"Amenities" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had a habit of speaking with deep respect of young Shackford's ability, and once she had seen him at their table,—at a Thanksgiving. On this occasion Richard had appalled her by the solemnity of his shyness,—poor Richard, who was so unused to the amenities of a handsomely served dinner, that the chill which came over him cooled the ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... intolerable. It qualified her to treat with cheerfulness the grimness of her mother, which had certainly not grown less since I saw her last, and to turn into something like a joke her valetudinarian austerities of sentiment and opinion. She made a pleasant mock of the amenities which passed between her mother and Glendenning, whose gingerliness in the acceptance of the old lady's condescension would, I confess, have been notably comical without this gloss. It was perfectly evident that Mrs. Bentley's favor was bestowed with a mental reservation, and conditioned ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... thing called a mujlis.[33] In our boyhood we beheld the dying rays of that intimate sociability which was characteristic of the last generation. Neighbourly feelings were then so strong that the mujlis was a necessity, and those who could contribute to its amenities were in great request. People now-a-days call on each other on business, or as a matter of social duty, but not to foregather by way of mujlis. They have not the time, nor are there the same intimate relations! What goings and comings ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... afterwards embodied in a famous book of travel. Warren treated him with the greatest courtesy and promised that all his collections should be duly forwarded to the Royal Academy of Sciences. Once this exchange of international amenities had been ended, however, the usual systematic search began. The visible cargo was all cocoa. But hidden underneath were layers and layers of shining silver dollars from Peru; and, underneath this double million, another two ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... this interest in Americans, the French looked upon them as an inferior people over whom they would have liked to exercise a sort of protectorate. To them the Americans seemed to lack a proper knowledge of the amenities of life. Commissioner Thieriot, describing the administration of justice in the new republic, noticed that: "A Frenchman, with the prejudices of his country and accustomed to court sessions in which the officers have ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... relieved by a certain picturesqueness, by a touch of romance, from the usual sordid course of events in the life of the P[vr]emysl dynasty with its rivalries, treachery, conspiracies and other social amenities of the time. There is even something picturesque in the fact that the Pope had felt obliged to send Cardinal Guido with a special mission to establish order among the Bohemian clergy. These amiable gentlemen would persist in entering ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... Damaris it exercised an unwilling fascination, as of some haunting refrain ending each verse of her personal experience. Even when, as a little girl of eight, fresh from the gentle restraints and rare religious and social amenities of an aristocratic convent school in Paris, she had first encountered it, it struck her as strangely familiar—a thing given back rather than newly discovered, making her mind and innocent body alike eager with absorbed yet half-shuddering recognition. A good ten years had elapsed since then, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... traveller outside the kingdom of England: and you may doubtless, in the whole of Europe or of the globe, find more magnificent things than you can possibly find in an island of the dimensions given. But for a miniature and manageable assemblage of amenities I do not think you can easily beat Guernsey. The town of St. Peter Port, and its two castles, Fort George above and Castle Cornet below, looking on the strait above mentioned, with the curiously contrasted islets ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... who would have liked to visit them refrained from doing so because they thought the reunited family would prefer to be alone that first evening. Kate did her best to preserve some tattered fragments of the amenities. She told college stories, talked of Lena Vroom and of beautiful Honora Fulham,—hinted even at Ray McCrea,—and by dint of much ingenuity wore ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... I had learned enough to realize how important are the amenities in politics and business. The Colonel did most of the conversing; he could not have filled with efficiency and ease the important post that was his had it not been for the endless fund of humorous anecdotes at his disposal. One by one the visitors left, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Cabinet, and officers from the tiny war-ship in the harbor. The breeze from the bay touched them through the open doors, the food and wine cheered them, and the eager courtesy and hospitality of the three Americans pleased and flattered them. They were of a people who better appreciate the amenities of ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... effort of living might have made it possible to retrieve his fortunes; and Woburn's mother and sister, embittered by this final evasion, settled down to a vindictive war with circumstances. They were the kind of women who think that it lightens the burden of life to throw over the amenities, as a reduced housekeeper puts away her knick-knacks to make the dusting easier. They fought mean conditions meanly; but Woburn, in his resentment of their attitude, did not allow for the suffering which had brought it about: his own tendency was to overcome ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... halted to give and receive the password, then tossed a bunch of letters to the corporal, and spurred forward. Halted by the outer pickets, she exchanged amenities again, rid herself of the remainder of the mail, and rode forward, loosening the revolver in her holster. Then she ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... further of loving if not too well at least too often, of being in fine as little austere as possible. I am not sure it is very brave, nor struck with its being very industrious. But it has an unfailing sense of the amenities of life; the poorest Venetian is a natural man of the world. He is better company than persons of his class are apt to be among the nations of industry and virtue—where people are also sometimes perceived to lie and steal and otherwise misconduct themselves. He has ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... affectionate and truly feminine nature, indicating at the same time by politely reaching a chair for her that he regarded these manifestations as rather crude and startling. Having made his clerical toilet with due care in the morning, he was prepared only for those amenities of life which were suited to the well-adjusted stiff cravat of the period, and to a ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... me by the hand, whilst he was practising all the amenities with his countenance, he opened the parlour-door, where the supposititious visitor was expected to be found, and lo! the room was empty. Mrs Root and the servants were summoned, and they all positively declared, and were willing to swear to the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... organized political government. The school-house stood with a meek aspect, entreating a long truce to war and savage life. Every one finds by his own experience, as well as in history, that the era in which men cultivate the apple, and the amenities of the garden, is essentially different from that of the hunter and forest life, and neither can displace the other without loss. We have all had our day-dreams, as well as more prophetic nocturnal vision; but as for farming, I am convinced that my genius dates from an older era ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... preservation. The most magnificent country place, however, was the Villa Imperiale, which is a half hour's journey from Pesaro, on Monte Accio, whence it looks down far over the land and sea. It is a splendid summer palace worthy of a great lord and of people of leisure, capable of enjoying the amenities of life. It was built by Alessandro Sforza in the year 1464, its corner-stone having been laid by the Emperor Frederic III when he was returning from his coronation as Emperor of Rome; hence it received the name Villa Imperiale. It was enlarged later ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... rather was it their unsuitability to each other. She was a lady, delicately reared, and with a taste for society and the refinements of life; with a love for admiration, too, and a wish to shine in her little sphere. He was a peasant, coarsely bred, and scorning the amenities of life to which he was unaccustomed,—scorning, too, the chivalric feeling with which better bred men look upon women and treat their wives. He told her this, bluntly and brutally, before marriage. They two were to be one, and he that one. He had ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... gateway, Schmucke read the document, saw the imputations made against him, and, all ignorant as he was of the amenities of the law, the blow was deadly. The little grain of sand stopped his heart's beating. Topinard caught him in his arms, hailed a passing cab, and put the poor German into it. He was suffering from congestion of the brain; his eyes were ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... all became so fond of him, he was a loyal, faithful friend, was always ready to help me in any small difficulties, and I went to him for everything—visits, servants, horses, etc. W. had no time for any details or amenities of life. We moved over just before New Year's day. As the gros mobilier was already there, we only took over personal things, grand piano, screens, tables, easy chairs, and small ornaments and bibelots. These were all sent off in a van early one morning, and ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... being plundered by native princes, but we do not understand them, or they us, and where they happen to be Mohammedans, there is a gulf of contempt and dislike on their part which is rarely bridged by amenities on ours. The pilgrimage to Mecca is the great object of ambition. Many Malays, in spite of its expense and difficulties, make it twice, and even three times. We passed three women clothed in white from head ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... the international position to which, as no one denied, she was entitled, that commerce must be permitted to expand. The minds of men in western Europe, moreover, were set upon obtaining for their country territories in the New World, the amenities of which were now known. From the reign of James I the Dutch had shown great jealousy of English maritime enterprise. Where it was possible, as in the East Indian Archipelago, they had destroyed it. Their naval resources were great ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... man who paid no heed to scoundrels, I am led to allude to the attitude of a profession, the members of which profited by their amenities—I, of course, mean solicitors—because some one put a question to me on the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... had it been otherwise. There were in Gustavus most of the advantages and amenities of person and character which make a popular king, a man admired and beloved. In his latter years, indeed, he no longer possessed the graceful form that had belonged to him when he was an ardent and favored suitor of Ebba Brahe; but the slight inclination to corpulency that grew with him ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... county hall, Mid-most before his eyes, Alerter dog and loitering maid Cross from the sunlight to the shade, And small amenities of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... selected from his manuscripts three volumes, which he wished to have published under the becoming title of "A Fragment of a History of English Literature," but which were eventually given to the public under that of "Amenities of Literature." ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Amenities of Literature, there is an excellent article upon Skelton, which contains many acute and original observations. Speaking of the Skeltonical Verse, D'Israeli says, "In the quick-returning rhymes, the playfulness of the diction, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... (2) its indiscretions of publicity about foreign affairs. We ostentatiously stand aloof from their polite ways and courteous manners in many of the every-day, ordinary, unimportant dealings with them—aloof from the common amenities of long-organized political life. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... October 12th, of that year, at Albany, formally announced his adhesion to the new Republican party. In the Senate he easily ranked as one of its most polished and effective speakers who, while resolutely maintaining his own convictions, scrupulously preserved the amenities of debate. He especially distinguished himself by his earnest, yet unavailing, resistance to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Among his popular addresses of conspicuous merit are those on "The Elements of Empire in America," at Union College, 1843; "Daniel ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... magazine editors should copiously impart all they know, or assume they know, to the world. The lack of restraint, the lack of balance, the lack of soberness and common sense were never more apparent than in the obsession of sex which has set us all ababbling about matters once excluded from the amenities of conversation. ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... of neighbours out here, Mrs. Mahon," smiled Constable Williams. "It makes one homesick. It's so long since we had neighbours that we've gone a bit rusty on the amenities of society. There's so little we can ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... Their slender companions, on the other hand, are somewhat rare, and I often have some trouble in completing my couples; whose relations will finally be terminated by a tragic consummation. But we will reserve these amenities for a later time, and will ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... he cried, ruefully rubbing himself. "If these are thy amenities, Richard, Heaven spare ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and Preaching—should occupy a foremost place in the curricula of our colleges. It is only by training the student from the start, by fostering literary, dramatic and debating societies where not alone the practical art of speaking is developed, but the social amenities of good society are practised, that the young priest can be equipped to efficiently discharge the high office awaiting him, and so reflect a lasting credit on the Church of God at home ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... the prescribed apology. Then he discussed the latest novel at dinner with a distinguished personage; and having smoked an invisible cigar, interspersed with such wit as accords with walnuts and wine, after the ladies had retired, he entered the drawing-room, exchanged parting amenities with the guests, bade his hostess good night, and gracefully withdrew ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... the proprietor now purveyed hooks and eyes to an impatient Mrs. Leffingwell. Merton Gill, behind the opposite counter, waited upon a little girl sent for two and a quarter yards of stuff to match the sample crumpled in her damp hand. Over the suave amenities of this merchandising Amos Gashwiler glared suspiciously across the store at his employee. Their relations were still strained. Merton also glared at Amos, but discreetly, at moments when the other's back was turned or when he was blandly wishing to know of Mrs. Leffingwell if there ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... and break new ground means the break up of those amenities and comforts they've accumulated in years. It means work, real hard work, and discomfort for at least two seasons. You see, we need to get into the skin of these folk. They can keep the booms full from these forests, and the kick only comes when the grinders get to work. Output ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... people, and in some other country." He had a way of floating people out of dull or awkward situations, out of their own torpor or constraint or discouragement. It was a marked personal talent, of almost incalculable value in the representative of a great business founded on social amenities. Thea had liked him yesterday for the way in which he had picked her up out of herself and her German grammar ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... corner of the room, not so much because of its loudness—for he had but little raised it—as because of a distinct and precise enunciation. This very precision, which always implies a regard for the rules, proprieties and amenities of life, seemed to stamp him as a man worthy of confidence, even had not his sentiments been of the most high-minded character. He described the great flood of 1882, which wrought such havoc in Missouri, in which cataclysm his Uncle Henry Perkins had ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... long as the amenities were preserved! We must be as friendly as possible about that sort of thing, or run the ...
— The Outbreak of Peace • Horace Brown Fyfe
... it was over we noticed that the Doctor was very much vexed about something. We asked what was the matter? He said, "Never mind!" We insisted on his saying what disturbed him so. At last, he said "Well, I don't see why, because men are in the army, they should not observe the amenities customary among gentlemen." "Well," we said, "that is all right; but why do you say it?" "Why!" he warmly said; "did you hear that dirty, ragged infantryman call me an old fellow? A most disrespectful ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... well to lend their fellow-Catholics the light of their example and shine by the contrast they create. Better far than cutting a very poor figure in Protestant society will they find it to teach their own co-religionists the amenities of social life. They had better be first with their own than a poor second with strangers; honored among the faithful than despised by the dissenter. Ah! this aping after society, besides being pitiful and ridiculous, soon takes the faith out of our people. Their children marry outside ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... is a simple act enough; but to do so delicately, reverently, without forcing one's preferences on those of another, may not always be so simple. Thane was not a Goth nor a Vandal; by choice he would have sought to preserve the amenities of life; but a meek man he was not, and the thing he now desired was, he considered, well worth the sacrifice of such small pretensions as his in the ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... so long by the river work, and regatta amenities, and Exhibition in Paris, now came forth powerfully in ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... has seen his country ravaged, his home violated, his family —— But no! the tongue recoils from speaking the horrors and atrocities of war thus brought into the bosom of a peaceful home. All the amenities and charities of domestic life are outraged, are annihilated. All that is dearest to man; all that tends to refine, to soften him—to make him a noble and a better being—all these are trampled under foot by a brutal soldiery—all these are torn from his heart for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... respect, teaching resembles art, music, literature, discovery, invention, and pure science; for, if all the workers in all of these branches of human activity got together and demanded of the world the real fruits of their self-sacrifice and labor,—if they demanded all the riches and comforts and amenities of life that have flowed directly or indirectly from their efforts,—there would be little left for the rest of mankind. Each of these activities is represented by a craft spirit that recognizes this great truth. The ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... bewildered us. It is time we remembered that History does not concern herself about material wealth,—that the life-blood of a nation is not that yellow tide which fluctuates in the arteries of Trade,—that its true revenues are religion, justice, sobriety, magnanimity, and the fair amenities of Art,—that it is only by the soul that any people has achieved greatness and made lasting conquests over the future. We believe there is virtue enough left in the North and West to infuse health into our body politic; we believe that America will reassume that moral influence among ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... finished, forced to smoke the reeking pungent native tobacco, living off wild game (that must be trapped, not shot), and native meal, at the mercy of the natives whom both sides employ to get information of the other, these men are in constant danger. Nor are the amenities of civilised warfare theirs ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... the fool," comments Konev in an undertone, though the young fellow is too enthralled with the memory of the amenities of his cantonal capital to notice the remark. Next, smacking his lips, and chewing his words, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... from the Admiralty, the head of his own service. But he soon found that, if slow to thank, they were prompt to blame, and that with no light hand nor disposition to make allowances. He had run his head against various regulations of the bureaucracy; and this let him know, with all the amenities of official censure, that if they could not recognize what he had done well, they were perfectly clear-sighted as to where he ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... of introduction is always sent, never left in person. Calls at the theater or in opera boxes are mere social amenities, and are not accepted as formal. A man enters an opera box, stands, and bows. His hostess will turn around and greet him. He will then, if there is a vacant chair, take one, and sit and talk a little while, leaving on the arrival of another caller. ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... Kirkwood explosively, resuming his seat with uncalculated haste as old Bob, deaf to the amenities of social intercourse in an emergency involving as much ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... not going too far to notice the circumstance that there is an irreconcilable antithesis between the two sorts of men that we have described—that a great moral passion is fatal to the gentler and more caressing amenities of life, and vice versa. The man of morals has a certain character, and the man of honour has a quite different character. No one not an idiot fails to differentiate between the two, or to order ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... it will, and be victorious or not victorious, has he not a little life of his own to lead? One life—a little gleam of life between two eternities—no second chance to us for evermore.' Let us not forget the loves, the amenities and charities of social life. Let us not forget that the education of the world must go on as ever, that the great virtues of charity and self-denial must more than ever be exercised, and that the discipline and perfection of our own characters is as ever our grand life-work. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Life and Reign of Charles the First,"—the University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of a doctor of the civil law for this production, which it absurdly called "Optimi regis, optimo defensori" "Amenities of Literature,"—this work he wrote when blind, his daughter acting as his amanuensis; he notices eloquently and feelingly her devoted services. Mr. Disraeli was the friend, of literary merit in the obscure and unfortunate, in which he was the rival of Sir Robert Peel, as his son Benjamin became ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... kind of reason, it appears to me that we all think that peace is a blessing, and war a curse. For under peace commerce and industry prosper; science and the arts flourish; friendships are made and adorn the amenities of life. Moreover, our religious traditions in all Christian countries, and in some non-Christian ones like China, influence us to believe that war is wrong, indefensible, and, in the present year of our Lord, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... was carried out. The hardy Rangers hollowed out a sheltered nook in the snow, threw up a wall of protection against the wind, lighted a fire, and sat round it discussing the events of the night, and exchanging amenities with their new comrades. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... not be imagined that the amenities were not observed when the men of the races met, for business or otherwise; many anecdotes are told to illustrate this. The wealthy owner of a large sugar plantation lived in a parish where resided also a rich, highly educated sugar planter of mixed blood, a man who had a reputation in his day ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... pastures of Walden Pond; Plato Skimpole, then sublimely meditating impossible summer-houses in a little house upon the Boston road; the enthusiastic agriculturist and Brook-Farmer already mentioned, then an inmate of Mr. Emerson's house, who added the genial cultivation of a scholar to the amenities of the natural gentleman; a sturdy farmer neighbor, who had bravely fought his weary way through inherited embarrassments to the small success of a New England husbandman, and whose faithful wife had seven times ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Turks was in some ways worse off than others of his badly governed possessions. The officials who were sent from Constantinople into various provinces regarded the job as a poor one, as far as the amenities of life were concerned, and one to be endured while making as big a pile as possible from the ground-down natives. I should imagine that one of these officials would be about as popular with the landowners as a publican was among ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... said, "if you are content to take my friendship as it is, it is yours. But I warn you it is no showy drawing-room article. There will be no compliments, no pretty speeches, no little gifts of flowers, and such trumpery amenities. It will all be very ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... The soil was unfavorable and the seed was not of the right sort. In Spain, the king stands shrouded in etiquette like a mummy in its wrappings, while a too rigid pride, incapable of yielding to the amenities of the worldly order of things, ends in a sentiment of morbidity and in insane display.[2202] In Italy, under petty despotic sovereigns, and most of them strangers, the constant state of danger and of hereditary distrust, after having tied all tongues, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... was at any rate too much even for an Italian passenger; for—well, well! their way had been a hot and a dusty one, poor fellows. So the guard was summoned, and came with all the implicit powers of an uniform and, I believe, a sword. The boots were strained on sufficiently to preserve the amenities of the way: they could not, of course, be what they had been; the carriage was by this a forcing- house. And through the long night we ached away an intolerable span of time with, for under-current, for sinister accompaniment to the pitiful strain, the muffled interminable ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... friends! She had no doubt that they were looking for herself. They represented ease and safety, and a quick return to the amenities of civilization, but she had no desire to discover herself to them. She thought of the injured man lying in the tent a mile away. It was possible that the coming of these two, if she made her presence known, might prove to be beneficial for him. She weighed ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... silence descended upon the room. Mary Louise could not trust herself in the customary amenities. She stepped over to Zenie and the younger Thompson and peered into the bundle, conscious as she did so of a slowly opening door beyond them. A tiny weazened face and two beady blinking eyes were all she saw. Zenie was making ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... favour of the July offensive. Ludendorff, on the other hand, may fairly point out that it isn't his offensive any longer. Anyhow, Hindenburg is fairly entitled to give Ludendorff the credit of it since Ludendorff's friends have always said that he supplied the old Mud-Marshal with brains. The amenities of the High Command are growing lively, since the Navy is also concerned, and the failure of the U-boats to check the influx of American troops needs a lot of explaining away. The good news from the Front has been received at home with remarkable composure, when one considers the acute anxiety ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... when I received your invitation, having heard so much of the literary, artistic and social amenities of your famous Club, I resembled in feelings, not in feature, the beautiful ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... Lord Emsworth said, "Who is there? Speak!" in rather an aggrieved tone, as though he felt he had done his part in breaking the ice, and it was now for the intruder to exert himself and bear his share of the social amenities. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... an unfavourable light. In the other, however, he tells us his dreams, talks of mysterious noises in his chamber, evil spirits, and alludes to various secrets of occult philosophy in the spirit of a true believer. Mr. D'Israeli has given a correct and able view of his character in his "Amenities of Literature," which is remarkably confirmed in almost every point by the narrative now published. "The imagination of Dee," observes that elegant writer, "often predominated over his science; while ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... shall go to observe the proprieties and amenities on a fitting occasion—but at present we are in the midst of a pressing engagement. He will have to wait till this ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... vain—with a tardy instinct that it was to Mr. Boyce's dislike of himself, and to the wilful fancy for Wharton's society which this dislike had promoted, that Wharton's long stay at Mellor was largely owing—did Aldous subdue himself to propitiations and amenities wholly foreign to a strong character long accustomed to rule without thinking about it. Mr. Boyce showed himself not a whit less partial to Wharton than before; pressed him at least twice in Raeburn's ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... preface, is denounced as "Cockney poetry" [Footnote: The phrase was also employed by Blackwood, vol. iii. 519-524.]—a stupid and pointless vulgarism—and is branded as clothing "the most incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language". The author is dismissed with the following amenities: "Being bitten by Leigh Hunt's insane criticism, he more than rivals the insanity of his poetry"; and we are half-surprised not to find him told, as he was by Blackwood, to "go back to the shop, Mr. John; back to the plasters, pills, and ointment-boxes". [Footnote: ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... really a boarding house for some English engineers engaged at the works of the St. Gothard Tunnel; and I could listen my fill to the sounds of the English language, as far as it is used at a breakfast-table by men who do not believe in wasting many words on the mere amenities ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... serve the religious need and in a higher degree the needs of recreation and conviviality, but they also serve an invidious purpose; and they serve it none the less effectually for having a colorable non-invidious ground in these more avowable motives. But the economic effect of these social amenities is not therefore lessened, either in the vicarious consumption of goods or in the exhibition of difficult ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... comfort, yet were, to all appearances, reasonably contented with this lot. But escape was possible, for any man of capacity or character at all exceeding the average, into the middle and upper classes, for whom life offered, at a low cost and with the least trouble, conveniences, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages. The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... Sunday night. Aunt Missouri went out and held some low-toned parley with them. Champe yawned with insulting enthusiasm. Presently both girls quietly disappeared. Aunt Missouri never returned to the parlor—evidently thinking that the girls would attend to the final amenities with their callers. They were left alone with old Mr. Claiborne. They sat as though bound in their chairs, while the old man read in silence for a while. Finally he closed his book, glanced about him, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... the house with his amenities; but gradually it became apparent that his most dazzling effects were directed exclusively to Jane. Lethbury and his wife held their breath and looked away from each other. They pretended not to notice the ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... will be, and good enough for it, and you will perhaps comprehend how it is that I find a great crack in my life. On the farther side are prosperity, science, literature, philosophy, religion, society, all the refinements, and amenities, and benevolences, and purities of life,—in short, all the arts of peace, and civilization, and Christianity,—and on this side—moving. You will also understand why that one word comprises, to my thinking, all the discomforts short of absolute ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... These amenities having re-established them in their mutual esteem, they chatted lazily and spasmodically till past midnight, with more smoke ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... know or love the Father is eternal life. This is the religion of the Saviour—this the religion of redemption. Salvation is in it. It is the power of God to God; gives its sanction to virtue; adorns the mind with the graces of godliness; sweetens the heart with amenities of goodness, and dignifies the soul with a spiritual assimilation to the Father. Man thus becomes a spiritual child of God. He is by a nature a natural child, and he is thus by grace or love made a spiritual child. Under the power ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... all the nice gradations of manner which are elicited by those relations, are wanting also. The social machine rubs on with as little oil as possible—there is but small room for the exercise of the amenities and charities of life. The favours of the great are seldom rewarded by the obsequiousness of the small. No leisure and privileged class exists to set an example of refined and courtly bearing; but there are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Thorlakson, whom Dr. Henderson found toiling cheerfully with his beloved parishioners in the hay-harvest of the brief arctic summer, combine with the vigorous diction and robust thought of their predecessors the warm and genial humanity of a religion of love and the graces and amenities of a ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... here William, who had no regard for social amenities, cut his remarks short by a ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... throats. A place with such privileges was not likely to be undisputed, and many times there were battles royal against 'invaders from the north,' as Sir Charles called the Chertsey swans who came to possess themselves of the Dockett reach and its amenities. Swan charged swan, with plumage bristling and wings dilated, but not alone they fought; Jim Haslett and his employer took part against the invaders, beating them off with sticks; and even in the night, when sound of that warfare rose, the master of Dockett ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... she ensconced herself at the top of Margery's seat—which was a much better observatory than her aunt's pew—where every thing could be seen that was interesting and amusing within the four walls. Besides, there were small amenities connected with a seat in nurse's pew which had great attractions for Grace when she was a little girl, and had still a lingering charm for her. In the pew behind there sat a worthy couple, friends of Margery, who exchanged ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... of political excitement the social amenities were not forgotten. A brilliant reception[78] and supper were given to the delegates by Mrs. Spofford at the Riggs House. During the evening Mrs. Stanton presented the beautiful life-size photograph of Lucretia Mott which had adorned the platform at the convention, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... a former stroke on the Penn crew. I was fond of Callahan, even with all the trouble his inventions caused me; I knew he couldn't help it. I said, "Hello Henry. How have you been?" And we exchanged some more amenities. ...
— The Professional Approach • Charles Leonard Harness
... order to be established under new conditions. They came from the sunny skies of France to the capricious climate where the summers were fierce and the winters terrible with winds and snows. They left the polished amenities of an old civilization, for the homely ways of rude settlers of another race and language. Their lips, which had shaped themselves to the harmonies of a refined language, which had been used to speaking such ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... in conversation, in argument; they wait for you in silence at the corner of the road, and then they suddenly discharge their revolver. If you fall, they empty your pockets; the only chance is to shoot them first. With that, no amenities, no preliminaries, no manners, no care for the appearance. I wander about while my brother is occupied; I lounge along the streets; I stop at the corners; I look into the shops; je regarde passer les femmes. ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... time I was given a room. It was at the end of a whitewashed corridor, from which pine doors opened on either side into bedrooms. The corridor was bare of carpet, the whole upstairs freezing cold. There were none of the amenities. My room was at the end. It boasted two small windows, with a tiny stand between them containing a tin basin and a pitcher; a bed with one side of the mattress torn open and exposing a heterogeneous content that did ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... her here recovering from an illness, and since she has dwelt upon the point, in self-defence I must tell you that whatever has taken place between us, has been with her full consent and encouragement. Of course I allude only to those affectionate amenities which are common between people who purpose to marry as ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... Thomas?" The old scientist's concession to the amenities did not extend to calling the youngster ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... diphtheria; they only died of it. Mimic frigates, too! What patriotism! These gardens are as much lost as those of the Hesperides. A cemetery swallowed them up—the cemetery which adjoins the old St. Pancras Churchyard. The Tavern, shorn of its amenities, a mere drink-shop, survived as far down the century as 1874, soon after which date it also disappeared. Hornsey Wood House has a name not unknown in the simple annals of tea-drinking. It is now part of Finsbury Park, but in the middle of the last ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... after. On the latter occasion nothing is too bad for his "damsel with the twisted nose," as he calls her. She is spared neither hint nor accusation, and he tells his messenger to accost her with the vilest insults. Villon, it is thought, was out of Paris when these amenities escaped his pen; or perhaps the strong arm of Noe le Joly would have been again in requisition. So ends the love story, if love story it may properly be called. Poets are not necessarily fortunate in love; but they usually fall among more romantic circumstances and bear their ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the other hand, became to a large extent a fiesta, a festive occasion for the display of social amenities. Much as the Hispanic Americans missed their favorite topic of politics, they found consolation in entertaining the distinguished foreign visitors with the genial courtesy and generous hospitality for which they are famous. As one of their periodicals later expressed ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... Amenities of Literature, says that, "Tormented by the fate of a collection which had consumed forty years, at every personal sacrifice to form it for 'the use and services of posterity,' he sank at the sudden stroke. In the course of a few weeks he was so worn ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... and to exchange occasional social amenities with Adele Millis, a youthful actress, with Rosalie Faithorn, a handsome girl born to a formal social environment, but sufficiently independent to explore outside of it and snap her fingers at the opinions ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... must of course have belonged to the fortunate few—not to the miserable many; for if a society be large enough to be good, it must also be small enough. The sixty years that preceded the Revolution were the golden age of fireside talk and of those amenities that proceed from the presence of women in whom the social art is both instinctive and acquired. The women of that period were, above all, good company; the fact is attested in a thousand documents. Chenonceaux offered a ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... questions Field had none. The same may be truthfully said of his attitude on all social and economic problems. He eschewed controversy and controversial subjects. His study was literature and the domestic side and social amenities of life; and he left the salvation of the republic and the amelioration of the general condition of mankind to those who felt themselves ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... in mass. No human creatures were left save the wife of a freebooter and her paramour, a journeyman blacksmith. This unsavory couple, to whom entrance into the purer atmosphere of Zeeland was denied, thenceforth shared with the carrion crows the amenities of Ostend. ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... State, William M. Evarts, when counsel in the Beecher-Tilton trial, defined woman's legal and theological position as that of subordination to man, declaring that notwithstanding changing customs and the amenities of modern life, women were not free, but were held in the hollow of man's hand, to be crushed ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... companionship with anxiety, fear, and grief. Her heroism was not sordid or secular. Dearly did she prize the blessings of peace—household calm, the security of her loved ones, and the comforts and amenities of an unbroken social status. But she cheerfully surrendered them all at the call of her country in its hour of peril. For one hundred and fifty years she had toiled and suffered. She had won the right to repose, but this ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... shop into the road, got on to it with the advice and assistance of Grubb, and teuf-teuffed off into the haze of the traffic-tortured high road, to add himself as one more voluntary public danger to the amenities ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... senatorial speeches there is nothing to justify the charge of 'non-committalism' so much made against him. When he spoke at all he spoke explicitly; and he plainly, though without acerbity, exhibited his likes and dislikes. Van Buren scrupulously observed the amenities of debate. He was uniformly courteous towards adversaries; and the calm self-control saved him, as some great orators were not saved, from a descent to the aspersion of motive so common and futile in political debate."—Ibid., ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the direct question which Blount had been dreading. Now, if never before, the wretched involvement had reached a point beyond which it was impossible to follow his father's plea for a continuance of the kinsman amenities. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... so far as Raven and Nan were concerned, quieted to an unbroken commonplace, and the four—for Amelia and Dick held to their purpose of "standing by"—again settled down to country life, full of the amenities and personal abnegations of a house party likely to be continued. Charlotte was delighted, in her brooding way, and ascribed the emotion to Jerry who, she said, "liked somethin' goin' on." Nan and Dick had vaulted back to their past: the old terms of ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... All the amenities were preserved between the captured garrison and their captors. Anderson was sent to the Baltic, which still hovered outside, and the Union vessels disappeared on their way back to the North. Peace, but now the peace of triumph, ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... exclusively with the natives and dressing in the Chinese garb which, with his Caucasian features and blond complexion, caused him to present the drollest appearance. Only those who have resided in China can understand the repugnance with which anyone accustomed to the amenities of refined society would naturally regard such a life. He gave up body and soul to the spread of Christianity in a heathen land, recalling to my mind the early Jesuits, Francis Xavier, Lucas Caballero and Cipriano Baraza, who penetrated pathless forests and crossed unknown ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... as the Pierrot and 'Social Amenities,' parts of 'Soles Occidere et Redire Possunt,' and, in Limbo, 'Richard Greenow' (first 100 pages) and 'Happy Families' are syncopated actuality, and the mind jigs an appreciative shoulder, as the ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... of time spent in the kindergarten on the cultivation of politeness and courtesy; and in the entirely social atmosphere which is one of its principal features, the amenities of polite society can be ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... months in an Antarctic hut, it is a splendid thing to have more than the mere necessaries of life. Since one is cut off from the ordinary amenities of social existence, it is particularly necessary that equipment and food should be of the very best; in some measure to replace a lack which sooner or later makes itself keenly felt. Explorers, after all, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... by their beloved friends the Magyars, after all the dark electioneering tricks and gutter legislation which for years had been committed by the Magyars to the end that the Autonomists and they should have all the amenities of some one else's house, it surely is the acme of ingratitude to call this tottering benefactor "Hote insalue." If the Autonomists did not desire to reap advantages from any Magyar corruption, they might at any time since November 17, 1868, have torn the swindling ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... what is Duty? Diogenes preached 'virtue' and assumed that his way of life was 'virtue'. But was it really so? And, if so, on what evidence? To live like a beast, to be indifferent to art, beauty, letters, science, philosophy, to the amenities of civic life, to all that raised Hellenic Man above the beast or the savage? How could this be the true end of man? The Stoic School, whose founder, Zeno, was a disciple of old Antisthenes, gradually built up a theory of moral life which has on the whole weathered the storms of time with great ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more ...
— Lost in Translation • Larry M. Harris
... comes in one's way. That idiot treated me to a piece of brazen sincerity which I couldn't stand. First of all he began to take me into his confidence; he boasted of his great affairs, then started groaning about his overstrained life which left him no time for the amenities of existence, for beauty, or sentiment, or any sort of ease of heart. His heart! He wanted me to sympathize with his sorrows. Of course I ought to have listened. One must pay for service. Only I was nervous and tired. He bored me. I told him at last that ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... that it so plays its part in illustration, under the light of a later and happier age, of the growth, when not rather of the arrest, of manners and customs roundabout our birthplace. I think we had never been so much as during these particular months disinherited of the general and public amenities that reinforce for the young private precept and example—disinherited in favour of dust and glare and mosquitoes and pigs and shanties and rumshops, of no walks and scarce more drives, of a repeated no less than of a strong emphasis on the more sordid sides of the Irish aspect ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... of the width and height of the proscenium) is of more than the average Florentine size, but is bare even to the point of severity, its sole amenities being some straw, a hunk of bread, and a stone pitcher. The door of each is facing the audience. ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... of a Canadian life in the wilderness were resisted by an invincible, passive courage, and a deep, internal tranquillity. Away from the amenities of life, away from the opportunities of vain-glory, they became dead to the world, and possessed their souls in unalterable peace. The few who lived to grow old, though bowed by the toils of a long mission, still kindled with the fervour of apostolic zeal. ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... these amenities having been disposed of, "we want to get some booze, and they won't sell us none. Can ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... marvels of industrial invention that facilitated labor, the patient pains of science on the edge of great discoveries, the slowly increasing spirit of toleration, pity, and humanity, the gradual spread of education, the widening realms of knowledge, the increasing appreciation of the decencies and amenities of life—all these things make the reign of George the Third the hopeful preface to the reign of greater length, greater glory, greater promise and greater fulfilment that was to dawn when two more sovereigns of the House of Hanover had ceased to reign over England. If George the Third ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... had had a great success, and now he was going to live for three weeks in the lap of luxury; intellectual luxury first and foremost—good talk, good company, an abundance of books for rainy days; but with the addition of a supreme chef, Lord Dunstable's champagne, and all the amenities of one of the best ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... said young Daniel, emboldened by observing the gentleman's amenities towards Bessie. 'Shall I show 'em yer? One's ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... was possible, for any man of capacity or character at all exceeding the average, into the middle or upper classes, for whom life offered, at a low cost and with the least trouble, conveniencies, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages. The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... of a trust as a labor of love, and to this is owing its strong charm. Carlyle here shows us his "sunny side." We no longer see him breathing out threatenings and slaughter as in the Latter-Day Pamphlets, but moving among the charities and amenities of life, loving and beloved—a Teufelsdrockh still, but humanized by a Blumine worthy of him. We have often wished that genius would incline itself more frequently to the task of the biographer—that when ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... settled and polished civilization, must needs be our superior; and are quite indifferent about those things by which our real strength is constituted. Can we not be content to learn from Europe the graces, the refinements, the amenities of life, so long as we are able to teach her life itself? For my part, I never saw in England any appurtenance of civilization, calculated to add to the convenience and commodiousness of existence, that did not seem to me to surpass anything of the kind that we have in this country. Notwithstanding ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... These amenities having reestablished them in their mutual esteem, they chatted lazily and spasmodically till past midnight, with more smoke than fire ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... arguing on the health and quietness of Turnagain Corner, the excellence of the landlady, and the fact that her own cockney eyes had far less unreasonable expectations than those trained to the luxuries of Beauchamp. But by far the most efficient solace was an expedition for the purchase of various amenities of life, on which Phoebe expended the last of her father's gift. The next morning was spent in great secrecy at the lodgings, where Phoebe was so notable and joyous in her labours, that Honor drew the conclusion that housewifery ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nature may be traced, perhaps, to the fact that he was born at Madras; but as on the mother's side he is descended from the poet Tickell, the friend of Addison, it would not be altogether unreasonable to have expected in him some few of the amenities of the literae humaniores. He soon, however, exchanged the torrid scenes of Oriental life for the snows of Canada, where he received his education; and when we remember what the bizarre oddities of his subsequent career have been, it might be interesting, if ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... means, my son, gone over to the enemy!" replied Agricola. "It implies affiliation with Americains in matters of business and of government! It implies the exchange of social amenities with a race of upstarts! It implies a craven consent to submit the sacredest prejudices of our fathers to the new-fangled measuring-rods of pert, imported theories upon moral and political progress! It implies a listening to, and ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... the thing to which they devote their lives; people, as a rule, are most interesting on the subject of their own particular business in life. Talk about the affairs of the theatre within reason, and with due regard to the amenities of polite conversation, but do not confuse the affairs of the theatre, broadly speaking, with your own. The one is lasting, general; the other particular and fleeting. "Il n'y a pas de l'homme necessaire" [No man is indispensable]. Many persons would be strangely ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... truly it may be said that all the adults form an aristocracy. The exquisite politeness and refinement of manners among the Vril-ya, the generosity of their sentiments, the absolute leisure they enjoy for following out their own private pursuits, the amenities of their domestic intercourse, in which they seem as members of one noble order that can have no distrust of each other's word or deed, all combine to make the Vril-ya the most perfect nobility which a political disciple of Plato ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... sinking and suffering at our very side, and to teach them that there is no natural inalienable connection between labor and coarseness, ignorance and servility; that man, though compelled to win his bread by the sweat of his brow, may still enjoy all those graceful amenities of which woman was the type in Paradise and is the promoter here; that the light of knowledge and the divine light of faith may still cheer him in his pursuits and guide him to his rest. It seems to me that to bring out these principles fairly to the world's perception, is the ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh |
