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Equable   /ˈɛkwəbəl/   Listen
Equable

adjective
1.
Not varying.
2.
Not easily irritated.  Synonyms: even-tempered, good-tempered, placid.  "Not everyone shared his placid temperament" , "Remained placid despite the repeated delays"






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"Equable" Quotes from Famous Books



... in the recitation both of Coleridge and Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearer, and disarms the judgment. Perhaps they have deceived themselves by making habitual use of this ambiguous accompaniment. Coleridge's manner is more full, animated, and varied; Wordsworth's more equable, sustained, and internal. The one might be termed more dramatic, the other more lyrical. Coleridge has told me that he himself liked to compose in walking over uneven ground, or breaking through the straggling branches of a copse wood; ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... release from the terrors which were consuming me, had an extraordinary effect upon me. I got up out of my bed saying that I was well now and ready to start on the instant. The doctor, finding my pulse equable, and my whole condition wonderfully improved, and attributing it, as was natural, to my hope of soon joining my mother, advised my whim to be humoured and this hope kept active till travel and intercourse with children ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... very hot, and the captain, taking to drinking again, soon recovered his spirits and his temper, which had latterly grown so smooth and equable that we hardly knew ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... blazed in him. The fancy may pass, if etymologically unsound; for Ignatius, 'the Inflamed,' was a true child of the fiery East. Contrast him and his letters with St. Clement of Rome and his Epistle to the Corinthians. Nothing is more notable in the Roman 'than the calm equable temper,' the 'sweet reasonableness.' He is essentially a moderator. On the other hand, impetuosity, fire, strong-headedness, are impressed on every sentence in the Epistles of Ignatius. He is by his very nature an impeller of men. ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... of that chamber put the soul deliciously at ease, cast out sad thoughts, and left a sense of pure and equable happiness. The silken coverings, brought from China, gave forth a soothing perfume that penetrated the system without fatiguing it. The curtains, carefully drawn, betrayed a desire for solitude, a jealous intention of guarding the sound of every word, of hiding every look of the reconquered ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... Andes, there lies that mysterious mountain valley, cut off from the world of men, the Country of the Blind. Long years ago that valley lay so far open to the world that men might come at last through frightful gorges and over an icy pass into its equable meadows; and thither indeed men came, a family or so of Peruvian half-breeds fleeing from the lust and tyranny of an evil Spanish ruler. Then came the stupendous outbreak of Mindobamba, when it was night ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... perfect crystals they are called spars, some of which possess a double refraction, as observed by Sir Isaac Newton. When these crystals are jumbled together or mixed with some colouring impurities it is termed marble, if its texture be equable and firm; if its texture be coarse and porous yet hard, it is called lime-stone; if its texture be very loose and porous it is termed chalk. In some rocks the shells remain almost unchanged and only covered, or bedded with lime-stone, which seems to ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... the original population, as well as the numerical proportions of its members, indicates a warmer and, on the whole, somewhat tropical climate, which remained tolerably equable throughout the year. The subsequent distribution of living beings in zones is the result of a gradual lowering of the general temperature, which first began to be felt ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... most thorough Radicals that ever breathed. His Radicalism, it is true, is of the antique pattern. He is an individualist without compromise or concession. Life to him is to the strongest; he has no faith save in the gospel of the survival of the fittest. Equable and even cheery, he does not take a particularly joyous view of human existence. I have heard him speak of the emptiness and futilities of human existence in tones, not of gloom, for he is too much of a philosopher ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... time thus saluted their new-born babes: "Child, thou art come into the world to endure, suffer, and say nothing." It is grand to be upborne by a spirit unperturbed, although flesh and nerve may strike through the best soul for a moment; even as the great and equable Longinus, on his way to execution, is said to have turned pale and halted for an instant; while we all know, that, after the Stuart rebellion, the rough old Duke Balmoral, a lesser man, never faltered, but, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... according to the various and necessarily fluctuating wants of society. It will follow, that the growth of corn has, at all times, and in all countries, proceeded with a uniform unvarying pace, occasioned only by the equable increase of agricultural capital, and can never have been accelerated, or retarded, by variations of demand. It will follow, that if a country happened to be either overstocked or understocked with corn, no motive of interest ...
— Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws, and of a Rise or Fall in the Price of Corn on the Agriculture and General Wealth of the Country • Thomas Malthus

... candours; to all appearance their discussion had its usual equable quality, and I am certain that Arnold was not even aware of the tension upon his nerves. He fidgeted with the tassel of his ceinture, and she watched his moving fingers. Presently she spoke quietly, in a ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... through which the air cannot so freely circulate. The reeds are affected differently, the expansion of their tongues by heat causing them to flatten sufficiently to counteract the sharpening named above. Hence the importance of an equable temperature and the free circulation of air through swell-boxes, as described on ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller

... of my book is new and yet the same. I have altered everything that seemed to require altering, and I have made the style a little more equable; but I have not, I hope, broken anywhere into a new key, or added any sort of decoration not in keeping with the original plainness of the stuff. When Pater said: "His book is, according to his intention, ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... with Cameron; yet, perhaps considering that those who engaged in the last insurrection, being nearly superannuated, would rather wish well to the cause than engage again, he still kept the fervent spirits of that political party whom he thus regarded in an equable state,—ready to act, yet willing to wait for a favourable occasion. In 1740 Donald Cameron signed, nevertheless, the association of seven carried by Drummond of Bochaldy to Rome; but when the Court of France, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... Then there came the inspiration to write his poem on Sir John Franklin, and he had done so, winning the college prize for poetry. But no one had seen any change in him in those months; and, indeed, there had been little or no change, for he had an equable and practical, though imaginative, disposition, despite his avoirdupois, and his new purpose did not stir him yet from his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... will accept them!" cried Helen, in a tumult of suspense. The communication of Gloucester had made no change in the equable pulse of Wallace; and he replied, with a look of tender pity upon her animated countenance. "The proposals of Edward are too likely to be snares for that honor which I would bear with me uncontaminated to the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... very manner of speech, in his rank, unweeded eloquence, which seemed naturally to discourage any effort at selection, any sense of fine difference, of nuances or proportion, in things. The loose sympathies of his genius were allied to nature, nursing, with equable maternity of soul, good, bad, and indifferent, rather than to art, distinguishing, rejecting, refining. Commission and omission; sins of the former surely had the preference. And how would Paolo and Francesca ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater

... MEAN SOLAR TIME. That shown by a clock or watch when compensated for the unequal progress of the sun in the ecliptic, and which thence forms an equable measure of time.—To take time is for an assistant to note the time by a chronometer at each instant that the observer calls "stop," on effecting his astronomical observation for altitude of a heavenly body, or for contact with the sun and ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... longer recognisable.' It is for this reason that we have attempted to tell once more, in simple prose, the story of Odysseus. We have tried to transfer, not all the truth about the poem, but the historical truth, into English. In this process Homer must lose at least half his charm, his bright and equable speed, the musical current of that narrative, which, like the river of Egypt, flows from an indiscoverable source, and mirrors the temples and the palaces of unforgotten gods and kings. Without this music of verse, only a half truth ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... Threatening the skipper? What's wrong?" said the equable voice of Jerrold, emerging with cigarette between his teeth through the sliding door of ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... cotton net. Then he got the farmer's leave, and lopped obnoxious bushes; and now the chiefest question was: what bait, and when to offer it? In spite of his sad rebuff, the spirit of John Pike had been equable. The genuine angling mind is steadfast, large, and self-supported, and to the vapid, ignominious chaff, tossed by swine upon the idle wind, it pays as much heed as a big trout does to a dance of midges. People put their fingers to their noses and said: "Master Pike, have ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore

... delights. If we have still lives to live and regions to traverse, after our eyes close upon the world, those lives and those regions may be, as we love to think, tracts of serener happiness and more equable tranquillity. But if they be still a mixture, such as we here endure, of pain and pleasure, then our aim ought to be at all costs to learn the lesson of endurance; or rather, if we hold firmly to the sense of law, minute, pervading, unalterable ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... presence. It was a Father whose message the preacher brought. Like as a father so the Lord pitieth His children, said he, in tones that trickled like tears over the hearts of his hearers, although his voice was equable and unbroken. He went on to show what the children of such a Father must needs be—to show that, however sinful, and erring, and lost, yet the Father had sent to tell them that the doctrine of wrath was of old time; that ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... it. For the love of God and of our brethren hath polished and made it all plain, hath "taken away the asperities and tumours of our affections and lusts." Complanavit affectus. "Great peace have all they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them." Love makes an equable and constant motion, it moves swiftly and sweetly. It can loose many knots without difficulty, which other more violent principles cannot cut, it can melt away mountains before it, which cannot be hauled away. Albeit there be many stumbling ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... physical conditions, rather than the actual mean state in the temperate and frigid zones, which renders them less prolific than the tropical regions, as exemplified by the great distance beyond the tropics to which tropical forms penetrate when the climate is equable, and also by the richness in species and forms of tropical mountain regions which principally differ from the temperate zone in the uniformity of their climate. However this may be, it seems a fair assumption that during ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... least reason why you should go," said Katharine eventually. Her voice sounded so astonishingly equable that Cassandra glanced at her. It was impossible to suppose that she was either indignant or surprised; she seemed, on the contrary, sitting up in bed, with her arms clasped round her knees and a little frown on her brow, to be thinking closely ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... stature and beauty the Filbertines are far above the average. The men are six feet in height and upwards, and proportionately wide. By a combination of equable climatic and economic conditions this altitude has become standardized and there is little variation from it. A sort of rough control is exercised in this regard. When a young male Filbertine has got his growth he is measured with a bamboo yardstick ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock

... the most equable climate in the world Honolulu claims the most perfect bathing-resort on earth, Waikiki Beach. The water is certainly all that could be desired, but the not infrequent sharp masses of coral that project up through the white sand of the otherwise perfect beach ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese

... know more if you wish," said Cellini, his usual equable humour and good spirits now quite restored. "You shall know everything; but not to-day. We have too little time. I have not yet commenced your picture. And I forgot—you were thirsty, and I was, as you said, inhospitable. You must permit me ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... from the bitterness of lost hopes, whatsoever they had been, and became once more his own natural self, perhaps even more cheerful, since it was now not so much the gayety of a boy as the composed, equable serenity of ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... and Norsemen from the west, all met and mingled with the native Gauls and eventually became Parisians. Environment acted its part, and so did the forces of Nature. The soil of the basin of Paris is fruitful, the climate equable, but neither encourage idlers; both demand a toll of strenuous labour, yet not so trying to man's strength as to leave him exhausted at the end of the day's work; he may recreate himself and bring his mind to bear on ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... who knows how good you are, how tender, how equable in anger, how loving, you are tenfold greater still. But," she added, "a man of genius is always more or less a child; and you are a child, a dearly beloved child," she said, caressing him. Then she drew that invitation from that particular spot where women put what they sacredly hide, and ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... singular way; that in their splenetic, envious despair, to keep-out the Army at least, these men were hurrying through the House a kind of Reform Bill—Parliament to be chosen by the whole of England; equable electoral division into districts; free suffrage, and the rest of it! A very questionable, or indeed for them an unquestionable, thing. Reform Bill, free suffrage of Englishmen? Why, the Royalists, themselves, silenced indeed but not exterminated, perhaps outnumber us; the great ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... that is, which had expressed itself in poetry. Dryden himself was not always careful to distinguish between what material was fit and what unfit for verse; so that we can now enjoy his masterly prose with more equable pleasure than his verse. But he saw clearly enough the distinction in Donne between intellect and the poetical spirit; that fatal division of two forces, which, had they pulled together instead of apart, might have achieved ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... was oval, yet the head was small. The complexion was neither fair nor dark, yet it possessed the brilliancy of the north without its dryness, and the softness peculiar to the children of the sun without its moisture. A rich, subdued and equable tint overspread this visage, though the skin was so transparent that you occasionally caught the streaky splendour of some vein like the dappled shades in the fine peel of ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... rights in this matter, and I then succeeded. I little thought at that time that I should be called on after so long an interval to renew my work. I little thought that the pertinacity of her opponent would hold out for such a period. I compliment him on the firmness of his character, on that equable temperament which has enabled him to sit through all this trial, and to look without dismay on the unfortunate lady whom he has considered it to be his duty to accuse of perjury. I did not think ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... She had been quite stirred by the hope of giving some pleasure. There was little to break the long, lonely, monotonous expectancy of her life. And yet nothing surprised those who knew her better than her equable physical poise during this time of trial and discomfort. Everyone had expected so high-strung a creature to be "half-wild with nerves." But Lydia, although she continued to say occasional disconcerting things, seemed on the whole to be gaining maturity and firmness ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... Text for all wants from tank of Holy Writ. But thou, want not! ask not! Find full reward Of doing right in right! Let right deeds be Thy motive, not the fruit which comes from them. And live in action! Labour! Make thine acts Thy piety, casting all self aside, Contemning gain and merit; equable In good or evil: equability ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold

... the scene just described, Helen Allston hoped she had been converted. For a time she was exact in the discharge of her social duties, regular in her closet exercises, ardent, yet equable, in her love. Conscious of her weakness, she diligently used all those aids, so fitted to sustain and cheer. Day by day, she rekindled her torch at the holy fire which comes streaming on to us from the luminaries of the past—from Baxter, Taylor, and Flavel, and many a compeer whose ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... the night on adamant, pierced by the needles of the frost; to awake shivering and famished, until the meaning of an inch of ice on the backwater comes to your mind,—these are not calculated to put a man into an equable mood to listen to oratory. Nevertheless there was a kind of oratory to fit the case. To picture the misery of these men is well-nigh impossible. They stood sluggishly in groups, dazed by suffering, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... some excitement in the bosoms of them all, as they met and shook hands; but far too much to enable either of them to begin his story and tell it in a proper equable style of narrative. Mr Harding was some minutes quite dumbfounded, and Mr Arabin could only talk in short, spasmodic sentences about his love and good fortune. He slipped in, as best he could, some sort of congratulation about the deanship, and then ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... having "the mildest and most equable climate known to any large city in the world." January is the coldest month, and the mean temperature then is stated to be 50 deg.. September is the hottest month, and the mean temperature then is stated ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett

... gravel-capped plains can be explained quite as well, as by the more obvious view already given of a few comparatively great and sudden elevations; in either case we must admit long periods of rest, during which the sea ate deeply into the land. Let us suppose the present coast to rise at a nearly equable, slow rate, yet sufficiently quick to prevent the waves quite removing each part as soon as brought up; in this case every portion of the present bed of the sea will successively form a beach-line, and from being exposed to a like action ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... wet and dry, and the like, of which the sense of touch has the perception; thus it is in potentiality with regard to contraries, and is able to perceive them. Therefore the more the organ of touch is reduced to an equable complexion, the more sensitive will be the touch. But the intellectual soul has the power of sense in all its completeness; because what belongs to the inferior nature pre-exists more perfectly in the superior, as ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... in the golden age of Athenian greatness, the most perfect example of that equable and harmonious development in every faculty of body and mind which was the aim of Greek civic life at its best. As an orator, he was probably never equalled, and the effect of his eloquence has found immortal expression in the lines of his contemporary ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... at such junctures, there were also present a score of brazen individuals who had succeeded in NOT losing their presence of mind, even though they constituted a mere sprinkling. Of them the Postmaster formed one, since he was a man of equable temperament who could always say: "WE know you, Governor-Generals! We have seen three or four of you come and go, whereas WE have been sitting on the same stools these thirty years." Nevertheless a prominent ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... the man's first taste of bitter mental anguish. Hitherto his life had been equable and pleasant; his friends had adored him; the world had flattered him; he had been at peace with his own soul. He had known his failings, but laughed at them cavalierly; he stood on a different platform from the struggling, conscience-stricken ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1949. This book could be classified under "The Bad Man Tradition," but it has authentic chapters on fence-cutting, the so-called "Johnson County Cattlemen's War" of Wyoming, and other range "difficulties." Clearly written from an equable point of view. Useful ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... rendered such an offer extremely acceptable to the young Pennsylvanian; he felt his own powers, and saw, not only the excellences, but the foibles in the character of his friend. Effingham was by nature indolent, confiding, and at times impetuous and indiscreet; but Marmaduke was uniformly equable, penetrating, and full of activity and enterprise. To the latter therefore, the assistance, or rather connection that was proffered to him, seemed to produce a mutual advantage. It was cheerfully accepted, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... valleys of the wildest and most picturesque character, and afford scenery which, for majestic and varied beauty, is not surpassed in all northern Asia. The climate everywhere, except in the extreme north, is comparatively mild and equable, and the vegetation has an almost tropical freshness and luxuriance totally at variance with all one's ideas of Kamchatka. The population of the peninsula I estimate from careful observation at about 5000, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... was in semblance a brother, and his attentions were so quiet and frank, his manner toward her so restful, that even she half believed at times that his regard for her was passing into the quiet and equable glow of fraternal love. Such coveted illusions could not be long maintained, however, for occasionally when he was off his guard she would find him looking at her in a way that revealed how much he repressed. She shed many bitter ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... human felicity blent! And even if that sweetness seem to him to bring delight in the enjoying, yet he cannot keep it from departing when it will. How manifestly wretched, then, is the bliss of earthly fortune, which lasts not for ever with those whose temper is equable, and can give no perfect ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius

... early life he went into the backwoods of Virginia as a surveyor. He is described as a person of great stature and strength. His mind was equally robust. He was a natural mathematician, and was remarkable for hardihood and perseverance. His temper was equable, but his passions were strong and his anger terrible. In youth his education had been neglected; but, by the wise employment of his leisure, he obtained considerable reputation for learning throughout the rude region where he lived. This ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... departments of domestic life, and Miss Shepperson did all the work that required care or common-sense, the duties of nursemaid alone taking a great deal of her time. On the whole, this employment seemed to suit her; she had a look of improved health, enjoyed more equable spirits, and in her manner showed more self-confidence. Once a month she succeeded in getting a few hours' holiday, and paid a visit to one or the other of her sisters; but to neither of them did she tell the truth regarding her position ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... exposed to every vicissitude of the weather, but as intelligence advanced, we find them substituting, first hammels, and then stalls, in which the animals are kept during the whole time of fattening at an equable temperature. The effect of this is necessarily to introduce a considerable economy of the food required to sustain the animal heat; but it also produces a saving in another way, for it diminishes ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson

... I do? I try to read early and at night, but I can't prevent the fun and gaiety; and, indeed, I don't think I would. It is innocent, and we never had such a pleasant summer. Charlie is so—so much more equable, and mamma is more easy about him, and I can't help thinking it does them all good, though I ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... torment—its foibles demanding infinite patience, forbearance, nay, affectionate blindness, in those who would minister to its happiness, and mitigate the worst results of those foibles themselves. Certainly George Sand, for a genius, was a wonderfully equable character; her "satanic" moods showed themselves chiefly in pen and ink; her nerves were very strong, the balance of her physical and mental organization was splendidly even, as one imagines Shakespeare's to have been. But the very vigor of her character, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... canoes. The overhanging rock formed one side of the house; the ends were of palm leaves tied to the poles, and the roof was of the same material. The other side was left open for the present, which in that equable and balmy clime was no disadvantage. The whole edifice was about thirty feet long by fifteen deep and divided into two portions, one for sleeping and one for living, by a palm leaf partition. Really, it was quite a comfortable abode, cool and rainproof, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... confiding all her joys and sorrows from the time that the child could form any conception of what joy or sorrow meant. But Mrs Tipps did not weep over her sorrows, neither did she become boisterous over her joys. She was an equable, well-balanced woman in everything except the little matter of her nervous system. Netta was a counterpart of her mother. As time went on expenses increased, and living on small means became more difficult, so that Mrs Tipps was compelled to contemplate leaving the villa, poor and small ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... criticism. He was also painting in oils, attempting very difficult landscapes with considerable success. They stood drying in the study, and he was much absorbed in them; he also was fishing keenly in a little trout lake near the house, and walking about with a gun. His spirits were very equable and good. But he told me that he had gone out shooting in September over some fields lent him by a neighbour, and had had to return owing to breathlessness; and he added that he suffered constantly from breathlessness and pain in the chest and arms, that he could only walk a few ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... of a hill when heated with walking, had caught a severe inflammatory sore throat, which became daily worse whilst we remained in the tents, but began to mend soon after he was enabled to confine himself to the more equable warmth of the house. We took up our abode at first on the floor, but our working party, who had shown such skill as house carpenters, soon proved themselves to be, with the same tools, (the hatchet and crooked knife,) ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin

... nothing of the physiology of ferns and mosses, but as a matter of fact I think they will be found to increase and diminish together all over the world. Both like moist, equable climates and shade, and are therefore both so abundant in oceanic islands, and in the high regions of ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant

... the conditions of existence, as valid and clear evidence of design as any animal or plant ever presented: suppose we have now discovered two intermediate species, B and C, which make up a series with equable differences from A to D. Is the proof of design or final cause in A and D, whatever it amounted to, at all weakened by the discovered intermediate forms? Rather does not the proof extend to the intermediate species, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... order of the new romantic poets was Scott, alike renowned for his Lays and for his wonderful prose fictions; at once the most equable and the ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... carried forward, however swiftly, by a motion equable and easy, perceives not the change of place but by the variation of objects. If the wheel of life, which rolls thus silently along, passed on through undistinguishable uniformity, we should never mark its approaches to the end of the course. If ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... economy, analogous to our own circulation—it being far too irregular and inconstant to depend on any such regulated movement. On removing the head of a Lucciola, this intermitting light immediately ceased; but the other—the permanent, steady, and equable light—remained unchanged, and was not extinguished for from sixty to seventy hours after the death of the insect, unless the body was immersed in oil or alcohol, which extinguished it presently. We found, that though oil and alcohol quickly extinguished the light, it became ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... properties. If the guess be too high, the corporations can compel reductions; if the guess be too low, they rest content. But, however the corporations may approve the guessing method of assessment, it has not proved equable, has not been fair to the farmer, the merchant and the householder, who under oath make honest returns to ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn

... note of the familiar tones of the distant voices, listening impersonally and dreamily to each question and answer and suggestion that passed between that quietly talking group. One of the talkers, he soon found, was a Supreme Court judge on his vacation, equable and deliberative in his occasional query or view or criticism; another was apparently a secret agent from the office of the New York district-attorney, still another two were either Scotland Yard men ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... thereafter, in honour of the day of the Colonel's arrival at Port Talbot—the 21st of May, 1803. The Colonel was not, in the strict sense of the term, a politician, but he was a member of the Legislative Council, and naturally supported the official party; whereas Rolph, though a man of equable mind, and by no means constitutionally inclined towards Radicalism, had much better opportunities for mixing with the people than had Colonel Talbot, and his keen eye revealed to him many official abuses which did not commend ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... unconsciously made her a more logical, reasoning, reasonable being than he believed it possible for a woman to be. Poor papa! All that he really knew of his most interesting daughter was that she was growing up a good child, physically strong and active, morally well educated, with a fortunately equable temper; and that she owed a great deal to him. What, precisely, was never defined. But when the thought of his kindness recurred to him it ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... and once noted character, the offer was accepted. Surrendering my own steed to the care of a ragged boy, who promised to lead it with equal judgment and zeal, I entered the little car, and, keeping a firm hand and constant eye on the reins, brought the offending quadruped into a very equable and sedate pace. ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... their interest. In point of fact they do not share the Progressist idea, that much can be done by legislation to ameliorate the condition of the masses of the population, nor do they see that in a country like New Zealand, where labour is dear, food cheap, and the climate mild and equable, their condition need necessarily be so deplorable. They still cherish the old theories of individualism. The humanitarian ideals of Mr. Reeves, not being idealists, they regard with little interest. What they see is the Government of their Colony, which they had been accustomed to control, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... withdraw out of the world in which he had been led astray, and how sick he was of all its whirl of temptations and disappointment; and Miss Leonora had returned to her letter when her younger nephew arrived. As for Miss Wentworth, she was seated placidly in her usual easy-chair, smiling with equable smiles upon both the young men, and lifting her beautiful old cheek for Frank to kiss, just as she had lifted it to Jack. It was Miss Dora who was most shaken out of her allegiance; she who had always made Frank her ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... of a healthy brain is that the supply of blood to it shall be equable and uniform. But under the influence of strong drink, the blood pours into the paralyzed arteries a surging tide that floods the head, and hinders and may destroy the use of the brain and the senses. Still another requirement is that whatever ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... pre-eminently the poet of a simple mind. There is nothing mysterious about him or his poetry; there is not even a perceptible thread of development in either. They are equable, constant imperturbable, like the bag of a much invited gun, or the innings of a safe batsman. The accomplishment is akin to an animal endowment. The nerves, instead of being, if only for a moment, tense and agitated, are steady to a degree that can produce an exasperation ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... one who preached silence and stoicism as the chief virtues—an inconsistency which has amused and disgusted generations of readers. It was impossible for him to do his work with the regular method, the equable temper, of a Southey or a Scott. In dealing with history he must image the past to himself most vividly before he could expound his subject; and that effort and strain cost him sleepless nights and days of concentrated ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... intelligence of a modern playwright could quite banish the homely and gracious and tender charm of Goldsmith. As Dr. Primrose, Irving was almost at his best; that is to say, not at his greatest, but at his most equable level of good acting. All his distinction was there, his nobility, his restraint, his fine convention. For Irving represents the old school of acting, just as Duse represents the new school. To Duse, acting is a thing almost wholly apart from action; she thinks on the stage, scarcely moves there; ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... apparently equalizing influence of married life, it must be added that the records discussed in the text were obtained during residence in London, whereas, since my marriage, I have lived in South Cornwall, where the climate is both milder and more equable.] ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... be corrected during the twentieth century. Different authorities have made varying estimates of the proportion between the heat which goes up the chimney of an ordinary grate, and that which actually passes out into the room fulfilling its purpose of maintaining an equable temperature; but it cannot be denied that, at the very least, something like three-fourths of the heat generated by the domestic fires of even the most advanced and civilised nations goes absolutely to waste—or ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... made by the tuned crayons and tested by reference to the color sphere, have so trained the color judgment that children may now be trusted with more flexible material. They have memorized the equable degrees of color on the equator of the sphere, and found how lighter colors may balance darker colors, how small areas of stronger chroma may be balanced by larger masses of weaker chroma, and in general gained a disciplined ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell

... conduct, just as the words, "I love," justified their winning you; they will declare that love is involuntary and not to be coerced. Absurd! Believe me, dear, true love is eternal, infinite, always like unto itself; it is equable, pure, without violent demonstration; white hair often covers the head but the heart that holds it is ever young. No such love is found among the women of the world; all are playing comedy; this one will interest you by her misfortunes; she seems the gentlest and least exacting ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... kings and princes of style innumerable. Many, many writers whom I have not quoted in these letters have adorned everything they touched, but do not seem to me to reach the snow-line or rise into great and moving eloquence. Charles Lamb, for example, never descends from his equable and altogether pleasing level, far above the plain of the commonplace, but neither does he reach up to the lofty altitudes of the lonely peaks; and if I began to quote from him, I see no obstacle ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... conditions tend to foster shrewish temperament, for we are gradually changing the subjection of woman to the enslavement of man; gentle chivalry is developing into maudlin self-advertising self-abnegation on the part of the males who favour the new movement. The sweet and equable lady remains the same in all ages; Imogen and Desdemona and Rosalind and the Roaring Girl have their modern counterparts. The lady never takes advantage of the just homage bestowed on her; she never asserts herself; her good breeding is so absolute that she would ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... is it? A Board of . . . I believe the Speaker of the Irish Parliament is one of the members of it. A ghost. Less than that; as yet a mere memory. An office with adequate and no doubt comfortable furniture and a lot of perfectly irresponsible gentlemen who exist packed in its equable atmosphere softly, as if in a lot of cotton-wool, and with no care in the world; for there can be no care without personal responsibility—such, for instance, as the seamen have—those seamen from ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... Zones.—The submontane zone has the most equable and the pleasantest climate in the plains. It has a rainfall of from 30 to 40 inches, five-sevenths or more of which belongs to the monsoon period (June-September). The north-western area has a longer and colder winter and spring. ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... mother, Mary hurried into the "best room," with a strange discomposure of spirit she had never felt before. From childhood, her love for James had been so deep, equable, and intense, that it had never disturbed her with thrills and yearnings; it had grown up in sisterly calmness, and, quietly expanding, had taken possession of her whole nature, without her once dreaming of its power. But this last interview seemed to have struck some great nerve of her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... at the account-books which were handed in, but pronounced an immediate verdict of acquittal.[996] But the merely negative virtue of unassailability by grossly corrupting influences could not have been the only source of the equable repute which Metellus enjoyed amongst the masses. It was but one of the signs of the self-sufficient directness, repose and courtesy, which marked the better type of the new nobility, of a life that held so much that it needed not to grasp at more, of the protecting ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... sun-kissed land. No; we are not resting our horses here on Humboldt Bay. We are writing this article, gorging on abalones and mussels, digging clams, and catching record-breaking sea- trout and rock-cod in the intervals in which we are not sailing, motor- boating, and swimming in the most temperately equable climate we ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London

... vicarages of slum parishes. The old sailor had got hold of one cheap, and de Barral got hold of his daughter—which was a good bargain for him. The old sailor was very good to the young couple and very fond of their little girl. Mrs de Barral was an equable, unassuming woman, at that time. With a fund of simple gaiety, and with no ambitions; but, woman-like, she longed for change and for something interesting to happen now and then. It was she who encouraged de Barral to accept the offer of a post in the west-end branch of a ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... care—especially those forming the angles—to entitle us to speak of it as presenting the type of rude ashlar-work. The stones composing it, particularly above the line of the window, are laid in pretty regular horizontal courses; lower down they are not by any means so equable in size. The masonry of the side walls is much less regular, and more of a ruble character. The walls are on an average about 3 feet in thickness.[54] The stones of which the building is composed are, with a few exceptions, almost all squared sandstone. ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... assumption of HERSCHEL (equable distribution), no other conclusion can be drawn from his statistics but the one laid down ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden

... is more rapid and easy than in others. In this country, Mr. F. Currey has been the most successful in the cultivation of Sclerotia. The method adopted is to keep them in a moist, somewhat warm, but equable atmosphere, and with patience await the results. The well-known ergot of rye, wheat, and other grasses may be so cultivated, and Mr. Currey has developed the ergot of the common reed by keeping the stem immersed in water. The final conditions ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... easily out stripped the Gloucester's man, and got before him to the Commodore, who, on hearing this happy and unexpected news, threw down his axe with which he was then at work, and by his joy broke through for the first time the equable and unvaried character which he had hitherto preserved. The others who were with him instantly ran down to the seaside in a kind of frenzy, eager to feast themselves with a sight they had so ardently wished for and of which they had now ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... This equable frame of mind was thus a fundamental trait in Howe, private as well as public, personal as well as professional; not assumed for the moment, but constant in operation. He had none of the irritability attributed to genius, as also he gives no sign of its inspiration,—of originality. ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... a more abiding influence on the happiness of a family, than the preservation of equable and cheerful temper and tones in the housekeeper. A woman, who is habitually gentle, sympathizing, forbearing, and cheerful, carries an atmosphere about her, which imparts a soothing and sustaining influence, and renders it easier for all to do right, under her administration, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... explained the peculiarities of the many interesting plants, from Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Australia, New Zealand, and the various islands of the North and South Pacific and Indian Oceans. The climate of Teneriffe is so equable, that the island forms a true garden of acclimatisation for the vegetable productions of the various countries of the world; by the judicious expenditure of a little more money, this establishment might be made an important means of introducing ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... of the young man in the Knight increased daily. Sir Christopher's manners were so gracious, his temper so sweet and equable, and the sentiments he expressed so noble, that it was impossible an ingenuous youth should escape their fascination. Yet did Arundei fancy that the attachment which he felt was hardly returned. It might be a mere fancy springing ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... carts; for the ground being quite plain, they fasten the carts, whether drawn by camels or oxen, behind each other, and the girl sits on the front of the foremost cart of the string, directing the cattle, while all the rest follow with an equable motion. If they come to any difficult passage, the carts are untied from each other, and conducted across singly; and they travel at a very slow pace, only so fast as an ox or a lamb can ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... down from the high wall to the low wall, an acre broad of thatch. These old thatched houses seemed to be very healthy so long as the old folk lived in them in the old-fashioned way. Thatch is believed to give an equable temperature. The air blew all round them, and it might be said all through them; for the front door was always open three parts of the year, and at the back the dairies were in a continual blow. Upstairs ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... of them, thoroughly irrigated, remain beautifully green throughout the year, and herbage over the whole region is abundant. Sheltered from the blasts to which the lower plains are exposed, these parks enjoy an equable climate; and old hunters, who have camped in them for many seasons, describe life there as an earthly paradise. They abound in animals of all sorts. Elk, deer, and antelope feed on their rich grasses. Hither ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... after it has flowed for some distance, it becomes of the temperature of the atmosphere, or, in summer, even warmer, owing to the action of the sun, both directly and reflected or radiated from its bottom. Besides this equable temperature in the water itself, spring or well water is usually covered; and, even if exposed, if the well is very deep, the water will not freeze, or at least very slightly; for frost does not act with its full power, except where there is a free circulation ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... boys would hardly pick up the apples in the fields. But England undulates with grass that seems to fix the fluent color of the greenest waves on either hand. And our eagle-eyed blue sky droops its lid over the island, as the moisture gathers, with a more equable compassion than we know for all shrubs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... having rung the bell, stood waiting on the vicar's doorstep, he was certainly not in as equable a frame of mind as his outward demeanour would lead one to suppose. He was in a few moments to meet face to face the man who of all others had interested him most deeply, though his feeling towards him was almost akin to hatred. It was a sore point at Garthowen that Ebben Owens' own brother ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... next diagram (Fig. 10), showing the variation among forty males of Agelaeeus phoeniceus, this approach to an equable spreading of the variations is still more apparent; while in Fig. 12, where fifty-eight specimens of Cardinalis virginianus are registered, we see a remarkable spreading out of the spots, showing ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... from Caffray were to keep these slates carefully in the dark, and every evening at about the same hour to sit in total darkness, with my hands resting on them for about a half or three-quarters of an hour; to maintain a calm, equable, passive state of mind, even to think of any indifferent subject rather than to concentrate my thoughts too intently on the slate-writing. There could be no question of the result. A Medium of my unusual and excessive power would find, at the end of ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... write will you say exactly how you are? and will you write? And I want to explain to you that although I don't make a profession of equable spirits, (as a matter of temperament, my spirits were always given to rock a little, up and down) yet that I did not mean to be so ungrateful and wicked as to complain of low spirits now and to you. It would not be true either: ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... Generals!"After a minute or two, Goltz came over and whispered to the Prince. 'Hither, MEINE HERREN, all of you; a message from his Majesty!' cried the Prince. Whereupon, to Generals and Prince, Goltz delivered, in equable official tone, these affecting words: 'His Majesty commands me to inform your Royal Highness, That he has cause to be greatly discontented with you; that you deserve to have a Court-martial held over you, which ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... the other hand, it is almost inevitable that when rhyme is expected, the lines which it tips should be reduced to an equal or at any rate an equivalent length. Otherwise the expectation of the ear—that the final ring should be led up to by regular and equable rhythm—is baulked. If this is not done, as in what we call doggerel rhyme, an effect of grotesque is universally produced, to the ruin of serious poetic effect. With these desiderata present, though ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... wretchedly nervous. Anything like rudeness I am simply babyishly afraid of; and noises, and especially the sounds of certain voices, are the devil to me. A blind poet whom I found selling his immortal works in the streets of Sens, captivated me with the remarkable equable strength and sweetness of his voice; and I listened a long while and bought some of the poems; and now this voice, after I had thus got it thoroughly into my head, proved false metal and a really bad and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... our greater nervous susceptibility. It is possible to drink without being an habitual drinker, as it is possible to take chloral or opium without forming the habit of taking these substances. In certain countries and climates where the nervous system is strong and the temperature more equable than with us, in what I sometimes call the temperate belt of the world, including Spain, Italy, Southern France, Syria and Persia, the habitual use of wine rarely leads to drunkenness, and never, or almost never, to inebriety; but ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... more bracing here than at Cannes, but on the whole the climate is more equable, there being no such sudden fall in the temperature after sunset; it is, however, I fear, less suited for invalids of a consumptive nature than other parts of the Riviera. It is dangerous to be out late, almost less ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... his son-in-law, and corresponded with him in a most friendly way. At that happy moment the Frenchwoman could be an Austrian without injury to her mission and her duty. The path she was to follow was clearly traced. Alas! it was not for long that she was to enjoy this calm and equable happiness, so well suited to her timid nature, which was made to obey, not to rule. She had then no cause to blame her fate or herself. As a young girl, as a wife, as a mother, she had nothing to ask for. Her satisfaction was furthered by the thought that she was soon to ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... spire. It fell into the scaffolding, zigzagged from point to point, and disappeared. There could be no mistake about it, it was the man himself who had fallen: that single and minute expression of the popular will had passed for ever from view; and the smooth and equable hum of the unseen millions ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... eloquent! What suggestions of imperturbability and being, as against the human trait of mere seeming. Then the qualities, almost emotional, palpably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so innocent and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says nothing. How it rebukes by its tough and equable serenity all weathers, this gusty-temper'd little whiffet, man, that runs indoors at a mite of rain or snow. Science (or rather half-way science) scoffs at reminiscence of dryad and hamadryad, and of trees speaking. But, if they don't, they do as well as most speaking, writing, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... climbing plants, is here obtained by a forest tree, which has the means of starting in life at an elevation which others can only attain after many years of growth, and then only when the fall of some other tree has made room for then. Thus it is that in the warm and moist and equable climate of the tropics, each available station is seized upon and becomes the means of developing new forms of life ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... represented the regular tenor of the man's reflections; but the latter burst forth from time to time with an unruly violence, and then he would forget all consideration, and go up and down his house and garden or walk among the fir-woods like one who is beside himself with remorse. To equable, steady-minded Will, this state of matters was intolerable; and he determined, at whatever cost, to bring it to an end. So, one warm summer afternoon, he put on his best clothes, took a thorn switch in his hand, and set out down the valley by the river. As soon as he had taken ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... no order," replied the equable voice, "but my dispatches are of the greatest importance. Kindly let me ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... unmistakably new, and exhibited all manner of queer peaks and pinnacles and projections, shingled, painted in divers colors, and broken by windows of oddly tinted glass. Next the carriage passed a modern church built of pinkish-brown stone; and immediately after, the equable roll of the wheels showed that they were on a smooth macadamized road. It was, in fact, though Candace did not know it, the famous Bellevue Avenue, which in summer is the favorite drive for all ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... picked up her problem, with that last perplexity hanging to it. No, it was no use!—- that equable deportment of Sir Hamilton and Philippa remained a mystery to her. She, however—mere single Miss Dickenson—could not of course guess how these two would see themselves, looking back, with all the years between of a growing Gwen and Adrian; to her, it was just the lapse of so much time, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... is to him the beginning of thought. Hitherto there had only existed a tumultuous chaos of mythological fancy, but when Thales said 'All is water' a new era began to dawn upon the world. Man was seeking to grasp the universe under a single form which was at first simply a material element, the most equable and colourless and universal which could be found. But soon the human mind became dissatisfied with the emblem, and after ringing the changes on one element after another, demanded a more abstract and ...
— Sophist • Plato

... eyes, while over his face passed all those expressions of fear, abhorrence and detected guilt which, fool that I was, I had expected to see reflected in response to the same test in Mr. Grey's equable countenance. ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... are men whose society is always enjoyed but who never inspire deep and strong attachment. I remember to have heard good observers say that Lady Holland had more feeling than Lord Holland—would regret with livelier grief the loss of a friend than this equable philosopher was capable of feeling. The truth is social qualities—merely social and intellectual—are not those which inspire affection. A man may be steeped in faults and vices, nay, in odious qualities, and yet be the object of passionate attachment, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... so," Frank Merrill answered. "I think we'll have an equable, semi-tropical climate all the year round—about ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... letters—" here his arm shifted a little—"I should not be so sure of my jury's future verdict. Love—" he went on, after a moment of silent consideration of a letter he had chosen from those before him, "disturbs the most equable natures. When it enters as a factor, we can expect anything—as you know. And Miss Challoner evidently was much attached to her correspondent, and naturally felt the reproach ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... as it were, a complete account of the sugar crop, of the local business houses, of the state of the freight market. All that talk was interspersed with hints as to personalities, amounting to veiled warnings, but his pale, fleshy face remained equable, without a gleam, as if ignorant of his voice. As you may imagine I opened my ears very wide. Every word was precious. My ideas as to the value of business friendship were being favourably modified. He gave me ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... with dry season, or for periodically disturbed and cultivated ground? You speak of evergreen vegetation as leading to few or confined conditions; but is not evergreen vegetation connected with humid and equable climate? Does not a very humid climate almost imply (Tyndall) an ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... black hair which Bertram never remembered to have seen equalled before for its silkiness of texture and its strange blue sheen, like a plate of steel, or the grass of the prairies. Gliding grace distinguished her when she walked. Her motion was equable. As once the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and straightway coveted them, even so Bertram Ingledew looked on Frida Monteith, and saw at the first glance she was a woman to be desired, a soul high-throned, very calm ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and in short throughout literature. What is there in any other language, for instance, to be compared with the voluminous writings of Sainte-Beuve, ranging over all history and literature, and carrying into all, that incomparable style, so delicate, so brilliant, so equable, so strong,—touching all themes, not with the blacksmith's hand of iron, but with the surgeon's hand ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... close and characterized by an unpleasant odor, suggesting its diminished vitality; for which reason pastilles are burned, or eau de Cologne reduced to vapor in a heated censer, whenever visits are anticipated. It was a question with me, whether or not the advantage of a thoroughly equable temperature was counterbalanced by the lack of circulation. The physical depression we all felt seemed to result chiefly from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... John's spirits have been equable and good since we rejoined him. Berry has always got something the matter with his digestion—seems to me the male gender of Maria Jolly, and ought to take nothing but Revalenta Arabica. Bottled ale is not to be ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... to the "Autobiography," the self-confession which we find is this: An old-maidish personage, inhabiting boarding-houses, equable and lukewarm in all his tastes and passions, having no desultory curiosity, showing little interest in either books or people. A petty fault-finder and stickler for trifles, devoid in youth of any wide designs on life, fond only ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... adventure, not even the upset, had disturbed the calm and equable current of Mr. Pickwick's temper. The villainy, however, which could first borrow money of his faithful follower, and then abbreviate his name to 'Tuppy,' was more than he could patiently bear. He drew his breath hard, and coloured up to the very ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... constantly bring before us some latent fact, some unsuspected relation, some resemblance between dissimilar things. We should feel that his utterances were not echoes. If therefore, in these moments of equable serenity, his mind glancing over trivial things saw them with great clearness, we might infer that in moments of intense activity his mind gazing steadfastly on important things, would see wonderful visions, where to us all was vague and shifting. During our quiet walk with him across the fields ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... the arteries in such quantity that it cannot be supplied from the ingesta, and in such a manner that the whole must very quickly pass through the organ; second, the blood under the influence of the arterial pulse enters and is impelled in a continuous, equable, and incessant stream through every part and member of the body, in much larger quantity than were sufficient for nutrition, or than the whole mass of fluids could supply; third, the veins in like manner return this blood incessantly ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various



Words linked to "Equable" :   temperate, good-natured



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