"Complaisance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... controversy regarding the "Chinese rites," which had lasted some seventy years. The missions to China were entirely in the hands of the Jesuits until 1631, when Dominicans entered that country, and Franciscans in 1633. The new missionaries soon began to accuse the Jesuits of undue complaisance and conformity with heathen customs, and made complaint against them at Rome. For a time the Holy See permitted the practice of the Chinese rites, but frequent contentions arose on this subject between the Jesuits and the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... each other and at the two men's grins of complaisance. Then, without a word, the two women sank against each other on the doorstep and laughed until the men, bewildered and exasperated, took themselves off to the barn. Finally Jane rose and ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... in the disposition of the figures, the development of action, the two works have nothing in common. Of course in both there must be the priest who unites the bridal couple, and around them the usual personages in various attitudes of complaisance, surprise, and rejoicing, but the grouping of the figures in the predella at Cortona is more naturally conceived. The women on the right appear to come from the house where they had met to assist at the ceremony; the men stand on ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... have been empowered," he added, looking towards the seats of Barnave and the Lameths, "to constitute the nation, and not to raise the fortunes of certain individuals, in order to favour the coalition of court intriguers, and to assure to them the price of their complaisance or their treason." ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... this Complaisance should fail of its Effect, and not so succeed as to keep Blanch in good Humour, 'tis easy to say where the Fault must lie, and from ...
— The True Life of Betty Ireland • Anonymous
... she began to search wearily, indifferently, for the kind of shop that might answer her purpose. The receiving of letters which, for one reason or another, must be dispatched to a secret address, is a very ordinary complaisance on the part of small London stationers; hundreds of such letters are sent and called for every week within the metropolitan postal area. It did not take Monica long to find an obliging shopkeeper; the first ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... in an indolent, insolent fashion, to show them what a great person he was, and to speak of things beyond their ken. Playing this part, he would have enjoyed himself tolerably—nor the less because now and again he let his contempt for the company peep from under his complaisance—but for the obtuseness, or the malice of his friend; who, as if he had only one man and one idea in his head, let fall with every moment some mention of Colonel John. Now, it was the happy certainty of the Colonel's return next day that inspired his eloquence; now, the pleasure with which ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... situation of life in which he was placed, he was frequently introduced into the company of those of much greater fortunes than his own, among whom he was always received with complaisance, and treated ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... disguise you, as you will, I know you, You were too honest, knight, to be more civil; A girl all feeling, and a she-attendant All complaisance, a father at a distance - You valued her good name, and would not see her. You scorned to try her, lest you should be victor; For that I also ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... a torrent of tears. The Sultan has kept his word with me, all his court thinks me a Renegada, he alone knows the truth, and without reproaching me with my melancholy, has done his utmost to disperse it. The same respect and complaisance has always accompanied his actions, and you yourselves have been witnesses of my power, by his granting me without hesitation your lives. I knew you again the first moment I saw your faces, and should have discovered myself yesterday, but had a mind to know whether my ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... the super-refined class, and whose baleful norm in the crypt was asleep at the wheel in her first blind youth, finds herself disappointed in the most intimate partnership that exists, the complaisance, voluntary at the beginning, drifts into habit, more and more grimly endured. Some have the moral courage to put an end to it as they would to any false situation, but if individuals were not rare in this world we should have chaos, not a civilization of sorts which is a pleasant ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... on any other table, and which she naturally relied on to produce the same effect on her guest. Whether or not the desired result was achieved, Madame de Treymes' manner did not specifically declare; but it showed a general complaisance, a charming willingness to be amused, which made Mr. Boykin, for months afterward, allude to her among his compatriots as "an old friend of my wife's—takes potluck with us, you know. Of course there's not a word of truth in any ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... Maecenas he not only formed a high opinion of his character and talent, but felt a deep affection for him, which expresses itself in the generous language of an equal friend, with great respect, indeed, but totally without unworthy complaisance. The minister of monarchy might without inconsistency gain his goodwill; with the monarch it was a different matter. For many years Horace held aloof from Augustus. He made no application to him; he addressed to him no panegyric. Until the year 29, when the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... servants, he was shown into a neat but plain parlour, from which he had the prospect of twenty or thirty people at dinner in a spacious hall. In the middle of them was the learned doctor himself, who with much complaisance invited the company to eat heartily. 'My good friend,' said the doctor to a pale-looking man on his right hand, 'you must eat three slices more of this roast-beef, or you will never lose your ague.' ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... Mr Hobson, "it makes no alteration in my argument; I am speaking to the purpose, and not for the matter of complaisance: and therefore I'm bold to say Mr Harrel's action had nothing of the gentleman in it. A man has a right to his own life, you'll tell me; but what of that? that's no argument at all, for it does not give him a bit the more right to my property; and ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... so,) and acquainted them with the favours he had received from his grace the Duke of Bolton. The gentlemen, having such ocular demonstration of the duke's great liberality, treated him with great complaisance and respect, and relieved him very generously, not presuming to offer any small alms to one whom the Duke of Bolton had thought so worthy of his notice. In the same manner, and with the same success, he visited ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... acknowledgements, and Pauline took the note. I changed my dress. When my toilette was ended, and I looked at myself with some complaisance, an icy shiver ran through me as ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... forgiveness being the weakness of the thoughtless, it is the helpfulness of the strong and the wise. To forgive a man will not mean to escape from the trouble of securing his punishment; it will not mean the weak complaisance of indolent tolerance. It will mean thought for his weakness, taking up his burden, doing the brother's part for him, the endeavour to do for him what we would like to have the Father of us ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... seem whitest are blacker than any negro," she remarked. "Eh, bien! I thank you, Keed, mon ami, for your complaisance. You are very amiable to submit to the whim of a silly girl who suddenly becomes afraid of her ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... the wash-day drama comes to an end. We survey with pride and complaisance the piles of clean linen, shining with spotless elegance, and as we read therein a whole sermon on the "Gospel of Cleanliness," we conclude that it is decidedly worth while, and rejoice that fifty-two times a year this ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... fruit. There is a mirador in the garden which can be seen from the road, and from which there is a very extensive view. I was very anxious for admission only to the garden, and pleaded the manly appearance of my riding-hat, which would prevent all scandal were I seen from a distance; but the complaisance of the good prior would not go quite so far as that, so I sat in the sacristy and conversed with a good- natured old monk with a double chin, whilst the others wandered through the grounds. They afterwards gave us a very nice breakfast, simple but good; fish ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... proposals to me, and I had sent friends to discuss the matter with the ladies. But when they got to Rome the betrothal had taken place. This, I hope, will be a better match. I fancy the ladies were very much pleased with the young gentleman's complaisance and courtesy, but do not look for the thorns." The "thorns," however, were there. A friend who kept Cicero acquainted with the news of Rome, told him as much, though he wraps up his meaning in the usual polite phrases. "I congratulate ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... have made more progress in the last fifty years in this country than any similar group of people had ever made in a like period of time. After he had raised the white section of his audience to a high degree of self-congratulatory complaisance he would suddenly shift the tenor of his remarks and ask them why they should mar this splendid record by discriminating against the weaker race in matters of education, by destroying their confidence in the justice of the courts through mob ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... looked wistfully into his face as she addressed him, as though half afraid to go on, and begging that he would receive with complaisance whatever she found herself ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... brothers, I know by this your affection for me is equal to my own. But you know monarchs will be obeyed in their desires, and it may be dangerous to oppose them; therefore, if to follow my inclination I should dissuade you from showing the complaisance the emperor expects from you, it may expose you to his resentment, and may render myself and you miserable. These are my sentiments; but before we conclude upon anything let us consult the speaking-bird, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... here) 'that, somehow, he seemed to keep his patience the better, the more I lost mine. I never remember your telling me, sir, that my wilful moods were particularly becoming, but I began to think it must be so; and actually thought of trying a little complaisance.' Whereat, Miss Hazel brought herself ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... delighted at such a wonderful transformation in the woman he loved, was more eager than ever to hasten the day when he could call her his own. As for the Princess, she accepted her new dignities with the complaisance to be expected from the daughter of a Tsarina. There was now no need to refer the sceptics to Circassia for proof of her station and her potential wealth. As heiress to one of the greatest thrones ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... joined. His impatience for the journey has been somewhat cooled by some inclination yesterday {p.208} displayed by his charger (a pony belonging to Anne) to lay his warlike rider in the dust—a purpose he had nearly effected. He next mounted Queen Mab, who treated him with little more complaisance, and, in carters' phrase, would neither hap nor wynd till she got rid of him. Seriously, however, if Jack has not returned covered with laurels, a crop which the Rock[116] no longer produces, he has brought back all his own good-nature, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... subjects of discontent, the King wedded his Eldest Son [my not too fortunate self], out of complaisance to the Vienna Court, with a Princess of Brunswick-Bevern, Niece to the Empress:"—bitter fact; necessitating change of date in the paragraphs just written. [OEuvres de Frederic (Memoires ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... was endowed with the shrewdness inseparable from his business, because no man devoid of brains ever yet throve as a horse-dealer. He smothered his rage, thinking he might learn more from this strange-mannered detective by seeming complaisance. ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... delighted with the complaisance of his clerical subjects, did not hesitate to accede to all the petitions the Cardinal offered, and declared that, "so far as concerned heresies, he was determined not to endure them, but would cause them to be wholly extirpated and driven from his kingdom," inflicting on any ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... muster a good horse, as it would seem, joined the jolly cavalcade and rollicked through the moonlight nights, merely to make fun for their conquerors by playing on the superstitious fear of the sable allies of the Northmen. Never before was such good-natured complaisance, such untiring effort to please. So the North laughed, the South chuckled, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... many tokens of unselfish cordiality, for further manifold proofs of political complaisance, to be reviewed by me in detail later, proofs of a sincere desire to be enduringly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... submission to the laws of a depraved taste and carnal desire. We must keep ourselves unspotted from the world. Whenever we submit with scrupulous exactness to the laws of fashion; whenever we yield a servile complaisance to its forms and ceremonies, wink at its extremes and immoralities and absurd expenditures, seek its flatteries and indulge in its whims and caprices, by throwing open our parlors as the theatre of their denouement, ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... death of Sir Henry Herbert in 1673. Killigrew could produce no warrant for his demand. Cibber concluded with telling him that "as his pretensions were not backed with any visible instrument of right, and as his strongest plea was custom, the managers could not so far extend their complaisance as to continue the payment of fees upon so slender a claim to them." From that time neither their plays nor his fees gave either party any further trouble. In 1725 Killigrew was succeeded as Master of ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... office every opponent of the baleful system, it is certain that the shrug of the polite Frenchman who listened to our demonstration that ours, after all, was not a slaveholding country, was an indication of complaisance rather than of conviction. To prove this nothing of the sort, while Brazil was placed at the head of modern slaveholding countries, was to overtax ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of you," said Janet, genuinely persuading herself for the moment that Edwin was quite exceeding the usual bounds of complaisance. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... all who knew the bailiff's natural obstinacy, which was wont to increase instead of becoming more manageable in his cups, Peterchen assented to this proposition with a complaisance and apparent good-will, that he rarely manifested towards any opinion of which he did not think himself legitimately the father; though, like many others who bear that honorable title, he was sometimes made to ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... unbounded faith in the creed of the planters, and would crowd their favorite temples located on our own soil. But this would not be a real bond of union between us, but merely an exhibition of servility and fawning hypocrisy. And so the Northern complaisance toward slavery has in no degree tended to avert the disaster which has overtaken us, but only to breed self-reproach on the one side, and hauteur with ineffable loathing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... verdict was a foregone conclusion; and though the learned lawyer duly prepared a very fine speech and pocketed some monstrous fees with a great deal of complaisance, he was honest enough not to hold out the smallest hope of being able to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... to him with exemplary complaisance, and when he had finished said, "And Madame Bonacieux, do you know who carried her off?—For I do not forget that I owe to that unpleasant circumstance the good fortune of having ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... magnificence in the riches and plunder he had appropriated, and he had adorned his person with a profusion of silver and gold, and stolen gems. He had been seated at the table while served by the maroon, but, as she entered, with unusual complaisance he arose and bowed to her with something of the grace ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... at least that general civility towards his own lady which he is so willing to pay to every other, and not show a wife of eighteen or twenty years old, that every man in company can treat her with more complaisance than he, who so often vowed to ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... harebrained attempt to march five hundred riotous men through the city directly in front of the Prefecture, where lay unlimited reserves, civil and military, under arms. The royalists had somewhat overstrained the complaisance ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... of the French innkeepers to their clients. "It is a very odd contrast between France and England. In the former all the people are complaisant but the publicans; in the latter there is hardly any complaisance but among the publicans." [In regard to two exceptional instances of politeness on the part of innkeepers, Smollett attributes one case to dementia, the other, at Lerici, to mental shock, caused by a recent earthquake.] Idleness and dissipation confront the traveller, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... protestingly laughed at the suggestion that the living quarters were untenable. But there! The representative could see for himself. With every semblance of complete complaisance the representative was escorted into the camp. With unassumed unconcern, but with deliberate intention, he was accompanied to Barracks 1 or 2, to see with his own eyes a typical illustration of the living quarters ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... person. Certain professional peculiarities might have favoured the supposition. His mode of practice was exactly that popularly attributed to old women. He delighted in innocent remedies—manna, magnesia, and camphor julep; never put on a blister in his life; and would sooner, from pure complaisance, let a patient die, than administer ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... paused to curse silently at the complaisance of this people. What could he not do if they would help. Ten companies of trained men, armed with their deadly electronic projectors that disintegrated any living thing they reached—and he would clutch ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... undeceive you, sir. I believed your addresses to me were no more than an amusement, and I hope you will think the same of my complaisance; and to convince you that you ought, you must know that I brought you hither only to make you instrumental in setting me right with my husband, for he was planted to listen ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... dissipate the idea, but how thoroughly it has been dissipated in the public mind is best shown by the patient fortitude with which our people have borne the long and weary struggle in which few families in the land have not lost either a friend or a relative. The complaisance of the British public towards capitalists goes no further than giving them their strict legal rights—and certainly does not extend to pouring out money and blood like water for their support. Such a supposition is absurd, nor can any reason be given ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... when her eyes have carried in their depths the allurements of a sorceress, when her limbs have woven Venusberg enchantments which it has taken all my strength to withstand. But tonight, when I take the greatest step and claim her as mine till our lives' end, she yields with the complaisance of an ignorant child and raises up between us the barrier of her innocence. When shall I ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Go ahead," he said, cheerfully, and the cowboy, evidently surprised by Derrick's complaisance, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... begun to view it with absolute aversion; and though moved, by the King's representations of the embarrassed condition he should be reduced to if the supply were refused, to yield a subsidy of seventy thousand pounds a month for eighteen months, they forced him to pay a high price for their complaisance by extorting his consent to the "Test Act." By the operation of this act, the Duke of York, the inveterate enemy of the Dutch, and Sir Thomas Clifford, the minister who had the most zealously pushed forward the business of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... her misfortune, and too {easily} prevailing, as now about to perish by the complaisance of her lover, Semele said, "Present thyself to me, just such as the daughter of Saturn is wont to embrace thee, when ye honor the ties of Venus." The God wished to shut her mouth as she spoke, {but} the hasty words had now escaped into air. He groaned; for neither was it {now} possible for her not ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... like our hostess at La Rochelle, when she took us to a grand sight, which turned out to be no other than a washing-establishment. The French have, it is acknowledged, no taste for the picturesque, and it appeared to me as if the complaisance of the English abroad led them to agree that anything is pretty which pleases ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... sent me to you on an embassy, to bring you down to cards again; she is in her mulligrubs already; she will never forgive you the last vol you won. It is but losing a little to her, out of complaisance, as they say, to a fair lady; and whatever she wins, I will make up ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Lindsey was at the office when my wire arrived, and acted promptly in accordance with it, he and they could reach Dundee by a late train that evening. That knowledge, of course, made me in a still more light-hearted mood. But there was another source of my satisfaction and complaisance: things were in a grand way now for my revenge on Sir Gilbert Carstairs, and what had been a mystery was ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... her elbows had a peculiar elegance in them; and in old times to hold the elbow out well, and yet not to stick it out, was a point of early discipline. Then her glossy black hair set off a superb neck and shoulders; and, moreover, she was gay, full of mirth, life, complaisance, perfect in all the acts of politeness, and invariable in her gracious and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... (delits de la presse) by a jury, protected and secured freedom of opinion. It defended patriotic writers from the anger of the prince, and the complaisance of his agents. It even assured them of impunity, whenever their writings are in harmony with the secret opinions ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... that usually found among black tribes who have become Mahommedans. The major had been drawing with a lead pencil, when he was carried into the presence of the sultan. Malem Chadily on this occasion pretended to treat him with great complaisance. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... Richmond Road, and a lark on Putney Heath. The freshness of dew was in the air; dew or the relics of an overnight shower glittered on the leaves and grass. Hoopdriver had breakfasted early by Mrs. Gunn's complaisance. He wheeled his machine up Putney Hill, and his heart sang within him. Halfway up, a dissipated-looking black cat rushed home across the road and vanished under a gate. All the big red-brick houses behind the variegated shrubs and ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... repent of that insult. Yet was this quarrel accommodated, either from the good nature or timidity of the king, and Leicester was again admitted into some degree of favor and authority. But as this nobleman was become too great to preserve an entire complaisance to Henry's humors, and to act in subserviency to his other minions, he found more advantage in cultivating his interest with the public, and in inflaming the general discontents which prevailed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... more than due allowance for the difficulties of language, and the difference of training, upon the whole, the balance is in favour of our people. And this, because we have two weights, solid and (even in scale of manners) outweighing all light complaisance; to wit, the inborn love of justice, and the power ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... replied with some complaisance that she endeavored to have her girls think for themselves. Sociology was a field in which lessons could not be taught by rote. Each must work out her own conclusions, and act ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... the orphans was desirous of obtaining the same favour: they rushed on him, seized his hands, and in an instant covered them with these innocent pledges of love and gratitude. The Emperor, moved, enchanted, submitted with kind complaisance to the gentle fetters of these amiable infants. They ingeniously intreated him, not to give away the rings they had presented to him; and he promised to keep them, assuring them, that they would be as valuable in his eyes as the ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... engaged in violent altercation with his landlady. Taking from him the Vicar of Wakefield, then just written, Johnson proceeded with it to Newbery the Bookseller, from whom he obtained sixty pounds for his friend; and Goldsmith's good humour, and the complaisance of his hostess, returning with this accession of wealth, they spent the remainder of the day together in harmony. In this novel, like Fielding and Smollett, he exhibits a very natural view of familiar life. Inferior to the ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... yielding to those temptations that beset a girl who is at once poor and charming. Fortunately for her, those in closest authority over her were not so deeply smitten as to make obligatory on her a choice between complaisance and loss of position. She knew of situations like that, the cul-de-sac of chastity, worse than any devised by a Javert. In the store, such things were matters of course. There is little innocence for the girl in the modern city. There can be none for ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... lost my breakfast, sheerly from obeying the commands of a respectable-looking old lady, who once required me to ring the bell, and another time to help the tea-kettle. I have some reason to think she was literally an OLD-STAGER, who laughed in her sleeve at my complaisance; so that I have sworn in my secret soul revenge upon her sex, and all such errant damsels of whatever age and degree whom I may encounter in my travels. I mean all this without the least ill-will to my friend the contractor, who, I think, has approached as near as any one is like to do towards accomplishing ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... extremely glad: but being informed that we were almost killed by the fright, they were vastly sorry; but hearing that we had a very good night, they were extremely glad again. Nothing could exceed their complaisance to my daughters; their professions the last evening were warm, but now they were ardent. They protested a desire of having a more lasting acquaintance. Lady Blarney was particularly attached to Olivia; Miss Carolina Wilelmina Amelia Skeggs (I love to give the whole ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... his agreements and kept honourable promises so long as some material advantage flowed from his complaisance. Within a month he was again haunting the vicinity of the white mansion. One night he leaned against the fence and watched a procession of guests alighting from their vehicles. Splendid motors dashed up, and loads of gaily-dressed ladies and ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... friend will come up and inflict a narration, limited entirely to his own view of a case in which he is interested or aggrieved, practically ignoring that there can and must be another way of stating it. And so great is the complaisance of mankind, that no one thinks of intimating any necessity for consulting another authority before giving judgment. Here the vicious habit of thoughtless pronouncing is doubly bad, as it involves ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... manner of goods. Then when they had made all things ready they set sail for Hellas, and touching at various places they saw the coast regions of it and wrote down a description, until at last, when they had seen the greater number of the famous places, they came to Taras 120 in Italy. There from complaisance 121 to Demokedes Aristophilides the king of the Tarentines unfastened and removed the steering-oars of the Median ships, and also confined the Persians in prison, because, as he alleged, they came as spies. While they were being thus dealt with, Demokedes ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... now be told, that there was nothing of the slightest importance occurred at this repast, except that it gave me an opportunity of studying Mrs. Berry in many different ways; and, in spite of the extreme complaisance which she now showed me, of forming, I am sorry to say, a most unfavourable opinion of that fair lady. Truth to tell, I would much rather she should have been civil to Mrs. Muchit, than outrageously complimentary to your humble ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with him the scythe and spades—the whole of which he insisted upon carrying, more through fear, it seemed to me, of trusting either of the implements within reach of his master, than from any excess of industry or complaisance. His demeanor was dogged in the extreme, and "dat d——d bug" were the sole words which escaped his lips during the journey. For my own part, I had charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand contented ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... might be to Mr. Adams, when secretary of state. Was it then expected, that the house of representatives, which had disregarded his recommendation, would now approve his project? It is impossible that the president or his advisers could have believed they would carry their complaisance so far. They must have known that the subject would be referred to the same committee, composed of the same persons, as that of the preceding year, and who would be likely, if they reported at all, not only to support their first opinions by further arguments, but to express their disapprobation ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... was so far from envying the happiness of his brother, that he made it his whole business to please him, and effected it without much difficulty. Schahriar, who had naturally a great affection for that prince, was so charmed with his complaisance, that, out of an excess of friendship, he would needs divide his dominions with him, and gave him the kingdom of Great Tartary: Schahzenan went immediately and took possession of it, and fixed the seat of his government at Samarcande, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... having seated myself in a retired corner, was soon lost in consideration of my own fortunes past and to come. The hour grew late; the gentlemen and ladies of the Court, having offered and accepted compliments and gallantries till invention and complaisance alike were exhausted, dropped off one by one, in search of supper, wine, or rest. I sat on in my corner. Nothing was to be heard save the occasional voices of the two musketeers on guard on the steps leading from the second storey ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... Angela, making a mysterious signal to the mulatto; then she amuses herself laughing madly at and rumpling her lover's hair. He takes her little caprices with complaisance, and contemplates her with love. Then he ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... collections; the gondoliers have their plates prepared for contribution at every ferry; at every caffe and restaurant begging-boxes appeal to charity. Whoever has lifted hand in your service in any way during the past year expects a reward on New Year's for the complaisance, and in some cases the shop-keepers send to wish you a bel capo d'anno, with the same practical end in view. On New Year's Eve and morning bands of facchini and gondoliers go about howling vivas under charitable ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Hand upon the Heaps, crying, Here's one: there's another, &c. and by the help of some Wax in the hollow of his Hand, he drew away several Guineas every time, which he conveyed into a Handkerchief he held in his Left-hand. When the Number was compleated, they parted, with much Complaisance on each side: but when the Banker came the next Morning to settle the Account of his Cash, he found in his Gold a ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... John and Joseph (thought I had discharged the latter,) and my dame, following me, to show their complaisance ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... not, however, carry his complaisance so far as to embrace Sir Geoffrey's side during the Civil War. On the contrary, as an active Justice of the Peace, he rendered much assistance in arraying the militia in the cause of the Parliament, and for some time held a military ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... precautions against surprise all taken." Much as this polite attention surprised the objects of it, his brother officers wondered still more, and no sooner did they perceive the major and his companions issue forth, than they set out in a body to watch where this most novel and unexpected complaisance would terminate. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... they may, a self-respecting man must preserve his individuality also, and though I consented to enter a pavilion of crimson cloth, specially erected to shelter me till the Empress should deign to arrive, there my complaisance ended. Again the matter of clothes was harped upon. The three gorgeously caparisoned chamberlains, who had inducted me to the shelter, laid before me changes of raiment bedecked with every imaginable kind of frippery, and ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... that none of the absurdities I met with in this visit proceeded from an ill intention, but from a wrong judgment of complaisance, and a misapplication of the rules of it. I cannot so easily excuse the more refined critics upon behaviour, who having professed no other study, are yet infinitely defective in the most material parts of it. Ned Fashion has been bred all his life about Court, and understands to a tittle all the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... have suffered, that in the future there be no brothers murdered or mothers driven to madness. Resignation is not always a virtue; it is a crime when it encourages tyrants: there are no despots where there are no slaves! Man is in his own nature so wicked that he always abuses complaisance. I thought as you do, and you know what my fate was. Those who caused your misfortunes are watching you day and night, they suspect that you are only biding your time, they take your eagerness to learn, your love of study, your ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... page, who was a good-hearted girl; "'twas your great complaisance for us, not vanity. Oh! oh! oh!" and she began to blubber, to ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... strange that the idea, thus planted, should grow in Mr. Price's favor as he proceeded. He had been surprised at Jethro's complaisance, and he wondered whether, after all, he had done well to help Chester stir people up at this time. When he reached Harwich, instead of presenting himself promptly at the spinster's house, he went first to the office of Judge Parkinson, as became ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Mr. McKinley's apparent vacillation and of his complaisance toward men and interests representing wealth was due to an endowment of exquisite finesse which stooped to conquer, which led by seeming to follow, or by yielding an inch took an ell. In him was rooted by inheritance a quick sense ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... there. The rooms were elegant. Books lay around which showed a cultivated taste. The young man felt himself in a realm of enchantment. The joy of meeting was heightened by their unusual complaisance. During the evening he found out all about them. They lived in Cadiz, where the Don was a merchant. This was their ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... of every thing lying out in common, they say that all passengers, both those known and those unknown indiscriminately, were invited to lodgings, and that conversation was adopted between persons at variance with complaisance and kindness, and that they refrained from disputes and quarrels; their chains were also taken off those who were in confinement during those days; that afterward a scruple was felt in imprisoning those to whom the gods had brought such aid. In the mean while the alarm was multiplied ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... and she took him in her arms and then began to cry. The woman had spoken in complaisance; but she had warmed to her own words, and tenderness followed. The Doctor, entering, found them enlaced: he concluded that his wife was in fault; and he was just beginning, in an awful voice, 'Anastasie—,' when she looked up ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... relations of the petitioners, considering that they are convinced, in the first place, that England making against the Republic the most ruinous war, and having broken every treaty with her, all kind of complaisance for ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... other added, "The days and months are passing away; the years do not wait for us." Confucius said, "Right; I will go into office."' Chinese writers are eloquent in their praises of the sage for the combination of propriety, complaisance and firmness, which they see in his behavior in this matter. To myself there seems nothing remarkable in it but a somewhat questionable dexterity. But it was well for the fame of Confucius that his time was not occupied ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... rhymes to the devil your own way. It seems, also, that the 'faithful and spirited likeness' is another of your publications. I wish you joy of it; but it is no likeness—that is the point. Seriously, if I have delayed your journey to Scotland, I am sorry that you carried your complaisance so far; particularly as upon trifles you have a more summary method;—witness the grammar of Hobhouse's 'bit of prose,' which has put him and me ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... at any time. Now, do you see? If that had gotten into the newspapers, if Morley had known of it through Maria Fulton and had blurted it out, no power on earth could have kept down the very reasonable assumption that Withers had had a hand in his wife's death—or, at least, had regarded it with complaisance. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... understood to assert that the primitive politician was the reverse of all this, save in the matter of capability. And, even in that particular, no conception of his deficiency ever glimmered in his consciousness. His own assumption, and the complaisance of his fellow-citizens, were inter-reactive, mutually cause and effect. They were willing to confirm his valuation of his own talents: he was inclined to exalt himself in their good opinion. Parallel to this, also, was the oracular tone of his speech: the louder he talked, the more ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... that small and retired smoking-room a terrible scene was in progress. The two gentlemen had lit their cigars and were sitting in certain forced attitudes that evinced their non-enjoyment of the weed each had taken out of complaisance to the other, when an old man, strangely serious, strangely at home, yet as strangely a guest of the house like themselves, came in, and shut the door ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... or seemed to see, the arched apartments, the procession of venerable matrons, the consecrated vestments: the very temple began to rise upon my sight, when a Dutch porpoise approaching to make me a low bow; his complaisance was full as notorious as Satan's, when, according to Catholic legends, he took leave of Calvin or Dr. Faustus. No spell can resist a fumigation of this nature; away fled palace, Hecuba, matrons, temple, etc. I looked up, and lo! I was in a ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... was reverential, intelligent, accomplished, and thoughtful—naturally and without effort. He was sincerely courteous, and capable of all complaisance. The display of these qualities reached to the four extremities of the empire, and extended from earth to heaven. He was able to make the able and virtuous distinguished, and thence proceeded to the love of the nine ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... by his own. During the whole evening we were thus supplying to each other an inexhaustible fund of amusement. I contrived, before his departure, to let him have Manon for another moment to himself; so that he had reason to applaud my complaisance, as well as the hospitable reception I had ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... before a stall spread with cotton cloth and bought enough for several skirts, the result of her complaisance being a siege of itinerant vendors that nearly deafened her. The big women were literally covered with their young ("pic'nees"), who clung to their skirts, waist, hips, bosoms; and these mites, with the parrot proclivities of their years and race ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... like Major Pendennis to be found from Trolhatten to Messina, and yet Pendennis is a class with us; and it is in the nicely-blended selfishness and complaisance, the egotism and obligingness, that we find the ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... effect produced by the marshaling of details in their exactitude for the purpose of bringing out character. The fact that they may be ugly and vulgar the reverse, makes not the slightest difference. The modern realist contemplates the inanimate things which surround us with peculiar complaisance, and it is right that he should as these things exert upon us a constant and secret influence. The workings of the human mind, in complex civilizations, are by no means simple; they are involved and varied: our thoughts, our feelings, our wills, associate ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... consenting spectator on the occasion of Harold's coronation, which ceremony was performed with great pomp and parade, at St. Paul's, in London, very soon after King Edward's death. Harold rewarded Edgar for his complaisance and discretion by conferring upon him the honor of knighthood immediately after the coronation, and in the church where the ceremony was performed. He also conferred similar distinctions and honors upon many other aspiring and ambitious men whom he wished to secure to ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... agreeable young man. He would then have perceived little or nothing of the look of doggedness and opposition he wore at home; that would have been, all unconsciously, masked in a just unblown smile of general complaisance, ready to burst into full blossom for anyone who should address him; while the rubbish he would then talk to ladies had a certain grace about it—such as absolutely astonished Hester once she happened to overhear some of it, and set her wondering how the phenomenon was to be accounted for of the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... and he was agreeably surprised to find that a new mistress for The Cleeve had been so well chosen. He would be all kindness to his grandson and win from him, if it might be possible, reciprocal courtesy and complaisance. "Your mother will be very pleased when she ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... had often noticed a mutinous, complaining note in it at night, quite different from its cheerful daytime chuckle, and seeming like the voice of a much deeper and more powerful stream. Our water had always these two moods: the one of sunny complaisance, the other of inconsolable, ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... of literary stars may be, which illumine our Annuals, they owe no little of their lustre to the engravings. It fortuitously happens that we have not "a connoisseuring eye," or we should swell this paper beyond the limits prescribed by editorial complaisance, in the pages of "THE MIRROR." We are not ignorant, however, of the incomparable advancement which the science of engraving has made in the lapse of the last ten years; or how far it has left behind those mere scratches of the graver ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various
... nevertheless, you say—which But is aerugo mera, a rust which spoils the good metal it grows upon. But, you say, you would advise me not to precipitate that resolution, but to stay a while longer with patience and complaisance, till I had gotten such an estate as might afford me, according to the saying of that person whom you and I love very much, and would believe as soon as another man, cum dignitate otium. This were ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... further details on the matter of the coat of arms, see Herald and Genealogist, i. 510, and for facsimiles, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 2d ser. 1886, i. 109. On the criticism of the herald's complaisance in the matter of the Shakespeare and similar grants, see Preface to New Edition (1909) of Lee's Life, ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... said Mr. Erwyn, "to my mind, at least, that the bonds of matrimony should be slipped thus lightly. But the age is somewhat lax and the world now views with complaisance the mad antics of half-grown lads and wenches who trip toward the altar as carelessly as if the partnership were ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... bearing of it I must enter at some length, in order to explain the interest with which the nation threw itself into the question, and to remove the scandal with which, had nothing been at stake beyond the inclinations of a profligate monarch, weary of his queen, the complaisance on such a subject of the lords and commons of England would have coloured the entire ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... aware that he was gazing at her, and then she looked back at him in an arch, smiling way, fixing her mouth in a potent line. Cowperwood was captivated. Was she vulnerable? was his one thought. Did that faint smile mean anything more than mere social complaisance? Probably not, but could not a temperament so rich and full be awakened to feeling by his own? When she was through playing he took occasion to say: "Wouldn't you like to stroll into the gallery? Are you fond of pictures?" He gave ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... amusement of watching two great sword-fish sunning themselves on the surface of the water. I sent out a boat, in the hope that the powerful creatures would, in complaisance, allow us the sport of harpooning them, but they would not wait; they plunged again into the depths of the sea, and we had disturbed their ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... after he had commanded it. We then had only one idee fixe—namely, to find again in the dark mass of the religious books of the Hindu, the original account of that event. We should never have succeeded but for 'the complaisance' of a Brahman with whom we were reading Sanskrit, and who, yielding to our request, brought us from the library of his pagoda the works of the theologian Ramatsariar, which have yielded us such precious assistance ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller |
