the amenities of civilized life supreme over such trifles as personal animosities? How many women are there who never meet without mingling in a close embrace, when each is to the other a Brinvilliers in heart? My gentle cousin Kate, only last night I saw you greet your intimate enemy. ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... Roadgear. "Now there's been some slight concern expressed by some members of the Council—well, let's say they'd just like to be reassured that the amenities one observes in dealing with a head of state actually are being observed in this case. I'm sure they are, ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... natives and dressing in the Chinese garb which, with his Caucasian features and blond complexion, caused him to present the drollest appearance. Only those who have resided in China can understand the repugnance with which anyone accustomed to the amenities of refined society would naturally regard such a life. He gave up body and soul to the spread of Christianity in a heathen land, recalling to my mind the early Jesuits, Francis Xavier, Lucas Caballero and Cipriano Baraza, who penetrated pathless forests and crossed unknown seas ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... accomplished his purpose. For during the exchange of amenities Randerson had answered him—without ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... discussion commonly occurs when men have just ceased to inflict legal penalties upon the heterodox, but have not yet learned those amenities which lend so sweet and gentle a dignity to debate. In looking over the dusty pamphlets which entomb so many clerical controversies of our Colonial times, it has often seemed as though we had lighted on some bar-room wrangle, translated out of its original billingsgate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... cut these amenities short by chaffing Stonor for being so enterprising all of a sudden. 'Fancy your motoring out of town to ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... earnest young Rene de Robault gave his fortune for the building of a college, and this kept the young men from returning to old France for an education. Convent schools were established, and Indian girls were trained in the amenities and industries of social life. Montreal spread out her borders as well, the Beauport road came to be a place of fine estates. All the way to the mouth of the great river there were trading stations. The fur company's business was good, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... opportunities of exercise. Lockhart was not a sinner above others, but in the end he was made something like the scapegoat of all the offenders, whose misdeeds, occasionally serious enough, are sometimes in view of the journalistic and critical amenities then prevailing in {p.xviii} the organs of both parties hardly so heinous as to account for the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... appeared. He had left his hat outside, and did not greet the Countess; he looked meditatively at Rastignac, and held out his hand to Maxime with a cordial "Good morning," that astonished Eugene not a little. The young provincial did not understand the amenities of a ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... brilliant minds, who challenged her to her best. At the same time she was pursuing her English studies, to which were added French, German, and Italian. She had but little time for the trivial social amenities, but her frequent missives from her relatives, the Lees and Wards of New York City and Boston, and her enjoyable visits to their gay homes, broke the strain of mental grind, and kept her in touch with the fashionable world. Her ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... it doesn't exempt him from the ordinary amenities of human intercourse. He isn't the only man who has been hurt." And Diana kicked off ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... of civilisation and of the amenities, and the welfare of the nation, of the family, and of woman, are all intimately bound up with a faithful ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... characteristics of a home; that womankind was represented in it by fairer faces and softer voices than the face and voice even of dear old Doctor Sophy, with her advanced theories, her committees, and her brisk disregard of the amenities of life. Yes, he would give a good deal to see Alice—it was long since he had thought of her by that name—established in his drawing-room (which she should refurbish and adorn to her heart's content), with Lesley by her side, ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... spread on the floor, under the chair before her dressing table, to gather up dust and powder. It was regularly shaken or changed. There were always flowers—often a single fine rose in a slender vase. On her dressing table, in a corner, you were likely to find three or four volumes—perhaps The Amenities of Book-Collecting; something or other of Max Beerbohm's; a book of verse ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... quick, glad smile and with a look in his eyes that to Lloyd was unmistakable. But there was not that joyful, exuberant start she had anticipated, and, for that matter, wished. Neither did Lloyd set any too great store by the small amenities of life, but that Ferriss should remain covered hurt her a little. She wondered how she could note so trivial a detail at such a moment. But ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Maximilian had come to Mexico with all kinds of liberal projects for its civilization. It was like forcing sanitary improvements on the inhabitants of an Irish shanty, or catching a street gamin and imposing on him the restraints and amenities ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... person. She can at last afford to be civil, occasionally even good-natured. And this is only natural. In the thick of a struggle which taxes her energies to the uttermost, there is no time for courtesies and amenities. The better instincts of her nature necessarily remain in abeyance. But they reassert themselves, unless she be irretrievably spoilt, when the ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... every corner of the room, not so much because of its loudness—for he had but little raised it—as because of a distinct and precise enunciation. This very precision, which always implies a regard for the rules, proprieties and amenities of life, seemed to stamp him as a man worthy of confidence, even had not his sentiments been of the most high-minded character. He described the great flood of 1882, which wrought such havoc in Missouri, in which cataclysm ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... is the conclusion I've come to. Is it rather cold-blooded? I know it isn't at all like the lovemaking in the books. I suppose I ought to go and fling myself at her feet, in defiance of all the decencies and amenities and obligations of life, but somehow I can't bring myself to do it. I've thought it all conscientiously over, and I ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... imperiled much, and was locked fast in a bitter companionship with anxiety, fear, and grief. Her heroism was not sordid or secular. Dearly did she prize the blessings of peace—household calm, the security of her loved ones, and the comforts and amenities of an unbroken social status. But she cheerfully surrendered them all at the call of her country in its hour of peril. For one hundred and fifty years she had toiled and suffered. She had won the right to repose, but this was not yet to be hers. A new ordeal ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... silence descended upon the room. Mary Louise could not trust herself in the customary amenities. She stepped over to Zenie and the younger Thompson and peered into the bundle, conscious as she did so of a slowly opening door beyond them. A tiny weazened face and two beady blinking eyes were all she saw. Zenie was making a ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... the frontiersmen and bushfighters of the Church, who do not bandy subtilties with Mephistopheles, nor consider that the Prince of Darkness is a gentleman, but go in for a rough-and-tumble fight with Satan and his imps, as with so many red Injuns undeserving of the rights and incapable of the amenities of civilized warfare. We confess a thorough liking for these Leatherstockings of the clergy, true apostolic successors of the heavy-handed fisherman, Peter. Their rough-and-ready gospel is just the thing for men who feel ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... and was duly taken home with me. "Old man," I said, "welcome back to the amenities of life; to the tender charities of man and woman; to the ties, too long neglected, which bind your being to the world's glad heart. You are the prodigal returning from sowing his wild oats in the backwoods: the fatted calf shall be killed for you, in moderation, as per ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... carried off her feet a little—metaphorically speaking, of course—by his evident sincerity. At that moment she would have done anything that he had asked her. The pleasures of society, the social amenities of aristocratic life, seemed to have vanished suddenly into thin air, and only love was left. She had always known that Jack Meredith was superior in a thousand ways to all her admirers. More gentlemanly, more truthful, honester, nobler, more worthy of love. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... effort of living might have made it possible to retrieve his fortunes; and Woburn's mother and sister, embittered by this final evasion, settled down to a vindictive war with circumstances. They were the kind of women who think that it lightens the burden of life to throw over the amenities, as a reduced housekeeper puts away her knick-knacks to make the dusting easier. They fought mean conditions meanly; but Woburn, in his resentment of their attitude, did not allow for the suffering which had brought it about: his own tendency was to overcome difficulties ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... have likewise been often an eye-witness) than those about the houses and gardens of pleasure belonging to the nobles and gentry of most other countries: And in effect it is a most ravishing object, to behold their amenities in this particular: With us, says he (speaking of France) they make a jest at such political ordinances, by ruining these publick and useful ornaments, if haply some more prudent magistrate do at any time introduce them. Thus in the reign of Henry the Fourth, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... is but an attempt to revive an old custom, and for those whom fortune has favored with leisure for social amenities at that hour, it furnishes an agreeable and informal occasion for exchange of courtesies and for harmless gossip or ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... sign-posts, and are not to blame if, in our weakness, we mistake the sign-post for the destination. And Leonard had reached the destination. He had visited the county of Surrey when darkness covered its amenities, and its cosy villas had re-entered ancient night. Every twelve hours this miracle happens, but he had troubled to go and see for himself. Within his cramped little mind dwelt something that was greater than Jefferies' books—the spirit that led Jefferies ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... friends! She had no doubt that they were looking for herself. They represented ease and safety, and a quick return to the amenities of civilization, but she had no desire to discover herself to them. She thought of the injured man lying in the tent a mile away. It was possible that the coming of these two, if she made her presence known, might prove to be beneficial for him. She weighed that side of the matter very carefully, ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... powerful continuing body of opinion cares about something more than strictly functional values along the Potomac and in its Basin. It is a long-settled region, whose natives generally cherish what they have in the way of scenic and historic amenities. It is the part-time home of many influential lawmakers, who concern themselves about its beauty and well-being. And together with the national capital at the core of its metropolis, it is the vacation goal of millions of American tourists ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... house for some English engineers engaged at the works of the St. Gothard Tunnel; and I could listen my fill to the sounds of the English language, as far as it is used at a breakfast-table by men who do not believe in wasting many words on the mere amenities of life. ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... across the table at Rainey, saving the latter a reply which he was rather at a loss how to word. Amenities from Carlsen were likely a Greek gift. And Carlsen rattled on during the meal in high good spirits, rallying Rainey about his poker game with the hunters, joking Lund about his shooting, talking of the landfall ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... having obtained an introduction to the Governor's wife, Lady Mary, lost no time in endeavoring to "cultivate the amenities of life," so far as that very influential person was concerned. He had paid the most deferential court to her on several occasions where he had been able to meet her socially; and had impressed the Governor's lady very favorably, as being an unusually handsome, well-bred and ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... rose deliberately and went slowly to the ancient ice-box, opened it and took out a tin of butter which she had evidently churned herself in some manner and carefully cut out a small piece and wrapped it neatly and handed it to the little one. After a few amenities, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... drive sloped gently up from the gates through an undulating park more closely planted than that of Kencote. There were some very old trees at Mountfield and stretches of bracken here and there beneath them. It was a pity that the house had been spoilt in appearance, but its amenities were not wholly destroyed. Cicely knew it almost as well as she knew Kencote, but she acknowledged its charm now as she drove up between the oak and the young fern. Under the blue June sky strewn with light clouds, it stood for a ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... inner lines, she halted to give and receive the password, then tossed a bunch of letters to the corporal, and spurred forward. Halted by the outer pickets, she exchanged amenities again, rid herself of the remainder of the mail, and rode forward, loosening the revolver in her holster. Then she ate her ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... orator of his time, but because his alma mater has not sympathized with his career. On the day before, which was Commencement-day, there was general wonder among the Harvard men of all years whether the orator would regard the amenities of the occasion, and pour out his music and his wit upon some purely literary theme, or seize his venerable mother by the hair, and gracefully twist it ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... passed, and the amenities of an industrial age have succeeded to these turmoils. The town of Strood appears to be flourishing, and now possesses large engineering works, cement manufactories, flour ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes |
