"Geniality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he had laid these out to his satisfaction did he rise to address the meeting. He held himself stiffly erect, his fingers resting lightly on the table, his pale face turned toward the window as though he wished to avoid addressing any one directly. The usual geniality was lacking in ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... Sir Charles," said Harley with quiet geniality. "Officially, my working day is ended; but if nothing comes of your visit beyond a chat it will have been very welcome. Calcutta, was it not, where we ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... inviting; but it was doubly so to Frank, after his long and hot ride. All were disposed to treat him, as the stranger, with pressing hospitality; but his own free and gentlemanly bearing, and the openness with which he answered the questions put to him, as well as the hearty geniality of his conversation, made all his new acquaintances delighted with him, and eager to supply his wants as their guest. It is not, therefore, much to be wondered at that any half-formed resolutions as to total abstinence which he might have vaguely entertained soon melted away before the cordial ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... a member of the Chronicle staff yourself?" inquired Mr. Reefer with a shade more geniality in ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... frank, though its habit of command was unmistakable. Every gesture bespoke authority and arrogance of body. Even in this moment of geniality, "Obedience and no explanations" was written all over him. He was a man who believed his acceptable importance to be a verity established beyond the pale of challenge. Yet there was something lacking—a sureness of refinement, ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... held out a quivering hand, and with an air and in a tone of warm geniality he cried: "Oh, that alters the case altogether! In the case of the son of an old customer like Mrs. Dangerfield we're delighted to deduct five per cent. discount for cash—delighted. Make out the bill ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... both in his College and in his University, can be explained only by the fact that he possessed the qualities necessary for the work he had to do,—strong common-sense, moderation, and geniality. He had to live, as the most prominent man, in a society composed of three factions crowded together within the narrow limits of a University town, which even in quiet times is not always the abode of peace. He had to deal with the most burning ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... did not know how subtle and observant the most innocent girl is in such matters. Zoe blushed, and drew away from him. Just then Ned Severne came in, and Vizard introduced him to Uxmoor with great geniality and pride. The charming young man was in a black surtout, with a blue scarf, the ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the service?" he asked with that affectation of military bluntness and geniality with which ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... to these easy reunions will not soon forget the radiant geniality of the host, and his success in stimulating the discussions most likely to draw out the special stores of his guests. Others also, who were associated with Sir James in the visits to historical sites which ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... times; but he was, as always, averse to literary society, and came nearer to men of a different type in his human intercourse. Sophia, who had seen him there amid the fraternity, described his relationship to the others accurately, one of "courtesy and conformableness and geniality;" but, she tells him, the expression of his countenance was "that of a witness and hearer rather than of comradeship." In the fall weather he spent much of his time rambling about, and the scarlet color of the pastures, ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... and, passing along the terrace, soon encountered little Blanche Evers strolling there under a pink parasol and accompanied by Captain Lovelock. This young lady was always extremely sociable; it was quite in accordance with her habitual geniality that she should stop and say how d' ye do to ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... old, lives out in the country on Route 3. He still works on the few acres he owns, raising vegetables for himself and a few baskets to sell. He is a gray-haired, medium sized man and his geniality is frequently noticed by white and ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... not one that would account for all his actions. Perhaps the best analysis would begin by showing him as half the aboriginal Westerner and half the Washington politician. In many ways he was very Western. He had a Westerner's pugnacity, and at the same time a Westerner's geniality and capacity for comradeship with men. He had to the last a Westerner's private tastes—especially a taste for gambling—and a Westerner's readiness to fight duels. Above all, from the time that he entered Congress as the fiercest of the "war hawks" who clamoured ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... his superior's hand and withdrew. Cyril turned to Arsenius, betrayed for once into geniality by his delight, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... their general worn and dull appearance gave considerable distance to the period of their first possession. But there was nothing worn or dull about the countenance of the man, upon which was an expression of mellow geniality which would have been suitably consequent upon a good dinner with plenty of wine. But his only beverage had been coffee, and in his clear bright eye there was no trace of any exhilaration, except that caused by the action of a hearty meal ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... Israel been so correctly appreciated, or eloquently delineated. Those high attainments of piety, those graces of spirit, which have placed them in the rank of examples for all subsequent generations, are spread before us with a geniality of spirit and a beauty of style which will secure the warmest admiration; at the same time their weaknesses and errors are not overlooked or excused."—Courier ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... neither can love nor respect. Wealth and rank no longer divert attention from personal qualities. Gold no longer 'gilds the straitened forehead of the fool.' The gifts of person, mind, and disposition; beauty, wit, eloquence, kindness, generosity, geniality, courage, are sure of transmission to posterity. Every generation is sifted through a little finer mesh than the last. The attributes that human nature admires are preserved, those that repel it are left behind. There are, ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... new Rondo for pianoforte and orchestra of his own composition. This piece is written throughout in the chromatic style, rarely rises to geniality, but has passages which are distinguished by depth and thoughtful working-out. On the whole, however, he seems to be somewhat lacking in variety. The master showed in it his dexterity as a pianist to perfection, and conquered the greatest difficulties with felicity. A longer stay ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... they yet seldom exercise their gifts in a friendly, social, after-dinner way in their own homes. They become, in fact, so critical or so self-conscious that they prefer to pay to hear music rendered by recognized artists, and so a by no means inconsiderable element of geniality is lost to the ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... said he, with all his old geniality, "not often, though they pay us a visit now and then in summer when so inclined. Their coming now through Spithead is a sign that there's going to be a change ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Geniality. Conversational powers. Gentleness. Kindness to wounded French officer. Advice to young officers. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... was in high spirits. It was characteristic of his indomitable kindliness and optimism that, though he ended every term in a state of exhaustion, having strained his energy and endurance to the breaking-point, he invariably began the new term in a spirit of geniality and hope. It was not till years later that Gordon came to understand the depth of unselfish idealism that burned behind the quiet modesty of the Chief; but even at first sight the least impressionable boy was conscious ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... was geniality itself. "It is," he answered; "a very strong recommendation." He thrust out a friendly hand. "Good-night, my son, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... eyes that contradict so pleasantly the heavy cast of his features began to twinkle. Little lines of geniality formed at their corners and rayed out over his cheeks. He ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... character in early manhood is described by friends as one of peculiar manliness, geniality, and unselfishness. It is said that, on one occasion, he put aside important work of his own in order to spend several days in the studio of a friend, whose gifts were quite inconsiderable compared with his, and whose prospects were all but hopeless,—helping ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... my stay at Bayley's Four-Corners took me so completely by surprise as Mr. Jaffrey's radiant countenance the next morning. The morning itself was not fresher or sunnier. His round face literally shone with geniality and happiness. His eyes twinkled like diamonds, and the magnetic light of his hair was turned on full. He came into my room while I was packing my valise. He chirped, and prattled, and carolled, and was sorry I was going away—but ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in on my way home to ask you a question about something that has excited my curiosity," said the Mayor, with careless geniality. "But I see ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... longer, but Polish, Sclavic; not prospering by the change. [What Thorn had sunk to, out of its palmy state, see in Nanke's Wanderungen durch Preussen (Hamburg & Altona, 1800), ii. 177-200:—a pleasant little Rook, treating mainly of Natural History; but drawing you, by its innocent simplicity and geniality, to read with thanks whatever is in it.] And all that fine German country, reduced to rebel against its unwise parent, was cut away by the Polish sword, and remained with Poland, which did not prove very wise either; till—till, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... expression, his very nature, seemed to have undergone a fundamental change. Gondremark at home appeared the very antipode of Gondremark on duty. He had an air of massive jollity that well became him; grossness and geniality sat upon his features; and along with his manners, he had laid aside his sly and sinister expression. He lolled there, sunning his bulk before the fire, a ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... philosophy and to heighten with the classic style of one who was "brought up upon Latin," the sheer, natural, incorrigible love of life, of such persons, rich or poor, as have the earth in their blood and the shrewd wisdom of the earth and the geniality of the earth, and the mischievous wantonness of the earth, and the old, sly chuckling malice of the earth, in their blood and ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... parsimonious of it on the cheeks and the nose of his sitter, he was driven to work off some of his superabundant stock on the cravat, and even the hands, which, though amicably crossed in front of the white-waistcoated stomach, are fearfully suggestive of some recent deed of blood. The pleasant geniality of the countenance is, however, reassuring. Nor—except a decided squint, by which the artist had ambitiously attempted to convey a humoristic drollery to the expression—is there anything sinister in ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... everybody in the car except his dark-eyed neighbor across the way. That this dispenser of smiles and cigars decided to leave her out in the distribution of his attentions perhaps spoke well for his discernment. Certainly responsiveness to the geniality of casual fellow passengers did not impress Mr. Collins as likely to be an outstanding, quality in her. But with the drummer from Chicago, the young mining engineer going to Sonora, the two shy little English children just in front of him traveling to meet their ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... with the greatest geniality. "Here, orderly, take his horse, but leave him his blankets. You'll need the blankets to-night, Harry, because you bunk with us in the Inn of the Greenwood Tree. We've got a special tree, too. See it there, the ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... him the sure instinct of the natural diagnostician, she knew enough to realise that his methods and knowledge were up to date. Even that manner of his, though a little forbidding, had the merit of inspiring confidence. One felt he was a big man and could afford to dispense with geniality. Yet it was perfectly apparent that his practice never came first with him. Esther had not been in the house with him half a week before she made that discovery. Every free minute of the day found ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... said, "take me to Ursula," and after he had kissed his newly-arrived daughter, he sat down in the faded drawing-room with much geniality, and took one child ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... absinthe he united opium. This, of course, Isaura knew not, any more than she knew of his liaison with the "Ondine" of his muse; she saw only the increasing delicacy of his face and form, contrasted by his increased geniality and liveliness of spirits, and the contrast saddened her. Intellectually, too, she felt for him compassion. She recognized and respected in him the yearnings of a genius too weak to perform a tithe of what, in the arrogance of youth, it promised to its ambition. She saw, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gentleman; even as he sat at his desk his well-cut coat and well-tied tie filled me with that inconsequent respect which the silk pyjamas had engendered in Raffles. But the great face that greeted us with a shrewd and rather scornful geniality impressed me yet more powerfully. In its massive features and its craggy contour it displayed the frank pugnacity of the pugilist rather than the low cunning of the traditional usurer; and the nose in particular, while of far healthier appearance than when ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... when near the house that he had not heard the familiar barking of the old hound; then he remembered that the sound of his horse's hoofs was muffled by the snow. He was glad to be unheralded. He would like to surprise Aurelia into geniality before her vicarious rancor for Basil's sake should be roused anew. As he emerged from the thick growths of the holly, with the icy scintillations of its clustering green leaves and red berries, he drew rein so suddenly that the horse was thrown back on his haunches. The rider sat as if petrified ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... associated with width of culture. Others, such as Moses and Judah Minz, Jacob Weil, and Israel Isserlein, whose influence was paramount in Germany in the fifteenth century, were less cultivated, but their learning was associated with a geniality and sense of humor that make their "Responses" very human and very entertaining. There is the same homely, affectionate air in the collection of Minhagim, or Customs, known as the Maharil, which belongs to the same period. On the other hand, David Abi Zimra, Rabbi of Cairo in the sixteenth ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... compared with a Jonson or a Milton. Herrick's personal eulogies on his friends and others, further, witness to the extension of the field of poetry after Elizabeth's age;—in which his enthusiastic geniality, his quick and easy transitions of ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... in cases of the utmost necessity no man, in my opinion, should doctor himself or his family. Whilst I was wondering how to arrange matters I chanced to meet Sir John Bell in consultation. After our business was over, developing an unusual geniality of manner, he proposed to walk a little way ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... he worked with. "Canny" Scotchmen and shrewd Yankees—ay, even Swiss innkeepers—felt the touch of his quality. There was, or there seemed to be, a geniality in the fellow that, in its apparent contempt for all worldliness, threw men off their guard, and it would have smacked of meanness to distrust a fellow ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... to inspire his supporters with hope. That he was every inch a man no friend or foe ever questioned. Ready, forceful, animated, keen, playful, by turns, and thoroughly artificial; he was one of the most admirable platform speakers that ever appeared before an American audience, his personal geniality, too, being so abounding that, excepting in a political sense, no antagonism existed between ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... as and more expensive than the Parliament, while only those did useful work who managed to confer, behind the scenes, with the authorities. To some extent this was done by Pribi[vc]evi['c] and to a greater extent by another Serb, Dr. Du[vs]an Popovi['c], who surpassed him in capacity and geniality. It was he, by the way, who demonstrated in the Buda-Pest Parliament that if the average Croat deputy was ignorant of the Magyar language, there was a greater ignorance of Serbo-Croatian on the part of the Magyars. ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... serve any moderately good man and the money would give a certain dignity and decisiveness to the goodness. All this is the English popular evil which goes along with the English popular virtues of geniality, of homeliness, tolerance and strong humour, hope and an enormous appetite for a hand-to-mouth happiness. The scene in which Kit takes his family to the theatre is a monument of the massive qualities of old English enjoyment. ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... great charm and geniality in society; even to Americans, though he detested America with the energy of fear—the fear of all who see its prosperity sapping the foundations of their class society. He died in 1865; and in 1867 his biography was published by Sir Theodore Martin, his collaborator. Martin's definition of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... to escape further cruelty, he ended his life by throwing himself from a window. For interference by Pope Gregory XVI with the Academy of the Lincei, and with public instruction generally, see Carutti, Storia della Accademia dei Lincei, p. 126. Pius IX, with all his geniality, seems to have allowed his hostility to voluntary associations to carry him very far at times. For his answer to an application made through Lord Odo Russell regarding a society for the prevention of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... people "like a house on fire" to the good qualities possessed by "other fellows." Even the comforts by which he was surrounded in his lodging by his landlady and former nurse, Mrs. Evans, he considered as the result of the dame's innate geniality, though the opinion entertained of her by underlings and by those who met her in the way of business was scarcely as favorable. He was a handsome fellow too, this Lawrence, six feet three, with a curly brown head and the frankest blue eyes that ever looked pityingly, ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM
... wonderful laugh Chesterton has. It is like a clap of thunder that suddenly startles the echoes in the valley; it is the very soul of geniality. There is nothing that so lays bare a man's character as his laugh—it cannot pretend. We can pretend to like; we can pretend to be pleased; we can pretend to listen; we can't pretend to laugh. Chesterton laughs because he is amused; he ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... enemy and contributing in no small measure to their subsequent speedy defeat. This decision on the part of the Captain, strange to say, met with universal and unqualified approval; for Dick's unassuming demeanour and geniality of manner had long since made him popular and a general favourite, while his superior intelligence, his almost instinctive grasp of everything pertaining to a ship and her management, and his dauntless courage, marked ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... on the boat. Back on the land, in my house, I took no before breakfast eye-opener, no bed-going nightcap. And I haven't drunk hot toddies since, and that was many a year ago. But the point is, I LIKED those toddies. The geniality of which they were provocative was marvellous. They were eloquent proselyters for John Barleycorn in their own small insidious way. They were tickles of the something destined to grow into daily and deadly desire. And I didn't know, ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... his table, peeling oranges and slicing pineapples for the ladies in his vicinity, sat the Bourgeois himself, laughing, jesting, and telling anecdotes with a geniality that was contagious. "'The gods are merry sometimes,' says Homer, 'and their laughter shakes Olympus!'" was the classical remark of Father de Berey, at the other end of the table. Jupiter did not laugh with less loss of dignity than ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... asking what there was for dinner, and she ran about like an excited little hen, chuckling and cackling. Claude wondered whether working-men were as nice as that to old women the world over. He didn't believe so. He liked to think that such geniality was common only in what he broadly called "the West." He bought a big cigar, and strolled up and down the platform, enjoying the fresh air until the passenger ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... one with corduroy velveteen trousers, an old white pack horse nosing windward of the smoke; one figure with sheepskin chaps to his waist, thumbs in his belt, standing erect with back to the trail; and face in light, a shaven face with a strong jaw and oily geniality, a corpulent form in a white vest, putting a pocket book ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... obtaining a fit and proper person for the post. Robert Hendrick was by birth and education an Ulster man; but having been for several years employed in the south-west, he had acquired something of that geniality, tact, and courtesy which is, perhaps, deficient in the hard Scotch character of the Northerns. There was nothing of professional piety or of the professional reader about Hendrick. A bright, active, smiling little man, he was soon a favourite in Tor Glen. His visits were made twice a-week, ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... And it was the geniality of his reply that won him a place in the society of Forks Settlement at once. In five minutes his horse was stabled and cared for. In five minutes he was addressing the occupants of the saloon by ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... paid for these excursions, and at the thought that the reprobate must get his pocket money where he got his board and lodging, from poor Esther's generosity, he had it almost in his heart to knock the old gentleman down. He, on his part, was full of airs and graces and geniality. ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at once laid aside the attire in which he had landed and had assumed Highland costume, and by the charm and geniality of his manner he completely won the hearts of all who came in contact with him. Among those who joined him at Moidart was Murray of Broughton, a man who was destined to exercise as destructive an ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... effulgent, was instantaneously present. Then equally without warning and without fading the smile ceased to be. Under its effulgence the observer unfamiliar with Mr. Rae's smile was moved, to a responsive geniality of expression, but in the full tide of this emotion he found himself suddenly regarding a face of such preternatural gravity as rebuked the very possibility or suggestion of geniality. Before the smile Mr. Rae's face was ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... about the eyes when they twinkled with laughter, which was often. No individual feature was especially striking, but the general impression of her countenance was of animation and activity, mingled with geniality ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... exuding geniality now. But just here Mr. Augustus Cabot spoke. Judging by his face, he had enjoyed the passage at arms between his cousin and his business agent hugely. Now he entered ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... cogent statement, his remorseless logic, his thorough knowledge of the persons and things that he discusses. In his sledge-hammer blows against humbug and wickedness, intellectual affectation, and moral baseness, he is the Blacksmith all over. In his geniality, his sociability, his genuine love of fun, his frank readiness to amuse or be amused, the epithet "harmonious" is abundantly justified. He cultivates to some extent the airs and tone of the eighteenth century, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... obscenities of the Swiss towns. Munich has little to show the American Sunday school superintendent on the loose. The ideal there is not a sharp and stinging deviltry, a swift massacre of all the commandments, but a liquid and tolerant geniality, a great forgiveness. Beer does not refine, perhaps, but at any rate it mellows. No Muenchener ever threw ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... and the diamond cross on the lace kerchief of the kneeling empress; recognizes the force of character, the self-dependence, the mental hardihood of the women, the business method displayed in their exercise of sentiment, and the exquisite mixture in their proceedings of tact, calculation, and geniality. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and as Juliet I shall henceforth speak of her (but without the adjective) in this narrative, wherein nothing has been kept back from the reader—Juliet's visit, then, had been a great success, for my colleague was really pleased by the attention, and displayed a quiet geniality that filled our ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... noble eccentric who appealed to tenderness, and keeping on with him, while they walked, to the next corner and the next. "You needn't tell me, you needn't tell me!"—this again as they proceeded, he wished to make Strether feel. What he needn't tell him was now at last, in the geniality of separation, anything at all it concerned him to know. He knew, up to the hilt—that really came over Chad; he understood, felt, recorded his vow; and they lingered on it as they had lingered in their walk to Strether's hotel the night of their first ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... a thousand times welcome to your new home," said he, in a stentorian voice, with a double infusion of geniality. "I claim the honor of showing you your part of the house, though 'tis all yours for that matter." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... discoursing, with an abandon and witchery I have observed in no one else, on subjects of art and letters, on men and manners, of nations past and present, until hours fled like moments, and time seemed utterly forgotten in the presence of geniality and genius. Then, starting gayly and suddenly to his feet, he remembered an engagement, and sped away so abruptly that his visit seemed to me but a vision breaking in on the monotony of our lives, too bright to ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... Charles had been tender with the Netherlands because of his life-long relation to its people. He looked a Netherlander rather than a Spaniard, and felt one, so that, so far as he showed favors, he showed them to this opulent people. Charles, with his many faults, had yet a rude geniality, which softened or seemed to soften his ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... step sounded on the stairs. Past the maid's white-strapped shoulder I could see a familiar thatch of gray hair, and in a moment I was face to face with Doctor Stewart. He was very grave, and his customary geniality was tinged ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the light geniality of Horace and the pure language of the Augustan age, but we mark the complexity and finesse of a later date, a form of thought bespeaking a comprehensive grasp, and suitable to subtle minds. But as regards his humour it depends much on exaggeration, and is proportionably weak, and beyond ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Everybody was glad to see Martin back. No book of his been published; he carried no fictitious value in their eyes. They liked him for himself. He felt like a prince returned from excile, and his lonely heart burgeoned in the geniality in which it bathed. He made a mad day of it, and was at his best. Also, he had money in his pockets, and, as in the old days when he returned from sea with a pay-day, he made ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... welcome to Dickens, and indeed to all who knew him, for his relish of social life was great, and something of his keen enjoyment could not but be shared by his company. His geniality would have carried with it a pleasurable glow even if it had stood alone, and it was invigorated by very considerable acquirements. He had some knowledge of the works of eminent authors and artists; and he had an eager interest in their lives and haunts, which ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the scent which, I maintain, hangs about there—that of rather spicy wickedness. I do not mean anything offensive in this; in fact, everything is conducted decently and in good order, also with a certain geniality; the suggestion is rather that you might be mildly wicked if you wanted to be. However, though we have to live in this world we ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... have maintained a constant geniality in their humor, even in the treatment of distressing themes. For example, Josh Billings made the announcement that one hornet, if it was feeling well, could break up a whole camp meeting. Bill Nye, Artemas Ward and many another American writer have given in profusion of amiable sillinesses ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... seemed to the lodge-keeper, as ten minutes later the gates rolled back again to welcome their lord, in an unusually genial temper (and, indeed, there was always about this old man as great a capacity for geniality on one side as for temper on the other; it is usually so with explosive characters). He even checked his horse and asked after "the missus" in so many words; although two days before a violent message had come down to complain of laxity ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... as he presently went about Paris, on his own business, and when he and Louis de Soyecourt encountered each other their friendliness was monstrous in its geniality. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... browbeat a proud and sensitive ruler, who, however inferior in the ordinary equipment for regular war, holds such valuable assets on his side. And my own experience is that the Afghans are not unreasonable. Like every one else, they will "try it on," but if handled courteously, kindly, with geniality, and, above all, with complete candour, they will generally see reason. And remember one thing. In spite of all that has happened, our mistakes, our bluster, our occasional lapses from complete disingenuousness, the Afghans still like us. Moreover, their hereditary ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... life is an awful mockery, under a flashing surface of sports concealing a bottomless pit of horror. Every observing person has probably known some few in his life who, in a degree, really believed the common notions concerning hell, and out of whom, consequently, all geniality, all bounding impulses, all magnanimous generosities, were crushed, and their countenances wore the perpetual livery of mourning, despair, and misanthropy. We will quote the confessions of two persons who may stand as representatives of the class of sincere ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... oaths to fight to the death. The great tribal combination had, however, broken up, and at the last moment they had decided upon peace. But the Pathan does nothing by halves. No black looks, no sullen reserve, marred the geniality of their welcome. As we approached the first fortified village the sovereign and his army rode out to meet us, and with many protestations of fidelity, expressed his joy at our safe arrival. He was a fine-looking man and ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... man of that Revolution, as of our own Revolution, was Lafayette. His convictions regarding the rights of man were essentially the same as those held by Robespierre and St. Just; but they were convictions that grew out of the inherent geniality, benevolence, and rectitude of his nature, and were accordingly guided and limited in their application by the sanity and sweetness of the sentiments whence they drew their vitality. Whilst they made him capable of any self-sacrifice for freedom and humanity, they made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... the supper-table the personification of quiet geniality, but Amy thought she had never seen him look so hollow-eyed. The long strain was beginning to tell on him, decidedly, and to-night he felt as if he had received a mortal blow. But with indomitable courage he hid his wound, and seemed absorbed in a conversation with Leonard and his father ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... Brown's sweetness of disposition and charm of manner, his humour, and his unfailing sympathy and encouragement, made one feel toward him as to a familiar friend, yet, of his actual life I saw but little, and have few reminiscences to contribute. One can only speak of that singular geniality of his, that temper of goodness and natural tolerance and affection, which, as Scotsmen best know, is not universal among the Scots. Our race does not need to pray, like the mechanic in the story, that Providence will give us "a good conceit ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... uppermost, not hesitating at even a little humorous extravagance if it added point to his statement; but in such cases the keen eye took a merry twinkle accentuated by the crow-foot lines in the corner, so that the real geniality and kindliness that underlay the brusque exterior were sufficiently apparent. The general effect was of a nature of intense, restless activity, both physical and mental. In conversation he poured out a wealth of original and striking ideas, from a full experience, observation, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... return again, was clearly enough felt by Sebastian the elder—a time like that of William the Silent, with its insane civil animosities, which would demand similarly energetic personalities, and offer them similar opportunities. And then, it was part of his honest geniality of character to admire those who "get on" in the world. Himself had been, almost from boyhood, in contact with great affairs. A member of the States-General which had taken so hardly the kingly airs of Frederick Henry, he had assisted at the Congress of Munster, and figures conspicuously ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... was praised for having written "the first clever book . . . in which an honest attempt is made to do justice to the Welsh literature," for knowing far more than most educated Welshmen about that literature, and for describing his travels and encounters "with much of the freshness, humour and geniality of his earlier days," for writing in fact "the best book ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... to look at and pleasant to read—pleasant from its rich store of anecdote, its geniality, and its humour, even to persons who care little for the subjects of which it treats, but beyond measure delightful to those who are in any degree members of ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... while his mouth was stopped with the cigar his companion or interlocutor leaped to his feet and said with great heartiness, snatching up a hat, "Well, I must be off. Tuesday!". I dislike these dark suspicions, but I certainly fancied I recognised the sudden geniality with which one takes ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... of positive geniality illuminated Mr. Peters' pinched features. He even went so far as to pat ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... a certain geniality] My dear fellow, I don't want to put a pistol to your head. You've had a slack rein so far. I've never objected to your sowing a few wild oats-so long as you —er—[Unseen by SIR WILLIAM, BILL makes a sudden movement] Short of that—at all events, I've not inquired into your affairs. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... little town like Banfield good tidings spread just as rapidly as bad, among the better souls. News of the Pentons' hospitality and geniality went abroad until many of the ladies of Banfield desired to see more of Mrs. Penton, and, incidentally, her husband. Using the dentist's wife as a medium, they secured introductions to Mrs. Penton. Soon pink-teas ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... and the indulgent father. This was one of his parts in the popular comedy he was performing,—a make-up he had adopted and which suited him about as well as the masks worn on the classic stage by paternal actors, who seen from one side, were the image of geniality, and from the other showed lips drawn down in chronic ill-temper. Let us hasten to say that in private the genial side descended to the level of the other, so that generally the indulgent man disappeared to give ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... religious scruples; but with this Joyce was hardly concerned, having little comprehension of all that gossips implied. She was delighted to requite so much self-sacrifice on the doctor's part with all the geniality she could command. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... little escapes and corner-holes does the sensibility, the fineness, (that of which refinement is but a counterfeit, at best but a reflex,) the geniality of nature appear in this 'son of thunder!' O for a Luther in the present age! Why, Charles! [3] with the very handcuffs of his prejudices he would knock out the brains (nay, that is impossible, but,) he would split the skulls of our 'Cristo-galli', translate the word as you like:—French Christians, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... an attractive lady with dark hair and eyebrows and dancing eyes, and there was a geniality and even generosity in her rather imperious ways. In most matters she could command her brother, though that nobleman, like many other men of vague ideas, was not without a touch of the bully when he was ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... up as before into a dressing-room, where I was presented to many gentlemen and ladies. When we go in, the cheering, clapping, and stamping at first strikes one with a strange sensation; but then everybody looks so heartily pleased and delighted, and there is such an all-pervading atmosphere of geniality and sympathy, as makes me in a few moments feel quite at home. After all, I consider that these cheers and applauses are Scotland's voice to America, a recognition of ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... bit dreadful, but very quick to see what kind of a man Henry was. In a minute he was on the best of terms with them. He had on what I used to call his best "Jingle" manner—a manner full of refinement, bonhomie, elegance and geniality. ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... him she stood where she was. The man who faced her, with all his old confusion of nervousness and uneasy geniality, was, indeed, Uncle Mathew, but Uncle Mathew glorified, shabbily glorified and at the same time a little abashed as though she had caught him in the act of laying a mine that would blow up the whole house. He was wearing finer clothes ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... in France and dine well (and cheaply)" might readily be the motto of all travellers in France. The bountiful fare, the local colour, the hearty greeting, and equally hearty farewell of the patronne, and the geniality of the whole personnel gave us an exceedingly good impression of the contrast between the tourist hotel of Blois and the maison bourgeois of Tours, always to the advantage of ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... inch, his back his broad, his step springy; he carries his head erect on his massive shoulders with a leonine air of good-humoured defiance. To hear him greet you, to feel his hand-shake, is to get a lesson in geniality. I never knew a man who had so whole-hearted a contempt for insincerity and affectation. It was only the other day that I saw little TOM TITTERTON, of the Diplomatic Service, introduced to him. TOM is a devil of a fellow in Society. He warbles little songs of his own composition at afternoon teas, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... congregation rose and began slowly to file into the aisle. For a moment they mingled; there was the silent grasping of damp woollen mittens and cold black gloves, and the whispered interchange of each other's names with the prefix of "Brother" or "Sister," and an utter absence of fraternal geniality, and ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... is in his blood. Charley Vanderhuyn bore a good old Dutch name—I have heard that the Van der Huyns were a famous and noble family; his Dutch blood was mingled with other good strains, and the whole was mellowed into generousness and geniality in generations of prosperous ancestors; for the richest and choicest fruit (and the rankest weeds as well!) can be produced only in the sunlight. And a very choice fruit of a very choice stock was and is our Charley Vanderhuyn. ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... it with a grim kind of geniality, at which I did not know whether to be encouraged or not: I did as he told me, and looked about me with as easy an air as ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... quivered and palpitated, with literary ardour, in a manner strangely exciting to me. Miss Marks, in a very high cap, and her large teeth shining, would occasionally appear in the doorway, desiring, with spurious geniality, to know how we were 'getting on'. But on these occasions neither of us replied to ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... people produced an immediate soothing and mollifying effect upon the skipper's curious temper; he made an obvious effort to infuse his rather truculent-looking features with an amiable expression, and replied, in tones of somewhat forced geniality— ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... remonstrated. She was deeply wounded. It had not been her father's way to make baseless, unjust charges against her. Shiftless and blind he had been; but there had been a geniality about him which had softened his faults to ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... "I'll sit here and read for a few minutes," she said, as she tucked Eleanor under the covers. Then, since she was quite desperate for subjects of conversation, and still determined by the hot memory of her night's vigil to leave no stone of geniality unturned, she added: ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... paragraphic journalists, and middle-aged ladies, who, having once been, or been once, on the stage, still affect the skittish manners of a ballet-dancer. He is a man of short speech, but his humour is as broad as his drinks are long. He affects a rowdy geniality and a swaggering gait, by which he seeks to overawe the inoffensive. Though he has but a small stock of intelligence, he passes for a wit amongst his associates by dint of perpetually repeating an inane catch-word. With this, and a stamp of the foot, he will greet a friend ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... and caught her eye. Her smile went back in and she gave me a cold look of suspicion. Then I laughed, and laid down on the floor to laugh easier. It seemed funny to me. By nature and geniality I am a hearty laugher, and I went the limit. When I came to, Mame was sitting with her back to ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry |
