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Obliging   Listen
adjective
obliging  adj.  Putting under obligation; disposed to oblige or do favors; hence, helpful; civil; kind. "Mons. Strozzi has many curiosities, and is very obliging to a stranger who desires the sight of them."
Synonyms: Civil; complaisant; courteous; kind, Obliging, Kind, Complaisant. One is kind who desires to see others happy; one is complaisant who endeavors to make them so in social intercourse by attentions calculated to please; one who is obliging performs some actual service, or has the disposition to do so.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Obliging" Quotes from Famous Books



... "That's the most obliging caribou I ever heard of," said Rob, "to walk right into our camp that way. I've read about buffalo-hunters in the old times running a buffalo almost into camp before they killed it, to save trouble in packing the meat. ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... very obliging temper, and who liked to do what she was asked to do, went back to the place where the scotcher lay; and scarcely had she reached the spot, when she heard the noise of a carriage. She ran to call her brother, and to their great joy, they ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... was on his best behaviour, trying to appear very kind and obliging; so when Thor came rumbling and roaring up to him, demanding, "What have you done with my hammer, you thief?" Loki looked surprised, but did not lose his temper ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... for you, mended your clothes, and I've kept the shack clean. I've tried to be obliging and—and obedient." The last word was not yet an easy ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... and drove out to Little Kirkton. There, we told our tale in the fewest words possible to the obliging and good-natured U.P. minister. He looked, as the station-master had said, 'soft-hearted'; but he dashed our hopes to the ground at once by telling us candidly that unless we had had our residence in Scotland for twenty-one ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... like two loving youths, jealous of every minute that separated them. At the dinner-table, at the theatre, at the balls and concerts, they always came together into the proud society that awaited them. At dinner, Napoleon, playing the polite and obliging host, always had Alexander placed at his right. At the theatre, directly behind the orchestra, were two gilded easy-chairs on a small platform, and the two emperors were enthroned on them near each other; on the floor behind this stood four ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... that he is foxed, or hath taken a cup too much,—a hospitable, generous, good-humored man, that he is a niggard and pinch-penny,—or threatens an excellent lawyer to meet him at the bar,—must make the persons smile and please the company. Thus Cyrus was very obliging and complaisant, when he challenged his playfellows at those sports in which he was sure to be overcome. And Ismenias piping at a sacrifice, when no good omens appeared, the man that hired him snatched ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... so fond of the fan, it is so pretty. Do you see, it is quite obliging? it is floating towards you!" Constantine had soon secured the fan, and shook it to dry it as he went across the plank to the vessel. Dada joyfully received it, stroked the feathers smooth, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... hand on his knee. "Well, say—observe me the prize idiot! Get the blue ribbon and pin it on your Uncle George. Look here at me overlooking the main bet. Well, say, Henry—here are the specifications of one large juicy plan. Funeral to-morrow—old man Mauling; obliging party to die. Uncle George and the angel choir to officiate with Uncle George doubling in brass as pall-bearer. The new Mrs. Sands, our bell-voiced contralto, is sick: also obliging party to be sick. Need new contralto: Mueller ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... occasion to follow the boys through the day's routine. Grant found his companion very obliging, and very ready to give him the information he needed. Many boys would have been supercilious and perhaps been disposed to play tricks on a country boy, but Harry was not one of them. He took a friendly interest in Grant, answered all his questions, and did his best to qualify ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger

... you tendered me a little ago I shall now be glad to accept. Do your work well, smith, and know that in performing it, you are obliging an envoy of ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... of the 14th has been duly received, and I have to thank you for the many obliging things respecting myself which are said in it. If I have left in the breasts of my fellow-citizens a sentiment of satisfaction with my conduct in the transaction of their business, it will soften the pillow of my repose through the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... scarcely have elapsed, when he came to a bridge which was very long, but with a parapet on both sides to prevent any one falling into the river. Well; he looked at his flock, and as he was obliged to cross the bridge, he began to drive over his eleven thousand sheep. Now be so obliging as to wait till the eleven thousand sheep are all safely across, and then I will finish the story. I already told you that the result is not yet known; I hope, however, that by the time I next write to you, all the sheep will ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... not mock his sighing. And keep him thus whole years a-dying! "Whole years!"—Excuse my freely speaking. Such tortures, why a month—a week in? Caress, or kill him quite in one day, Obliging ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... time when poor Nanni had experienced such bitter trouble, an opportunity for affording her pleasure should present itself so unexpectedly. The Master at once settled all the needful particulars with the obliging decorator, who promised that on the following Sunday Wacht should be able to stroll through the garden as its owner. "Come now," cried Master Wacht, "come now, friend Leberfink, out with it—what is it that is ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... incompetent to do the work which had been entrusted to them. They were somewhat surprised when I took them to task and made them "sit up." Having found that they had played the fool with the wrong man they instantly became very meek and obliging. It is nevertheless a great pity that the Mercury Company should employ men of this kind who, for some aim of their own, annoy passengers, both foreign and Russian, and are a disgrace to the ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's at night, that I had a particular reason for wishing to get on in life, and that I should feel very much obliged to her if she would impart all her learning to me. Biddy, who was the most obliging of girls, immediately said she would, and indeed began to carry out ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... no beauty, and took to the obliging line. She fawns, and is intimate and popular. I never liked her silkiness, though it creeps into one at the time. Georgina had more in her. I wish you could have seen her at eighteen. She was such a fine, glowing, joyous-looking girl, with ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... worthy men. The Abbe de Mably has lately published a book, which he has dedicated to Mr. Adams. This gentleman is nearly eighty years old; the Abbe Chalut, seventy-five; and Arnoux about fifty, a fine sprightly man, who takes great pleasure in obliging his friends. Their apartments were really nice. I have dined once at Dr. Franklin's, and once at Mr. Barclay's, our consul, who has a very agreeable woman for his wife, and where I feel like being ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... dust-covered, mud-daubed teamster, who yet must haul the freight far back into hills where for ages there will be no railway. To these, Godspeed and good cheer! They live by the Trails; they eat at the wheel; they sleep under the wagon; they are kindly and obliging even when their heavily belled teams of six to fourteen or more head of horses meet another loaded caravan in some narrow pass where the highest engineering ability is needed to get by in safety; and they never leave a ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan

... dignified as if he held the office of President. I shall never forget one occasion on which he was invited to luncheon at Mrs. Ewing's hut, that I might have the pleasure of making his acquaintance; he had to be unwillingly carried across the Lines in the arms of an obliging subaltern, but directly he arrived, without waiting even for the first course, he struggled out of the officer's embrace and galloped back to his own mess-table, tail erect and thick with rage at the ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... It is sheer calumny. All he did was this: he was extremely kind and obliging, and understood different kinds of stuff very well; therefore he used to go everywhere and choose some; then, he had them brought to his house, and was in the habit of letting his friends have some ...
— The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere (Poquelin)

... a life- long true effort. The man probably is not dishonest, does not desire to shirk any service which is due from him, is not even inclined to insolence. Accept his first declaration of equality for that which it is intended to represent, and the man afterward will be found obliging and communicative. If occasion offer he will sit down in the room with you, and will talk with you on any subject that he may choose; but having once ascertained that you show no resentment for this assertion of equality, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... their rule of the two unities on probability, whereas reality is the very thing that destroys it. Indeed, what could be more improbable and absurd than this porch or peristyle or ante-chamber—vulgar places where our tragedies are obliging enough to develop themselves; whither conspirators come, no one knows whence, to declaim against the tyrant, and the tyrant to declaim against the conspirators, each in turn, as if they had said to one another in ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... store. There was hardly a man or woman in the community who would not have been glad to do as much. It was a simple recognition on their part of Lincoln's friendliness to them. He was what they called "obliging"—a man who instinctively did the thing which he saw would help another, no matter how trivial or homely it was. In the home of Rowan Herndon, where he had boarded when he first came to the town, he had made himself loved by his care ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various

... could do no more than sincerely and cordially thank him. The day before we embarked, he told us that he had been making inquiries about Captain Brown. "I would rather that you had another man to sail with," he observed. "He is a person with two countenances, I am afraid. On shore he is mild, and obliging, and well-behaved; but afloat he is, I am told, tyrannical and passionate, and often addicted to intemperance. You will, accordingly, be on your guard. You will probably remain only a few weeks with him, or I should advise you to give up the voyage, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... with a man who had some odd old books, German editions in mediaeval Latin, and I was only too happy to be permitted access to them. This obliging person's books were in the City, a very out-of-the-way part of it. I had rather out-stayed my intended hour, and, on coming out, seeing no cab near, I was tempted to get into the omnibus which used to drive past this house. It was darker ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... workshop, as a man might visit a factory. He expected to see a great many processes going on the nature of which he did not hope to discern, and the object of which would be made still more obscure by the desperately intelligent explanations of some obliging workman, who would glibly use technical words to which he would himself be able to ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... The accomplished and obliging pianist had rendered several selections, when one of the admiring group of listeners in the hotel parlor suggested Mozart's Twelfth Mass. Several people echoed the request, but one lady was particularly desirous of hearing ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... blessed the surface; but I believe that whisky was represented by the "Dewdrop," and that the word was intended to imply an invitation, "Do-drop-in." Of course we dropped in, being about an hour in advance of our vans, and I found the landlord most obliging, and a bottle of Bass's pale ale most refreshing in this horrible-looking desert of chalk and thistles that had become a quasi-British colony. This unfortunate man and one or two partners were among those deluded victims who had sacrificed ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... house in twenty-four hours, as "he had been advised of an intention to burn the houses in which they were staying," and he did not wish to have Luxeuil exposed to this danger on account of their presence there. The following day, the guard, as obliging as the mayor, allows the band to enter the town and to force the abbey: the usual events follow, renunciations are extorted, records and cellars are ransacked, plate and other effects are stolen. M. de Courtivron escaping with ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... represent an urgent client, a Russian prince, who desired a fine Crivelli. Would the most gentle Miss Verplanck haply part with hers? The price should be what she chose to name. It was no question of money, but of obliging a client whom Crespi could ill afford to disappoint. Emma curtly declined the offer. The St. Michael was valued for personal reasons and was not for sale. Six weeks later came a more insidious suggestion. The Director of the Uffizi, learning that ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather

... frequently without price, and never, in any instance, pilfering a single article, although the high value they set upon the goods we had with us was evident by the extravagant demonstrations of joy always manifested upon our making them a present. The women especially were most obliging in every respect, and, upon the whole, we should have been the most suspicious of human beings had we entertained a single thought of perfidy on the part of a people who treated us so well. A very short while sufficed to prove that this apparent kindness of disposition ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... the published selection from her correspondence. Two or three short bits out of many letters will suffice to show the spirit in which she then wrote. August 24, 1680. "Absent or present, my dearest life is equally obliging, and ever the earthly delight of my soul. It is my great care (or ought to be so) so to moderate my sense of happiness here, that when the appointed time comes of my leaving it, or its leaving me, I may not be unwilling ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... should be learned, skilled, ingenious, and of good morals. Be bold in things that are sure, cautious in dangers; avoid evil cures and practices; be gracious to the sick, obliging to his colleagues, wise in his predictions. Be chaste, sober, pitiful, and merciful; not covetous nor extortionate of money; but let the recompense be moderate, according to the work, the means of the sick, the character of the issue or ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... states, the authorities for his work have been four-and-twenty years in collection; and that the utmost pains has been taken to verify names, dates, and circumstances, so as to insure accuracy. In this labour the author has been aided by the communications of many obliging friends, as well as by his own recollection of nearly fifty years' changes in the aspects of "opulent, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various

... was slain the Lord Viscount Falkland, a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... German soldiers. The supplies and the survivors of the garrison—about twenty-eight hundred men—fell into the hands of the enemy (November 16, 1776). Following this, Lord Charles Cornwallis led six thousand British across the river and attacked Washington's forces, obliging him to retreat across New Jersey, over the ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay

... very dear to him, as hostages." The Sultan seemed satisfied with these words, and granted her request, leaving her absolute mistress to act in this affair as she pleased; and retired to his apartment, much more affected with the joy of obliging her, than disturbed at ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown

... solitary, was prosperous and successful. Friends appeared for her where she least expected them. The influence of her engaging person and winning manners is observable in one obliging attention she received even from strangers. The Viceroy appointed a woman to accompany her free of expense; the captain refused money for her passage; and the physician at Madras, from whom she had received visits for six weeks, returned the fee which she sent him, saying he ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... your bed-room door at five-o'clock in the morning, rousing you to go up and explore them; and after spending an hour or two in wandering among them, you come back to the breakfast prepared by the model landlord of California, jolly, obliging, intelligent, reasonable. As you mount the stage for departure you give him a warm shake of the hand, and suggest that it would be a grand thing if some one with a vein of poetry in his mind and the faith of God in his heart would come round some day, and passing among the geysers with ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... regard to fish, I believe that the same species never occur in the fresh waters of distant continents." Now, the Author is enabled, by the labours and through the kindness of Dr. Guenther, to show that this belief cannot be maintained; he having been so obliging as to call attention to the following facts with regard to fish-distribution. These facts show that though only one species which is absolutely and exclusively an inhabitant of fresh water is as yet known to be found in distant continents, yet that ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... I have many apologies to make for omitting so long to acknowledge the receipt of your obliging favour of the 10th of July. The copy you have done me the honour to present me, of the medal voted by Congress, and executed according to my directions to the Secretary of the Navy, I accept with great pleasure, not only from my personal regard to the giver, but because I esteem every laurel ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... allowed the matter to drop. Early, however, in 1709, communications were reopened. On January 14 of that year, the following entry occurs in Thoresby's 'Diary:' 'At the excellent Bishop of Ely's [Moore]. Met the obliging R. Hales, Esq., to whose pious endeavour the good providence of God has given admirable success in reconciling the Reformed Churches abroad [Calvinists and Lutherans] one to another (so that they not only frequently meet together, but some of them join in the Sacrament), ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... me of a funny time she had when she was quite a young housekeeper, afflicted with a borrowing neighbor. This lady seldom had anything of her own at hand when it was wanted, so she depended upon the obliging disposition ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... earlier that she did not intend to take part of Morocco. Further, the Entente with France (made public on November 24) contained no secret articles; nor were there any in any compact made by the British Government. On December 6, Mr. Asquith declared that we had no secret engagement with any Power obliging us to take up arms. "We do not desire to stand in the light of any Power which wants to find its place in the sun. The first of British interests is, as it always has been, the peace of the world; and to its attainment British diplomacy and policy ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... "damning with faint praise" appears from innumerable passages in his writings, and from none more than from those in which he mentions Pope. And it is not merely unjust, but ridiculous, to describe a man who made the fortune of almost every one of his intimate friends as "so obliging ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... comes round. She will live with the other nurses in a comfortable house not far from the battle field. She will be expected to bring her own clothes, cups, plates and knives etc: She must be cheerful and kind and must make herself obliging to the soldiers. I will expect ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford

... which will place him much above his elder brothers in the opinion of posterity. He is extremely compassionate and liberal to the truly distressed, serviceable to those whom he knows are not his friends, and forgiving and obliging even to those who have proved and avowed themselves his enemies. These are virtues commonly very scarce, and hitherto never displayed by any other member of the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... evidence of suspecting any issue of this sort, nor did the friendly and humane judge. Only the scheming Moffat knew to what all this was tending, and Moffat could not be trusted. The case was his and he would gain it if he could. Tender and obliging as he was in his treatment of the witness, there was iron under the velvet of his glove. This was his reputation; and this I must now see exemplified before me, without the power to stop it. The consideration with which he approached his ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... to talk of the matter at all, and said nothing, as they slowly advanced. They had at last reached the passage that ended at his door, and he slackened his pace still more, obliging his companion, whose arm was still in his, to keep pace with him. The moonlight no longer shone in straight through the open embrasures, and there was a dim twilight ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... things happen sometimes. No one had seen her in the street, so that no one knew of it in the town. I lodged with two decrepit old ladies, who looked after me. They were most obliging old things, ready to do anything for me, and at my request were as silent afterwards as two cast-iron posts. Of course I grasped the position at once. She walked in and looked straight at me, her dark eyes determined, even ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... When Colfax will accept as an amendment a prohibition of telegrams, and the obliging our mails to transmit all intelligence, then I will consider of ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... departed in one direction and Helen in another, while an obliging senior who roomed across the hall put Betty's half of the room to rights—Helen's was always in order,—a freshman next door helped Betty into a white linen suit, which is the Harding girl's regular compromise between street and evening dress, and somebody else telephoned ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... for me, at this moment. We expect to be gone six, or, possibly, eight months. I shall write again from Marseilles; and, I hope, the letter from thence will reach you. Pull Bruno's ears for me, and don't let him forget his master; which will be one way, my dear, kind, Elinor, of obliging you to remember that individual also. Best respects to Mr. Wyllys and Aunt Agnes, with much love for yourself, dearest ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... which is held at Stamford, with an entertainment called the Pear-pie feast, which after all may be a corruption of the Spear-pie feast. For more particulars, Drake's History of York may be referred to. The author's mistake was pointed out to him, in the most obliging manner, by Robert Belt, Esq. of Bossal House. The ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... Brandur was not considered obliging; it was very difficult to get to see him. Yet he was willing to sell food at any time for cash; hay, too, as long as there was still some remaining in his lofts. He would also sell hay against promises ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... into St. George's voice: "Well, even if she did say she would let you know, do be a little generous. Miss Seymour is always so obliging; but she ought really to dance the reel with Harry to-night." He used Kate's full name, but Willits's head was buzzing too loudly for him to notice the ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... did himself a good turn by his obliging deference to the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has been in office ever since. It must be acknowledged of all our leading statesmen that gratitude for such services is their characteristic. It is said that he spends much of his eloquence in endeavouring to make his wife believe that ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... blind? The other evening when he called there, Charles Lane knocked at the door, to bring a slip of geranium, which he had walked several miles to get for Annie; and the old gentleman only said, "You are very obliging, Charles—drop in and see us often." So strange, not to know it was just like such precocious youths to fancy themselves in love with every pretty girl. So laws were enacted stricter than those of the Medes and Persians, against all billets passed in school; as if Cupid, had he made ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... "She'll just spoil everything," thought Betty resentfully, "and it's a mean, hateful shame." Over the creamed chicken, which Nan ordered because it was Holmes's "specialty," just as strawberry-ice was Cuyler's, the situation began to look a little more cheerful. Helen Chase Adams would certainly be an obliging roommate. ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... supper," he said, as he helped his mother to the ground. "Mr Job Judson here did not quite approve of our proceeding, as he would rather we had spent the time in his bar; however, I have brought him up some of the proceeds of our sport to propitiate him, for he is an obliging, good-natured fellow, at bottom. I wish him a ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston

... highly-developed sense of duty has done our host and hostess a grave injustice, besides paying me a compliment I don't deserve. I'm sorry to say I can't claim to be half as useful a member of the community as any of the very obliging and attentive gentlemen in Mr. BLANKLEY'S employment. If I'm anything, I'm a—an Egyptologist, in an amateur sort of way, you know. A—in fact, I'm writing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, March 4, 1893 • Various

... spirit was it done, in which Your bluff Calabrian on a guest will thrust His pears: "Come, eat, man, eat—you can, you must!" "Indeed, indeed, my friend, I've had enough." "Then take some home!" "You're too obliging." "Stuff! If you have pockets full of them, I guess, Your little lads will like you none the less." "I really can't—thanks all the same!" "You won't? Why then the pigs shall have them, if you don't." 'Tis fools ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... said Fanny boldly; "but during the last few days I have discovered that Sibyl is a sweet girl—most charming, most unselfish, most obliging. She is very timid, however, and lacks self-confidence; and I have observed that she is constantly snubbed by girls who are not fit to hold a candle to her and yet look down upon her, just because she is poor. Now, if she were made a member of the club all that ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... be obliging for once, and sew this button on my glove, won't you?" cried Ann Lambert, impatiently, throwing a white kid glove in her sister's lap. "I am in such a flurry! I won't be ready to go to the concert in two or three hours. Mr. Darcet has been waiting ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... yet only partially developed. Upon each of my works my estimable uncle advances me the sum of twelve shillings and sixpence. I paint one picture per week. In consideration of the restricted character of my wardrobe, my landlady is so obliging as to send my works to the only dealer with whom I can at present do business. I had never known until this morning who it was that acted as my ambassador. I have told you already that I am of a merry temperament. ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... "I have done nothing with him; but I don't know what he would have done with me if I had been obliging enough to listen to his ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... may sleep in a house to-day, in the woods to-morrow, and in a sail-boat the day after; you dine one day in a logging camp, and another in a farm-house. With the barometer at "set fair," and in a country where every body is civil and obliging, and where all you see is novel to an Eastern person, the sense of adventure adds a keen zest to a journey which is in itself not only amusing and ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... declarations of the individual? Winding himself up with twopenny-worth of cheese! Pleading for the additional penny for the waitress, whose personal charms and obliging disposition must be considered to extort the amount! And above all, unable to conceive any motive, except aversion to trouble, for disliking to carry "his chop" upon a skewer through the streets of London. How every line ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... chocolate, he asked me my age, my confessor's name, and many intricate questions about religion. The severity of his countenance frightened me, which he perceiving, told the countess to inform me, that he was not so severe as he looked for. He then caressed me in a most obliging manner, presented his hand, which I kissed with great reverence and modesty; and, as he went away, he made use of this remarkable expression. My dear child, I shall remember you till the next time. I did not, at the time, mark the sense of the words; for I was inexperienced ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... letter is Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, deputy-mayor of the second arrondissement, and one of the best known manufacturers of Parisian perfumery; he wishes to have business relations with your house. You can confidently do all that he asks of you; and in obliging him ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... letters that I have the honour to enclose for your perusal, that after filling up all the places, the pleasure of rejecting the rest of the candidates is reserved for me. He has contrived matters so, that others have all the grace of obliging, and all the pleasure of being useful; and that all which is harsh and odious is thrown upon me, as a reward for all the trouble and expense I have been at in this business. On this I shall make ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... tale-bearing, Lucy was really giving less trouble than her sister, she was quick, observant, and obliging, and under Albinia's example, the more salient vulgarities of speech and manner were falling off. There had seldom been any collision, since it had become evident that Mrs. Kendal could and would hold her ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... as some discovery of consent on both parts (the pastors and people) is necessary to the being of the members of a political particular Church: so that the most express declaration of that consent is the most plain and satisfactory dealing, and most obliging, and likest to ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... mare stretched her neck to its utmost length before she bent it to drink, obliging Joe to lean forwards over her shoulder, to retain his hold of the short rein. Jake, holding on to Joe, leaned with him, and they waited in this painful posture till the mare slowly filled herself from the stream. Finally ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... writes them in his tablets; says, with a smile, "He is too much obliged ever to forget them." This is Wednesday, the 24th of August, 1740; Field-Marshal Broglio is Commandant in Strasburg, and these obliging Officers are "of the regiment Piedmont,"—their names on the King's tablets I never heard mentioned by anybody (or never till the King's Doggerel was fished up again). Field-Marshal Broglio my readers have transiently seen, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... of your philological readers be so obliging as to communicate any note he may have touching the original or definition of the ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.22 • Various

... which case their loyalty to the crown and admiration of rank were excessive and amusing. They read good books when they read at all, educated their children, some of whom became governesses, travelled a little in the summer, were hospitable to their limited circle of friends, were kind and obliging, put on no airs, and were on the whole useful and worthy people, if we can not call them "respectable members of society." They were, perhaps, the happiest and most contented of all the various classes, since they were virtuous, frugal, industrious, and thought more of duties than ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... one of the numerous creeks which frequently impeded and checked our way, sometimes obliging us to ascend them for several miles, one of the people (Alexis Ayot) was shot through the leg by the accidental discharge of a rifle—a mortifying and painful mischance, to be crippled for life by an accident, after ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... down the trail that evening, brought by the obliging doctor from Emville, who had been summoned to dress the wounds of one of the line-men who had got too close to the murderous "sixty thousand" and had been badly burned by "the juice." And after the letters were read, and the good doctor had made his patient comfortable, he proved an excellent ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... the new edition of Erasmus' Epigrammata combined with More's and with the Utopia, March 1518. 'Most of these verses' Froben is made to say 'were written not for publication, but to give pleasure to friends; to whom he is always very obliging. When he was here bringing out his New Testament and Jerome, heavens! how he worked! toiling away untiringly day after day. Never was any one more overwhelmed in composition; and yet certain great persons thought themselves entitled to come and ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... She seems strangely changed recently, and you would hardly know her, she is so gentle, so obliging, so amiable. You ought to have heard her plead your cause with me. She besought me almost with tears not to prove unfaithful to you, and when I convinced her that 'twas impossible for me to love another as I had Mr. Wilmot, she insisted on my writing, ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... "whereas the ancient toll of the Sound had been only a golden rose-noble on every sail, which was always understood to be meant on every ship; the court of Denmark had for some time past put a new and arbitrary construction on the word sail, by obliging all ships to pay a rose-noble for every sail on, or belonging to each ship". In consequence of this, the Vandalic-Hanse Towns, or those on the south shores of the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... especially as they could keep him in continual suspense, by representing that the general assembly could not meet sooner on account of the vast distance of some of the cities. Even the most moderate were for obliging the president to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... these sad-and painful privations—inevitable death. Why was this poor creature born? Often the greatness of the earth is worse than a malediction, and reasons of State are the most cruel of all torments for an invalid, obliging him to feign a health he does not feel. To speak of the illness of the king is a crime, and the courtiers living under the shadow of the throne consider the slightest allusion to the king's health as a sacrilege, a crime worthy of punishment, as though he were not a human being subject ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... amiable and eagerly obliging old man, by some ironic contradiction of his intentions his life had become a series of blunders through which he endeavoured to add his share to the general happiness. His soul was overflowing with humanity, and he ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... sorry you should be concerned about the supposed trouble you give me, by having mislaid my former relation of it. For, besides obliging my dear Lady G., the hope of doing service by it to a family so worthy, in a case so nearly affecting its honour, as to make two headstrong young ladies recollect what belongs to their sex and their characters, and ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... not the least considerable, think that the tides produced by the Sun upon her seas, or globe in its state of pristine fluidity, must have been strong enough to seize and fix her, as the Earth did for the Moon, thus obliging her to present always the same face to the Sun. Certain telescopic observations would even seem to confirm this theoretical deduction from the calculations ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... people asked him for charity to carry three orphan children on his sledge some miles on the way to Bergen, and to leave them at a house he had to pass on his road, where they would be taken care of till they could be fetched from Bergen. Hund was an obliging young fellow then, and he made no objection. He took the little things, and saw that the two elder were well wrapped up from the cold. The third he took within his arms and on his knee as he drove, clasping it warm against ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... been obliging, had looked up the message and copied it with his own hand. It was a night letter, and had been filed in Hamilton April 24—the third day after Nita's arrival. Addressed to Dexter Sprague, at a hotel in the theatrical district, New York City, ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... was accompanied on his journey by the governor of Maryland, as far as Georgetown. From this place, on the 29th of March, he writes to Gov. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina: "I had the pleasure of receiving your Excellency's obliging letter of the 8th instant last evening. I am thus far on my tour through the southern States, but as I travel with only one set of horses, and must make occasional halts, the progress of my journey is exposed to such uncertainty as admits not of fixing a day for my arrival at Charleston. ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... flesh. We were exceedingly comfortable, having a large stock of supplies; in addition to our servants we had acquired a treasure in a nice old slave woman, whom we had hired from the sheik at a dollar per month to grind the corn. Masara (Sarah) was a dear old creature, the most willing and obliging specimen of a good slave; and she was one of those bright exceptions of the negro race that would have driven Exeter Hall frantic with enthusiasm. Poor old Masara! she had now fallen into the hands of a kind mistress, and as we ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... However obliging fate may desire to be, certain of nature's laws must be observed. Whether luck was disposed to stay with Luck Lindsay or not, a storm such as the fates had conjured for his needs could not well blow itself out as suddenly ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... represented Home Department, War Office, and Treasury in the State. For some time all seemed to go well, but the Rajah soon found that the Datu Patinghi could not be restrained from oppressing the Dyaks under his charge, levying more than the proper tax, or obliging them to buy whatever he wished to sell, at exorbitant prices. His power over the Dyaks was therefore taken away, and a fixed income given him to preclude temptation. When the Rajah was in England, in 1851, this Datu ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... Lord Montague, after he had what he called a "go" in the dancing-room, he found his way back to the buffet in the supper-room, and the historian says that he greatly enjoyed himself, and was very amusing, and that he cultivated the friendship of an obliging waiter early in the morning, who conducted ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... smiling and obliging, but clamoring loudly for extra money, were finally settled with by Miss Morley, who knew the customs of the country, and was aware that they would be quite content with less than half of what ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... three months I spent in the Conciergerie, expecting every day to be ordered out to the guillotine. The gaoler's son, a boy about my own age, who was sometimes employed to bring me food, seemed to look upon me with compassion; I had several opportunities of obliging him: his father often gave him long returns of the names of the prisoners, and various accounts, to copy into a large book; the young gentleman did not like this work; he was much fonder of exercising as a soldier with some boys in the neighbourhood, who were ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... means of continual study and by a bold and resolute method of working in fresco to wrest from the hands of Tiziano that sovereignty which he had gained with so many beautiful works; employing, also, unusual methods outside the field of art, such as that of being obliging and courteous and associating continually and of set purpose with great persons, making his interests universal, and taking a hand in everything. And, in truth, this rivalry was a great assistance to him, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari

... supplied all this help in a natural matter-of-fact way, without ever introducing the Deity into his talk, or seeking to obtain any advantage either for himself or the cause of religion. A word of thanks and a smile sufficed him. He seemed glad to have an opportunity of obliging the handsome Madame Quenu, of whom his housekeeper often spoke to him in terms of praise, as of a woman who was highly ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... walking on the terrace with Coquet, his Master of the Household, Vitry, La Varenne, and a gentleman unknown to me. On seeing me he dismissed them, and while I was still a great way off, called out, chiding me for my laziness: then taking me by the hand in the most obliging manner, he made me walk up and down with him, while he told me what further thoughts he had of this affair; and hiding nothing from me even as he bade me speak to him whatever I thought without reserve, he required ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... these fawning wretches, when they found (as they thought) that lord Timon's poverty was all pretence, and had been only put on to make trial of their loves, to think that they should not have seen through the artifice at the time, and have had the cheap credit of obliging his lordship? yet who more glad to find the fountain of that noble bounty, which they had thought dried up, still fresh and running? They came dissembling, protesting, expressing deepest sorrow and shame, that when his lordship ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... necessities of a thirsty soul, and would permit them, in extreme need, and when their soul was impoverished for lack of moisture, to drink to the full value of their watches and wearing apparel, exclusively of their inferior habiliments, which he was uniformly inexorable in obliging them to retain, for the credit of the house. As to mine own part, I may well say, that he never refused me that modicum of refreshment with which I am wont to recruit nature after the fatigues of my school. It is true, I taught his five sons English and Latin, writing, book-keeping, with ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Hedwig, with more courage than would have been expected from such a mere child,—she is twenty, but Northern people are not grown up till they are thirty, at least,—"I think it would have been more obliging if, when I asked you so much about your cousin, you had acknowledged that you had no cousin, and that the singer was none other than yourself." She blushed, perhaps, but the curtain ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... twenty shillings in the pound to one who had not given more for it than three or four; and it is added that it would be hard to aggravate the misfortune of the first owner, who, probably through necessity, parted with, his property at so great a loss, by obliging him to contribute to the profit of the person who had speculated on his distresses." Nevertheless, Hamilton submitted considerations showing that discrimination would be "equally unjust and impolitic, as highly injurious even to the original ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford



Words linked to "Obliging" :   complaisant, accommodating, accommodative, obligingness



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