"Pleasantness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... believe that Solomon was wrong when he said that the one thing to be sought after on earth, more precious than all treasure, she who has length of days in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour, whose ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace, who is a tree of life to all who lay hold on her, and makes happy every one who retains her, is—as you will see if you will yourselves consult the passage—that very Wisdom—by ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... soul so sunk in sin he could not see That even trying to help her, as he called it, He had broken the law human and divine. Passers by, an ancient admonition to you: If your ways would be ways of pleasantness, And all your pathways peace, Love ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... neither the pleasantness excluded gravity, nor was the sobriety of it inconsistent with delight. No man parted willingly from his Discourse: for he so ordered it, that every man was satisfied that he had his share. He govern'd his Passions with great moderation. His Virtues were never troublesome or uneasy ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... spoken, my father entered the shop. He embraced me tenderly and confided to me that the house had lost half its pleasantness in consequence of my departure and that of M. Jerome Coignard, who was honest and jovial. He complimented me on my dress and gave me a lesson in deportment, assuring me that trade had accustomed him to easy manners by the continuous obligation ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... would impress upon you all, as you go hence, is this—it is always safe to do right. Carry away with you from this Convention, my friends, this one thought—God is wiser than man. What He has made right, He has also made safe. His paths are paths of pleasantness, and all His ways are peace. And to those who go forward, bearing this great cause in their hands, to work for themselves, for their sisters, for their mothers—to them I would say, "Be not discouraged at any ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... honours; but the receiving the blows they do is painful and annoying to flesh and blood, and so is all the labour they have to undergo; and, as these drawbacks are many, the object in view being small appears to have no pleasantness in it. ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... reasonings and bearings are brought out with much point and vigour. Even a drawing-room reader must be caught by their attractions, and no better means was probably ever devised for bringing superficial readers into the way of knowledge, and setting forth its pleasantness. It has been said that such works as the present satisfy the reader, and disqualify him for the study of science. This opinion is hardly worth controverting: since that mind must be weak indeed which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... certainly, that men and women do so much to destroy the pleasantness of their days,' said she, interrupting him. 'It is a pity that there should be ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, And all things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand, And in her left hand riches and honor; Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... an awfu' happy time," said Jess. "We've ha'en a pleasantness in oor lives 'at comes to few. I ken naebody 'at's ha'en sae muckle happiness one ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... Instead of returning a direct answer, "Would," said they, "we had never seen or known you! Several gentlemen have honoured us with their company before you; but never one of them had that comeliness, that sweetness, that pleasantness of humour, and that merit which you possess; we know not how to live without you." After they had spoken these words, they began to weep bitterly. "My dear ladies," said I, "have the kindness not to keep me any longer in suspense: tell ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Whitman is little else but such catalogues; and Whitman was a great poet. The effort (even without the reward of this not-always-desired label) is worth making, because (and this is where the poetry comes in) it forces one to visit the past and dwell again in the ways of pleasantness before the world was too much with us and life's hand had begun to press heavily: most of such loves as Rupert Brooke recalls having their roots in our childhood. Hence such poetry as we shall make cannot be wholly reading ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... of effusion and abandonment (then so full of pleasantness), had said more than once: "If I have any physical beauty, I owe it to the Queen, my mother; if my daughters have any beauty, they owe it to me: it is only fine couples ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... natural differences of colouring and expression. Emmy was less dark, more temperamentally unadventurous, stouter, and possessed of more colour. She was twenty-eight or possibly twenty-nine, and her mouth was rather too hard for pleasantness. It was not peevish, but the lips were set as though she had endured much. Her eyes, also, were hard; although if she cried one saw her face soften remarkably into the semblance of that of a little girl. From ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... waking in the middle of the night, with the stars peering in at his window, or the moonlight shining across his little bed, he would not have been surprised to see her standing beside it, looking at him with those beautiful tender eyes, which seemed to have a pleasantness and comfort in them different from anything he ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... barrow. But, oh! I filled it not wisely, but too well. It was all so green and pleasant, and the smell of the trees was so delightful, that I did not know when to stop. Soon the barrow was heaped high with all manner of pleasantness, and I started to return. Well, my dear, then the trouble began. In the first place, full barrows are different from empty ones. It was very heavy, and the boughs kept slipping this way, and sliding that way, and tumbling down every third second. I got cross—oh, so cross! and presently I ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... in whom both races meet on friendly ground. The idea grows coarse as we handle it, and hardens in our grasp. But, if the spectator broods long over the statue, he will be conscious of its spell; all the pleasantness of sylvan life, all the genial and happy characteristics of creatures that dwell in woods and fields, will seem to be mingled and kneaded into one substance, along with the kindred qualities in the human soul. Trees, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... four days, Elsie acknowledged to herself that they had been days of pleasantness. Once, Francis had openly remarked that he wondered how soon Mrs. Verdon and Wayne would come to an understanding; and Mrs. Lennard had replied that it was only the unexpected that ever came ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... to express their actions; as, builders build buildings; singers sing songs; writers write writings; painters paint paintings. In the popular use of language we vary these words to avoid the monotony and give pleasantness and variety. We say builders erect houses, barns, and other buildings; singers perform pieces of music; musicians play tunes; the choir sing ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... do, sir?" exclaimed the apothecary, with great pleasantness, of face. It seemed the most natural thing that they should resume their late conversation just where they had left off, and that would certainly be pleasant. But the man of more experience showed an unresponsive expression, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... blinds, curtains, screens, heavy upholsteries, and such other nuisances. The windows, also, are almost always brought too low down, and often so low down as to have their sills on a level with our ankles, sending thereby a raking light across the room that destroys all pleasantness of tone. The windows, moreover, are either big rectangular holes in the wall, or, which is worse, have ill-proportioned round or segmental heads, while the common custom in 'good' houses is either to fill these openings with one huge sheet ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... chanced to have been made and carry her off for a day up the river, where a quiet little lunch, in the tranquil shade of overhanging trees, and the cosy, intimate talk that was its invariable concomitant, seemed like an oasis of familiar, homely pleasantness in the midst of the gay turmoil of London ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... horrified by what I considered his barbarities, too much puzzled by his shifting humours, and too frequently annoyed by his small vanities, to regard him otherwise than as the cross of my existence. It was only by degrees, in his rare hours of pleasantness, when he forgot (and made me forget) the weaknesses to which he was so prone, that he won me to a kind of unconsenting fondness. Lastly, the faults were all embraced in a more generous view; I saw them in their place, like discords in a musical progression; and accepted them and found ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ways of the Lord I shall have feasts of "pleasantness." But not always at the beginning of the ways. Sometimes my faith is called upon to take a very unattractive road, and nothing welcomes me of fascination and delight. But here is a law of the spiritual life. The exercised faith intensifies my spiritual senses, and hidden ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... able to convince her of her folly. I cannot change her heart, but I will pray that it may be changed; and I will do everything in my power, both by example and precept, to show her that "Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and her paths peace."' As Miss Livesay said this, she once more went to look at the sleepers in the adjoining room. Clara lay pale, peaceful, and soundly asleep; but Mabel, though also asleep, ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... neighborhood about the gallantries of his youth; but his lady, who is justly considered to have been as fine a woman as ever stepped in shoe-leather, is a striking proof of his judgment in women. Never, however, does his face relax into such pleasantness of smiles and humorous twinkles of the eye, as when he is in company with young ladies. He is full of sly compliments and knowing hints about their lovers, and is universally reckoned among them ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... room. The Turk was waiting for him. Carl cut short the Turk's apologies for not having supported Frazer, with the dreadful curt pleasantness of an alienated friend, and, as he began packing his clothes in two old suit-cases, insisted, "It's all right—was your biz whether you stood up in chapel or not." He hunted diligently through the back of the closet for a non-existent shoe, in order to get away ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... as well as in thy warm and cheerful town of Vevey, which outdoes most of Italy in its pleasantness and fruits; but thou shalt, at least, drink of thine own warm wines," observed the superior, as they went along the corridor; "and a right goodly company awaits thee, to share hot only thy repast but ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, be mindful that the God whom you serve is a God of peace, and your Saviour is a Prince of peace, and that his ways are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace; and that Christ was sent into the world to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... changed in Albinia's eyes since the days of her brother. Alma Mater had been a vision of pealing bells, chanting voices, cloistered shades, bright waters—the source of her most cherished thoughts, the abode of youth walking in the old paths of pleasantness and peace; and she knew that to faithful hearts, old Oxford was still the same. But to her present anxious gaze it had become a field of snares and temptations, whither she had been the means of sending one, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... It was the result of a real good, suitably applied. It commenced upon the solidity of truth and the substance of fruition. It did not run out in voice or indecent eruptions, but filled the soul, as God does the universe, silently and without noise. It was refreshing, but composed, like the pleasantness of youth tempered with the gravity of age; or the mirth of a festival managed ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... handsome residence on Twentieth street, a salon of Sunday evenings, where Mr. Greeley, Robert Bonner and Whitelaw Reid used to meet and converse kindly with the minor literati, and which were believed to have much of the pleasantness and life of French conversaziones. Alice Cary has left a profusion of pensive poetry: the following is the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... and clumsy caps all ready to be pulled down over their ears if the wind should change; and their wives were also warmly wrapped, with great shawls over their rounded, hard-worked shoulders; yet they took the best warmth and pleasantness into their hearts, and watched the sad proceedings of the afternoon with deepest interest. The doctor came hurrying toward home just as the long procession was going down the pasture, and he saw it crossing a low hill; a dark and slender column with here and there a child ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... his native breast, and those pale drops Of northern blood had taught him self-control And might of mercy. To and fro he paced, Learning his lesson. Taka, little moon Sent by the gods to light his loneliness, Was his no longer. He must twist his heart, Wried with grim pain, to smiles of pleasantness. Ah, it was great. Uhila should be great, Giving her to Malua as a gift, Showing Akau how he wished no more To wed so young a maid, and then the tears Broke from his eyes and burned his throbbing breast. Homeward he turned, and ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... Copperfield. The masterpieces of Dickens's humour are not in it; but he has nowhere given such variety of play to his invention, and the book is unapproached among his writings for its completeness of effect and uniform pleasantness ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Believers, round her neck was slung an amulet of red gold that fell down between her breasts, and on the plain of her forehead were browlocks like jet.[FN157] Her eyebrows joined and her eyes were like lakes; she had an aquiline nose and thereunder shell like lips showing teeth like pearls. Pleasantness prevailed in every part of her; but she seemed dejected, disturbed, distracted and in the vestibule came and went, walking upon the hearts of her lovers, whilst her legs[FN158] made mute the voices of their ankle rings; and indeed she was ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... to add to the pleasantness?" asked the gentle lady, holding the small hands in her own, and feeling well repaid by ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Isabella and Emily had strolled out with Mr. Trundle; the deaf old lady had fallen asleep in her chair; the snoring of the fat boy, penetrated in a low and monotonous sound from the distant kitchen; the buxom servants were lounging at the side door, enjoying the pleasantness of the hour, and the delights of a flirtation, on first principles, with certain unwieldy animals attached to the farm; and there sat the interesting pair, uncared for by all, caring for none, and dreaming only of themselves; there they sat, in short, like a pair of carefully-folded ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... now long since dead. He wanted to ask him questions, that so he might make up for omitted kindnesses; but he was restrained when he looked upon the grey dreamy countenance, for it was evident that le Pere was wandering in the idealised meadows of a bygone pleasantness—a country which was known only to himself. So Granger returned his eyes to the portrait which he had taken from the dead man's hand, and, gazing upon it, tried his best to fill in the blanks in his little knowledge of the ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... another there was a singular amenity or pleasantness, and with some who had been prisoners for a long time, a sort of childlikeness. But it was like the childlikeness of a person partly dazed, or recovering from a severe illness or shock. They greeted one another with a covert smile, an unobtrusive movement of head or hand; ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... improvements with keen interest. The width and cleanliness of the streets, struck him especially, and he determined to follow the duke's example and remove the forges and shops which blocked up the road and interfered with the traffic and the pleasantness of the prospect at Milan. But of all the sights which he saw in Ferrara, what pleased him best was Ercole's beautiful villa of Belriguardo. On Saturday, the 25th of May, after Beatrice and her mother had started for Venice, Ercole took his son-in-law and the Milanese nobles to spend the day at ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... custom not resisted, became necessity. By which links, as it were, joined together (whence I called it a chain) a hard bondage held me enthralled. But that new will which had begun to be in me, freely to serve Thee, and to wish to enjoy Thee, O God, the only assured pleasantness, was not yet able to overcome my former wilfulness, strengthened by age. Thus did my two wills, one new, and the other old, one carnal, the other spiritual, struggle within me; and by their ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... Elfride laughed, and Knight laughed, in the midst of which pleasantness a man shouted to them from some position between their heads and the sky, and they found they were close to the Juliet, into which ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... antiquity, and that it had flourished in the Saturnian age, when it had as yet no rival. Creatium set forth its own splendour, pleasantness, and power. At last, a council being called, Creatium got the preference by the universal votes of the assembly; for such is the iniquity of the times, that though the head be covered with grey hairs, yet nothing is ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... Ambulinia had a confidence that was, indeed, as firm and as resolute as she was beautiful and interesting. He hastened to the cottage of Louisa, who received him in her usual mode of pleasantness, and informed him that Ambulinia had just that moment left. "Is it possible?" said Elfonzo. "Oh, murdered hours! Why did she not remain and be the guardian of my secrets? But hasten and tell me how she has stood this trying scene, and what are her future determinations." "You know," said Louisa, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the last Gervase would aim at keeping up the place, to his mother's drawing-room, his father's study, Miles's pantry and cellar, even the modern housekeeper's room, and the maids' gallery, in comfort and pleasantness. Only his own rooms—dining-room, smoking-room, bedroom—had been suffered to show traces of many a brawl and fray. It was as if he had deemed anything good enough for a scapegrace and beast like ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... just as much in its place as in the evocation of great perspectives of feeling. For her, as he again perceived when they were seated at their table in a low window above the Seine, Paris was "Paris" by virtue of all its entertaining details, its endless ingenuities of pleasantness. Where else, for instance, could one find the dear little dishes of hors d'oeuvre, the symmetrically-laid anchovies and radishes, the thin golden shells of butter, or the wood strawberries and brown jars of cream that gave to their repast the last refinement of rusticity? Hadn't he noticed, she ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... Degrees through the whole Piece. On another there appeared the Green Shadows of Trees, waving to and fro with the Wind, and Herds of Deer among them in Miniature, leaping about upon the Wall. I must confess, the Novelty of such a Sight may be one occasion of its Pleasantness to the Imagination, but certainly the chief Reason is its near Resemblance to Nature, as it does not only, like other Pictures, give the Colour and Figure, but the Motion of the Things ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... unhappy wretches who sometimes lie down on the snow and let the final numbness seize their hearts. Then came a friendly shout—then lights—and then the glow of warmth that filled a broad room with pleasantness. All the night long the mad gusts tore at the walls and made them vibrate; all night the terrible music rose into shrieks and died away in low moaning, and ever the savage boom of the waves made a vast under-song. Then came visions of ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... He decided that it would be better not to argue the fatal subject with her again. "No man can convince a woman," he thought. "She must be led to convince herself. I will trust her to God. He will send some teacher who cannot fail." Then he thought of the days of pleasantness they had passed together, and his heart felt as if it must break, while from behind his closed eyelids great ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... was under to M. AUGUSTUS KRAEMER, the librarian of the Prince of Tour and Taxis; who not only satisfied, but even anticipated, my wishes, in every thing connected with antiquities. There is a friendliness of disposition, a mildness of manner, and pleasantness both of mien and of conversation, about this gentleman, which render his society extremely engaging. Upon the whole, although I absolutely gained nothing in the way of book-acquisitions, during my residence at Ratisbon, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... youthfulness of aspect far beyond the period of life usual with other peoples. This mixed expression charmed the eye of Isaac van Ostade, who had painted his portrait from a sketch taken at one of those skating parties, with his plume of squirrel's tail and fur muff, in all the modest pleasantness of boyhood. When he returned home lately from his studies at a place far inland, at the proposal of his tutor, to recover, as the tutor suggested, a certain loss of robustness, something more than that cheerful indifference of early youth had passed ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... What he owed to no informant was his exquisite faculty of story-telling, and yet no story of his own telling is so touching as the story of his death. Two weeks before the Easter of 735 the old man was seized with an extreme weakness and loss of breath. He still preserved however his usual pleasantness and gay good-humour, and in spite of prolonged sleeplessness continued his lectures to the pupils about him. Verses of his own English tongue broke from time to time from the master's lip—rude rimes that told how before the "need-fare," ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... if to accumulate the necessary force for honest speaking at the expense of pleasantness. 'It was the telegram that began it ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... again. This proposal, with regard to the worthy traveller's final destination, was certainly a blunder. It was no blunder as to his immediate satisfaction; for the way was pleasant. In the irksome journey of the Regicide negotiations it is otherwise: our "paths are not paths of pleasantness, nor our ways the ways to peace." All our mistakes, (if such they are,) like those of our Hibernian traveller, are mistakes of repetition; and they will be full as far from bringing us to our place of rest as his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... different at the farm. Something that runs through everything, as you might say. The beasts do their work as well again, and the sun shines brighter, and the flowers bloom prettier, and there's a kind of a pleasantness about the place. I can't set it down to anything, any more than I know why the sky's blue, but it's there all the same. So I thought over it a deal, and one day I was up in the High field, and all of a sudden ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... sweetest derision. "Now we'll go together," said she, and started gayly through the green trees and the garden. He followed her, two paces behind, half ashamed, and gazing at her red handkerchief, and the black hair blowing a little; thus did they cross the tiny cool home acre through the twinkling pleasantness of the leaves, and pass at once outside the magic circle of irrigation into Arizona's domain, among a prone herd of carcasses upon the ground—dead cattle, two seasons dead now, hunted to this sanctuary by the drought, killed in the ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... and, though wintrily transformed, it is still water, and has watery tones of blue. But, when all is said, these fields of white and blots of crude black forest are but a trite and staring substitute for the infinite variety and pleasantness of the earth's face. Even a boulder, whose front is too precipitous to have retained the snow, seems, if you come upon it in your walk, a perfect gem of colour, reminds you almost painfully of other places, and brings into your head the delights of more Arcadian ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a pleasant fellow, seemingly of that negative pleasantness that lies in inoffensiveness, but otherwise dull and of an untutored mind—rustic, as might be expected in one the greater part of whose life had been spent in his native province, and of a rusticity rendered ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... I said before about the gates, it is not so easy as it looks to walk the broad road, nor so hard as it seems to tread the narrow one. For 'her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace'; and, on the other hand, licentiousness and liberty are not the same thing, and true freedom is not to do as you like, but to like to do as you ought. Besides, the path which looks attractive, and tempts to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... for us, with baskets of plumbs and bread made of maize. We were much pleased with the place and our reception; some of the soldiers calling it Seville, and others Villa Viciosa, on account of its pleasantness[1]. When the fat cacique of Chempoalla understood that we had finished our repast, he caused Cortes to be informed that he intended paying him a visit, and came accordingly, attended by many principal natives of the town, dressed in their richest mantles, and ornamented with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... next Morning early we pursu'd our Voyage, finding the Land to improve it self in Pleasantness and Richness of Soil. When we had gone about ten Miles, one of our Company tir'd, being not able to travel any farther; so we went forward, leaving the poor dejected Traveller with Tears in his Eyes, to return to Charles-Town, and travel back again over so much ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... not without reason, have prescribed so just a term of life that they would not suffer men to exceed it; and yet I have some intermissions, though short and inconstant, so clean and sound as to be little inferior to the health and pleasantness of my youth. I do not speak of vigour and sprightliness; 'tis not reason they should follow me beyond ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... pleasantness of living, there is nothing like a sojourn in a well-appointed country house, peopled by well-assorted guests. The guests at Millstead Manor were not perhaps particularly well-assorted; but nevertheless the hours passed by in a round of quiet delights, and ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... so I deemed him. The smile seemed stereotyped, for it never faded. His face, when one regarded it attentively, had a quite attractive pleasantness. ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... the whole multitude that had remained in the city, with their wives and children, came into the road, and waited for him there; and for those whom he passed by, they made all sorts of acclamations, on account of the joy they had to see him, and the pleasantness of his countenance, and styled him their Benefactor and Savior, and the only person who was worthy to be ruler of the city of Rome. And now the city was like a temple, full of garlands and sweet odors; nor was it easy ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... a man after my own heart; he brought gladsome songs into the world. He, said "Live the ways of pleasantness." ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... approve, and in doing which she could not have his help, it would have been this little episode altogether. Even little Tom did not efface the impression from her mind. At dinner she met her husband with her usual smile, and even assented when he remarked upon the pleasantness of finding themselves again alone together. There had been other guests besides Jock, so that the remark did not offend her; but yet Lucy was not quite like herself. She felt it vaguely, and he felt it vaguely, and neither was entirely aware what ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... early spring in Virginia, and a time of balm and pleasantness. The season had not entered into its complete heritage of gay hues, sweet odors, song, and wealth of bliss. Its birthday robe was yet a-weaving, its coronal of blossoms yet folded buds, its choristers not ready with their fullest paeans. But everywhere ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... in these regions, which combine facility of defence with pleasantness of climate, that the principal cities of the district have at all times been placed. The earliest known capital of the region was Pasargadae, or Persagadae, as the name is sometimes written, of which the ruins still exist near Murgab, in lat. 30 deg. 15' long. 53 deg. 17'. Here is the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... attainment of all virtue in conduct and life, the display of which caused him to be deservedly held a most excellent man. Yet he was not of a melancholy severity nor of a repulsive gravity; nay, whatever conduced to pleasantness and cheerfulness, and was not inconsistent with honour and rectitude, he cultivated all his life and approved even in his old age. The works he has left on Gymnastic and Music are ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... them. But he did not succeed; he lacked that easy Germanic idealism, which does not wish to see, and does not see, what would be displeasing to its sight, for fear of disturbing the very proper tranquillity of its judgment and the pleasantness of its existence. On the contrary, he never was so conscious of the defects of these people as when he loved them, when he wanted to love them absolutely without reservation; it was a sort of unconscious loyalty, and an inexorable ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... hope much. Three or four of them might be reckoned on as thorough-going; but to most a crisis had come which was too terrible. Ah! had they foreseen it six years before, had they then foreseen that their own order and all the pleasantness of their aristocratic lives would go down in the contest to which they were lending themselves, would their choice between the two sides have been the same? To have sat on through those six years, a mere residuary rag of the English Peerage, at variance with the King and the ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... motherly guardian. Mrs. Astrid's presence, the mere sound of her light tread, the mere sight of her shadow, operated beneficially on her mind; all that she received from her hand was to her delicious and healing. There arose between them a relationship full of pleasantness. Mrs. Astrid, who saw the young girl as it were born anew under her hands, conceived for her an attachment which surprised herself, much as it made her happy. The strong and healthy Susanna had stood too distant from her; the weak, and in her weakness ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... was—something neat and pretty and honest, that took a good grip of you. The tricks an old fellow's memory plays him are queer enough. I often recall the time and place of something clever a friend hath said long ago, but when I try to get it back, I have but a sense of its pleasantness, as of a flavour left in the mouth, while all the wise words of his saying are quite forgot. Dr. Rush thinks that we are often happy or morose without apparent cause, when the mind is but recalling the influence of some former joy or grief, ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... hold on to you," said the doctor huskily; "I wish I could lead you by loving force into the paths of pleasantness and peace. But what I can't do, God can. Good-by, and ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... that it was decidedly superior to the average infant in external appearance and pleasantness of disposition, it was, in all essential characteristics, a typical baby—that is to say, it was purely sensuous and it lived the life of the senses. It was utterly selfish. It never thought of anyone but itself. It honestly imagined itself to be the centre of the created universe. It ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Wundt, Outlines of Psychology (trans. C. H. Judd, Leipzig, 1897), maintains that we may group under three main affective directions, each with its negative, all the infinite varieties in question; these are (a) pleasure, or rather pleasantness, and the reverse, (b) tension and relaxation, (c) excitement and depression. These two views are antithetic and no solution ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... was, in the meantime, left unnoticed to his own reflections. While the old gentleman was absorbed in the folio, the clerk gave a glance round at the young stranger, and the expression conveyed in that glance did not add pleasantness to the lad's feelings, as he stood clutching his crape-bound hat. Leaving the two old men engaged in their books and papers, a fuller account must be given of the boy than he was ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... the whole place has, certainly, a rather curious air, as of a highly transcendental Cremorne. There could be no doubt, however, that the Faithful were enjoying themselves amazingly—"right lucky fellows," as we read in the new translation of the Koran. Yet even here all was not peace and pleasantness, for I heard my name called by a small voice, in a tone of patient subdued querulousness. Looking hastily round, I with some difficulty recognized, in a green turban and silk gown to match, my old college tutor and professor of Arabic. ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... the fruitfulness of this valey, and pleasantness of its situation, its security from storms, and the delightfulness of the adjacent woods, I concluded I was settled in the worst part of the country, and therefore was thinking to ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... younger, amused us by its queer mixture of fashionableness and homeliness, such as grey ribbed stockings and shining paste shoe-buckles, rusty velvet small-clothes and a coatee of blue cloth. But the wearer carried off this anomalous costume with an easy, condescending air, full of pleasantness, humour, and grace. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... since it had become the capital of Italia. Mr. Glascock and Miss Spalding were married in the chapel of the legation,—a legation chapel on the ground floor having been extemporised for the occasion. This greatly enhanced the pleasantness of the thing, and saved the necessity of matrons and bridesmaids packing themselves and their finery into close fusty carriages. A portion of the guests attended in the chapel, and the remainder, when the ceremony ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... cradle-boat shall sail. By gentleness, by good sense, by Christian principle she can turn it toward the palace, not of a wicked Pharaoh, but of a holy God; and a brighter princess than Thermutis shall lift him out of peril, even religion, whose ways are ways of pleasantness, and all ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... are often quoted as though they were the utterance of the Bridegroom, but we believe erroneously. The bride says in effect, Thou callest me fair and pleasant, the fairness and pleasantness are Thine; I am but a wild flower, a lowly, scentless rose of Sharon (i.e. the autumn crocus), or a ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... a pleasant, sunny day—that is, it would have been pleasant had it not been for the war. That spoiled the pleasantness, but nothing could stop the sunshine. To the great orb that had seen the earth formed, this fighting, momentous as it was destined to be, was only an incident in the rolling on ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... And if we had not so often had her word for it in past times, we never should have taken her for any thing but the gayest bride, the most alive and happy woman in the world. They returned to the old house from their wedding journey, and we all live together in great peace and pleasantness. But though three years are passed and gone since Chauncey Read came home and brought a new atmosphere with him into our lives, Aunt Pen has never had a sick day yet; and we find that any allusion to her funeral gives her such a superstitious ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... thoughts were hers,—such thoughts as sweet women cherish when they dream of Love. Often the dream vanishes before realisation, but this does not make the time of dreaming less precious or less fair. Lost in a reverie which in its pleasantness brought a smile to her lips, she did not hear a stealthy footstep on the grass behind her, or feel a pair of dark eyes watching her furtively from between the cedar-boughs,—and she started with surprise, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... about your food, except that it be wholesome. The pleasantness of its taste in your mouth should have little weight with you. If you confine yourself to just that food which you like, and get so that your comfort depends on it, you will deliver over your freedom just as though you delivered yourself ...
— A Jolly by Josh • "Josh"
... was Barend Voss, a great hulking fellow, with the strength of a trek-ox, and never a word of good or bad to throw away on any one. But his face was the face of a violent man. He had blue eyes with no pleasantness about them, but a sort of glitter, as though there were live coals in his brain. He did not drink like his father; and these two would sit together in the evenings, the one bleared and stupid with liquor, and the other watching him ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... distant sails or the first loom of the land. At sea there is nothing to be seen close by, and this has its counterpart in a sailor's character, in the large and brave and patient traits that are developed, the hopeful pleasantness that one loves so ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... verandah early in the morning of such a day as I am trying to sketch in pen and ink now, without feeling the highest spiritual joy, the deepest thankfulness to the loving Father who had made His beautiful world so fair, and who would fain lead us through its paths of pleasantness to a still more glorious, home, which will be free from the shadows brooding from beneath sin's out-stretched wings over this one. As I stood in the porch I have often fancied I could seethe animals and even the poultry ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... some tube or trough, or other means of confining the stream at the spring. For the conveyance of the current to any distance you must build either enclosed or open aqueduct; and in the hot square of the city where you set it free, you find it good for health and pleasantness to let it leap into a fountain. On these several needs you have a school of sculpture founded; in the decoration of the walls of wells in level countries, and of the sources of springs in mountainous ones, and chiefly of all, where the women of household ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... this view painful things are good only when they lead eventually to pleasure, and pleasant things evil only when their painful consequences outweigh their pleasantness. Hence moral differences reduce to differences of skill in the universal quest for pleasure, and sensible gratification is the ultimate standard of moral value. This ancient doctrine, known as hedonism, ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... pleasantness of these beech woods, where the light is green from the silky verdure of the young leaves, and where the mossy wood-paths are embroidered with thousands of flowers, from the earliest violet and primrose, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... were ways of pleasantness, and all its paths were peace. It had no enemies and all its friends were true ones. We see it go with a real regret and a feeling that we could have better spared ...
— The Purple Cow! • Gelett Burgess
... offended with the most impudent or importunate petitioner. Nor was there any thing in the whole course of her reign that more won the hearts of the people than this her wonderful facility, condescension, and the sweetness and pleasantness with which she entertained all ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... lily-dotted lakes delight your eye; May shade-trees bid the heat of noonday cease; May soft winds blow the lotus-pollen nigh; May all your path be pleasantness and peace. ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... competitor better than the winner. Books made up of the little homely things which might happen to anybody and distinguished by their pleasant atmosphere have been Miss COLE's speciality in the past; this time she has, without abating a jot of her pleasantness, added a touch of the occult in the shape of an old black-letter volume which infects everyone who gets possession of it with a mildly insane determination to keep it. An honourable man steals it and a nice woman smacks her baby for holding it, so you can see how really ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... I can tell you this much, though," he went on, as if a sudden recollection had come to him; "I gathered that he'd only just arrived in England—in fact, now I come to think of it, he said as much. Made some remark in the train about the pleasantness of the English landscape, don't you know?—I got an idea that he'd recently come from some country where trees and hedges and green fields aren't much in evidence. But—if you want to know who he is, officer, why don't you search him? He's sure ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... the temperature remarkably even. There is a story of a Mexican woman, who, settling in this part of the country, broke her thermometer because the mercury never moved and she therefore concluded that it was out of order. The pleasantness of the climate struck me particularly on one occasion, after a prolonged stay in the invigorating though windy climate of the sierra. I had caught a cold the night before, and was not feeling very well as I dozed on ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... and flaunting world. Little does ostentation know, as it flashes by in satined arrogance and jeweled pride, of the sorrow it may jostle from its path; and perhaps it is happy for us as we move along in smiles and pleasantness, not to comprehend that the glance which meets our own comes from the bleakness of a withered ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... handsome man was this Mr. Bolitho, a man who looked as though he might have many friends. The counsel all round smiled at him, while the magistrate nodded benignly. He seemed to create an air of pleasantness. He relieved the somewhat sordid atmosphere which pervaded the chamber. How much time he had given to the case it was impossible to say, but, certainly, when he rose to cross-examine, he seemed to know ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... around her, of furniture and dress, it was easy to recognize mode, that is to say, life; she did not live for this alone, but that goes without saying. What struck me in her taste was, that there was nothing bizarre, everything breathed of youth and pleasantness. Her conversation indicated a finished education; there was no subject on which she could not speak well and with ease. While admitting that she was naive, it was evident that she was at the same time profound in thought and fertile ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... fed, of two backs to be covered, of two minds to be satisfied, is so apt to double itself again and again. The two so speedily become four, and six! And then there is the feeling that that kind of semi-poverty, which has in itself something of the pleasantness of independence, when it is borne by a man alone, entails the miseries of a draggle-tailed and querulous existence when it is imposed on a woman who has in her own home enjoyed the comforts of affluence. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... somehow in the picture, the rickety sheds, the loose paraphernalia, the sunny, grassy yard where a goat was browsing; then the queer interior gloom of the pits, frilled with little overlooking scaffoldings and bridges, for the sinking fireward of the image that was to take on hardness; and all the pleasantness and quickness, the beguiling refinement, of the three or four light fine "hands" of whom the staff consisted and into whose type and tone one liked to read, with whatever harmless extravagance, so many signs that a lively sense of ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... the fact that I knew most of these flowers to be such as are laid on coffins—are smelled during interment. Again, many people find perfumes good or bad as they like or dislike the person who makes use of them, and the judgment concerning the pleasantness or unpleasantness of an odor is mainly dependent upon the pleasantness or unpleasantness of associative memories. When my son, who is naturally a vegetarian and who could never be moved to eat meat, became a doctor, I thought that he could never be brought to endure the odor of the dissecting ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... pleasure he gives, unless he knew that friendship admitted the pleasurable element? It would be impossible to say. But just as spurious and mock gold only imitates the brightness and glitter of real gold, so the flatterer seems to imitate the pleasantness and agreeableness of the real friend, and to exhibit himself ever merry and bright, contradicting and opposing nothing. We must not however on that account suspect all who praise as simple flatterers. For friendship requires praise as much ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the pleasantness of our trip for the first twenty-four hours. There were some officers, old friends, among the passengers. We had plenty of books. The gentlemen read aloud occasionally, admired the solitary magnificence of the scenery around us, the primeval woods, or the vast expanse of water unenlivened by ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... gloom of hall, staircase and landing his eyes were almost dazzled by the unexpected brightness and pleasantness of the long room, lit at the street end by the three deep-seated windows. Everywhere were evidences of occupation by refined women. The street below was hot and squalid and dusty, but the room with its shaded wide-open windows was cool. In one of them Deleah's bird was singing, and the ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... the Prince Elector, was then a fugitive to Holland. Lord Harrington, who had once acted as governor to the princess, and won her affection, was James Harrington's uncle, and she now cordially welcomed the young student of life for his uncle's sake, and for his own pleasantness of outward wit and inward gravity of thought. Harrington was taken with him by the exiled and plundered Prince Elector, when he paid a visit to the Court of Denmark, and he was intrusted afterward with the chief care of the ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... Such as it is—you made it not, nor I; I mean to take it as it is—and you, Not so you'll take it—though you get naught else. I know the special kind of life I like, What suits the most my idiosyncrasy, Brings out the best of me and bears me fruit In power, peace, pleasantness and length of days. I find that positive belief does this For me, and unbelief, no whit of this. —For you, it does, however?—that, we'll try! 240 'T is clear, I cannot lead my life, at least, Induce the world to let me peaceably, Without declaring at the outset, "Friends, I absolutely and peremptorily ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... Tom, you will indeed be a happy man, for the ways of wisdom are ways of pleasantness;—but it must be time ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... 'tis little likely; but there's a region for Christian souls, where there's no lakes, nor woods, they say; though why there should be none of the last, is more than I can account for; seeing that pleasantness and peace is the object in view. My grave will be found in the forest, most likely, but I hope my spirit will ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... pleasantness and enjoyment of the dessert, and serve, as it were, to satisfy pleasure. They are brought, while the table is still laid, in a handsome box on a salver, like those given by the ancients to be ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... at the lad, as if trying to make up his mind whether or not Phil was making sport of him. But there was only pleasantness in ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... gave, in her work with the boy. Their comradeship was as perfect as was their unlikeness. Each complemented the other, each modified the other, and both were far the better and the happier for the intimacy. To be sure, their paths were not all of pleasantness and peace. Both Cicely and Allyn were outspoken and hot-tempered; but their feuds now were measured by moments, not by days, and the overtures of ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... following description of this favourite liquor. "Canarie-wine, which beareth the name of the islands from whence it is brought, is of some termed a sacke, with this adjunct, sweete; but yet very improperly, for it differeth not only from sacke in sweetness and pleasantness of taste, but also in colour and consistence, for it is not so white in colour as sack, nor so thin in substance; wherefore it is more nutritive than sack, and less penetrative." Via recta ad Vitam longum. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... surprise, this climate and scene. I had expected chill skies and bleak shores: I found the perfect pleasantness of summer in the air, and a coast-scenery with which that of New England in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... established especially in the Volscian plain. Perhaps this lack of opposition was connected with the fact that the Sabine hordes probably about this very time poured themselves over Lower Italy. Allured by the pleasantness of the settlements on the Tifernus and Volturnus, they appear to have interfered but little in the conflicts of which the region to the south of the Tiber ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... that men and women do so much to destroy the pleasantness of their days," said she, interrupting him. "It is a pity that there should be ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... left him free to act. He felt all the best impulses of his nature challenged by the proposal. Here, at least, was one chance to snatch a brand from the burning,—to lead this poor little misguided wayfarer into those paths which are "paths of pleasantness." No image of French grace or of French modes was prefigured to the mind of the parson; his imagination had different range. He saw a young innocent (so far as any child in his view could be innocent) who prattled in the terrible language of Rousseau and Voltaire, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... step I took respecting "my Jean." Two things, from my happy experience, I set down as apothegms in life. A wife's head is immaterial, compared with her heart; and—"Virtue's (for wisdom what poet pretends to it?) ways are ways of pleasantness, and ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... shall learn to love the things of my adolescence, as Hazlitt loved them, and as I love already the recollections of my childhood. They will gather interest with every year. They will ripen in forgotten corners of my memory; and some day I shall waken and find them vested with new glory and new pleasantness. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... classes. There was something in Flavian a shade disdainful, as he stood isolated from the others for a moment, explained in part by his stature and the distinction of the low, broad forehead; though there was pleasantness also for the newcomer in the roving blue eyes which seemed somehow to take a fuller hold upon things around than is usual with boys. Marius knew that those proud glances made kindly note of him for a moment, and felt something like friendship ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... godliness, and it is just as true of the outside of the house as of the inside. A pleasant and beautiful exterior usually signifies pleasantness and peace within. While well-fenced and well-tilled farms are always pleasing to the eyesight, and neatly dressed roadsides are generally desirable, it does not follow that no shrubbery or sylvan tangles of trees should be allowed to grow on farms or by the wayside. A bare and rocky hill or ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... Pleasantness is the soft note of this generation, just as scientific assassination is the harsh note of it. The age is compounded of the two. Half of it is chloroform; the other half ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... others, and determines their respective values by the degree in which they possess that quality which all recognise but none can define—goodness. By higher and lower, superior and inferior pleasures we mean simply more good and less good pleasures. There are, therefore, two different qualities, Pleasantness and Goodness. Pleasure, amongst other things, may be good; but pleasure cannot mean good. By "good" we cannot mean "pleasureable;" for, as we see, there is a quality, "goodness," so distinct from pleasure ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... book I held in my hand, of the views on the river, of the pleasantness of country life. I fancy I did not say much, though I never am able to remember what I said when talking to him. Whatever I said was a mere involuntary accord with him. I never recollect to have felt that I did not agree with and admire every word ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... was so joyous that it choked me—in the sunlight and elm-leaves. It stood out from all the songs of the morning because it was so near—every note so finished and perfect, and we were each in the pleasantness of our tasks. The little girl leaned over to the window. I was already watching. We heard the answer from the distance. The song was repeated, and again. In the hushes, we sipped the ecstasy from the Old Mother—that the sparrow knew and expressed. Like ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... says Burnet: "his style had no flaw in it, but had a just mixture of wit and sense, only he spoke too copiously; he had a great pleasantness in his spirit, which carried him sometimes too far into raillery, in which he sometimes ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... she always said," exclaimed Grandma Johnson; "that the pleasant things come to the people who are looking for pleasant things but, land! see what's happened to her and if anyone ever looked for pleasantness it was Mary Rose. Why she even looked for it in ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... alternates, the motions of the dancer's willowy and obedient figure accurately according now seeming to swim languidly, and anon her little feet having their will of her, and fluttering in midair like a couple of birds. She is an engaging creature, her ways are ways of pleasantness, but whether all her paths are peace depends somewhat, it is reasonable to conjecture, upon the circumspection of her daily walk and conversation when relegated to the custody of her ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... come gladly!" cried Eyebright, yielding to the pleasantness of the thought. "I'd rather live with you than anybody else in the world, Mr. Joyce, if only you ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... was a quickening impulse of vague expectancy within her which led her to move about the house with a light step and a smiling face. Her father was much pleased, as he too had not outlived the effect produced upon him by the visit of Bouchette. Furthermore, the weather may have contributed to the pleasantness that reigned in the house. The sun was shining brightly, the wind had fallen, and the snow lay crisp upon the streets inviting ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... the palace, all the court were astonished at the change. She, who had annoyed everybody by the impertinent, tasteless, or downright foolish things she uttered, now charmed everybody by her wit, her pleasantness, and her exceeding good sense. The king himself began to come to her apartment, and ask her advice in state affairs. Her mother, and indeed the whole kingdom, were delighted; the only person to be pitied ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... would?" And she laughed with him one of her rare, rare laughs. And that was the way it all should end, in pretty laughter. Let there be none of this horrible emotionalism, this undignified welter of thought and feeling. Kindness of eyes, and pleasantness of body, but keep the heart away. Let them be—how? There wasn't a word in English, or in Gaidhlig to express it; in French there was—des amis, not des amants. Let them be that. Let there be no ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... now speaking of, for this is only a kind somewhat more brilliant than that which I have called clear. By one kind we are made to understand, but by the other one we actually appear to see. But the kind of speaking which is agreeable, consists first of all of an elegance and pleasantness of sounding and sweet words, secondly, of a combination which has no harsh unions of words, nor any disjoined and open vowels, and it must also be bounded with limited periods, and in paragraphs easily to be pronounced, and full of ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... in accomplishing this moral end lies in its pleasantness. The poet, says Sidney, in that most famous passage which ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... thee, George Borrow! Cervantes himself, 'Gil Bias,' do not more effectually carry their readers into the land of the Cid than does this miraculous agent of the Bible Society, by favor of whose pleasantness we can, any hour of the week, enter Villafranca by night, or ride into Galicia on an Andalusian stallion (which proved to be a foolish thing to do), without costing anybody a peseta, and at no risk whatever to our necks—be they ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Scotichronicon, "his wisest councillors" to make further inquiries. They too were astonished by the splendour of all they saw, and especially by the mien of a certain lady among these strangers, "whom, by her incomparable beauty, and the pleasantness of her jocund speech, I imagined to be the chief of the family," said the spokesman; "nor was it wonderful," adds the chronicler, "that they should believe her to be the chief who was destined to be Queen ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... much to be said in favor of our own day, and the men and women of our own time, that a plea for a recognition of the quaintness and pleasantness of village life in the old days cannot seem unwelcome, or without deference to all that has come with the later years of ease and comfort, or of discovery in the realms of mind or matter. We are beginning to cling to the elderly people who are so different from ourselves, and ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... here to see the Strid again—not seen these many years. It is curious that life is embittered to me, now, by its former pleasantness; while you have of these same places painful recollections, but you could enjoy them now with your ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... energies and harmonizes them. In the second place come games and sport, which may enter into their right if fatigue can be avoided. Harmonious joyful company, as different as possible from the depressing company of the sanitariums, will add its pleasantness. ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... 89: Call it Tempe.—Ver. 569. Tempe was a valley of Thessaly, proverbial for its pleasantness and the beauty of its scenery. The river Peneus ran through it, but not with the violence which Ovid here depicts; for AElian tells us that it runs with a gentle sluggish stream, more like oil ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... has not entered through the door of intemperance. Ah! is not the name of the evil that comes in through this door Legion? and we throw it wide open and invite both young and old to enter. We draw them by various allurements. We make the way of this door broad and smooth and flowery, full of pleasantness and enticement. We hold out our hands, we smile with encouragement, we step inside of the door to show ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... pretty?" agreed Mrs. Blair with pleasantness, laying out the spoons. "Yes, it's very interesting for her to have this," she went on, "before she really knows Roman society. . . . She will come out as soon as she returns from America, I suppose. The eldest sister is being married this fall, and the next sister and Maria Angelina ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... eyes so blue, And silken ringlets of flaxen hair! Oh, may life have in store for you Something better than anguish and care! Oh, may thy footsteps guided be In paths of peace and pleasantness! Oh, may those bright eyes never see Much of the cold ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy |
