"Complaisance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... His presence and air had the appearance of frankness, ingenuousness, and manly confidence. The natural fire and haughtiness of his eye were carefully subdued, and he seemed, at least to a superficial view, the very model of good-nature and disinterested complaisance. His bright and flowing hair parted on his brow, and formed into a thousand ringlets, waved to the zephyrs as he passed along. There was something so delicate and enchanting in his whole figure, as to tempt you to compare it to the unspotted beauty of the hyacinth; ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... time doubting if she had not been too eager with her proposal. To go on such a sentimental errand might be thought by her friends to be simply troublesome, their adherence having been given only in the regular course of complaisance. She was still comparatively an outsider here, her life with Lady Petherwin having been passed chiefly in alternations between English watering-places and continental towns. However, it was too late now to muse on this, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... skill at short notice as I have after preparation; if indeed there be any of you who have never heard the trifles I toss off on the spur of the moment. You will listen to them with the same critical exactitude that I have bestowed on their composition, but with greater complaisance, I hope, than I can feel in reciting them. For prudent judges are wont to judge finished works by a somewhat severe standard, but are far more complaisant to improvisations. For you weigh and examine all that is actually ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... a boy who might be playing "hookey,"—though was not,—and shaking his fist at old Whitey, taking her accustomed stroll in and out of inviting dooryards. Yet when he came to the wider yard before the stone house something of his complaisance left him. "He and Eunice Maitland had never hitched." She was always perfectly courteous, and never failed to attend the sewing-meetings of the church when they were held at his house, and she had even been heard to say that she had "a great respect for Mrs. Pettijohn." She might have put a ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... one of the amiablest men in the world, who forms the charm of society, who would be everywhere sought after if he were not King; a philosopher without austerity; full of sweetness, complaisance and obliging ways (AGREMENS); not remembering that he is King when he meets his friends; indeed so completely forgetting it that he made me too almost forget it, and I needed an effort of memory to recollect that I here saw sitting ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... has thrown into the urn for me. I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his promise, he inserted in the paper. This cardinal is an agreeable imp, and I must give him a kiss for his complaisance. Besides, the Tasso rhyme will here be the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... seemed as if at any moment God might walk there as in a garden, delicate as a moth. Down by the stream Hazel found tall water-plantains, triune of cup, standing above the ooze like candelabras, and small rough-leaved forget-me-nots eyeing their liquid reflections with complaisance. She watched the birds bathe—bullfinches, smooth-coated and well-found; slim willow-wrens; thrushes, ermine-breasted; lusty blackbirds with beaks of crude yellow. They made neat little tracks over the soft mud, drank, bathed, preened, and made other neat little tracks. ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... looked wistfully into his face as she addressed him, as though half afraid to go on, and begging that he would receive with complaisance whatever she ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... step further, and, out of excessive complaisance, suppose that all the bodies in Nature are actually in motion. Does it follow from thence that motion is essential to every particle of matter? Besides, if all bodies have not an equal degree of motion; if some move sensibly, and more swiftly ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... young man of high rank, whom Sylla attempted to attach to himself by similar means, he found less complaisance. Caesar was now eighteen, his daughter Julia having been lately born. He had seen his party ruined, his father-in-law and young Marius killed, and his nearest friends dispersed or murdered. He had himself for a time escaped proscription; but the Dictator had his ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... hold the elbow out well, and yet not to stick it out, was a point of early discipline. Then her glossy black hair set off a superb neck and shoulders; and, moreover, she was gay, full of mirth, life, complaisance, perfect in all the acts of politeness, and invariable in her gracious and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Hand upon the Heaps, crying, Here's one: there's another, &c. and by the help of some Wax in the hollow of his Hand, he drew away several Guineas every time, which he conveyed into a Handkerchief he held in his Left-hand. When the Number was compleated, they parted, with much Complaisance on each side: but when the Banker came the next Morning to settle the Account of his Cash, he found in his Gold a Deficiency of ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... of a country. Morritt, a zealous worshipper of the old bard, was incensed at a system which would turn him into a polytheist, gave battle with keenness, and was joined by Sotheby, our host. Mr. Coleridge behaved with the utmost complaisance and temper, but relaxed not from his exertions. "Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words." Morritt's impatience; must have cost him an extra sixpence worth ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... but to mathematicians, logicians, and genealogists, a link wanting is a chain broken. This blank then made Uncle Fountain miserable, and he cried out for help. Lucy came with her young eyes, her woman's patience, and her own complaisance. A great ditch yawned between a crocheteer and a rotten branch he coveted. Our Quinta Curtia flung herself, her eyesight, and her ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... precede their mammas into the ball-room; and the code of a mistaken gallantry supplies no corrective to their caprice, for youth and beauty are here invested with regal prerogatives, and can do no wrong. In short, the Americans carry their complaisance to the sex beyond due bounds—at least in little things—for we by no means think that the real influence of their women is great, notwithstanding the tame and submissive gallantry with which the latter are treated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... To his complaisance I was indebted for opportunity of a leisurely survey of the Imprimeri Royale, which gave me several suggestions I shall impart at a more favorable time, and of the operations of the Mint also. It was at his request that ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... And what is most perplexingly novel in this new manifestation, is the display of a considerable amount of egotism, which we had always supposed to be a sinful and naughty thing in technical journalism. And, as if to magnify this self-complaisance, it actually alludes to its "own extensive and ever-increasing circulation in America." Now to show how small a thing can impart comfort to the soul of our cotemporary, we venture to say that the circulation of Engineering in this country cannot much exceed three ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... inflated with this success, "that it is necessary to pass through Complaisance and Sensibility; and that if we do not take this road, we run the risk of losing our way to Tiedeur, Oubli, and of falling into the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... way we ginerally gits the p'ints of an animal,' returned Baldy, with great complaisance, as he seated himself upon a bench to watch ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... book of tracts—and who had witnessed both our noisy parting from our companions and the subsequent collapse—advised us to go to the refreshment-room and get some breakfast. We yielded at last, out of complaisance towards her, and were rewarded by feeling wonderfully ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... him with exemplary complaisance, and when he had finished said, "And Madame Bonacieux, do you know who carried her off?—For I do not forget that I owe to that unpleasant circumstance the good fortune of having made ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... suffered, that in the future there be no brothers murdered or mothers driven to madness. Resignation is not always a virtue; it is a crime when it encourages tyrants: there are no despots where there are no slaves! Man is in his own nature so wicked that he always abuses complaisance. I thought as you do, and you know what my fate was. Those who caused your misfortunes are watching you day and night, they suspect that you are only biding your time, they take your eagerness to learn, your ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... for the usual fault of his gratuitously adopted coarseness, it is admirably imitated in the "Plain Dealer," of Wycherly. Alceste is an upright and manly character, but rude and impatient even of the ordinary civilities of life and the harmless hypocrisies of complaisance, by which the ugliness of human nature is in some degree disguised. He quarrels with his friend Philinte for receiving the bow of a man he despises; and with his mistress for enjoying a little harmless ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... Lindsey was at the office when my wire arrived, and acted promptly in accordance with it, he and they could reach Dundee by a late train that evening. That knowledge, of course, made me in a still more light-hearted mood. But there was another source of my satisfaction and complaisance: things were in a grand way now for my revenge on Sir Gilbert Carstairs, and what had been a mystery was one ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... to our friendship. As to believing that you said this to one, and wrote it to the other, simply for the sake of paying them an agreeable compliment, I have too high an esteem for your courage to be able to imagine that complaisance would cause you thus to betray the sentiments of your heart, especially on a subject in which, as they were unfavorable to me, I think you would have the more reason for concealing them, the affection which I have for you being so well known to every one, and ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... mock," thought Chicot, "but wait." Then he said, "I am certain, however, that Brother Borromee, like a wise master, often let Jacques touch him out of complaisance." ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... taught me to blame myself at least as much as them. If, instead of sending our youthful aristocracy to the continent of Europe, to treat the natives with contempt and increase the unpopularity of the British abroad, while their stock of native arrogance is augmented by the cringing complaisance of those who only bow to their superiority in wealth, they were sent to the United States, or even to Canada, they would receive a lesson or two which would be of infinite service to them; some of their most repulsive prejudices and peculiarities would soon be rubbed ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... complexions—that some have lived and some have died—and that you have something else to do than to remember what became of each. I hope, however, and (as it would be for the advantage of the First Consul) I believe, that you would have the complaisance to ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... allurements of a sorceress, when her limbs have woven Venusberg enchantments which it has taken all my strength to withstand. But tonight, when I take the greatest step and claim her as mine till our lives' end, she yields with the complaisance of an ignorant child and raises up between us the barrier of her innocence. When shall I learn the ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... and his retinue water; but Abigail gave them two casks of wine and all sorts of provisions in abundance. She met David on the march big with resentment, meditating the destruction of Nabal. But Abigail by her humility completely disarmed the king. With great respect and complaisance she urges him to lay all of the blame on her; and to attribute Nabal's faults to his want of wit, born simple, not spiteful. Abigail puts herself in the attitude of ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Pena; and on March 10, 1687, he declared that the lawful parish priest of the mission of Jesus de la Pena was the prior of Pasig, a religious of St. Augustine. In this spoliation concurred also, through complaisance, the governor Don Gabriel Curuzelaegui, who on March 23 of the said year decreed that Don Juan Pimentel, alcalde of Tondo, should begin proceedings against the Society in the mission of Jesus de la Pena, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... translation of Homer, if that was the great crime, was undertaken at the request, and almost at the command of Sir Richard Steele. He entreated Mr. Addison to speak candidly and freely, though it might be with ever so much severity, rather than by keeping up forms of complaisance, conceal any of his faults. This Mr. Pope spoke in such a manner as plainly indicated he thought Mr. Addison the aggressor, and expected him to condescend, and own himself the cause of the breach between them. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... which is apparently the right—at all events, the successful—conduct for a whilom foe. If the Yugoslavs, in simply accepting the judgment of their Allies, acted against their own ultimate advantage, they can, at any rate, believe that their complaisance, their extraordinary lack of chauvinism, will be recognized. It is true that when, on former occasions, such as during the prolonged d'Annunzio farce at Rieka, they displayed a similar and wonderful forbearance, they did not manage to free themselves ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... containeth and the belly and what it compriseth; and think of death and doom ere it ariseth. Saith Ali (whose face Allah honour!), 'Beware of the wickedness of women and be on thy guard against them: consult them not in aught;[FN264] but grudge not complaisance to them, lest they greed for intrigue.' And eke quoth he, 'Whoso leaveth the path of moderation his wits become perplexed'; and there be rules for this which we will mention, if it be Allah's will. And Omar (whom Allah accept!) saith, 'There are three kinds of women, firstly ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... to bear each other, and of forgetting one another's faults, as {263} a man in engaging in this state seeks a companion for life, the saint observes that nothing is busier than for him to make it an affair of traffic, or a money job. A wife with a moderate fortune usually brings more complaisance and submission, and blesses a house with peace, union, and friendship. How many rich men, by marrying great fortunes, in seeking to increase their estates, have forfeited the repose of their minds for the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... martyrs by the score, escapes miraculous and wonderful. Among the Hopis one whole village was completely destroyed and in the neighborhood of seven hundred of its men—all of them—slain by their fellow-Hopis of other towns, simply because of their complaisance towards the hated, foreign long-gowns (as the Franciscan priests were called). Suffice it to say that Missions were established and churches built at practically all of the Indian pueblos, and also at the Spanish settlements of San Gabriel and Santa Cruz de ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... their parts such soft hints as may help them to proceed, without letting it be known to the audience they were out; but if they run quite out of character, they must be called off the stage, and receive parts more suitable to their genius. Servile complaisance shall degrade a man from his honour and quality, and haughtiness be yet more debased. Fortune shall no longer appropriate distinctions, but nature direct us in the disposition both of respect and discountenance. As there are tempers made for command and others for obedience, ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... They are not tormented by our avarice or our ambition; they appear perfectly indifferent even to the desire of fame; they are capable of great affection, but their love shows itself in a tender and cheerful complaisance, and, while forming their happiness, seems rarely, if ever, to constitute their woe. As the Gy is sure only to marry where she herself fixes her choice, and as here, not less than above ground, ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... to curse silently at the complaisance of this people. What could he not do if they would help. Ten companies of trained men, armed with their deadly electronic projectors that disintegrated any living thing they reached—and he would clutch at his tousled ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... words. Clarendon himself is not harder or more tortuous. Even in purely narrative parts, which ought to flow most easily, the understanding of the reader can seldom keep pace with his eye. Cyclopean epithets are piled together almost at random on any substantive which will have the complaisance to receive them. The choice of expression and metaphor is sometimes such as almost to rival the achievements of Castlereagh in his happiest hour. We have people existing, "not as individual names on paper, but simply as an imposturous nominal aggregate,"—Thucydides ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... brothers of Cunizza conspired to effect her escape with Sordella from her husband's court, and that, under the protection of Eccelino da Romano, the lovers were left unmolested to their amours. Eccelino, indeed, loved this weak sister with extraordinary tenderness, and we read of a marvelous complaisance to her amorous intrigues by a man who cared nothing himself for women. Cunizza lived in one of her brother's palaces at Verona, and used to receive there the visits of Sordello after Eccelino had determined to separate them. The poet entered the palace by a back door, to reach which he must ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... but she was too much the actress not to swallow his qualities with complaisance, seeing that she must suffer his fictitious ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... his carriage by half-a-dozen of his servants, he was shown into a neat but plain parlour, from which he had the prospect of twenty or thirty people at dinner in a spacious hall. In the middle of them was the learned doctor himself, who with much complaisance invited the company to eat heartily. 'My good friend,' said the doctor to a pale-looking man on his right hand, 'you must eat three slices more of this roast-beef, or you will never lose your ague.' 'My friend,' said he to another, 'drink off this glass of porter; ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... were greatly concerned; but being told the family received no hurt, they were extremely glad: but being informed that we were almost killed by the fright, they were vastly sorry; but hearing that we had a very good night, they were extremely glad again. Nothing could exceed their complaisance to my daughters; their professions the last evening were warm, but now they were ardent. They protested a desire of having a more lasting acquaintance. Lady Blarney was particularly attached to Olivia; Miss Carolina Wilelmina Amelia Skeggs (I love to give the whole name) took a greater ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... and only happy that my knowledge of it, and its ways, is such as your lordship has not scorned to avail yourself of. Now I would fain know whether the obligation lies on my lady or on you in this fortunate union, and which has most reason to show complaisance to the other, and to consider that other's wishes, conveniences, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... those that were given to censure, pass'd a Judgment upon her which she no Ways merited, since she was a Woman of strict Honour and Virtue; and tho' she might be agreeable to his Lordship in every Particular, that noble Peer's Complaisance to her, proceeded wholly from the great Esteem he had for her Wit and most exquisite Understanding, as will appear from what relates to her in his Will at ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... observation and the normal corollary of epigram. Smollett was much impressed by the mortifying indifference of the French innkeepers to their clients. "It is a very odd contrast between France and England. In the former all the people are complaisant but the publicans; in the latter there is hardly any complaisance but among the publicans." [In regard to two exceptional instances of politeness on the part of innkeepers, Smollett attributes one case to dementia, the other, at Lerici, to mental shock, caused by a recent ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... horse, as it would seem, joined the jolly cavalcade and rollicked through the moonlight nights, merely to make fun for their conquerors by playing on the superstitious fear of the sable allies of the Northmen. Never before was such good-natured complaisance, such untiring effort to please. So the North laughed, the South chuckled, and the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... encounters a venerable personage, who, wrapt in deep thought, is pensively pacing the banks of the river. This old Egyptian priest, (for such he proves to be,) Calasiris by name, not only takes the abrupt intrusion of Cnemon in perfect good part, but carries his complaisance so far as to invite him to the house of a friend of whom he is himself a guest, and the honours of whose mansion he is doing in the temporary absence of the owner. This obliging offer is, of course, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... Livonian had happened to meet Madame Marneffe instead of Lisbeth Fischer, he would have found a protectress whose complaisance must have led him into some boggy or discreditable path, where he would have been lost. He would certainly never have worked, nor the artist have been hatched out. Thus, while he deplored the old maid's grasping avarice, his ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... but he insisted that if due encouragement were given to some of our plantations in America, we might be supplied from thence at a much cheaper rate than from Sweden and Norway. Notwithstanding these arguments, the Swedish supply was granted; and, in about three weeks, their complaisance was put to another proof. They were given to understand, by a second message, that the debts of the civil list amounted to five hundred and fifty thousand pounds; and his majesty hoped they would empower him to raise that sum upon the revenue, as he proposed it should be replaced ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... know, Madam, what you ought to attach to the mysteries and ceremonies of that religion you propose to meditate on, and adore in silence. I proceed now to examine some of those practices to which the priests tell us the Deity attaches his complaisance and his favors. In consequence of the false, sinister, contradictory, and incompatible ideas, which all revealed religions give us of the Deity, the priests have invented a crowd of unreasonable usages, but which are conformable to these erroneous notions ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... send my rhymes to the devil your own way. It seems, also, that the 'faithful and spirited likeness' is another of your publications. I wish you joy of it; but it is no likeness—that is the point. Seriously, if I have delayed your journey to Scotland, I am sorry that you carried your complaisance so far; particularly as upon trifles you have a more summary method;—witness the grammar of Hobhouse's 'bit of prose,' which has put him and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... sterner moods try to coax it from him. This was the way women had always been forced to do with their masters, and it was, of course, all wrong: it classed the wife with "horrid" women, who made men pay them for their complaisance. ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... mayor carried his complaisance a step farther, and dispatched the letter to Paris by the hands of his own son, an intelligent lad of nineteen. It was late in the afternoon of that perfect August day when young Rougane presented himself ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... not a beautiful patio; and the public still surged outside the iron-grated door in the hope of further insight into the private lives of the travelling menagerie; but our luggage had been carried to the rooms which were now ready (thanks to the complaisance of the dazzled commercial gentlemen), and there were garden seats, on which we settled ourselves in spite of the chill ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... explain the interest with which the nation threw itself into the question, and to remove the scandal with which, had nothing been at stake beyond the inclinations of a profligate monarch, weary of his queen, the complaisance on such a subject of the lords and commons of England would have coloured the ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... their best to console her, and succeeded in raising her hopes. Before taking their leave they learned from her where the lady was, whose marvellous beauty they had heard lauded so often; and being eager to see her, they besought the Duke to afford them an opportunity. Forgetful of what a like complaisance had cost the Prince, he consented, and next morning brought them to the villa where the lady lived, and with her and a few of his boon companions regaled them with a lordly breakfast, which was served in a most lovely garden. Constantine had no sooner ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of Reuben? It was that through his weakness, his complaisance, he had missed his chance of protecting what was secretly dear to him. He loved the boy, I think, or at all events he loved his father, and would not willingly have hurt the old man. And now, even in his moment of yielding, of temporising, the worst had happened, ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... his orders and thinks himself master, but it is the child who is really master. He uses the tasks you set him to obtain what he wants from you, and he can always make you pay for an hour's industry by a week's complaisance. You must always be making bargains with him. These bargains, suggested in your fashion, but carried out in his, always follow the direction of his own fancies, especially when you are foolish enough to make the condition some advantage he is almost sure to ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... was reverential, intelligent, accomplished, and thoughtful—naturally and without effort. He was sincerely courteous, and capable of all complaisance. The display of these qualities reached to the four extremities of the empire, and extended from earth to heaven. He was able to make the able and virtuous distinguished, and thence proceeded to the love of the nine classes of his kindred, ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... opportunity it gave of pleasant meetings and cheerful gossip.[379] Jeanne urged her uncle to ask her father that she might be sent to tend the sick woman, and Lassois consented: he was always ready to do what his niece asked him, and perhaps his complaisance was encouraged by pious persons of some importance.[380] But how this father, who shortly before had said that he would throw his daughter into the Meuse rather than that she should go off with men-at-arms, should have allowed her to ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... none of the absurdities I met with in this visit proceeded from an ill intention, but from a wrong judgment of complaisance, and a misapplication of the rules of it. I cannot so easily excuse the more refined critics upon behaviour, who having professed no other study, are yet infinitely defective in the most material parts ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... would meet Mary Campbell very soon, and he was not indifferent to the meeting. He could not help glancing with complaisance at the new evening suit he had brought with him; and looking a little ruefully at his browned and hardened hands, and the tan of wind and weather on his face. He hoped he would meet Mary before his father's arrival; so that he could get accustomed ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... his present desperate scheme if he had not received some encouragement from Miss Collingsby. She confessed to me that she had listened to him once before, when he suggested an elopement; but she was now, as she began to reap the fruits of complaisance, convinced of her own imprudence. It was necessary for the bold schemer to get rid of me; and he was prepared to part company with me in the most summary manner. If he could do so, it was possible that he might win or drive his fair passenger into compliance with his proposition. ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... the house of representatives, which had disregarded his recommendation, would now approve his project? It is impossible that the president or his advisers could have believed they would carry their complaisance so far. They must have known that the subject would be referred to the same committee, composed of the same persons, as that of the preceding year, and who would be likely, if they reported at all, not only to support their first opinions by further arguments, but to express their disapprobation ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... Annuals of six years back and a few unsalable modern novels. I read them all most conscientiously and gratefully, and would not listen for a moment to Mr. Hammond's jests about them; but, a few weeks afterwards, I almost repented of my complaisance, when Tom Salyers took me at an advantage while rowing me down to Louisa one afternoon, and, seeing a long stretch of river before him without shoal or sand-bar, leisurely laid up his oars, and, letting the boat float ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... opened to its farthest extent. After he had got over the first surprise and shock of finding me on the chairs instead of in the bed, for whose comfort he vouched enthusiastically, he became confident that it was merely out of complaisance to him and his comrade that I had opened the window, and assured me that they really did not care for fresh air, even if they could feel the difference in the alcove, which he declared they could not. As soon as that was arranged to my satisfaction, the other ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... regarded not the indecency to which she preferr'd her curiosity, who still laughing, cried she was resolv'd to read it out, and know the constitution of her heart; when my lady, whose wit never fail'd her, cried, 'I beseech you, madam, let us have so much complaisance for Melinda as to ask her consent in this affair, and then I am pleas'd you should see what love I can make upon occasion:' I took the hint, and with a real confusion, cried—'I implore you, madam, not to discover my weakness to Madam, the Duchess; I would not for ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... Salvatoris, |56| Qui fait la complaisance Dei sui Patris. Cet enfant tout aimable, In nocte media, Est ne dans une etable, ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... errors; and intimates, that upon this account he passes over many instances of fraud, that were in like circumstances to the case before us. I would not have the main strength of his case betrayed in complaisance to me. Nothing can be more material than to show a fraud of this kind, that prevailed universally in the world. Christ Jesus declared himself a Prophet, and put the proof of his mission on this, that he should die openly and publickly, and rise again the third day. This surely was ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... your good offices for securing him an ally in the Elector. The Mark is to remain Frederick William's domain, but the Elector must become an Imperialist. Such is the will and pleasure of the Emperor. He urged me to beg you to evince more complaisance and deference for the Elector, that you may acquire influence over him. The Emperor had been much shocked by the news sent him from Koenigsberg by Martinitz. It appears certain from this information, my dear father, that the Elector is much ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... may as well name to you, Mr. Lind," said he, being forced to speak more plainly. "If I were to marry, I should like to give my wife a proper home. I should not like her to marry a pauper—one dependent on the complaisance of other people. And really it has seemed to me strange that you, with your daughter's future, your daughter's interests to think of, should have ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... the health of the mistress grew worse and worse. The most serious fears were entertained for her life and reason, death or insanity seeming to be the most probable issue of her malady. Medical advice was called in. The doctor, either in complaisance or sincerity, agreed with Mr. Dubarry's theory of the patient's condition, ascribing her illness to an 'abnormal state of the nervous system,' and he advised change of air and scene, and he held forth good hopes that within a very few months, when the ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... of the house of Gramont. M. de Manicamp, with his tact and talent had created himself a revenue in the opulent family of the celebrated marechal. From his infancy he had, with calculation beyond his age, lent his mane and complaisance to the follies of the Comte de Guiche. If his noble companion had stolen some fruit destined for Madame la Marechale, if he had broken a mirror, or put out a dog's eye, Manicamp declared himself guilty of the crime committed, and received the punishment, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... posseder des livres sans etre en etat de les lire. Il a fallu creer pour eux une sorte de bibliotheque composee d'objets qui, sous la forme exterieure de livres, ne fussent reellement que des raretes, des objets de curiosite, qu'on ne lit pas, mais que tantot on regarde avec complaisance, tantot en montre avec ostentation; et comme apres cela c'est presque toujours le gout des personnes en etat de recompenser qui dirige le but des travailleurs, on ne doit pas etre surpris qu'on se soit plus occupe d'indiquer ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... group of ladies, with a courteous greeting. Mademoiselle Aurelie, who was amongst them, engaged his attention for the moment to point out to him a nephew whom she had brought with her. He was all complaisance. Helene, without speaking, gave him her hand, encased in its black glove, but he dared not clasp it with ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... republican principle demands that the deliberative sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the managements of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests. It is a just observation that ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... admit that there are many women, in all classes of society—not mercenary women—who extend to men a certain measure of sex complaisance and feel no deep regret for this behavior, so long as ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... the Complaisance, which is due to the fair Sex, does not excuse the Abuse of copying when it proves prejudicial to the Profession, what ought one then to say of those Men, who, instead of inventing, not only copy others of their own Sex, but also Women. Foolish and shameful!——Supposing ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... punished. The noble lords were busy settling amongst themselves who should be consuls for several years to come, and how the confiscated villas of the proscribed Caesarians should be divided. As to the military situation, they were all complaisance. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... rapacious in robbing? who more profuse in giving? Above all things, this was remarkable and admirable in him. The arts he had to acquire the good opinion and kindness of all sorts of men, to retain it with great complaisance, to communicate all things to them, to watch and serve all the occasions of their fortune, both with his money and his interest, and his industry, and if need were, not by sticking at any wickedness whatsoever that might be useful to them, to bend and turn ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... wrought a considerable change in my habits. Although I found it impossible all at once to give up consorting with "the usual lot," especially those of them (now not a few), to whom I owed money, I was yet a good deal more chary of my complaisance, and less influenced by their example in ordinary matters. I succeeded, greatly to my own satisfaction and much to every one else's surprise, in making myself distinctly disagreeable on more than one occasion, which Doubleday looked upon as a very healthy sign, and which, though it involved ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... evidently admires enormously her friend's social capabilities and cleverness, and she is impulsively eager to make some return for Mrs. Stuart's kindness—an eagerness which shows itself in the greatest complaisance towards all the Stuarts' friends, and in a constant watchfulness for anything which will please ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... refrain from stooping, with an absurd little thrill of pleasure at being the one to find what others were looking for, and, picking the ring up, he presented it, with a bow that was courtly in the extreme, to Cassandra. Whether the making of a bow released automatically feelings of complaisance and urbanity, Mr. Hilbery found his resentment completely washed away during the second in which he bent and straightened himself. Cassandra dared to offer her cheek and received his embrace. He nodded with some degree of stiffness to Rodney and Denham, who had both ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... that he encountered and vanquished an enemy in single combat, in his general's sight. In consequence of all this he had several honors conferred upon him; and once when at an entertainment a question arose about commanders, and one of the company (whether really desirous to know, or only in complaisance) asked Scipio where the Romans, after him, should obtain such another general, Scipio, gently clapping Marius on the shoulder as he sat next him, replied, "Here, perhaps." So promising was his early youth of his future greatness, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... are most likely to secure favor. They resolve not to be outdone in any of the works of partisanship. The consequence of all this is obvious. A competition ensues, not of patriotic labors; not of rough and severe toils for the public good; not of manliness, independence, and public spirit; but of complaisance, of indiscriminate support of executive measures, of pliant subserviency and gross adulation. All throng and rush together to the altar of man-worship; and there they offer sacrifices, and pour out libations, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... her brother, Lady Suffolk could succeed but in very subordinate recommendations. Her own acquisitions were so moderate, that, besides Marble Hill, which cost the King ten or twelve thousand pounds, her complaisance had not been too dearly purchased. She left the court with an income so little to be envied, that, though an economist and not expensive, by the lapse of some annuities on lives not so prolonged as her own she found herself ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... official, to whom non-complaisance in the matter of inspection was unprecedented, "you certainly will not put any obstacle in the path of ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... and lovers of tobacco are driven to accept many an unwelcome cup of tea. I, as a sufferer, would gladly set on foot a formal league which should compel an armed neutrality, and protect the one belligerent from the odor of the delicious pipe and the other from the complaisance of the tyrannous tea-cup. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... engage the Reader by the Circumstances that attend it; it enters into all the Motions and Disquiets of the Actor, when they have well express'd to him the Character. If he be Jealous, the Look of a Person he Loves, a Mouse, a turn of the Head, or the least complaisance to a Rival, throws him into the greatest Agitations, which the Readers perceive by a Counter-blow; if he be very Vertuous, and falls into a Mischance by Accident, they Pity him and Commiserate his Misfortunes; ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... of the nomination at Chicago did not in the least disturb my equanimity or my allegiance to the great party to which I belonged, and for the success of which I had devoted my life since 1854. I listened with complaisance to the explanations made as to the wavering of the Ohio delegation on the Saturday previous to the nomination, and as to the unexpected action of the New York delegation and the curious reasoning ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... war than for peace; but, I am restrained from war by humanity, justice and reason. I shall not allow myself, like Elizabeth, to be pressed into a war. I shall enter upon it when it will prove advantageous to me, but never from complaisance to others." ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... troth you must take but little Rest to Night, in complaisance to the Bride and Bridegroom, who, I believe, will take but little—Frank—why, Frank—what, hast thou chang'd thy Humour with thy Condition? Thou wert not wont to hear the Musick play ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... I say, let us not be alarm'd, for Satan does not get these Advantages by Encroachment, and by his infernal Power or Art, no not at all; but 'tis the Man himself does it by his Indolence and Negligence on one Hand, and his Complaisance to the Devil on the other; and both Ways he, as it were, opens the Door to him, beckons him with his very Hand to come in, and the Devil has nothing to do but enter and take Possession: Now if it be so, and Man is so frank to him; you know the Devil is no Fool not to take the Advantage when ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... to live a private life, was so far from envying the happiness of his brother, that he made it his whole business to please him, and effected it without much difficulty. Schahriar, who had naturally a great affection for that prince, was so charmed with his complaisance, that, out of an excess of friendship, he would needs divide his dominions with him, and gave him the kingdom of Great Tartary: Schahzenan went immediately and took possession of it, and fixed the seat of his government at Samarcande, the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... general, his lady, and two sons; the youngest of whom is the person you have just seen, the other was several years older. Pardieu! I felt myself very comfortable in that house, and every individual of the family had all kind of complaisance for me. It is singular enough, that though I have been turned out of so many families, I was never turned out of that; and though I left it thrice, it was of my own free will. I became dissatisfied with the other servants or with the dog or the cat. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... they were exacted. Now the nobility were entirely stripped of power and in many instances of land as well. How empty and bottomless the oppressive institutions and how burdensome the taxes which rested on nothing but a paper grant, musty with age and backed only by royal complaisance! Want too was always looking in at the doors of the many, while the few were enjoying the national substance. This year there was a crisis, for before the previous harvest time devastating hail-storms ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... more profoundly he needs the calm lessons of Nature to preserve his equilibrium. The radical himself needs nothing so much as fresh air. The world is called conservative; but it is far easier to impress a plausible thought on the complaisance of others than to retain an unfaltering faith in it for ourselves. The most dogged reformer distrusts himself every little while, and says inwardly, like Luther, "Art thou alone wise?" So he is compelled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... scattered so many hopeless passions; no one so gently tempered these into friendships. She knew always how to say the fitting word, to charm away the clouds of ill humor, to conciliate opposing interests. But this spirit of complaisance which, however charming it may be, is never many degrees removed from the spirit of the courtier, proved to be the misfortune of her later life. Too amiable, perhaps too diplomatic, to frown openly upon the King's irregularities, she was ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... had the amusement of watching two great sword-fish sunning themselves on the surface of the water. I sent out a boat, in the hope that the powerful creatures would, in complaisance, allow us the sport of harpooning them, but they would not wait; they plunged again into the depths of the sea, and we had ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... countenance; her sisters went to meet him, and, notwithstanding their endeavours to appear sorrowful, their joy, felt for having got rid of their sister, was visible in every feature. A moment after, everything disappeared, with Beauty's apprehensions at this proof of Beast's complaisance. ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... unskill'd in speech: my tongue is slow The graceful courtesies of life to pay; To deck kind meanings up in trim array, Keeping the mind's soft tone: words such as flow From Complaisance, when she alone inspires! And Caution, with a care that never tires, Marshals each tribe of thoughts in such a way That all are ready for their needful task, The moment the occasion comes to ask, All prompt to hear, to answer and obey; When mine, ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham
... not try that officer's complaisance. He retired from the witness-box, and was not again seen during the trial in any conspicuous ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... realized how pure, how tender, how true she was. He knew, too, that she was daily and hourly weaving about him bands which held him captive to beliefs which though true to her were the veriest falsehoods to him; and that only his love of ease, his fatal complaisance, prevented his rending these cords as did Samson the new ropes of the Philistines. He realized that he was sacrificing his manhood, that he was bartering his convictions for flattery and ease by allying himself to Calvin ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... One day, when he was performing mass before herself, her attendants, and a large congregation, something occurred which rendered it necessary for the princess to leave the room. The ladies in waiting and the nobility, who attended church more out of complaisance to her than from any sense of religion followed her example. Sieyes was very busy reading his prayers, and, for a few moments, he did not perceive their departure. At last, raising his eyes from his book, behold the princess, the nobles, and all the ton had ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... whole nations, who will have been all his life a real scourge of the human race, imagines that his conscience can be tranquillized, if, in order to expiate so many crimes, he will have wept at the feet of a priest, who will have the cowardly complaisance to console and reassure a brigand, whom the most frightful despair would punish too little for the evil which he has ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... and high head-piece, in the form of a grenadier's cap, with prickles like a porcupine; and he made a certain noise which resembled the cry of an alligator. Our people skipped amongst them out of complaisance, though some could not drink of their tourrie; but our rum met with customers enough, and was soon gone. The alligators were killed and some of them roasted. Their manner of roasting is by digging a hole in the earth, and filling it with wood, which they burn to coal, and then they ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... the opportunity he thought he had found: but hoped, if he now missed his aim, to secure it another time, by keeping up a friendly correspondence with the father and son; therefore, though he could have wished Ali Baba would have declined the dance, he had the complaisance to express his satisfaction at what he ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... lordship did,' repeated the obsequious tutor; who, basking in the smiles of his host's good-humour, began to think that things would run smoothly after all. So the lady was toasted, and toasted again. Nay, so great was Mr. Pomeroy's complaisance and so easy his mood, he must needs have up three or four bottles of Brooks and Hellier that had lain in the cellar half a century—the last of a batch—and give her a third time ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... tokens of unselfish cordiality, for further manifold proofs of political complaisance, to be reviewed by me in detail later, proofs of a sincere desire to be enduringly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... his complaisance towards herself rose before her, so as to excite some warmth and gratitude. Her lonely heart thrilled at the idea of being again the best beloved, and her energetic spirit bounded at the thought of being no longer condemned to a life ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... possesses—and where he is going. The basis of his estimation of a visitor is his worldly means; or, if the visitor be engaged in trade, his power to facilitate his host's schemes would bring him a certain measure of civility and complaisance. He is fond of, and seeks the patronage of Europeans of position. In manners, the Negros and Panay Visayo is uncouth and brusque, and more conceited, arrogant, self-reliant, ostentatious, and unpolished ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... girl living on her own resources or in a shop, not in service) nor is Rose in Jean, but both have the requirements of the type—minois chiffonne (including what is absolutely indispensable, a nez retrousse), inexhaustible gaiety, extreme though by no means promiscuous complaisance, thorough good-nature—all the gifts, in short, of Beranger's bonne fille, who laughs at everything, but is perfectly capable of good sense and good service at need, and who not seldom marries and makes as good a wife as, "in a higher ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... And why should I not trust him only this time, 20 Who have always trusted him? What, then, has happened, That I should lose my good opinion of him? In complaisance to your whims, not my own, I must, forsooth, give up a rooted judgment. Think not I am a woman. Having trusted him 25 E'en till to-day, to-day ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... her smile and, encouraged by that token of her complaisance, paused before the grotto, and addressed her in ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... continued to feed. He was called in Vienna the Snow King, whom the cold of the north kept together, but who would infallibly melt as he advanced southward. Even the electors, assembled in Ratisbon, disregarded his representations; and, influenced by an abject complaisance to Ferdinand, refused him even the title of king. But while they mocked him in Ratisbon and Vienna, in Mecklenburg and Pomerania, one strong town after another ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... she seen them on any other table, and which she naturally relied on to produce the same effect on her guest. Whether or not the desired result was achieved, Madame de Treymes' manner did not specifically declare; but it showed a general complaisance, a charming willingness to be amused, which made Mr. Boykin, for months afterward, allude to her among his compatriots as "an old friend of my wife's—takes potluck with us, you know. Of course there's not a word of truth in any of ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... For the thing that chiefly delights a man, when some, woman has gone through the solemn buffoonery of yielding to his great love, is the sharp and flattering contrast between her reserve in the presence of other men and her enchanting complaisance in the presence of himself. Here his vanity is enormously tickled. To the world in general she seems remote and unapproachable; to him she is docile, fluttering, gurgling, even a bit abandoned. It is as if some great magnifico male, some inordinate czar ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... with barbaric magnificence in the riches and plunder he had appropriated, and he had adorned his person with a profusion of silver and gold, and stolen gems. He had been seated at the table while served by the maroon, but, as she entered, with unusual complaisance he arose and bowed to her with something of ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Federalist, "demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs." "But," he said in the same essay, "however inclined we might be to insist upon an unbounded complaisance in the executive to the inclinations of the people, we can with no propriety contend for a like complaisance to the humors of the legislature.... The executive should be in a situation to dare to act his own opinion with vigor and ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... remote case of survival, it would interest one so profoundly to see the differences, if any, produced in that reader's character or outlook over life. This, however, is a consummation which will remain devoutly to be wished, for there is a limit to human complaisance. One will never know the exact measure of one's infecting power; or whether, indeed, one is not just ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ribbons. Not only this, she smiled in sugary fashion and far too readily; while the extreme humility with which she deferred to John's opinion, and hung on his lips, made another bad impression on Mary. Nor was she alone in her observations. After a particularly glaring example of the widow's complaisance, Tilly looked across and shut one eye, in ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... sweet and thrilling voice with which she welcomed her countryman would have completed the spell, had, indeed, the wanderer been one prepared, or capable of being enchanted. As it was, Mr. Ferrers, while he returned his welcome, with becoming complaisance, exhibited the breeding of a man accustomed to sights of strangeness and of beauty; and, while he expressed his sense of the courtesy of his companions, admired their garden, and extolled the loveliness of the prospect, he did not depart ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... same kind, it seems, occurred at Gehol. From the time the Embassador began to make conditions, his table was abridged, under an idea that he might be starved into an unconditional compliance. Finding this experiment fail, they had recourse to a different conduct, and became all kindness and complaisance. ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... be, which illumine our Annuals, they owe no little of their lustre to the engravings. It fortuitously happens that we have not "a connoisseuring eye," or we should swell this paper beyond the limits prescribed by editorial complaisance, in the pages of "THE MIRROR." We are not ignorant, however, of the incomparable advancement which the science of engraving has made in the lapse of the last ten years; or how far it has left behind those mere scratches of the graver which lit up our young admiration when a boy. Two ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various
... England, his tastes were various and his heart was large, and consequently his borderline was long. And yet Northampton has a surface and a solid content, as well as a circumference; and amidst all his complaisance and all his versatility, Doddridge had a mind and a calling ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... understand the rights of neutrals, or of independent nations. As this interview most probably will be interesting, you may desire to have it held in private, and a state-room will be too small for the purpose. My dear young lady, will you have the complaisance to lend us your cabin for ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... laughed at the suggestion that the living quarters were untenable. But there! The representative could see for himself. With every semblance of complete complaisance the representative was escorted into the camp. With unassumed unconcern, but with deliberate intention, he was accompanied to Barracks 1 or 2, to see with his own eyes a typical illustration of the living quarters ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... sense of obligation to the bay, the fjord, and Mr. Arbuton, for their complaisance, and Kitty remembered that he had somewhat snubbed her the night before for attributing any suggestive grace to the native scenery. "Then you've really found something in an American landscape. I suppose we ought to congratulate it," she said, in ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... welcomed such a flood of verse as was poured forth over Great Britain during the first three years of the war. Those years saw the publication, as I am credibly informed, of more than five hundred volumes of new and original poetry. It would be the silliest complaisance to pretend that all of this, or much of it, or any but a very little of it, has been of permanent value. Much of it was windy and superficial, striving in wild vague terms to express great agitations which ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the incident displeased her. It was so isolated. Nothing in their previous conversation had heralded it, and, worse still, no tenderness had ensued. If a man cannot lead up to passion he can at all events lead down from it, and she had hoped, after her complaisance, for some interchange of gentle words. But he had hurried away as if ashamed, and for an instant she was reminded of ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... had been much disgusted with himself for his complaisance the day before. Although Wolf had come to escort Barbara to the Emperor's lodgings, he had accompanied his child to the Golden Cross, where she was received by Maestro Appenzelder. Then, since he could only have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... would lead to moods of weakness and satisfaction—not to that divine discontent, that rage of impatience which Thyrsis craved. It seemed to him that Corydon grew more and more in love with him, and more willing to cling to him; and he was savage because of his own complaisance. They would spend hours, exchanging endearments and whispering youthful absurdities; and then, the next day, he would write a note of protest, and Corydon would be wild with misery, and would tear up his love-notes, and vow in tears that he should never ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... observed his agreements and kept honourable promises so long as some material advantage flowed from his complaisance. Within a month he was again haunting the vicinity of the white mansion. One night he leaned against the fence and watched a procession of guests alighting from their vehicles. Splendid motors dashed up, and loads of gaily-dressed ladies and gentlemen quaintly caparisoned were ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... my unhappy Lot to see you at Paris (Draws back a little while and speaks) at a Ball upon a Birth-Day; your Shape and Air charm'd my Eyes; your Wit and Complaisance my Soul, and from that fatal Night I lov'd you. (Drawing back.) And when you left the Place, Grief seiz'd me so—No Rest my Heart, no Sleep ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... physical misery to match his mental state. Though this was wisdom, it added to his sense of being lost in black space like a wandering star. In the end he had gone into a cafe and drunk manzanilla, and with the limp complaisance of a wrecked seasick man whose raft has shivered and left him to the mercy of an octopus he had suffered adoption by a party of German engineers, who had made very merry with stories of tipsy priests and nuns who had not lived up to their position as the brides of Christ. Dismal night, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... carry it on. Notwithstanding all that he had endured, his loyalty remained unshaken, and when the War of 1812[55] broke out he responded to the call for volunteers by shouldering his musket and doing his devoirs like a man at the battle of Queenston Heights. Even this obtained for him neither complaisance nor immunity from abuse. He found himself ruined in fortune, opposed and hated by those in authority, without any prospect before him but starvation. It is not singular that a man subjected to such conditions should become disheartened. In a moment of ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... possible; but this is a very limited source of revenue, for the wealthy are not a numerous class. It will find it more easily, more abundantly also, by exploiting the vices of all, for all is a very numerous group. Hence the complaisance shown to drinking shops, which, as M. Fouillee remarks, it would be more dangerous for the Government to close than to close the churches. As the needs of the Government increase, as M. Fouillee predicts, without much doubt it will claim a monopoly in houses of ill-fame and ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... conjecture, and replied coldly, "I think not; I have got to the end of my walk, and shall turn back to Paris;" addressing himself to the Englishman, he said with formal politeness, "I regret not to have found you at home when I called some weeks ago, and no less so to have been out when you had the complaisance ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not to be considered as an exception to the general complaisance of parliament, that the Speaker, when he presented the Revenue Bill, made use of some strong expressions, declaring the attachment of the Commons to the national religion. Such sentiments could not be supposed to be displeasing to James, ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... required by the respect which is due to their own rank and dignity, to regulate their feelings and expressions by a severe etiquette, which precludes all violent and avowed display of passion, and which, but that the whole world are aware that this assumed complaisance is a matter of ceremony, might justly pass for profound dissimulation. It is no less certain, however, that the overstepping of these bounds of ceremonial, for the purpose of giving more direct vent to their angry passions, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... lie was, if possible, a more decided abolitionist than Jefferson, he never for a moment doubted the innate superiority of a Virginia gentleman to all the other inhabitants of America. He had not even the complaisance to take his hair out of queue, nor hide his thin legs in pantaloons. He was not endowed by nature with understanding enough to rise superior to the prejudices that had come down to him through generations ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... head, and, looking up, I saw that the main-top-mast, with the yards and sails, had come down on the fore-braces, and might shortly be expected on deck. At this point, Captain Williams ordered all hands from the guns to clear the wreck. At the same instant, our antagonist, with a degree of complaisance that I could have hugged him for, ceased firing also. Both sides seemed to think it was very foolish for two merchantmen to lie within a cable's length of each other, trying which could do the other the most harm; and both sides set about the, by this time, very ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... how they may, a self-respecting man must preserve his individuality also, and though I consented to enter a pavilion of crimson cloth, specially erected to shelter me till the Empress should deign to arrive, there my complaisance ended. Again the matter of clothes was harped upon. The three gorgeously caparisoned chamberlains, who had inducted me to the shelter, laid before me changes of raiment bedecked with every imaginable kind of frippery, and would have me transform myself into a popinjay ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... corrected while young; and self-experience, which rectifies in most so much that is wrong, seemed to do nothing for her. There was no substance to work upon. Mrs. Fisher was soon heartily tired of her, and could have regretted her complaisance to Mrs. Danvers' wishes in receiving her against her judgment; but she was too good to send her away. She laughed, and accepted her as a penance for her sins, she said—as a thorn in the flesh—and she let the thorn rankle there. She remembered her honored Fisher, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... no fly down into the lake, returned the Frenchman, with a visage that was divided between pain, occasioned by a few large scratches that he had received in forcing his head through the crust, and the look of complaisance that seemed natural to his ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of a narrative of a direct war between Satan on the one side and the Royal Commissioners on the other, "because," says Councillor de Lancre, with self-complaisance, "nothing is so calculated to strike terror into the fiend and his dominions as a commission with such ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... whom are you speaking? Do you call Louis Philippe the tyrant? No; no more than Louis XVI. Both of them are what history is in the habit of calling good kings; but principles are not to be parcelled out, the logic of the true is rectilinear, the peculiarity of truth is that it lacks complaisance; no concessions, then; all encroachments on man should be repressed. There is a divine right in Louis XVI., there is because a Bourbon in Louis Philippe; both represent in a certain measure the confiscation of right, and, in order to clear away universal insurrection, they ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... by his father prevented by God himself after he had commanded it. We then had only one idee fixe—namely, to find again in the dark mass of the religious books of the Hindu, the original account of that event. We should never have succeeded but for 'the complaisance' of a Brahman with whom we were reading Sanskrit, and who, yielding to our request, brought us from the library of his pagoda the works of the theologian Ramatsariar, which have yielded us such precious ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... by the Hamstringers, he spread a report that she had spent a night of wild debauch at Roche-Mauprat. At best, he only deigned to concede that she had yielded only to violence. Edmee commanded too much respect and esteem to be accused of having shown complaisance to the brigands; but she soon passed for having been a victim of their brutality. Marked with an indelible stain, she was no longer sought in marriage by any one. My absence only served to confirm this opinion. I had saved her from death, it was said, but not from shame, and it ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... withdrew to a distance, and, having seated myself in a retired corner, was soon lost in consideration of my own fortunes past and to come. The hour grew late; the gentlemen and ladies of the Court, having offered and accepted compliments and gallantries till invention and complaisance alike were exhausted, dropped off one by one, in search of supper, wine, or rest. I sat on in my corner. Nothing was to be heard save the occasional voices of the two musketeers on guard on the steps leading from the second storey of the keep to the State apartments. ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... eyeglass, she seemed to be sweeping the whole field of society and asking herself where she should pluck her revenge. Suddenly she espied it, ready made to her hand, in poor Longmore's wealth and amiability. American dollars and American complaisance had made her brother's fortune; why shouldn't they make hers? She overestimated the wealth and misinterpreted the amiability; for she was sure a man could neither be so contented without being rich nor so "backward" without being weak. Longmore met her advances with a formal politeness that covered ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... as much a hindrance to business success as a moral weakness. Yet to the man who does not possess moral courage the most brilliant abilities may prove utterly useless. There is the folly of resistance and the folly of complaisance. There is the tendency towards eternal compromise and the desire for futile battle. Until the mind of youth has adjusted itself between the two extremes and formed a technique which is not so much independent ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook |
