"Suavity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Wilfrid Ward, the same thing may be said. As a Catholic apologist he was a model of candor and suavity. He was, moreover, a most agreeable man of the world, among his accomplishments being that of an admirable mimic. He was, however, best known as an exponent of Catholic liberalism; and, since I am here concerned only with recollections ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... drink. I fancied even an accession to the subdued suavity of his manner as he picked up and replaced on the tuckerbox the empty pannikin which Bum had thanklessly tossed on the ground at his feet. Then he resumed his place; and Thompson, palpably turning his back on Dixon and Bum, selected ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... rage. He was now convinced that the suavity of his colleague concealed a craftiness he had never suspected, and he felt sure that Everett had taken advantage of his absence to strike an underhanded blow. Banishing a desire to fell the other to the ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... Mr. Plaisted, but I am very, very sorry," said Gussie, who felt all the insolence of the words that were spoken with such suavity. "Why will you call her Dexter when you know that it makes her ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... type. He dressed always in black, and the closely-buttoned jacket revealed the spareness of his body. He was met often in the evening, going to dine at the Cock; but was rarely seen walking about the Temple in the day-time. It was impossible to meet any one more suasive and agreeable; his suavity was penetrating as his small dark eyes. He lived in Elm Court, and his rooms impressed you with a sense of cleanliness and comfort. The furniture was all in solid mahogany; there were no knick-knacks or any lightness, and almost the only aesthetic intentions were a few sober engravings—portraits ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... friend being come into the presence of his constituents, and having professed with great suavity that he was delighted to see his good friend Tipkisson there, in his working- dress - his good friend Tipkisson being an inveterate saddler, who always opposes him, and for whom he has a mortal hatred - made them a brisk, ginger-beery sort ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... his intellectual seemed to have swallowed up his emotional nature, as Aaron's rod did those of the magicians of Pharaoh, and only the absence of dogmatism, and the habitual suavity of his manner, atoned for his unbending obstinacy ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... into the dark streets, where the wind, despite the smell of burnt gasolene and army camps, had a faint suavity, something like the smell of mushrooms; the smell ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... being bored, yet with an irrepressible curiosity, Mrs. De Peyster, piano-lover, awaited during the morning and early forenoon Mary's first assault upon the instrument. She would be crude, no doubt of it; no technique, no poetic suavity of touch, no sense ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... occupy a modest corner of the library while he is holding his moot court; infusing into the dignity of his manner a marked suavity of disposition which never forsook him; or he is perpetrating some appropriate legal joke to his audience, who never played upon his ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Fukara sheukh surpass all men in their coffee-drinking courtesy, and Zeyd himself was more than any large of this gentlemen-like imposture: he was full of swaggering complacence and compliments to an humbler person. With what suavity could he encourage, and gently too compel a man, and rising himself yield him parcel of another man's room! In such fashions Zeyd showed himself a bountiful great man, who indeed was the greatest niggard. The cups are drunk twice ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... this wise. When the Congress of the Powers assembled at Berlin in the summer of 1878, our Ambassador in that city of stucco palaces was the loved and lamented Lord Odo Russell, afterwards Lord Ampthill, a born diplomatist if ever there was one, with a suavity and affectionateness of manner and a charm of voice which would have enabled him, in homely phrase, to whistle the bird off the bough. On the evening before the formal opening of the Congress Lord Beaconsfield arrived in all ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... triumvirate was broken in upon by Tom, who, with his usual suavity of manners, politely addressed himself to the unknown, on the common topic of weather, et cetera, without eliciting in reply more than an assenting or dissenting monosyllable, "You ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... on with Lesley. But his good-humor was gone: the usual suavity of his manner was a little ruffled. His recognition of Mary Kingston had evidently been displeasing as ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... others, although as a traveller she had no advantage of them. Urged thereto by her worldly mother, she led a sort of trivial, butterfly existence, and her character was decidedly superficial to any close observer. Indeed, her very suavity and sweetness of manner was assumed, because it was so much more comfortable and effective to be agreeable than otherwise. She was now past seventeen years of age, tall and well formed, with a delicate and attractive face which, without being beautiful, was considered pleasant ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... on deck, on the day after the exciting event, he greeted Shuffles with his accustomed suavity, and seemed not to bear any malice in his heart against the author of his misfortune. Officers and seamen as well as the principal and the professors, congratulated him upon his escape from the peril which ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... satisfied. There was a general impression that if Vienna ever became the capital of a Republic the archives would be opened and the truth of the Meyerling tragedy given to the world. But all documents relating to private scandals must have been destroyed." She spoke with the utmost suavity, the patient hostess with rather tiresome guests. "People in Vienna, I assure you, take very little interest in that old scandal. They are too busy and too uncomfortable making history of ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... tone with the lower classes. The return home of Theodore Sedgwick in the latter part of December, gave a marked impulse to the government party, of whom he was at once recognized as the leader. He had the iron hand of Woodbridge, with a velvet glove of suavity, which the other lacked. To command seemed natural to him, but he could persuade with as much dignity as he could command, a gift at once rare and most needful in the present emergency. He it was who wore into the ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... meant perpetuity to us, don't you see?" She makes her points with a directness and simplicity that should disarm even the diplomatic suavity of Uncle Sam when he meets her in Washington. "Year after year the Cherokees waited for the Government to pay. And at last, three years ago, it came to us—$133.19 to each Indian, seventy-eight years after the removal from ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... and stationed him in the bullet-scarred bar-room of the ranch, with strict orders to allow not a drop to be drawn or served to any one without the sanction of Sergeant Feeny or his superior officer, the major. Even the humiliation of this proceeding had in no wise disturbed Moreno's suavity. "All I possess is at your feet," he had said to the major, with Castilian grace and gravity; "take or withhold it as ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... rivers, torrential or dry or overburdened," blinding dust, nerves upset by steady northern blasts or by the intermittent gusts of the sirocco. A sensual race choleric and impetuous, with no intellectual or moral ballast, in which the mixture of Celt and Latin has destroyed the humane suavity of the Celt and the serious earnestness of the Roman; "complete, tough, powerful, and restless men,"[2401] and yet gay, spontaneous, eloquent, dupes of their own bombast, suddenly carried away by a flow of words and superficial enthusiasm. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... his lips. It was the second time he had been worsted, and this time on his own ground. His forced politeness sat awkwardly upon him, and approached almost to impertinence. Monte Cristo on the contrary, preserved a graceful suavity of demeanor, aided by a certain degree of simplicity he could assume at pleasure, and thus ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... legitimate places for dozers. But there is no accounting for that conquering spirit of all-besetting drowsiness that attacks us at sundry times and places. It is in vain that we lengthen our limbs into an awakening stretch—that we yawn with the expressive suavity of yawning no more—that we dislocate our knuckle bones, and ruffle the symmetry of our visage, with a manual application; like the cleft blaze of a candle, drowsiness returns again. Well, then, what manner of reader ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... popularly ascribed to Homer. He fell in love with Lucrezia (del Fede), wife of a hatter named Carlo Recanati; the hatter dying opportunely, the tailor's son married her on the 26th of December 1512. She was a very handsome woman and has come down to us treated with great suavity in many a picture of her lover-husband, who constantly painted her as a Madonna and otherwise; and even in painting other women he made them resemble Lucrezia in general type. She has been much less gently handled by ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... created his Chinese hero in "The Poppies of Wu Fong," dramatized Oriental inscrutability with Occidental suavity and sureness, and set off the Oriental gentleman in American surroundings, he brought together the nations in a new vision of the brotherhood of man. This story was preferred, for the reasons implied, by Frances Gilchrist ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... rather exclusive, but it is difficult to say what qualification entitles a man to be received into "society." The entree at Government House is not sufficient; but a uniform is powerful, and wealth is omnipotent. The present governor, Mr. Dominick Daly, is a man of great suavity of manner. He has a large amount of finesse, which is needful in a colony where people like the supposition that they govern themselves, but where it is absolutely necessary that a firm hand should hold the reins. The island is prospering ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... asked with terrible suavity. Leaning over on his spade, Jeremy Pitt hung his head a little, and shifted uncomfortably on his bare feet. Vainly he groped for an answer in a mind that could do nothing but curse the idiocy ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... 'Golden Legend!' A pearl, Excellence! a ruby, a diamond! Two miniatures so perfect that they give one the feeling of glimpses of Paradise! What suavity! Those colours ravished from the corollas of flowers make a honey for the eyes! Even a Sicilian could ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... he corrected, with a dangerous suavity. "I acknowledge the claim enjoyed by your sex to the last word. In this matter, however, I am inclined to deny it ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... in a transport of gratitude, at which Guiberto smiled with his usual grace and suavity. 'O Guiberto! Guiberto! my heart is breaking. Why should she want you to comfort her?—but—comfort her then!' and he covered his face ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... approachable, he was a manly man, with courage of conviction, and, while urging them with a zeal born of honest belief, had the inestimable faculty of winning adherents by strength of presentation, blended with suavity of manner. He was conspicuous in this, that his broad soul expanded with tender and affectionate regard for the poor and humble. Reserved in manner, magnanimous and catholic in a spirit that embraced the 'world as his country, and all mankind as his countrymen.' So in the archives ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... an old woman for a dilapidated lot of old books. He had a curious quizzical way with strangers, who at once set him down as an oddity, and his impatience with ignoramuses and bores gave him the repute of crustiness, which was redeemed by suavity enough whenever he met with people ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... answers fraught with various reasons, thou wilt, O sinless one, be able to remove the eagerness of the lord of the celestial for the possession of the ear-rings. Do thou, O Karna, alter Purandara's purpose by urging answers fraught with reason and grave import and adorned with sweetness and suavity. Thou dost always, O tiger among men, challenge him that can draw the bow with his left hand, and heroic Arjuna also will surely encounter thee in fight. But when furnished with thy ear-rings, Arjuna will never be able to vanquish thee in fight even if Indra ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... lingered in Virginia, lengthening his stay from week to week, because the old world quaintness of the people, the freshness and yet antiquity of thought prevalent among them, charmed him, pleased the aesthetic side of his nature, as the softness of their voices pleased his ear, and the suavity of their manners, his taste. He was tired to death of the old routine, weary beyond expression of the beaten track, of the sameness of the old treadmill of thought. Here he ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... the Oeil-de-Boeuf. Stinginess has fled from these royal abodes: suppression ceases; your Besenval may go peaceably to sleep, sure that he shall awake unplundered. Smiling Plenty, as if conjured by some enchanter, has returned; scatters contentment from her new-flowing horn. And mark what suavity of manners! A bland smile distinguishes our Controller: to all men he listens with an air of interest, nay of anticipation; makes their own wish clear to themselves, and grants it; or at least, grants conditional promise of it. "I fear this is a matter of difficulty," said ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the message, swore under his breath, and looked sharply at Mhtoon Pah when he came into the room. Usually the curio dealer had a smile and a suave, pleasant manner, but on this occasion all his suavity was gone, and his eyes, usually so inexpressive and secret, were lighted with a strange, wolfish look of anger and rage that ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... squarely, sat Jose Dominguez, a neatly built Mexican with snapping black eyes, a manner of pleasant suavity, and an ever-ready smile that displayed a double row of shining white teeth. That smile did not for an instant deceive Luck. He knew that Jose had no grudge against him, that he was a very respectable citizen, and that he would regretfully shoot him full of holes if occasion called for so ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... lady, you were proposing to sell the place outright for twenty thousand francs," said Boniface with much suavity. "The interest on twenty thousand francs is only twelve hundred francs per annum at six ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... of suavity, due to the absolute repose of both body and mind; but though that species of calmness softened but slightly the harsh expression of the count's features, all illusion granted to the unhappy is so persuasive ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... tell me," he said with exasperating suavity. "You really want to talk with me because you regret that my sermon was ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... assumed by the fair ones, more particularly Charlotte, who took pattern from life in the States, were amusing. She acted her part to perfection; she was the centre of attraction, the belle of the evening. She treated the suitors for the pleasure of the next set with becoming ease and suavity of manner; she knew her worth, and managed accordingly. When the favoured gallant stood by her side waiting for the rudely scraped tune from a screeching fiddle, satisfaction, joy, and triumph over his rivals were pictured on ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... approached the shore, Columbus was delighted with the purity and suavity of the atmosphere, the crystal transparency of the sea, and the extraordinary beauty of the vegetation. He beheld also fruits of an unknown kind upon the trees which ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... madame bethink her of it. Garnache need not plague himself with vexation that his rash temper alone had wrought his ruin now. It had but accelerated it. It was just possible, perhaps, that suavity might have offered him opportunities; but, for the rest, from the moment that he showed himself firm in his resolve to carry mademoiselle to Paris, his doom was sealed. Madame would never willingly have allowed him to leave Condillac alive, for she realized that did she do so he would stir up ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... who was produced as a medical expert, a laboring man who some years before, and in another part of the country, had been engaged by him as a builder of post and rail fences. With this cue he opened his examination. "You say, doctor," he began, with great diffidence and suavity, "that you operated upon Mr. ———'s head after it was ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... satisfaction of the board, which recommended that Congress confer on the hero some distinguished mark of approbation. A committee was appointed to question Jones personally, and the impression he made upon it is another proof of the remarkable suavity, plausibility and magnetism of the man. One ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... sensibility from disagreeable contacts, and to soothe it by varied natural and artificial influences. In this way the mind, the taste, the feelings, grow delicate, just as the hands grow white and soft when saved from toil and incased in soft gloves. The whole nature becomes subdued into suavity. I confess I like the quality ladies better than the common kind even of literary ones. They have n't read the last book, perhaps, but they attend better to you when you are talking to them. If they are ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... well into the autumn of life; but her form possessed something of the elegance of the Spanish dames of the colonial period; her countenance bore an expression of benevolence, which emanated from a gentle and affectionate heart; and her manner combined both dignity and suavity. She greeted the priest tenderly, and expressed mingled surprise and joy that he felt able to leave his bed so soon. But as her eyes caught Rosendo's meaning glance, and then turned to the child, they seemed to indicate a full ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... as he had been when he went to bed. He came down to the charming breakfast-room in the most sanguine of moods. But then his moods usually were sanguine. It was scarcely to be wondered at. Fortune had treated him with great suavity from his earliest years. Wellborn, comfortably trained, healthy and easy-natured, the world had always turned its pleasant side to him. As a young man, he had been a strong, handsome fellow, whose convenient patrimony had placed him beyond the possibility of entire dependence upon his ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with the utmost suavity, stretching forth my hand, 'may I place your hat on this shelf out of the way, where it will not incommode ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... smiling as I lay awake and thoughtful on my couch— smiling at Madame. The unction, the suavity of her behaviour offered, for one who knew her, a sure token that suspicion of some kind was busy in her brain. From some aperture or summit of observation, through parted bough or open window, she had doubtless caught ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... at him, hesitating, studying. It was hardly a fair contest, this of youth and scant experience against suavity and shrewdness strengthened by years of ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... His face was the grave face of a man accustomed from of old not only to command, but to assume the responsibility of his orders; when they were carried out, his manner was a happy mixture of the haughty sternness of a soldier and the complacent suavity of the courtier, tempered both by the spirit of frankness and geniality born of the free life of a Virginia ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... reproduced itself, with startling similarity, in the youth whose sensibilities had been so sharpened by long pampering in the hot-house atmosphere of luxurious idleness; and an attitude of constant flattery and suavity from the men and women in whose eyes he was always haloed by a crown of thousand-rouble pieces. To-day, how different his estate! He saw his world now with the eyes of the outsider. And what a thing it was!—This ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Miss Delany to call on his sister and mother. They were much pleased with their visitor. Her manner was a combination of suavity and dignity. During the course of the evening they learned that she was a graduate of the University of A——. One day she saw in the newspapers that colored women were becoming unfit to be servants for white people. She then ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... library a minute later with both hands outstretched. "Oh, my dear, what a comedy this is!" It was not often that her manner forsook its ladylike suavity. "What a comedy! But of course you don't know. Nobody knows, thank God! But we must tell you." She turned to her husband. "Will you tell her, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... said Mr. Stanton, with suavity, and he held out his hand, which Ralph did not appear to see. Ralph Pendleton rich was a very different person from Ralph Pendleton poor, and it occurred to him that he might so far ingratiate himself into the favor of his ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... systems debated their merits with suavity and mutual respect, but they met with scornful silence a compromising spirit who held that it was better to throw off your coat and boots, but keep your pantaloons on. Meanwhile, the steamer was hanging idle upon the current, against which it now and then ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... expressing much new-born good will, to intimate that his cause lay in the belief that the prisoner was a great white conjuror, who could help him to a solution of sundry interesting questions, the old chief pronounced with much solemnity and suavity; and he betrayed an inclination to continue it, the captors of Nathan standing by and looking on with vast and eager interest. But a sudden and startling yell from the Indians who had charge of the young Virginian, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... courtesy; respect &c 928; good manners, good behavior, good breeding; manners; politeness &c adj.; bienseance, urbanity, comity, gentility, breeding, polish, presence; civility, civilization; amenity, suavity; good temper, good humor; amiability, easy temper, complacency, soft tongue, mansuetude; condescension &c (humility) 879; affability, complaisance, prevenance, amability^, gallantry; pink of politeness, pink of courtesy. compliment; fair words, soft words, sweet words; honeyed ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Johnson," answered the chairman, with a barber's suavity, "you have as much right to be heard as any one else. There was no intention ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... talents for drawing on paper are much greater than those of Charles Kean for drawing upon the stage, met together at Somerset House, on Monday last, to distribute prizes among their scholars. Prince Albert presided, gave away the prizes with great suavity, and made a speech which occupied exactly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... respect of suavity and forbearance Melancthon was the counterpart of Luther. John Arrowsmith (1602-1657), in his Tractica Sacra, describes him as "Vir in quo cum pietate doctrina, et ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... With suavity equal to his own The governor lent a patient ear To the speech evasive and highflown, In which he endeavored to make clear That colonial laws were too severe When applied to a gallant cavalier, A gentleman ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... wish to interfere with you," the student answered. "My presence here is entirely accidental. All I ask is that you will have the extreme kindness to show me out through some side door." He spoke with great suavity, for the man was still pressing the tip of his dagger against the palm of his left hand, as though to assure himself of its sharpness, while his face preserved its ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... manner was urbane but, observing him closely, Mrs. Toomey noted that his eyes suddenly presented the curious illusion of two slate-gray pools covered with skim ice. It was not an encouraging sign and her heart sank in spite of the superlative suavity of the tone in ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... There is no actual development in the sense of volumnear increase. In "Scheherazade," for instance, the climaxes are purely voluntary, are nothing other than the arbitrary thickening and distention of certain ideas. And it is only the spiciness of the thematic material, the nimbleness and suavity of the composition, and, chiefly, the piquancy of the orchestral speech, that saves the music of Rimsky-Korsakoff from utter brittleness, and gives it a certain ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... ground with twitching lips, with frantic haste we cut the rope, and in a few seconds he rose to his feet, discovering that he was in the land of the living with a joyful whinnying. If he had not been endowed with the suavity of a gentleman and the long-suffering of a saint, he would have walked off, for the yard was in a disreputable state of repair, and we were all shaky from the effects of nerve-shock. But no, in spite of abuse ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... voluntary kind, forms of zealously united effort such as are never dreamt of in the countries supposed to be eminently "social." Sociability does not consist in a readiness to talk at large with the first comer. It is not dependent upon natural grace and suavity; it is compatible, indeed, with thoroughly awkward and all but brutal manners. The English have never (at all events, for some two centuries past) inclined to the purely ceremonial or mirthful forms of sociability; but as regards every prime interest ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... said Lady Monmouth, turning quickly on the sofa; then, collecting herself in an instant, she continued with less abruptness, and more suavity than usual, 'Tell me, Flora, what is it; ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... that is all Beethoven, or Schubert, or Schumann has got to say to us for the moment, and what a say it is! And with what consummate precision and perfection it is said—with what a mathematical certainty, and yet with what suavity, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... rejoined the voice, with perfect suavity. "No doubt there are many weak and foolish persons who commit crimes,—nay, I will admit that the vast majority of criminals are weak and foolish; but that does not affect the dignity of the true sinner,—he who sins from exalted motives. Ignorance is the only real crime, polluting deeds ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... appealed to. He gave a diplomatic reply. It had been held, he said, by two chairmen that smoking was not in order at the public sessions of a Standing Committee; and, of course, if his ruling were formally asked he would be bound to follow precedent. He said this with a suavity and a smile which disarmed any possible objector. Nobody raised the formal point of order; so other members "lighted up," and the proceedings went on peacefully to the ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... polite inquiries; and as he pictured the scene his spirits rose. The thunder- figure that had poked a bow at him from the cab would come dragonish into the drawing-room where he waited. Her he would charm with the suavity of his manners; she would doff the dragon's skin; would say (he had read the scene in novels), "You would like ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... rather stern features, and a thinning of the dark hair upon the top of his head, which was worth quite a hundred a year to him. He was particularly happy in his management of ladies. He had caught the tone of bland sternness and decisive suavity which dominates without offending. Ladies, however, were not equally happy in their management of him. Professionally, he was always at their service. Socially, he was a drop of quicksilver. In vain the country mammas spread out their simple lures in front of him. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the fact to Mrs. Markham. That lady busied herself with some goods until Mrs. Ridgeley had completed her purchases, when she approached her with her natural graciousness, which was so spontaneous that it was hardly a virtue, and was met with much of her own frank suavity. These ladies never discussed the weather, or their neighbors, or hired girls,—which latter one of them did not have; and with a moment's inquiry after each other's welfare, in which each omitted the family of the other, Mrs. ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... Estella clearly indicated that his business lay with Conyngham. He was the incarnation of the Continental ideal of the polished cold Englishman, and had the air of a diplomate such as this country sends to foreign Courts to praise or blame, to declare friendship or war with the same calm suavity and imperturbable politeness. ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... resting-place. It is thus we are taught the whole circle of what are called accomplishments, dancing, music, fencing, and the rest; and it is surely a strange anomaly, if those things which are most essential in raising the mind to its true standard, cannot be communicated with equal suavity and kindness, be surrounded with allurements, and regarded as sources of pleasure ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... assurance than his culture. Of the latter quality he has so little that the best clubs of which he is a member tolerate rather than accept him. In most cases he is deplorably curt of speech and brusque of deportment. Suavity, repose, that kindliness which is the very marrow and pith of high-breeding, shock you in his manners as acutely by their absence as if they were rents in his waistcoat or gapes in his boot-leather. The "bluff," impudence, and swagger of the Stock Exchange cling to him in society like burrs to ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... have an inkling of what I am going to ask you to do." The Chamberlain brought out the euphemism with the utmost suavity. "I have made up my mind not to ignore the indignity to which Russia was subjected last year by Japan, but to inflict upon it such punishment as I find it in my power to compass. It was my intention to build a flotilla here, but owing to the diseased condition and reduced numbers of the employees, ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... a side glance of amazement at her, not because he was particularly struck by her charming suavity and marked winsomeness, but rather because the violin tone in her throat resounded more strongly and clearly than ever. But it was quite impossible for him to give an affirmative reply to her question without puckering up his lips ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... ripe age, had a physiognomy very intellectual and lofty, a look of remarkable sagacity and depth of thought, and a smile of extreme goodness. His naturally harmonious voice became full of kindness when he spoke to the lunatics; thus the suavity of his tone and the benevolence of his words seemed oft to calm the natural irritability of these unfortunate people. He was among the first to substitute, in his treatment for madness, commiseration and benevolence for the terrible coercive means employed formerly; no more chains, no more blows, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... table and the sitting room. Old Man Hooper offered me a cigar, and sat down deliberately to entertain me. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he was also amusing himself, as though I were being played with and covertly sneered at. Hooper's politeness and suavity concealed, and well concealed, a bitter irony. His manner was detached and a little precise. Every few moments he burst into a flurry of activity with the fly whacker, darting here and there as his eyes ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... The Judge's suavity clothed him like velvet. "I know nothing about his honesty. I doubt if any one does. He may be a liar and yet speak the truth, I suppose, from unscrupulous motives. But I am not maintaining that ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... replied Ryder recovering his self-possession and suavity of manner. "I disagree with his politics and his methods, but—I know very little about him except that he is about to ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... council of Philip selected Gasca as the person most competent to undertake the perilous mission to Peru.8 His character, indeed, seemed especially suited to it. His loyalty had been shown through his whole life. With great suavity of manners he combined the most intrepid resolution. Though his demeanor was humble, as beseemed his calling, it was far from abject; for he was sustained by a conscious rectitude of purpose, that impressed ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... prevented me, till at length I thought no more of it, but resolved to enjoy his fascinating company in private, and by all means to keep my own with him. The resolution was vain: I set a bold face to it, but my powers were inadequate to the task; my adherent, with all the suavity imaginable, was sure to carry his point. I sometimes fumed, and sometimes shed tears at being obliged to yield to proposals against which I had at first felt every reasoning power of my soul rise in opposition; but for all that he never faded in carrying conviction along with him in ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... winced. A rosy flush of indignation mantled his cheeks, and only his habitual respect for the landed gentry (whom he was accustomed to call the backbone of England) checked him on the verge of a severe retort. As it was, he answered with fine suavity. ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... But Karl was all suavity. "So," he said, "while Niburg was unconscious the large man took the letter, which was sealed, magically opened it, extracted its contents, replaced them with—this, and then sealed ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... there was intercourse between his household and that of the literary man. Intimacy it could not be called, for Mrs Edmund (who was the daughter of a law-stationer) had much difficulty in behaving to Mrs Alfred with show of suavity. Still, the cousins Amy and Marian from time to time saw each other, and were not unsuitable companions. It was the death of Amy's father that brought these relations to an end; left to the control of her own affairs Mrs ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... sure I wish I could tell you," said Conward, with all his accustomed suavity. In truth Conward, having somewhat recovered from his fright, was in rather good spirits. Things had gone better than he had dared to hope. Elden was eliminated, for the present at any rate, and now was the time to win Irene. ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... began, with the sweetest suavity. "I was afraid for the moment that we had got into the wrong place. This is the—" ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... a smile of the utmost suavity. "And, understand me, youngster," he continued, with a sudden change to sternness in his manner, that disconcerted me a great deal more than I should have cared for him to know, "if you decide to join us you must do so wholeheartedly, and ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... by some allusion to Moliere which he thought he understood, made reference to the unfortunate influence of that great man on the religious opinions of his time. Jacobi, by a flash of inspiration, divined that he had confused Moliere with Voltaire, and assuming a manner of extreme suavity, he put his victim on the rack, and tortured him with affected explanations and interrogations, until Madeleine was in a manner forced to interrupt and end the scene. But even when the senator was not to be lured into a trap, he could not escape assault. ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... fusion! Now, do not run away, reader, with the idea of an Eastern princess, with gorgeous black eyes, raven hair, tall and graceful form, etcetera! This apparition was fair, blue-eyed, golden-haired, girlish, sylph-like. She was graceful, indeed, as the gazelle, but not tall, and with an air of suavity that was irresistibly attractive. She had a "good" face as well as a beautiful, and there was a slightly pitiful look about the eyebrows that seemed ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... her, took off his hat and accosted her by some name which caused her to turn like a beast at bay. Nothing abashed, Gil asked her a question which clapped a hand to her side and sent her cowering to the wall. She leaned panting there while he talked rapidly, explaining with suavity and point. It was very interesting to Manvers to watch these two together, to see, for instance, how Gil Perez comported himself out of his master's presence; or how Manuela dealt with one of her own nation. They became strangers to him, people ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... the circle and the harmony seems broken. Madame Lepelletier wonders why they so jar upon each other. She has been trained to society's suavity, and they seem quite ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... have his property infected. Where should they go? To return to their own country would be difficult since it was in the middle of winter, and Chopin trembled like a forsaken bird, thinking of the chill of Paris. He loved the island, despite the inhospitable people, because of the suavity of its climate. The Cartuja of Valldemosa offered itself as their sole refuge, a building devoid of architectural beauty, with no other charm than that of its medieval antiquity, situated in the mountains with pine-covered slopes, having, like delicate ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Louis magnanimously soothed him. "On the contrary, many happy returns of the day." In social intercourse the younger cousin's good-humour and suavity were ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... familiar conversation, and the free movements of the girls, and the graver suavity of Arthur and herself, seemed to Leonora to constitute a picture, a scene, ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... tutor, he was somewhat young; but the suavity of his manners took away the comparison of equality; and his real knowledge rendered him capable of instructing those who might be even older ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the jurisdiction of the church and the power of its ministers. Thus it happened that Christianity, from a very early period after its introduction to Spain, was deprived of that spirit of meekness, suavity, and tolerance, impressed upon it by its Divine Founder, and became possessed of a spirit of the most implacable resentment against every person who had not gone through the baptismal ceremony; and thus, also, it was that the religion of the country degenerated into ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... haste and accosts the negro, who, aghast at seeing any living being inhabiting such a solitude, and especially so horrific a one, immediately falls into a panic, not at all lessened by the ursine suavity of Oberlus, who begs the favor of assisting him in his labors. The negro stands with several billets on his shoulder, in act of shouldering others; and Oberlus, with a short cord concealed in his bosom, kindly proceeds to lift ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... superior to the Russian in the refinements and graces of polished life. There seems to be something in a southern clime which ameliorates harshness of manners. The Grecian emperors, perhaps, in abandoning their palaces, left also to their conquerors that suavity which has transmitted even to our day the enviable ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott |
