"Geniality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Tower," you may pick up the scent which, I maintain, hangs about there—that of rather spicy wickedness. I do not mean anything offensive in this; in fact, everything is conducted decently and in good order, also with a certain geniality; the suggestion is rather that you might be mildly wicked if you wanted to be. However, though we have to live in this world we need ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... talk. He apologized for interrupting their tete-a-tete, but said he had no choice, as the saloon was completely full. They declared they were quite ready for company, Nigel with his usual sympathetic geniality, Mrs. Armine with a sort of graceful formality beneath which—or so her husband fancied—there was just a suspicion of reluctance. He guessed that she would have much preferred a private table, but when he said so to her, as they were ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair prematurely white, and a boisterous and decided manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson, he sprang up from his chair and welcomed him with both hands. The geniality, as was the way of the man, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on genuine feeling. For these two were old friends, old mates both at school and college, both thorough respecters of themselves and of each other, and, what ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... Watson was astonished, and believed that hidden underneath the mask of reserve was another entirely different personality, that in the years to come might change the entire nature of the neglected youth and win for him the respect and admiration of the world. But these fits of brightness and geniality were rare. Only the lawyer ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... corner I can never make up my mind on the spur of the moment what to do about Majors and suchlike. Some like a salute, others don't. I have invented a gesture of my own which is entirely non-committal and gives satisfaction to both. Those who don't look for a salute put it down to an excess of geniality; those who do expect one put it down to ignorance combined ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... a young philosopher of my acquaintance. He took great joy in a Jack-o-lantern. The ruddy countenance of the pumpkin was the very picture of geniality. Good-will gleamed from the round eyes, and the mouth was one luminous smile. No wonder that he asked the privilege of taking it to bed with him. He shouted gleefully when it was left on ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... a note of extreme geniality]. Thank you, Mrs O'Flaherty. Well, you see we've brought you back your son safe and sound. I ...
— O'Flaherty V. C. • George Bernard Shaw
... had hoped. He was also fortunate in obtaining a fit and proper person for the post. Robert Hendrick was by birth and education an Ulster man; but having been for several years employed in the south-west, he had acquired something of that geniality, tact, and courtesy which is, perhaps, deficient in the hard Scotch character of the Northerns. There was nothing of professional piety or of the professional reader about Hendrick. A bright, active, smiling little man, he was soon a favourite in Tor Glen. His visits were made twice ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... finished his examination of the broken window in the living-room, Herman Krech contrived—partly by his sheer physical bulk and partly by the exercise of a soft assertiveness that was saved by his bland geniality from being plain rudeness—to sequester Simon Varr for a word in private. To accomplish this end he was obliged to shake off his own wife, the tanner's wife, the Jason Bolts and Miss Ocky Copley, the last lady in especial revealing the pertinacity ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... a sort of coarse geniality which he possessed had made him popular with a certain set in former days, but I, who knew that this geniality was forced, and assumed to conceal a sort of appalling animalism, had never been deceived by it. Most people found Adderley out sooner or later, but I had detected the man's ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... were a friend of Marny's, or whether he had only been attracted by that glow of geniality which seems to radiate from ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... extra colouring matter in the picture. Whatever their religion may be, and however much we may differ from it, this at least we have always found amongst priests—excellent education, amazing devotion to duty, gentlemanly behaviour, and in social life much geniality. They have studied all subjects; they know something about everything; their profession necessarily makes them acquainted with each phase and feeling of life. The Rev. Canon Walker is a good type of a thoroughly English priest ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... heart. disposition, inclination, leaning, animus; frame of mind, humor, mood, vein; bent &c (turn of mind) 820; penchant &c (desire) 865; aptitude &c 698. docility, docibleness^; persuasibleness^, persuasibility^; pliability &c (softness) 324. geniality, cordiality; goodwill; alacrity, readiness, earnestness, forwardness; eagerness &c (desire) 865. asset &c 488; compliance &c 762; pleasure &c (will) 600; gratuitous service. labor of love; volunteer, volunteering. V. be willing &c adj.; incline, lean to, mind, propend; had as ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... house that he had not heard the familiar barking of the old hound; then he remembered that the sound of his horse's hoofs was muffled by the snow. He was glad to be unheralded. He would like to surprise Aurelia into geniality before her vicarious rancor for Basil's sake should be roused anew. As he emerged from the thick growths of the holly, with the icy scintillations of its clustering green leaves and red berries, he ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... his geniality vanishing with my rather curt refusal. "Then I shall take all necessary precautions to prevent escape." He stepped aside to the hall door. "You may send two ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... Nick's smile was geniality itself. "It is," he answered; "a very strong recommendation." He thrust out a friendly hand. "Good-night, my son, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... responded with equal geniality. "(Now then, you sodgers, stand clear of the hose if you don't want a ducking. Serve you right, Tom; you'll take warning, perhaps, the next time I give it you.) The flyer, sir? Oh, you mean the yacht. Well, of course, they have the pull of us in light weather, such as ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... sandy-complexioned man in whose face geniality and humor seemed the salient characteristics. It was a mobile face, quick-changing to inward mood and thought. Thinking was in him a visible process. Ideas chased across his face like wind-flaws across the surface of a lake. His hair, ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... said, "but I must have my walk. Play to your sombre friend, Schaaf, and see if you can soften him into geniality. Good night." ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the author, addressing his guests with all the geniality of which he was master (for they seemed somewhat stiff and ill-at-ease), "gives me peculiar gratification. I regret not having asked some of my friends, the critics, up here to make your acquaintance. I am sure you would all come to ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... was furious. He saw the mistake he had made, but he would not own it. Putting strong constraint upon himself, he assumed a gay geniality of manner which his looks belied, and boldly advanced to the door. But Mrs. Wedmore flung her arms round her husband in a capacious embrace, dragging him backward with an energy there was no ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... a uniform cheerfulness where damp exuded everywhere, and the moist thick air seemed to close round one in vaporous folds. Somewhere, no doubt, the sun was shining, and might possibly shine again; but it was hard to realize it—hard to maintain outward or inward geniality under ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... goodness dwelt in this man had been untrue, but recent events and the first shattering reverse that life brought him proved sufficient to sour his very soul and eclipse a sun which aforetime shone with great geniality because unclouded. Fate hits such men particularly hard when her delayed blow falls. Existences long attuned to success and level fortune; lives which have passed through five-and-thirty years of their allotted span without much ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... is certainly true and has been thus expanded by his biographer, Sir E. T. Cook: "The grotesque and the German setting of the tale were taken from Grimm; from Dickens it took its tone of pervading kindliness and geniality. The Alpine ecstasy and the eager pressing of the moral were Ruskin's own; and so also is the style, delicately poised between poetry ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Prohack with just as much calmness and perhaps ten per cent less geniality. Mr. Prohack was a peculiar fellow, and that on this occasion he gave rather less geniality than he received was due to the fact that he had never before spoken to the cupid in his life and that he was wondering whether membership of the same club entirely justified ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... he turned the beaked prow of his ship to the westward under the brow of the North Foreland. The estuary of the Thames is not beautiful; it has no noble features, no romantic grandeur of aspect, no smiling geniality; but it is wide open, spacious, inviting, hospitable at the first glance, with a strange air of mysteriousness which lingers about it to this very day. The navigation of his craft must have engrossed all the Roman's ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... Licinius Crassus, by reason of his geniality and beauty and wealth (which gained for him the name of Wealthy) and because he was a high priest, was to stay in Italy without casting lots for the privilege. (Valesius, p. ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... was likewise a harmonious one. Its members were accustomed to dine together at regular intervals (fortnightly, I think), when affairs of state and other subjects were discussed, and the geniality of these occasions was enhanced by a temperate circulation of the wine bottle. There must have been very good talk at these social meetings. Evarts and Schurz were citizens of the world. Evarts was a man of keen intelligence and wide information, and possessed a genial ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... himself, or of any particular merit in himself, from that friendly manner, than he thinks of believing, on a warm summer day, that the sun has a special liking for himself, and is looking so beautiful and bright all for himself. It is perhaps unjust to accuse the man, always overflowing in geniality upon everybody he meets, of being an impostor or humbug. Perhaps he does feel an irrepressible gush of love to all his race: but why convey to each individual of the race that he loves him more than all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... from the impropriety of smoking in such close quarters, with even such a woman-stranger. 'I hope, madam,' he said, 'a segar does not offend you?' 'La! no, sir,' replied our rustic friend most good-naturedly, 'I like it.' My father's geniality is always called forth by the touch of his segar. He said, with a smile at the corners of his mouth: 'Perhaps, madam, you would try one yourself.' 'I would!' she answered eagerly. My father hospitably selected his best segar, which she took, saying: ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... about six glasses the man's working power is reduced by at least a hundred per cent. He merely sits there—in his arm-chair, at his club let us say—with all power, even all desire to work gone out of him, not thinking rigidly, not sustaining his thought, a mere shapeless chunk of geniality, half hidden in the blue smoke of ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... complete geniality, smoking his cigarette in content. And as he ran from one topic to another his hearers stared at him in a kind of torpor. Never once did they exchange a glance with each other; their eyes were frozen to Maurice. The cheerful conversationalist made ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... face Kelson got in and took the vacant seat by the stranger. His attitude was not conducive to geniality, and so for a while there was silence. At length as they turned from the station approach on to the main road the stranger spoke. His deep-toned voice had a musical ring in it, yet somehow to Gifford's way of thinking it was detestable. Perhaps it was the speaker's rather ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... lonely mirth though it was, the blood which had grown sluggish quickened, the drooping courage rose, I saw the world through clearer eyes. The next afternoon when I faced the ancient office-boy the remembrance of Gladys Todd's metaphor made me smile, and so overcome was he by this unusual geniality that he did take in my ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... pink and paragraphic journalists, and middle-aged ladies, who, having once been, or been once, on the stage, still affect the skittish manners of a ballet-dancer. He is a man of short speech, but his humour is as broad as his drinks are long. He affects a rowdy geniality and a swaggering gait, by which he seeks to overawe the inoffensive. Though he has but a small stock of intelligence, he passes for a wit amongst his associates by dint of perpetually repeating an inane catch-word. With this, and a stamp of the foot, he will greet a friend who may ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... reign of Maha Nama, about the year 413 A.D., that Ceylon was visited by Fa Hian, and the statements of the Mahawanso are curiously corroborated by the observations recorded by this Chinese traveller. He describes accurately the geniality of the climate, whose uniform temperature rendered the seasons undistinguishable. Winter and summer, he says, are alike unknown, but perpetual verdure realises the idea of a perennial spring, and periods for seed ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... with a grim kind of geniality, at which I did not know whether to be encouraged or not: I did as he told me, and looked about me with as easy an air as I ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... proud and sensitive ruler, who, however inferior in the ordinary equipment for regular war, holds such valuable assets on his side. And my own experience is that the Afghans are not unreasonable. Like every one else, they will "try it on," but if handled courteously, kindly, with geniality, and, above all, with complete candour, they will generally see reason. And remember one thing. In spite of all that has happened, our mistakes, our bluster, our occasional lapses from complete disingenuousness, the Afghans still like us. Moreover, their ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... he confessed, dejectedly, turning his glance toward Mary, whom, plainly, he regarded as his real adversary in the combat on his client's behalf. "I'm going to be quite frank with you, Miss Turner, quite frank," he stated with more geniality, though with a very crestfallen air. Somehow, indeed, there was just a shade too much of the crestfallen in the fashion of his utterance, and the woman whom he addressed watched warily as he continued. "We can't afford any scandal, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... the essay on "Gilbertus Anglicus." the last from the pen of Dr. Handerson, should be put in book form, together with a sketch, however brief, of its author's earnest life, his sterling character, his geniality and imperturbable equanimity, and thus preserved in testimony of the high esteem in which he was held by ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... geniality were unbounded. During our arrangement of dates Mr. Davis smiled as he said of one suggested by Mr. Emerson, "That would not be convenient for Mr. Murdock, for it is the evening of his wedding." He did not forget it. After the lecture, a few days later, he turned to me and asked, "Is she ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... native to the earth, lacking outwardness and range of motion. Whereas the vicar, dark and dry and small beside her husband, had yet a quickness and a range of being that made Brangwen, in his large geniality, seem dull and local. She knew her husband. But in the vicar's nature was that which passed beyond her knowledge. As Brangwen had power over the cattle so the vicar had power over her husband. What was it in the vicar, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... years old, lives out in the country on Route 3. He still works on the few acres he owns, raising vegetables for himself and a few baskets to sell. He is a gray-haired, medium sized man and his geniality is frequently noticed by white and Negro ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... to be but one of our own rough crofters who had acquired so thin a veneer of civilization that it scarcely concealed the reality beneath. With a somewhat boisterous geniality he made instant friends with all of his former class in the neighborhood. With Val and myself he was not altogether at his ease. An abrupt awkwardness of manner, which we put down to shyness, characterized our intercourse, which was ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... daughter, than he did in a brief two weeks of change from petty and malignant tyrant to good-natured, interestingly talkative old gentleman. After the manner of human nature, Mildred and her mother, in their relief, in their pleasure through this amazing sudden and wholly unexpected geniality, not merely forgave but forgot all they had suffered at his hands. Mildred was not without a suspicion of the truth that this change, inaugurated in his own good time, was fresh evidence of his contempt ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... Coffee, too, he refused. It affected, so it seemed, his sense of smell. He sat beside us, ill at ease, and anxious, as I could see, to get back to his second daughter and her schoolmistresses. Mr. Sims, who is geniality itself in his heart, but has no great powers in conversation, would ask Tommy if he remembered how he acted as Antigone in the college play, and was "plastered" from the second act on. Mr. Vidal had no recollection ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... relaxed to the state of geniality, was willing to let bygones be bygones in the broadest sense of the word. He had big plans afoot—he had had them the night he came home and found Gaston and Joyce hanging over the baby. These plans had been set aside while the baby was taking his pitiful ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... form, full of the feeling that was for the moment uppermost, not hesitating at even a little humorous extravagance if it added point to his statement; but in such cases the keen eye took a merry twinkle accentuated by the crow-foot lines in the corner, so that the real geniality and kindliness that underlay the brusque exterior were sufficiently apparent. The general effect was of a nature of intense, restless activity, both physical and mental. In conversation he poured ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... coming here and so quickly. I really am grateful; and I have every confidence in your judgment. If you wish, or think it best, we can be alone." I stood up; but Mr. Marvin made a dissentient gesture. He was evidently pleased with her attitude; there was geniality in his voice and manner ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... a certain air of geniality diffused around a taxi arrival, but a car!—two or eight cylinder—owned, borrowed, or stolen, well! there you win in honours, no matter what kind of private address you camouflage ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... called Clouds. I did not climb up to it; I feared that either the town would not be good enough for the name, or I should not be good enough for the town. Anyhow, the little hamlets of the warm grey stone have a geniality which is not achieved by all the artistic scarlet of the suburbs; as if it were better to warm one's hands at the ashes of Glastonbury than at the painted flames ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... friends at Helena?" inquired the doctor, after he had secured a favorable report of Eva and the baby. "All well, of course, or I should have heard from them!" he went on, with the geniality that Latimer remembered so well. "And little Arthur—he must ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... was occupied by Doctor Caspar Wistar, the eminent anatomist, known to the elite of the city and nation for his brilliant social gatherings and as the man for whom that beautiful climbing plant, the Wistaria, was named. Doctor Wistar's geniality, magnetism, intellectual leadership and generous hospitality made his home a gathering place for the most distinguished personages of his day in the professions, arts, sciences, letters and politics. ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... the dark, thin youth with rude geniality. The young fellow hesitated, almost shrank, but came shyly forward in the end. Langholm noted that he looked very ill, that his face was as sensitive as it was thin and pale, but his ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... drawn intensity ran over his features, and he studied Jack in a long glance, which he masked just in time to save it from being a stare. Jack was conscious of the scrutiny. He flushed slightly and waited for some word to explain it; but none came. Jasper Ewold's Olympian geniality returned in ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... paid to him after his death the simplest tribute in the plainest and most popular language—"He was a straight man." I am so antiquated as to think it a better epitaph than the fashionable phrase about a strong man. Some silent indescribable geniality of fairness in the man once more prevailed against the possibility of passionate misunderstandings, as it had prevailed against the international nervousness of the atmosphere of Fashoda or the tragic border feud of the Boers. I suspect that it lay ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton
... vento che non e buono per qualcuno—debbo a questa burrasca la pregustazione d' un piacere," he said, with a mingling of ceremonious politeness and sunny geniality that was of ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... a thunderbolt, an explosion. Not a bit of it. M. Charnot smiled outright with an air of extreme geniality. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Baker, I believe," said he, rising from his armchair and greeting his visitor with the easy air of geniality which he could so readily assume. "Pray take this chair by the fire, Mr. Baker. It is a cold night, and I observe that your circulation is more adapted for summer than for winter. Ah, Watson, you have just come at the right time. Is ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... generally prevailed down the centuries. One view interprets His character in terms of asceticism; the other in terms of aestheticism.[2] Some regard Him as the representative of Hebrew sorrow and sacrifice; others see in Him the type of Hellenic joy and geniality. There are passages in Scripture confirmatory of both impressions. On the one hand, there is a whole series of virtues of the passive order which are utterly alien to the Greek ideal; and, on the other hand, there is equally prominent a tone of tranquil gladness, of broad sympathy ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... tell the commonly accepted truth out of respect to the deceased, nor lies out of regard to morality. However, one favorable point in the character of the deceased, upon which people were agreed, was his geniality and bluff heartiness of good-humor. That the minister so enlarged and displayed to the light of admiration that he almost made of it the aureole of a saint. He was obliged then to take refuge in the broad field of generalities, ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... "Never. Geniality never goes on the trolley. In the first place it isn't appreciated by the Management and in the second place it is a dangerous gift for a motor-man. I had a friend once—a college graduate of very much Bill's kind—who went on the trolley as a Conductor at seven dollars a week and, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... make no demands on my faithful and able coadjutor. This call is a purely friendly one—no subscription lists of any sort or description in my pocket," the clergyman had said in his resonant bass when clasping her hand.—A large, dark, clean-shaven man of forty, a studied effect of geniality and benevolence about him, slightly tempered, perhaps, by cold and watchful blue-grey eyes, fixed—so said his detractors—with unswerving determination upon the shovel-hat, apron, and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... so very hot, but if Mr. Pawket had not asked this question he would have felt lacking in geniality. He did not, however, go forward to intercept possible mail. There was the little iron box with his name on it nailed to the tulip-tree; there was the red signal to be adjusted. It pleased Mr. Pawket to realize that the government had all this ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... corrupt and degraded creature Ling, has overlooked one important circumstance," said the upper one, smiling in a very intolerable manner, at the same time causing his head to move slightly from side to side in the fashion of one who rebukes with assumed geniality; and, turning over the written paper, he displayed upon the under side the Imperial vermilion Sign. "Perhaps," he continued, "the omniscient person will still continue in his remarks, even with the evidence of the Emperor's unerring pencil to ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... the cigar his companion or interlocutor leaped to his feet and said with great heartiness, snatching up a hat, "Well, I must be off. Tuesday!". I dislike these dark suspicions, but I certainly fancied I recognised the sudden geniality with which one takes leave of ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... pedantic than I can represent him, and placed more scraps of Latin in his speech; but it was all uttered with a fine geniality of eye and manner which went far to conquer my distrust. Moreover, I could see he now treated me as if I was myself beyond a doubt; so that first point of my ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... geniality of countenance appealed to her to confirm this judgement by results, and she nodded and said: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... perhaps, have failed by the way. I am not referring to Dickens's swift triumph, to his resounding fame and high prosperity; these things are cheery to read about, especially when shown in a light so human, with the accompaniment of so much geniality and mirth. No; the pages which invigorated me are those where we see Dickens at work, alone at his writing-table, absorbed in the task of the story-teller. Constantly he makes known to Forster how his story is getting on, speaks in detail of difficulties, rejoices over spells ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... sacrificed to the severe demands of the national ends, to which they must surrender themselves in this service of abstract generalisation. The Roman state is not a repetition of such a state of individuals as was the Athenian polis. The geniality and joy of soul that existed there have given place to harsh and rigorous toil. The interest of history is ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... clients, a historian of the Middle Ages, and in the absence of Sir George had had a little talk with Henry. And Henry had learnt for the first time what a literary agent was, and, struck by the man's astuteness and geniality, had mentioned the matter of Love in Babylon. Mr. Snyder had kindly promised to look into the matter of Love in Babylon himself if Henry could call on him instantly with the manuscript. The ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... embellished to excite reader interest, in the columns of the Daily Intelligencer. He even unbent so far as to call me a fool without any adjectival modification, which was for him the height of geniality. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... told nothing in itself, and the width of a whole great continent lay between him and the place of his fame. He was able to take his part freely amongst both the passengers and the officers. Even amongst the crew he soon came to be known; the men liked his geniality, and instinctively respected his enormous strength and his manifest force of character. Men who work and who know danger soon learn to recognise the forces which overcome both. And as sufficient time ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... "Was this not geniality itself? No other great man I have met is like him. I played the Funeral March, which was also to his taste. Then, after a little talk, I took leave, with the consciousness of having spent two of the most interesting ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... for their horses, and she brought them her best wine, seeking under an assumed geniality to conceal the unrest born of her speculations as to what might happen did Captain Charlot return ere ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... just inaugurated a new tenure of life as Ticknor & Co., the copartnership consisting of Benjamin H. and Thomas B. Ticknor, sons of William D. Ticknor, and George F. Godfrey, of Bangor, Me., a gentleman of marked culture and geniality, and one, too, who, all may rest assured, will take kindly to and will find success in the book business. With scholarly acquirements, and with minds trained to the wants of to-day, the sons of W.D. Ticknor, both gentlemen of refined literary taste, now step to the front with strong hands and vigorous ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... the same causes) would have talked nonsense. The very gifts so rare and so exquisite by which these extraordinary men were adorned—the graceful negligence, the delicacy of tact, the impassioned abandon[48] upon subjects suited to their modes of geniality, though not absolutely or irreversibly incompatible with the sterner gifts of energetic attention and powerful abstraction, were undoubtedly not in alliance with them. The two sets of gifts did not exert a reciprocal stimulation. As well might one expect from a man, because he ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Providential bond which connects them with the foolish and the bad, and set up an aristocratic humanity of their own, ten times more supercilious than the aristocracy of blood. Divorce the loftiest qualities from humility and geniality, and they quickly contract a pharisaic taint; and if there is anything which makes the wretched more wretched, it is the insolent condescension of patronizing benevolence,—if there is anything which makes the vicious more vicious, it is the "I-am-better-than-thou" expression ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... maintained a constant geniality in their humor, even in the treatment of distressing themes. For example, Josh Billings made the announcement that one hornet, if it was feeling well, could break up a whole camp meeting. Bill Nye, Artemas Ward and many another American writer have ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... instinct of the natural diagnostician, she knew enough to realise that his methods and knowledge were up to date. Even that manner of his, though a little forbidding, had the merit of inspiring confidence. One felt he was a big man and could afford to dispense with geniality. Yet it was perfectly apparent that his practice never came first with him. Esther had not been in the house with him half a week before she made that discovery. Every free minute of the day found him engrossed in his experiments, to the utter exclusion of all else, so intolerant of interruption ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... entertained Charles as an honoured guest in his bare but hospitable Highland house. All the people of the district crowded to see him as he sat at dinner. The young Prince delighted all present by his geniality and the interest he showed in everything Highland, and when he insisted on learning enough Gaelic to propose the king's health in their native language, the hearts of the simple and affectionate people ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... malice toward any one. Well situated financially, happy in his domestic circle, of wide popularity, and possessing the esteem of those who know him best, General Stager is one of those whose lot is enviable, and who has made his position thus enviable by his own force of character and geniality ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... kissed his superior's hand and withdrew. Cyril turned to Arsenius, betrayed for once into geniality by his delight, and ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... arrives—the jackass—and in a sublime good-humour! He tells some cock-and-bull story about his taxi breaking down, and actually seems to think he's done rather a smart thing in turning up at all. In short, he brings in such an air of geniality and self-appreciation that the guest who arrived first has more than a notion to 'have him out' and send him to a region where dinner-parties are popularly ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the door and admitted a tall, frail young man whom Thorndyke welcomed with quiet geniality, and settled in a chair by the fire. I looked curiously at our visitor. He was a typical neurotic—slender, fragile, eager. Wide-open blue eyes with broad pupils, in which I could plainly see the ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... of the kneeling empress; recognizes the force of character, the self-dependence, the mental hardihood of the women, the business method displayed in their exercise of sentiment, and the exquisite mixture in their proceedings of tact, calculation, and geniality. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was, so far as he knew, nothing to be said in favor of the man, but his cool boldness was tempered by a certain geniality and an occasional candor that the Canadian could not help appreciating. He preferred Batley ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... aristocracy. What each said was read the next day by every family in the land. Both were probably greatest in opposition, since more unconstrained. Of the two, Disraeli was superior in the control of his temper and in geniality of disposition, making members roar with laughter by his off-hand vituperation and ingenuity in inventing nicknames. Gladstone was superior in sustained reasoning, in lofty sentiments, and in the music of his voice, accompanied by ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... as a fawn, and was so honestly pleased to meet Wharton again that he expanded into geniality. As for broken hearts, no self-respecting young woman shows such an ornament at any well regulated breakfast-table; they are kept in dark drawers and closets like other broken furniture. Esther had made the deadliest resolution to let no trace of her unhappiness appear before ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... would!" Enoch's beautiful voice had a curious dignity for all its geniality. "Now my policy aims to embody the idea that the men who develop the water power of America shall not develop for themselves and their associates a ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... emotion in it but a frigid inhumanity. He competed with Guido in the fresco of the Lodovisi Aurora, a substantial work certainly, yet one that lacks the saving qualities of the Rospigliosi ceiling—grace and geniality of fancy. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... we?" said he. And, placing his hand within my arm, he gently but firmly led me off the poop. It may, of course, have been pure imagination on my part, but his manner seemed to say as distinctly as words—"Don't mistake my politeness and geniality for weakness. I believe in putting things pleasantly, but when I make a suggestion I intend it to be accepted ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... "I like her geniality and her reticence," said the professor, watching the humours of the little scene. "Those enterprising ladies won't get much out of her. Ah, they must relinquish her now; her guardian is asking for her. I suppose it's time that I got into ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... regular features, and large clear gray eyes, all of which united to express an exceeding placidity or repose. It shone with intelligence—a mild intelligence—no way suggestive of profundity, although of geniality. Indeed, there was a little too much expression. The face seemed to express ALL that lay ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... rocked she smiled, tilting herself backward off the balls of her feet. The years had cropped out in her suddenly, surprisingly, and with a great deal of geniality. The taffy cast to her hair had backslid to ashes of roses. Uncorseted and in the white wrapper, she was quite frankly widespread, her hips fitting in tight between the chair-arms, and her ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... called out with automatic geniality, as he descended the broken steps. "How are ye? All here? That's good; that's the ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... his table, peeling oranges and slicing pineapples for the ladies in his vicinity, sat the Bourgeois himself, laughing, jesting, and telling anecdotes with a geniality that was contagious. "'The gods are merry sometimes,' says Homer, 'and their laughter shakes Olympus!'" was the classical remark of Father de Berey, at the other end of the table. Jupiter did not laugh with less loss of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... life and goods by the sufferance of his fellows. Thereupon he begins to doubt whether it is worth while to court a verdict of so grave possibilities, or to risk offending a judge—whose customary geniality is merely the outcome of a fixed habit of inattention. In doubt whether to speak or keep silence, he takes a middle course, and while purporting to speak for himself, is careful to lay stress only on the points whereon all are agreed, to ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... prosperous, well-dressed man does not usually throw much heartiness into his manner when he is accosted on the street by so unpromising and dismal an object as my cousin Washington Flagg was that morning. Not at all in the way of sounding the trumpet of my own geniality, but simply as the statement of a fact, I will say that I threw a great deal of heartiness into my greeting. This ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... there, one like Washington Irving will nourish a love transplanted to Heaven, and bring around him the sweet faces and delicate natures of women, to minister to a thirsting heart, and preserve, as he did, his geniality and tenderness to the last; but such as he are comparatively few. An old bachelor, voluntarily single, always betrays a nature badly fed in one of its important departments. So, too, those who marry, but who are not blest with children, betray the lack of food. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... responsible position, I would give up alcohol during business hours altogether. I carried out that resolution, and shall continue to do so; Figgis, with all his so-called abilities, was frequently drowsy in the afternoon. Apart from that, I hope I was not wanting in geniality. I snatched a few moments to telegraph to Eliza: "Meet train to-night. ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... aware and in "the world," when not out of it; all together at the high speculative, the high talkative pitch of the initiational stage of these latest years, the informed and animated, the so consciously non-benighted, geniality of which was to make him the clearest and most projected poetic case, with the question of difficulty and doubt and frustration most solved, the question of the immediate and its implications most in order for him, that it was possible to conceive. He had found at once to his ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... glorification of the martyred patron, and which, fantastic and extravagant as it is, with its stupendous, architectural setting, and its acutely, almost absurdly foreshortened throng, is not without a certain grandiose geniality, ample and picturesque, like the buildings of that date. In Alessandro Varotari (il Padovanino), whose "Nozze di Cana" in the Academia is a finely spaced scene, in which a charming use is made of cypresses, we ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... without geniality. Geniality had become impossible to a man always overworked and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and to heighten with the classic style of one who was "brought up upon Latin," the sheer, natural, incorrigible love of life, of such persons, rich or poor, as have the earth in their blood and the shrewd wisdom of the earth and the geniality of the earth, and the mischievous wantonness of the earth, and the old, sly chuckling malice of the earth, in their blood and ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... discerning spirits and detecting laws, we doubt if any living novelist is his equal; but his genius, in its creative action, has been heretofore attracted to the dark rather than the bright side of the interior life of humanity, and the geniality which evidently is in him has rarely found adequate expression. In the many works which he may still be expected to write, it is to be hoped that his mind will lose some of its sadness of tone without losing any of its subtilty and depth; but, in any event, it would be unjust to deny that he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... generally is brilliant and pleasing, though good glass is mostly wanting, and the uninterrupted flood of light detracts measurably from the warmth and geniality suggested by the memory of Bourges, Chartres, or Auxerre. The rose window over the western apse is pitifully weak and ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... severe and pungent sarcasm, in broad, coarse, though unsmiling wit, and at times in the fierce and terrible sallies of misanthropic rage and despair. Addison, on leaving England, had, by his modesty, geniality, and amiable manners, become the most popular man in the country, so much so, that, says Swift, "he might be king an' he had ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... a touch of race I as yet could only sense, he was as cool as the day was cold, as poised as a king or emperor, as remote as the farthest fixed star, as neutral as a proposition of Euclid. And then, just ere our hands met, a twinkle of—oh—such distant and controlled geniality quickened the many tiny wrinkles in the corner of the eyes; the clear blue of the eyes was suffused by an almost colourful warmth; the face, too, seemed similarly to suffuse; the thin lips, harsh- set the instant before, were ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... up as before into a dressing-room, where I was presented to many gentlemen and ladies. When we go in, the cheering, clapping, and stamping at first strikes one with a strange sensation; but then everybody looks so heartily pleased and delighted, and there is such an all-pervading atmosphere of geniality and sympathy, as makes me in a few moments feel quite at home. After all, I consider that these cheers and applauses are Scotland's voice to America, a recognition of the ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... in various parts of the treatise which we have been examining, and particularly in its concluding chapter, that in many of his most startling doctrines he was but half in earnest. Hume's temperament, too cool for fanaticism, had yet in it enough of a certain tepid geniality to save him from becoming a scoffer. The character which he claims for himself, and somewhat ostentatiously parades, is that of a sceptic or general doubter—a character in which, when rightly understood, there is nothing ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... a little insight into the king's character, and I trusted that a personal interview, coupled with a sight of the resplendent drum-major's tunic and the rest of the outfit, would, arouse a feeling of greater geniality in the breast of the savage autocrat. So I hung about the wagon for the remainder of that day, waiting for a summons which did not come. Nevertheless, although the king did not condescend to manifest any undue eagerness to ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... His unforced geniality made Trent ashamed, for he had liked the man. They sat long over a meal, and Mr. Bunner talked. Trent listened to him, now that he was in for it, with genuine pleasure, now and then contributing a question or remark. Besides liking his companion, he enjoyed ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... Longfellow discusses "The Trouveres," or "The Devotional Poetry of Spain." It is delightful to trace the charming resemblance between the books and the writers, widely different as they are. There is the same geniality, the same tender pathos, the same lambent humor, the same delicate observation of details, the same overpowering instinct of literary art. But Geoffrey Crayon is a humorist, while the Pilgrim beyond the Sea is a poet. The one looks at the broad ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... when Colonel Hampton, passing on his way down town, stopped and raised his hat. An imperceptible agitation rustled their conventional exteriors, since it was an occasion of pleasure when Colonel Hampton paused at anyone's fence. They noticed, however, that his usual geniality was lacking; that the kindly seams in his face were set into ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... take an admired friend of mine (whom the reader very likely knows and admires as much as I do), to deprive him of all his finer qualities and higher graces of temperament, to leave him with nothing but his strength, his courage, his quickness, and his magnificent geniality, and to try to express these in terms of the culture of a raw tarpaulin. Such psychical surgery is, I think, a common way of 'making character'; perhaps it is, indeed, the only way. We can put in the quaint figure that spoke a hundred words with us yesterday ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like Archie didn't need them. You can't have everything, and Archie, according to Lucille's account, was practically a hundred per cent man in soul, looks, manners, amiability, and breeding. These are the things that count. Mr. Brewster proceeded to the lobby in a glow of optimism and geniality. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... James Chance was one of the old English type of clergyman, cheery, genial, and whole-souled. Had he planned nothing higher than the infusing of some of his own geniality into the Indian nature; and, had his missionary work effected nothing greater than this, his would have been no unworthy part. As the spiritual husbandman, he strove so to break up the fallow ground, that the harvest of souls might be ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... boundaries. The criminal knows this and often makes use of his knowledge. A man who has "cussed out'' the other fellow is no longer dangerous, he becomes calm and kind, and feels instinctively the need of repairing the damage he has committed by "going too far.'' He then exhibits an exaggerated geniality and care upon which many criminals count, and hence intentionally provoke the examiner until he does things and says things he is ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... derisively and shout, "Come 'ere!" secure in the chronic absent-mindedness that had become a joke to them all. When he answered, as he always answered, "Eh, what?" and raised his vacant, moody face, there would be an outburst of laughter, in which he himself joined with a mirthless geniality, like a man unbending to a lot of children. If a shell went off some one was sure to cry, "Eh, what?" and this phrase, together with a mimicry of Jack's slow, dejected utterance of it, became the stock pleasantry of ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... remains for him to thank, collectively, the large number of friends and acquaintances who have so cordially favoured him with advice and information on so many points. In only a couple of quite unimportant instances has he experienced anything approaching churlishness. The geniality and courtesy of the book-collector are proverbial, but specimens of a different type are evidently to ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... a second or two opposite each other in a natural doubt; then a certain geniality, fundamental perhaps in both of them, made Sir Walter smile and say: "The night is foggy. ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... it, poking their quiet fun impartially at their fellow-drivers and ordinary citizens. Whether it is that the drivers of motor-buses realise that no joke could be heard above the din, or whether it is that they feel as ill-tempered as they look, their arrival has made fatal inroads on the geniality of London. An artist with uncut hair can still awaken a spark of the old wit if he goes down a back street, and women and children will revive for his benefit the venerable witticism: "Get your hair ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd |
