"Urbanity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'The Cheerful City,' and dwelt on the delights of civilization and urbanity. Doubtless it may serve a useful purpose, thought I, in reconciling Londoners to their wen; but, here, what does it spell for my ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... at his hand, and back to St. George's face. It was wonderful, the air of courtliness and urbanity and delicate breeding which persisted through age and infirmity ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... superstitious. He fancies himself a philosopher, an inquirer, a discoverer. He has not yet discovered that he is a humbug, that Theodore is a prig, and that I am an adventurer. He prides himself on his good manners, his urbanity, his knowing a rule of conduct for every occasion in life. My private impression is that his skinny old bosom contains unsuspected treasures of impertinence. He takes his stand on his speculative audacity—his direct, undaunted gaze at the universe; in truth, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... pale face, Colonel Lamont has the mouth of a man who is silent and the ears of a man who listens, while the quick glances of his eyes take in what there is to be seen. The possessor of great personal urbanity, always clear-headed, and very reticent, especially concerning the President, he is emphatically "the right man in the right place." He keeps up his Albany habit of calling Mr. Cleveland "Governor," while the President familiarly calls him "Dan." There is no "Kitchen Cabinet" ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... "I see you comprehend true urbanity, or politeness, as we phrase it. There is an elegance in addressing the husband of your sister as brother. Erasmus commends it in his opening chapter, under the head of Salutandi formuloe. And indeed," added my father, thoughtfully, "there is no great difference between politeness and ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bed was made on the middle deck of one of the boats for Steward, and when all was ready we carried him down to it. The Navajos ranged themselves along the bank to see us off, and Clem, with his customary urbanity, went down the line all smiles, shaking each one cordially by the hand, and requesting him to "Give my love to all the folks at home," and "Remember me, please, to Eliza Jane," and similar expressions. The Navajos did not understand the words, but being themselves ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... information of a general character, respecting the immediate neighbourhood and adjoining counties, our readers cannot do better than refer to the files of Birmingham newspapers, preserved in the Reference Library, or write to the present editors of the said papers, gentlemen noted for their urbanity, and readiness ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... which Clara had allowed to grow because they added age to the appearance, was sitting a Bigwig. One of the Settleham faction, he had impressed Felix alike by his reticence, the steady sincerity of his gray eyes, a countenance that, beneath a simple and delicate urbanity, had still in it something of the best type of schoolboy. 'How comes he to have stayed?' he mused. 'I thought they always fed and scattered!' And having received an answer to his salutation, he moved ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... at Wittenberg was, in this respect, an event of the first importance. This highly-gifted young man, who had united in his person all the learning and culture of his time, whose mind had unfolded in such beauty and richness, and whose personal urbanity had so endeared him to men of culture wherever he went, now found his true happiness in that gospel and in that path of grace which Luther had been the first to make known. And whilst offering the right hand of fellowship to Luther, he continued ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... this book were already in a highly polished state. They combined a limitless freedom of proposal with a smooth urbanity of manner, a tacit denial that the thoughts of one intelligent being could possibly be shocking to another. Upon this the doctor was very insistent. Conduct, he held, could never be sufficiently discreet, thought could never be sufficiently free. As a citizen, one had to treat a law or an institution ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... which she had not as yet found the key, might very naturally gravitate toward any one presenting Pollen's appearance of security; his attitude of complacence in the face of feminine authority. But was he complacent? Mrs. Ennis had her doubts. He was very vain; underneath his urbanity there might ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... differed; but the opinions of one so eminently pious, and so well-taught in the Scriptures, are worthy of our careful investigation. Great allowances must be made for all that appears harsh in language, because urbanity was not the fashion of that day in religious controversy. He had been most cruelly imprisoned, with threats of transportation, and even an ignominious death, for refusing conformity to the Book of Common Prayer. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... which she proposed to present to France. In the autumn of 1807, she set out for Vienna, and she there once more found, in the society of the Prince de Ligne, of the Princess Lubomirski, &c. &c. that urbanity of manners and ease of conversation, which had such charms in her eyes. The Austrian government, exhausted by the war, had not then the strength to be an oppressor on its own account, and notwithstanding preserved towards France, an attitude ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... all time as to make effective parts for La Grange and Du Croisy and Magdeleine Bejart, for his wife and for himself. La Grange seems to have been the Charles Wyndham of his day,—every inch a gentleman; his part in any of the plays may be distinguished by its elegant urbanity. In Les Precieuses Ridicules the gentlemanly characters are actually named La Grange and Du Croisy; the actors walked on and played themselves; it is as if Augustus Thomas had called the hero of his best play, not Jack Brookfield, but John Mason. In the early period ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... following month Addington, the Speaker of the House of Commons, with the complacence born of bland obtuseness, undertook to fill his place. At first, the Ministry was treated with the tolerance due to the new Premier's urbanity, but it gradually faded away into contempt for his pitiful weakness in face of the dangers ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... a part of his urbanity not to commence till I had done so, but seeing my difficulty he at last raised the ball to his mouth and sucked at it. I looked at him and envied the gravity of his countenance, and the dignity of his demeanour. I sucked also, but I made a sputtering noise, and must confess that ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope
... And creepy things With wings, And gaunt and grisly spectres! He can fill you crowds Of shrouds, And horrify you vastly; He can rack your brains With chains, And gibberings grim and ghastly. Then, if you plan it, he Changes organity, With an urbanity, Full of Satanity, Vexes humanity With an inanity Fatal to vanity— Driving your foes to the verge of insanity! Barring tautology, In demonology, 'Lectro biology, Mystic nosology, Spirit philology, High class astrology, Such is his knowledge, ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... woman could wish for. The house was pretty; Farnam was indulgent and showed his wife a deference that Agatha liked. He owned a large orchard and had sufficient capital to cultivate it properly. George Strange was marked by a complacent, self-confident manner that his urbanity somewhat toned down. He dealt in artificial fertilizers and farming implements, and it was said that he never lost a customer and ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... custom, especially among those who wished to gain preferment at Court, or who affected to be fashionable, to speak of the Highlanders as low, ignorant savages; semi-barbarians, to whom the vulgar qualities of personal courage and hardihood might be allowed, but who had neither any urbanity to strangers, nor refined notions of honour. The word "rebel," was a mild name for those who were following Prince Charles's standard as it was borne southwards. The hardened villains, "the desperadoes, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... with many a puff That haloed his urbanity, Would smoke till he had smoked enough, And listen most attentively. He beamed as with an inward light That had the Lord's assurance in it; And once a man was there all ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... to send a feather up into the air, each blowing at it in turn to prevent it from falling to the ground. This afforded them amusement enough to last until the following Sunday. The piety of my grandmother, her urbanity, her regard for the established order of things are graven in my heart as the best pictures of that old-fashioned society based upon God and the king—two props for which it may not be easy ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... openly murmur. His personal appearance certainly wants dignity, and his Tartar features appear to great disadvantage when contrasted with those of true Grecian mould, by which he is surrounded. However, his prepossessing manners and perfect urbanity, in some measure compensate for these personal defects; and, upon the whole, the people appear well pleased and contented with their youthful monarch. It is said the palikari, or soldiers of the late governments, do not unite themselves with the regular army which is forming, so ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... feeling there, and the wife announced that she would like of all things to see America, but—she did not wish to go there with her husband. I suggested that she come with me—an endeavor to rise to the Rumanian mood which was received with tolerant urbanity by her husband, and by the lady who looked like Nazimova with ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... required me by the first conveyance, I visited the colony of Sierra Leone, then under the government of the late Capt. William Day, of the Royal Navy, to whom I had a recommendatory letter. His reception of me was in conformity with his general character, distinguished for urbanity and polite hospitality; and such were the impressions upon my mind, both from observation and report, of the skill and penetration he possessed to fulfil the arduous duties of his station, that they never will be effaced, and I shall ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... thing he could possibly do, was to put those Blackfeet deputies to death on the spot. The captain, however, who had heard nothing of the conflict at Pierre's Hole, declined all compliance with this sage counsel. He treated the grim warriors with his usual urbanity. They passed some little time at the camp; saw, no doubt, that everything was conducted with military skill and vigilance; and that such an enemy was not to be easily surprised, nor to be molested with impunity, and then departed, to report all that they had seen ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... should be hastened, however imperceptibly, by all that he could do to purify and intensify his infinitesimal share of the force that was to bring it about. Meanwhile he made friends with the fathers of Bengali schoolboys, who appreciated his manners, and sent him with urbanity flat baskets of mangoes and nuts and oranges, pomegranates from Persia, and little round boxes of white grapes in sawdust from Kabul. He seldom dwelt upon the converts that already testified to the success of the mission; it might be gathered that he ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... turn, with equal complacency, affected a like ignorance as regarded the pursuits of her husband; and thus the little Court of Pau, where they had established their residence, rendered attractive by the frank urbanity of the sovereign, and the grace and intellect of the young Queen, became as brilliant and as dissipated as even the daughter of Catherine de Medicis herself could desire. Poets sang her praise under the name of Urania;[12] flatterers sought her smiles by likening her to the goddesses of love ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... perfunctory, was a three-year-old with a frivolity of manner that ill became his senescent phiz. Upon its grizzled expanse there would pass in amazing succession the whole range of canine passion, rage, love, urbanity, shame, drollery, ennui, and, most frequent of all, curiosity. At present all his energy was devoted to expressing unmitigated pleasure, the dignity of which exhibition was continually being marred by ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... the King rewarded not only the services rendered by the Provost, who knew how to harmonize the severity of his functions with the customary urbanity of the Bourbons, but the bravery of the Vendean hero, who never bent the knee to the imperial idol. He leaves a son, who inherits his loyalty and ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... with a certain urbanity, though his color deepened. "I can see now that you had some reason to regard me askance. However, the fact that you are already so well posted in my affairs has its consoling virtues—it makes it easier ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... of his house with the urbanity of his country. In fact, he was proud of his old family chateau; for part of it was extremely old. There was a tower and chapel that had been built almost before the memory of man; but the rest was more modern; the castle ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... from his knowledge of the noble lord's feelings. The noble lord had, indeed, himself stated that he had no wish to introduce any political, or to press any, measure likely to interfere with the object of the meeting. Therefore, he called upon the noble lord, in consistency, in politeness and urbanity, not to urge any political principle; and the noble lord must be aware that his proposition had a strong political tendency. The proposition was indeed such, that the noble lord must be aware that it was calculated to injure the subscription, for those who were not of the noble lord's ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... people when he is one of themselves. He is "not a gentleman, sure," is a deadly reproach in this part of the country. Practically he is objectionable because, being one of the people, he is aware of their tricks and their ways, and suspects them as they hate and suspect him. What would be urbanity on the part of the real "masther" is in the middleman viewed as deceit. The sharp tone of command endurable in a superior is resented when employed by a person of low origin. And it would seem that middlemen are not as a race persons of agreeable ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... that these two authorities concur in opinion; although it must be confessed that the late Vice-President of the so-called Confederate States in urbanity of manner and in the art of diplomacy far surpasses the late Vice-President (as Mr. Johnson, if his logic does not fail him, must soon say) ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... was received by the crew of our vessel with a shout of laughter, which, however, was peremptorily checked by the captain, whose expression instantly changed from one of severity to that of frank urbanity as he advanced towards the missionary and shook ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... an author. . . . Certainly his reserve in an age noteworthy for display has tended to confer on him distinction. The position he occupied at Florence was that of a literary dictator. All who needed his assistance and advice were received with urbanity. He threw his house open to young men of parts, engaged in disputations with the curious, and provided the ill-educated with teachers. Foreigners from all parts of Europe paid him visits. The strangers who came to Florence at that time, if they missed ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... the flowing lines of the great angels traced upon the walls of the Chapel of S. Sigismund in the Cathedral of Rimini, to follow the undulations of their drapery that seems to float, to feel the dignified urbanity of all their gestures, is like listening to one of those clear early Italian compositions for the voice, which surpasses in suavity of tone and grace of movement all that Music in her full-grown vigour has produced. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... (better known from the urbanity of his manners, by the familiar name of Billy Havard) had the misfortune to be married to a most notorious shrew and drunkard. One day dining at Garrick's, he was complaining of a violent pain in his side. Mrs. Garrick offered to prescribe for him. "No, no," said her husband; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... play the demagogue by essaying to feed the Irish masses with the anti-English swill they desire; but Mr. McGavack wields an independent pen, and records the truth without fear of the mobile vulgus and its shallow views. In power, directness, urbanity, and impartiality, Mr. McGavack cannot be excelled. He marshals his arguments without passion, bias, or circumlocution; piling proof upon proof until none but the most stubborn England-hater can fail to blush at the equal injustice and stupidity of those who malign that ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... pursuits. In spite of his deafness, as severe an embargo on social reputation as can well be laid, Dr. Leighton is said to have been equally noted among his friends for his keen intellectual quality and his urbanity. ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... heart, I sailed up the harbour and saluted Sir Peter Parker with thirteen guns, which compliment he returned with eleven. After this expenditure of gunpowder I hurried up to pay my respects to him, and was received with all his usual kindness and urbanity. To my astonishment, and somewhat, I own, to my disappointment, I found my own ship, the Charon, at anchor among the rest of the fleet. I thought that she had long ago sailed for England. On going on board I soon was made acquainted with the cause of her return. On her ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... play Lord Beatty, who is urbanity itself, offered to scrap Portsmouth Dockyard, and asked if anybody present would like Canada. President Harding replied with his customary tact that if England wanted the Philippines, he would think it what he would term a residuum of normalcy to give them away. There is no ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... EDOUIN, as 'Arry 'Ooker, the Private Inquiry Agent, is the feature of the performance. His politeness to ladies, his assumption of businesslike habits, suggested by his reading and spiking of bogus telegrams brought to him when he is engaged with a client, his urbanity under difficulties, and his cheerful acceptance of the inevitable in whatever shape presented, are all admirable points, and points that are fully appreciated by the audience. Roars of laughter ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... Selectmen immediately repaired thither. Thomas Cushing was chosen the Moderator. He was now the Speaker of the House of Representatives; and though not of such shining abilities as to cause him to be looked up to in Boston as a leader, and of the moderate class of Patriots, yet, by urbanity of manner, a high personal character, diligent public service, and fidelity to the cause, he won a large influence. It was next voted that Constable Wallace wait upon the Reverend Dr. Cooper and acquaint him that the inhabitants ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... strange oaths and often unpardonably coarse; "our dominant friend," Kinglake called him; "odious" is the epithet I have heard commonly bestowed upon him by less affectionate acquaintances. Kinglake was reserved, shy, reticent, with the high breeding, grand manner, quiet urbanity, grata protervitas, of a waning epoch; restraint, concentration, tact of omission, dictating alike his silence and his speech; his well-weighed words "crystallizing into epigrams as they touched the air." {26} When Hayward's last illness came upon him in 1884, Kinglake nursed ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... lustre ago was wicked is now virtuous,—we see no reason for despair; and our century may yet witness the time when it will be considered the highest mixture of philosophic courtesy and Christian urbanity to make the most graceful semi-lateral bow, as you pass your friend in the street, and, kissing the tip of your finger, to lisp, with bending head and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... of any ignoble or unmanly passions. Indeed, one of his most intimate friends remarked "that he was the beau-ideal of dignified manliness and truthfulness of character." His manners possess all that unostentatious frankness, and self-possessed urbanity and quietude, that is indicative of refined feelings. That such a shining mark has not escaped envy, detraction, and persecution, will surprise no one who is well acquainted with the materials of which ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... keep his private fortune unimpaired. In the course of their conversation Odo learned that though of Austrian birth his companion was of mingled English and Florentine parentage: a fact perhaps explaining the mixture of urbanity and reserve that lent such charm to his manner. He told Odo that his connection with the Holy Office had been only temporary, and that, having contracted a severe cold the previous winter in Germany, he had accepted ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... personal character displayed as great a variety of opposite qualities, as the fortunes to which he had been exposed; his magnanimity was oftentimes clouded by the greatest meanness, and with an urbanity of manners, he combined an intolerable degree of pride and arrogance; he was frank and generous, but his overwhelming ambition greatly tended to obscure these nobler qualities of his mind, and as he rose, he became ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various
... Mr. Arnold's matter, but it is hard to represent him at all without doing some preliminary justice to his manner—his attitude toward the Christian public, his dogma of urbanity, and the value of his way of putting things as a likelihood of making converts. This is the more appropriate as he thinks the Founder of Christianity, and its chief promulgators, such as Peter and Paul, gained most of their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... urbanity, and quiet contentment of this good woman were very striking. She had beautiful white teeth, and was not prematurely aged, only very sun-burnt and shabby, her black stuff dress blue with age and mended in many places, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... how thoroughly the government trusts you, Citizen Chauvelin," replied Robespierre with perfect urbanity, "I will myself direct that the Marny necklace be placed unreservedly in your hands; and a sum of fifty thousand francs for your expenses in England. You see," he added blandly, "we give you no excuse for ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... to found a noble esteem, but politeness prepares the way. Indeed, as Montaigne says, Courtesy begets esteem at sight. Urbanity is half of affability, and affability ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... fulsomely grateful, as we all are in the like case, and at the station he used an urbanity with the captain which was perhaps not thrown away upon him, but which was certainly disproportioned to the trouble he was asking him to take in saying whether he knew where he could ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... Suffenus known to thee Fairly for wit, free talk, urbanity, The same who scribbles verse in amplest store— Methinks he fathers thousands ten or more Indited not as wont on palimpsest, 5 But paper-royal, brand-new boards, and best Fresh bosses, crimson ribbands, sheets with lead Ruled, and with pumice-powder all well polished. These as thou readest, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... inquiry; Orde with complete recovery of his usual urbanity, replied: "It's nothing, only the old story, he wants his case to be tried by an English judge-they all do that-but when he began to hint that the other side were in improper relations with the native judge I had to shut him up. Gunga Ram, the man he wanted to make insinuations about, ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... angrily as he crossed the hall, but as he opened the breakfast-room door he contrived to straighten out his face into a semblance of urbanity. Though he could have enjoyed accelerating the passage of his visitor into the street, there were excellent commercial reasons why he should adopt a less strenuous means towards the end which he had determined ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... my dear child," said he, "that between a capital and solitude there is no third choice; nor, I would add, can a mind extract the best of solitude unless it bring urbanity to the wilderness. Your rustic is no philosopher, and your provincial townsman is the devil: if you would meditate in Arden, your company must be the Duke, Jaques, Touchstone—courtiers all—or, again, Rosalind, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Pendennis, I am delighted to have the honour of seeing ye again. The night's journey on the top of the Alacrity was one of the most agreeable I ever enjoyed in my life, and it was your liveliness and urbanity that made the trip so charming. I have often thought over that happy night, sir, and talked over it to Mrs. Doolan. I have seen your elegant young friend, Mr. Foker, too, here, sir, not unfrequently. He is an occasional frequenter of this hostelry, and a right good one it is. Mr. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... comedy, he says, can only be the fruit of a polished society which can supply both the model and the audience. Where the art of social intercourse has been carried to a high pitch, where men have learned to be at once courteous and incisive, to admire urbanity, and therefore really good feeling, and to take a true estimate of the real values of life, a high comedy which can produce irony without coarseness, expose shams without advocating brutality, becomes for the first ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... what you thought British wrong, Well, that won't put us in a passion. "I ken write long-tailed if I please," You said. And truly, polished writer, More like "a gentleman at ease," Never touched quill than this shrewd smiter. Your "moral breath of temperament" Found scope in scholarly urbanity; And wheresoever LOWELL went Sounded the voice of Sense and Sanity. We loved you, and we loved your wit. Thinking of you, uncramped, uncranky; Our hearts, ere we're aware of it, "Run helter-skelter into Yankee." "For puttin' in a downright lick 'Twixt Humbug's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... peculiarities, and increase his sensibility. Genius in society is often in a state of suffering. Professional characters, who are themselves so often literary, yielding to their predominant interests, conform to that assumed urbanity which levels them with ordinary minds; but the man of genius cannot leave himself behind in the cabinet he quits; the train of his thoughts is not stopped at will, and in the range of conversation the habits of his ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... and prejudice. One might almost say that Cherbuliez knows all that he wishes to know, without the trouble of learning it. He is a calm Mephistopheles, with perfect manners, grace, variety, and an exquisite urbanity; and Mephisto is a clever jeweler; and this jeweler is a subtle musician; and this fine singer and storyteller, with his amber-like delicacy and brilliancy, is making mock of us all the while. He takes a malicious pleasure in withdrawing his own personality from ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 'Which? him with the gilt order round his neck?' 'No, no; that's one of the messengers—that other with the yellow gloves, is Sir John Thomson.' 'Here's Mr. Smith.' 'Lor!' 'Yes, how d'ye do, sir?—(He is our new member)—How do you do, sir?' Mr. Smith stops: turns round with an air of enchanting urbanity (for the rumour of an intended dissolution has been very extensively circulated this morning); seizes both the hands of his gratified constituent, and, after greeting him with the most enthusiastic warmth, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... behind him hardly dared to look at each other; the one lest she should betray her sorrow, and the other lest she should seem to see it. Betty honestly suffered. She had found Pitt's society delightful; it had all the urbanity without the emptiness of that she was accustomed to. Whether right or wrong, he was undoubtedly a person in earnest, who meant his life to be something more than a dream or a play, and who had higher ends in view than to understand dining, or even to be an acknowledged critic ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... towards the allies, the natural urbanity of Cimon served to conceal a policy deep-laid and grasping. The other Athenian generals were stern and punctilious in their demands on the confederates; they required the allotted number of men, and, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Duchess drew herself up to her full height: All semblance of respect, or even of urbanity, disappeared in a flash. The outraged woman was clearly revealed, the outraged woman addressing herself to the one whom she knows to be of bad faith. It was with an expression of keenest anger and even ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Arnold's personal charm, to his cheerfulness, his urbanity, his tolerance and charity, is remarkably uniform. He is described by one who knew him as "the most sociable, the most lovable, the most companionable of men"; by another as "preeminently a good man, gentle, generous, enduring, laborious." ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... on what I have said about eighteenth century and middle-age houses: I do not know if I have yet explained to you the sort of loyalty, of urbanity, that there is about the one to my mind; the spirit of a country orderly and prosperous, a flavour of the presence of magistrates and well-to-do merchants in bag-wigs, the clink of glasses at night in fire-lit parlours, something certain and civic and domestic, is all about these quiet, staid, shapely ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chief functions to consist in acting as a buffer between her husband and a world which did not always approach him with enough gentleness and consideration. Hence her joy at the prosperous passage of a critical time, at the enthusiasm of their supporters, and at the gratification and urbanity of Sir Winterton. Satisfaction begat charity, and Lady Mildmay had laughingly dismissed some portentous hints which Mrs. Baxter let fall about the certain character and the probable tactics ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... years in Italy, had courtierlike manners and bearing. He was a layman, although a canon of one of the great Roman basilicas, and as we have already seen, was a candidate for a red hat. With his brilliant parts, great capacity, urbanity, and zeal, it is not surprising to learn that he was declared to be a Jesuit, a generic term not only in his own days, but down to our own, for all who have laboured diligently to ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... upon these commentaries, investing their judgments with a new popularity and authority. Although Dryden condemned Persius for obscurity and other defects, he agreed with Casaubon that Persius excels as a moral philosopher and that "moral doctrine" is more important to satire than wit or urbanity. Dryden knew, moreover, that the satirist's inculcation of "moral doctrine" meant a dual purpose, a pattern of blame and praise—not only "the scourging of vice" but also "exhortation to virtue"—long recognized as a definitive characteristic ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... form to open the mind to all the tolerant liberalisms of the age; and no one in the colonies lost caste who endeavored, in the manner if not in the substance of his thinking, to achieve the polished urbanity of those Englishmen who made a point of being scholars without a touch of pedantry, and men of virtue ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... Sir Charles Napier was hailed with satisfaction, as the prestige of his name had spread all over India. Lord Gough's departure was, however, a subject of regret, for the venerable and glorious old general had by his heroism, urbanity, and goodness, won every heart. Enemies respected and esteemed him; his soldiers, and all connected with the government of India, respected and loved him. During the autumn long conferences were held at Simla, between the governor-general, the commander-in-chief, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... probably recognised him. Larkin—except when making a mysterious trip at election times, or in an emergency, in a critical case—was a frank, and as he believed could be a fascinating compagnon de voyage, such and so great was his urbanity on a journey. He rather liked talking with people; he sometimes heard things not wholly valueless, and once or twice had gathered hints in this way, which saved him trouble, or money, which is much the same thing. Therefore upon principle he was ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... harsh-featured face was mitigated by the glory of full, low-ridded, dark eyes, and his smile could be irresistibly captivating. He was as graceful in manner as in person, felicitous of speech, and of an indolent good temper that found expression in a charming urbanity. ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... Despite his visitor's urbanity, he was still a little nervous. The Colonel had a somewhat purposeful air, and he had seated himself directly ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Egyptians. The learned Marsham therefore animadverts with great justice. [506]Est verisimilius ilium ex AEgypto mores magis civiles in Graeciam induxisse. It is more probable, that he introduced into Greece, the urbanity of his own country, than that he was beholden to Greece for any thing from thence. In respect to the mixed character of this personage, we may, I think, easily account for it. Cecrops was certainly a title of the Deity, who was worshipped ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... simplicity of her life and habits, her hair was cut off short, and her whole aspect suggested cheerfulness, robustness, and magnanimity. She was masterful in temperament, not always ready to listen with urbanity to opinions she did not share, or to admit that her conclusions could even conceivably have their foundations in doubtful premises. But these very human characteristics in no way diminished the personal affection she inspired in those among whom she moved. ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... now clearly defined, with Meath, in the central plain, predominant over the others, and in a certain sense ruling all Ireland from the Hill of Tara. The code of honor was fixed; justice had taken well-defined forms; social life had ripened to genial urbanity. The warriors were gathered together into something like a regular army, a power rivaling the kings. Of this army, Find, son of Cumal, was the most renowned leader—a warrior and a poet, who embodied in himself the very genius of the time, its fresh naturalness, its ripeness, ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... I have here only one; and he is a bosom friend, one whose intelligence, urbanity, abilities, and piety are alike conspicuous. He is a son of La Trobe, the celebrated African traveller. Unfortunately for me, he intends taking his final examination next Easter term, and will consequently leave Oxford. When he ...
— Gwaith Alun • Alun
... come therefore, to entreat you, sir, to weigh anchor, so that we may get in, as my wife and daughters are waiting in their carriage, in the street.' The captain readily granted the request of his aquatic visitor, who took his leave with much urbanity, and the captain ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... expense to the county, and to their entire satisfaction. He was adored by the people, to whom he acted as a father and friend, and his memory is still green among the older inhabitants, who never speak of him but in the warmest terms for his generosity, urbanity, and frankness, and for the kind and free manner in which he always mixed with and addressed his tenants. He was considered by all who knew him the most sagacious and intelligent man in the county. He ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... to view, of which it afterwards appeared they knew the use, and longed for the benefit. Let the banks of those rivers, "known to song", let him whose travels have lain among polished nations produce me a brighter example of disinterested urbanity than was shown by these denizens of a barbarous clime to a set of destitute wanderers on the side ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... which we are accustomed. This, of course, interferes with efficiency, and also (what is more serious) with sincerity and truth in personal relations. If I were Chinese, I should wish to see it mitigated. But to those who suffer from the brutalities of the West, Chinese urbanity is very restful. Whether on the balance it is better or worse than our frankness, I shall not venture ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... particularly warn you not to found your judgment upon it. There is an old adage, which says 'To be poor, and seem poor, is the Devil all over.' Why, if you meet one of these Sunday-men, he will accost you with urbanity and affected cheerfulness, endeavouring to inspire you with an idea that he is one of the happiest of mortals; while, perhaps, the worm of sorrow is secretly gnawing his heart, and preying upon ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... man, who as time went on was slightly less in favor than in the beginning. No one questioned his devotion to the cause, or the energy with which he worked for it, but as he grew older he lost some portion of the old urbanity, exchanging it disastrously for traits which would seem to have been the result of increasing narrowness of religious faith rather than part of his real self. Savage writes of him: "a hardness in publick and ridgidity in private life, are too observable in his character, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... badness is apt to run in streaks. Man, to use the language of another, is a queer combination of cheek and perversity, insolence, pride, impudence, vanity, jealousy, hate, scorn, baseness, insanity, honor, truth, wisdom, virtue and urbanity. He's a queer combination all right. And those mixed elements of his nature, in their effects on other people, we call personal influence. Many a man is not altogether what he has made himself, but what others have made him. But a man's personal influence is within his own control. It is at the ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... excellent tooth-brush, and a pen-knife both cuts and cleans your nails. Perhaps you'll present your friend to me," added he in the same breath, with a glance at the Yorkshireman, upon whose arm Mr. Jorrocks was resting his telescope hand. "Much pleasure," replied Mr. Jorrocks, with his usual urbanity. "Allow me to introduce Mr. Stubbs, Mr. Green, Mr. Green, Mr. Stubbs: now pray shake hands," added he, "for I'm sure you'll be werry fond of each other"; and thereupon Jemmy, in the most patronising manner, extended his two forefingers ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... youth, not from love of scholarship, but as a means to success. The Church had become his profession, and he had worked hard at his calling. He had taught himself to be courteous and urbane, because he had been clever enough to see that courtesy and urbanity are agreeable to men in high places. As a bishop he never spared himself the work which a bishop ought to do. He answered letters, he studied the characters of the clergymen under him, he was just with his patronage, he endeavoured to be efficacious ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... him than to them, but, apart from all other questions, Sir Wilfrid's personal qualities had no small influence in bringing about his party triumphs. Alike in Opposition and in power, his unfailing tact, old-fashioned courtesy, conciliatory methods, urbanity, moderation, and unvarying good temper evoked the sympathy of thousands whom Blake's coldly intellectual feats failed to attract and Mackenzie's rigidity of demeanour served only to repel. Simultaneously with Mr Laurier's advent to the leadership of the Opposition in 1887, a moderating influence ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... invited. The Duchess introduced them to Captain Tartar, who imagining them, from their being in plain clothes, to be young Englishmen of fortune on their travels, was very gracious and condescending. Jack was so pleased with his urbanity that he requested the pleasure of his company to dinner the next day: Captain Tartar accepted the invitation, and they parted shaking hands, with many expressions of pleasure in having made his acquaintance. Jack's party was rather large, and the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... noted for a certain reticence and austerity with women, which might well have come from an unhappy love-affair; once when he took one of the instructor's classes at the Synthesis temporarily, his forbidding urbanity was so glacial, that the girls scarcely dared to breathe in his presence, and left it half-frozen. The severest of the masters, with all his sarcasm, ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... a necessary consequence of an elevated material and intellectual one; and therefore it is that we find the Dane distinguished for kindness, urbanity, and regard for others,[189] and this is found in all portions of society. In visiting the Museum of Northern Antiquities, which is open to the public, free of charge, on ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... same night interrupted by a dispute that arose between one of those young gentlemen and the physician, about the cold and hot methods of prescription in the gout and rheumatism; and proceeded to such a degree of mutual reviling, that Pickle, ashamed and incensed at his fellow-traveller's want of urbanity, espoused the other's cause, and openly rebuked him for his unmannerly petulance, which, he said, rendered him unfit for the purposes, and unworthy of the benefit, of society. This unexpected declaration overwhelmed the doctor with amazement ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... they were doing their duty to the public, and warning them against teaching which they believed to be insidious and even immoral. I honour them for doing this, and I applaud them, especially if they did violence to their own feelings of courtesy and urbanity in doing so. Then there were some good-natured reviewers who practically said that the book was simply a collection of amiable platitudes; but that if the public liked to read such stuff, they were quite at liberty to do so. ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... If he was occasionally tempted to commit the peculiarly Spanish fault of exaggeration—scarcely a fault there, where the shadows are so black and the colours so flaring—he resisted it in his more important characters. The brutality of the Duke de Requena, the sagacity and urbanity of Father Ortega, the saintly sweetness of the Duchess, the naivete of Raimundo, the sphinx-like charm of Clementina de Osorio, with her mysterious sweetness and duplicity, these are among the salient points of characterisation which stand out in this powerful book. La Espuma was a cry ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... day, Jack sent in his card to the governor at the Adams House, and followed the pasteboard before the message could be returned. The governor received his visitor with his usual urbanity. ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... There was no trace of his usual urbanity and he chewed nervously upon the end of ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... their minds in them, the pictures of MURILLO bear a great analogy to his virtues, and the gentleness of his character. He was distinguished above all others of his profession by the mildness with which he instructed his pupils; by the urbanity with which he treated his rivals; by the humility with which he excused himself from becoming the painter of the Camara to CHARLES the Second, which was offered to him by the court; and for the charity with which he distributed the most liberal alms to the poor, who ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... his cigars would have saved Thyrsis and his family from misery all their lives; and he wondered if the man would have cared had he known. Barry was one of the princes of the new dispensation; and sometimes princes were compassionate, Thyrsis reflected. Apparently this one was all urbanity and charm, having no thought in life save to play the perfect host to brilliant artists and demi-mondaimes, and to skim the cream ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... possible, she was more lovely and attractive. In the course of the winter, several gentlemen approached her with the evident intention of offering their hands. Their advances were received with great urbanity, but in most instances with that unembarrassed manner that is fatal to hope. One of her admirers, however, persevered so far as to solicit her hand: the denial was mild, but resolute; like most young men who think their ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... by that debasing institution the Inquisition, which sought out the brightest intellects only to destroy them. But whether conversion by coercion be justifiable or not, one is bound to acknowledge that all the urbanity of the Filipinos of to-day is due to Spanish training, which has raised millions from obscurity to a relative condition of culture. The fatal defect in the Spanish system was the futile endeavour to stem the tide of ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... eye, shewed that it was felt beyond a laugh. Her attention was now claimed by Mr. Woodhouse, who being, according to his custom on such occasions, making the circle of his guests, and paying his particular compliments to the ladies, was ending with her—and with all his mildest urbanity, said, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... a calm after a storm. A great difference appeared to me to be observable between the minds and manners of the people among whom we were now travelling, and those of the people of the Sagar and Nerbudda territories. They seemed here to want the urbanity and intelligence we find among our subjects in the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the forgetful flood. Now for some jewels to supply The want of earrings' bravery For public eyes; take only these Ne'er travelled for beyond the seas; They're nobly home-bred, yet have price Beyond the far-fet merchandise: Obedience, wise distrust, peace, shy Distance and sweet urbanity; Safe modesty, lov'd patience, fear Of offending, temperance, dear Constancy, bashfulness and all The virtues less or cardinal, Take with my blessing, and go forth Enjewelled with thy native worth. And now if there a man be found That looks for such prepared ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... Rochefoucauld has said that "nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire of appearing so." Thus we come round again to sincerity and truthfulness, which find their outward expression in graciousness, urbanity, kindliness, and consideration for the feelings of others. The frank and cordial man sets those about him at their ease. He warms and elevates them by his presence, and wins all hearts. Thus manner, in its highest form, like character, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... above her other rivals, it would be said of him that he was a verbose individual, who had called in past years Leeds a beautiful and inspiring city, Liverpool a rising seaport, and Glasgow a town where urbanity and sweet reasonableness prevailed. It might be remembered of him that he had praised the Birmingham man for his childlike humility, and the Edinburgh man for his excessive modesty. It was his first visit to Bristol, and it was presumption on his part to speak on the subject at all. Silence was ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... culture. Still we must remember that Michelangelo enjoyed singular privileges under the roof of one who was not only great as diplomatist and politician, and princely in his patronage, but was also a man of original genius in literature, of fine taste in criticism, and of civil urbanity in manners. The palace of the Medici formed a museum, at that period unique, considering the number and value of its art treasures—bas-reliefs, vases, coins, engraved stones, paintings by the best ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... much so," Harboro was thinking, ambiguously enough, certainly, as Runyon was brought before him and Sylvia. Runyon acknowledged the introduction with a cheerful urbanity which was quite without discrimination as between Harboro and Sylvia. Quite impartially he bestowed a flashing smile upon both the man and the woman. And Harboro began vaguely to understand. Runyon was popular, not because he was a particularly good fellow, but because he was so supremely ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... intimation I have ever received that Mr. Bagot took the slightest offence at what then passed between us, ... and you will give me leave to say that when he left this country'—Here I was going to add that the last words he said to me were words of thanks for the invariable urbanity and liberality of my conduct and the personal kindness which he had uniformly received from me. But I could not finish the sentence. Mr. Canning, in a paroxysm of extreme irritation, broke out: 'I stop you there. I will ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... .restaurants of Montmartre. M. le Marquis, on the other hand, looked completely bewildered, whilst I, taking advantage of the situation, seized him familiarly by the arm, and leading him toward the door, I said with condescending urbanity: ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... future quarrels to fasten on. Monsieur and Madame have each their apartments, their carriages, their servants, their income, their friends, their pursuits,—understand the solemn vows of marriage to mean simply that they are to treat each other with urbanity in those few situations where the path of life must necessarily bring ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... my soul! Be not so downcast!" pleaded the musician, who was all urbanity, doing the honours of his one accomplishment there in that lonely hollow of the sands for all the world as though it had been a fine reception-room, and they his guests. "Stay, and I will play to you both the air of 'Yenki-dudal'—a ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Congress from Louisiana, I made my appearance on a hand-car, the motive power of which was two negroes. Descendants of the ancient race of Abraham, dealers in cast-off raiment, would have scorned to bargain for our rusty suits of Confederate gray. General Canby met me with much urbanity. We retired to a room, and in a few moments agreed upon a truce, terminable after forty-eight hours' notice by either party. Then, rejoining the throng of officers, introductions and many pleasant civilities passed. I was happy to recognize Commodore (afterward Admiral) James Palmer, ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... urbanity. "That was a slick piece of work tying up my bank account. I can't get a bond to-day, the bank is closed, and I suppose you're going to insist upon payment of that eighteen thousand dollars before midnight to-night ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... by more than one correspondent, and not always in words of urbanity, that I owe an apology to the manes of Miss Hannah More, whose works I once purchased in nineteen volumes for 8s. 6d., and about whom in consequence I wrote a page some ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... into our ear. We read in his letters what we should vainly search for in the meagre pages of Sallust and Appian, in the captious criticism of Dion, and even in the pleasant anecdotes of his friendly biographer Plutarch, his amiableness, his refined urbanity, his admiration for excellence, his thirst for fame, his love of truth, equity, and reason. Much indeed of the patriotism, the honesty, the moral courage he exhibited, was really no other than the refined ambition of attaining the respect of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... de corps. conviviality; good fellowship, good company; joviality, jollity, savoir vivre [Fr.], festivity, festive board, merrymaking; loving cup^; hospitality, heartiness; cheer. welcome, welcomeness; greeting; hearty welcome, hearty reception, warm reception; urbanity &c (courtesy) 894; familiarity. good fellow, jolly fellow; bon enfant [Fr.], bawcock^. social circle, family circle; circle of acquaintance, coterie, society, company. social gathering, social reunion; assembly &c (assemblage) 72; barbecue [U.S.], bee; corn-husking [U.S.], corn-shucking ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was more genial of eye and less professional of face. Here he could never be mistaken for anything else than the commander of a man-of-war—it was in his legs, in the shoulder he set to the wind, in the tone of his orders, in his austere urbanity to his officers. Yet there was something else in his eye, in his face, which all this professionalism could not hide, even when he was most professional—some elusive, subterranean ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... falls a little short of the true Attic salt in which there was a peculiar quickness and delicacy. That same Attic salt seasoned almost all Greece, except Boeotia, and a great deal of it was exported afterward to Rome, where it was counterfeited by a composition called Urbanity, which in some time was brought to very near the perfection of the original Attic salt. The more you are powdered with these two kinds of salt, the better you will keep, and the more you will ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... counselled him to preserve the mask on what was going on within, lest it should be seen that he was also morally beaten at the outset. A trained observation told him, moreover, that her Chillon's correctly handsome features, despite their conventional urbanity, could knit to smite, and held less of the reserves of mercy behind them than Carinthia's glorious barbaric ruggedness. Her eyes, each time she looked at her brother, had, without doating, the light as of the rise ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... myself," said Randal, hesitatingly. L'Estrange had no prepossessions in favour of Leslie from the little he had seen of that young gentleman; but Randal's remark was an appeal to his habitual urbanity, and he replied, with well-bred readiness, "Let us ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Ambassador Willard went with me. As we entered the palace and waited at the foot of an elevator, the car descended and one of the little Princes of Spain, about eight years old, dressed in a sailor suit, stepped out. Evidently he had been trained in royal urbanity for he immediately came up to us, shook hands ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... beneath our eyes. Faint frosty lights pass across the orchestra. This, we guess, is supposed to be an inward and musing passage. This is a finale, this a dramatic climax. But we are no more than languidly pleased with the cleverness and urbanity of the orchestration, the pleasant shapeliness of certain melodies, the neatness of composition. In the end, the man bores us thoroughly. He has invented a new musical ennui. It is that of being invariably ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... of manner as well as in the learning of the age—the latter might be forgotten; the former, never. As they became the wives and mothers of succeeding times, they have left upon their descendants an impress of politeness and urbanity that distinguishes the people of Canada ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... own way is the adherence to one's own "opinion." The clash of opinions is in its noblest aspect the basis of knowledge; the correction of opinion that results when man meets man is the growth of tolerance and urbanity. Wide reading, travel and experience teach us that our opinions can never be absolutely right, and we grow to look upon them in a detached sort of way. In fact, the prime result of the growth of intelligence and ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... greenroom, and in the midst of domestic intrigues, remained a man of good character and pure manners. He was welcomed in the best society, where he soon became a favorite by his piquant sallies, as much as by his good manners and urbanity, for he amused without reminding ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... robbed me with peculiar callousness, for he had bound my hands the day before, when I went to see how Aguador was treated, by giving me with most courteous ceremony a glass of aguardiente; and his urbanity was then so captivating that now I lacked assurance to protest. I paid the scandalous overcharge with a good grace, finding some solace in the reflection that he was at least a picturesque blackguard, tall and spare, grey-headed, with fine features sharpened ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... with a confident but somewhat self-deprecatory air, to regain the spear, which he perceived lying at the foot of the rock. With feelings of a reassuring nature he then saw that the very undesirable expression which he had last beheld upon the dragon face had melted into one of encouraging urbanity and ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... his way with characteristic stubbornness and impassivity. Only on two occasions did he allow the criticisms of the press to goad him into a reply. In the prefaces to Los condenados and Alma y vida he defended those plays and explained his aims and methods with entire self-control and urbanity.[4] But he never deigned to cater to applause. The attack upon Los condenados did not deter him from employing a similar symbolism and similar motifs again; and, after the tremendous hit of Electra, he deliberately chose, for Alma y vida, his next effort, ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... keep them in perpetual wardship. They think more of beaver skins than of souls, and their missions are pure mockeries." At the same time he assures the minister that, when he is obliged to correct them, he does so with the utmost gentleness. In spite of this somewhat doubtful urbanity, it seems clear that a storm was brewing; and it was fortunate for the peace of the Canadian Church that the attention of the truculent governor was drawn ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... no offence taken where no offence is intended," said Lord Etherington, with much urbanity. "It is I who ought to beg the reverend gentleman's pardon, for hurrying from him without allowing him to make a complete eclaircissement. I beg his pardon for an abruptness which the place and the time—for I was immediately engaged in a lady's ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... nobleman, who was at least seventy and very patriarchal in appearance because of his flowing white locks and long snowy beard, received the young Frenchman with great urbanity and condescension in a sumptuously furnished salon full of rare art treasures and dazzling with gold and satin. He met him with outstretched hand and said, warmly, at the same time glancing at the Captain's card as if ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... leave the ship, I went with Captain Prescott of the Aurora, to visit the French Commodore Roussin on board the Amazone. I have seldom been better pleased. The captains of the other French ships were there, to receive us. All the urbanity of Frenchmen, joined with the delightful frankness of the profession, assured us we were welcome. The ship itself, every part of which we saw, is a model of all that can be done, either in the dock-yard at home, or by officers afloat, for comfort, health, and cleanliness, and is well as a man of ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... ourselves to them; to cherish our neighbors, friends, and equals, for that which we receive from them, even by right of exchange. Equite is sociability raised to its ideal by reason and justice; its commonest manifestation is URBANITY or POLITENESS, which, among certain nations, sums up in a single word nearly all ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... in cold daylight Kerr still gave Flora the impression that the open was not big enough to hold him, but she saw a difference in his mood, a graver eye, a colder mouth, and when he finally greeted them, a manner that was brusk. It showed uncivil beside the major's urbanity. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... shot out his questions in an inquisitorial manner but Bas met its peremptory edginess with urbanity, though his face was haggard with a night of sleeplessness ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... talking it over with her brother, and conjecturing so much, that granny thought it best to supply the key, thinking, perhaps, that a little jealousy would do Jem no harm. But the effect on him was to produce a fit of hearty laughter, as he remembered poor Lord Ormersfield's unaccountable urbanity and suppressed exultation in the morning's ride. 'I honour the Ponsonbys,' he said, 'for not choosing to second his lordship's endeavours to tyrannize over that poor fellow, body and soul. Poor Louis! ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... those swan-white, sky-blue, rose-pink maidens who in every town and on every plantation from Memphis to Charleston, from Richmond to New Orleans, despatched their billets by the forlornly precarious post only when they could not send them by the "urbanity" of such or such a one! Could you have contrasted with them the homeless, shelterless, pencil-borrowing, elbow-scratching, musty, fusty tatterdemalions who stretched out on the turfless ground beside their mess fires to extort or answer those cautious or incautious ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... the Republican Party, and as a Republican he filled with honor a place upon the bench of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and upon the election of President Hayes, he was made Attorney-General of the United States. That office he filled with tact, urbanity, and reasonable ability. He belonged to a class of orators of which Massachusetts has furnished a considerable number—Mr. Everett was the chief. His disciples or followers included Hillard, Burlingame, Bullock, Devens, Long, and some others of lesser note. The style of these ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... the United States, Thomas Jefferson, with less urbanity, but more acumen, said of these verses that they were ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... against propriety? But if this is to be admitted as a test, then the ages of Pericles and Augustus must also be described as rude and uncultivated; for Aristophanes and Horace, who both were considered as models of urbanity, display, at times, the coarsest indelicacy. On this subject, the diversity in the moral feeling of ages depends on other causes. Shakspeare, it is true, sometimes introduces us to improper company; at others, he suffers ambiguous expressions to escape in the presence ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... his rival, Francis, he could still be grandly magnanimous, while the generosity of Francis flowed only from the shallow surface of a maudlin good-nature. He spoke many languages and had the tastes of a scholar, while his son had only the inclinations of an unfeeling pedagogue. He had an inkling of urbanity, and could in a measure become all things to all men, while Philip could never show himself except as a gloomy, impracticable bigot. It is for some such reasons as these, I suppose, that Mr. Buckle—no ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... blocks, and the confidence of them waxed apace. Amidon thought of a little money which his wife had saved from her boarders, and the barber immediately resolved to invest every cent he had in the United Fuel. Such was Captain Carroll's graciousness and urbanity that he idled away an hour in the barber-shop, and the other men melted away, although reluctantly, from an atmosphere of such effulgence. The milkman's hollow stomach drove him home for his breakfast. Little Willy Eddy thought ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Society teach us to love one another. That is a miserable society, where the absence of affectionate kindness is sought to be supplied by punctilious decorum, graceful urbanity, and polished insincerity; where ambition, jealousy, and distrust rule, in place of simplicity, confidence, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... then consider how long it took the inhabitants of this island—the cultured ones who count as readers or writers—to recapture just that note of urbanity. Other things our forefathers —Britons, Saxons, Normans, Dutch or French refugees—discovered by the way; worthier things if you will; but not until the eighteenth century do you find just that note recaptured; the note of easy confidence that our London had become what Rome had been, the Capital ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... aversion. I gladly behold every appetite supplied with its proper food. The obliging customer, and the obliged tradesmen— things which live by bowing, and things which exist but for homage, do not affect me with disgust; from habit I perceive nothing but urbanity, where other men, more refined, discover meanness. I love the very smoke of London, because it has been the medium most familiar to my vision. I see grand principles of honour at work in the dirty ring which encompasses two combatants with fists, and principles of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... motive which had led him to the Embassy. His eyes, however, turned, almost contrary to his wishes, to the other side of the room, and there he seemed to find something to sustain him. He replied to the Duke as naturally as possible, that in coming to his house, he had remembered only the urbanity of his host and his frankness, being aware that the Duke would never convert a mere visit of pleasure into a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Heredith in friendly fashion as he entered the dining-room, and Sir Philip greeted his sister with polite, but somewhat vague courtesy. Sir Philip's manner to everybody was distinguished by perfect urbanity, which was so impersonal and unvarying as to suggest that it was not so much a compliment to those upon whom it was bestowed as a duty which he felt he owed to himself to perform ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Show, has attracted its thousands, and at this moment two dramas (both from the United States) are very popular in the Strand and Oxford Street. A few nights ago, anxious to save you the trouble of filling a stall with your customary urbanity and critical acumen (to say nothing of your august person and opera-glasses), I visited the Princess's, to assist at a performance of The Shadows of a Great City. It was really a most amusing piece, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... central position in the Pacific. The capitals of Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and California are from two and a half to three and a half thousand miles away. No other such group of whites, or place approaching its urbanity, is to be found in a vast extent of latitude or longitude. It is without peer or competitor in endless leagues ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... that gentleman may have done me the honour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to believe that you would not have been received by my local establishment in Lincolnshire with that urbanity, that courtesy, which its members are instructed to show to all ladies and gentlemen who present themselves at that house. I merely beg to observe, sir, that the fact ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Oh, fragrant violet! Oh, gentle heigho-let! (Or little sigh). On sweet urbanity, Through mere inanity, To touch their vanity We ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... appealed, therefore, to the Congress of Philadelphia, which appointed a committee of three—Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge to confer with Lord Howe. The conference, which exhibited the shrewd quality of John Adams and of Franklin, the politeness of Rutledge, and the studied urbanity of Lord Howe, simply showed that there was no common ground on which they could come to an agreement. The American Commissioners returned to Philadelphia and Lord Howe to New York City and there were no further attempts ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... Moronval repented of her urbanity, and became more reserved. Fortunately her husband saw matters in a different light, and concluded that a servant trusted to the extent of placing her master's children at school, must be a person of some ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... they met with a most hospitable reception, and were splendidly feted. Dinner, concert, ball were given in their honour; "nothing was wanting, not even the polka." The large number of political exiles always residing here has introduced into the midst of the Siberian deserts the urbanity of the best society; nearly ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... life here is chearful; we make the most of our fine summers, by the pleasantest country parties you can imagine. Here are some very estimable persons, and the spirit of urbanity begins to diffuse itself from the centre: in short, I shall leave Canada at the very time when one would wish ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... the manifestation of the individual with the expression of the recognition of the equality of others we have what is called deportment or politeness, which combines dignity and grace, self-respect and modesty. We call it when fully complete, Urbanity. It treats the conventional forms with irony, since, at the same time that it yields to them, it allows the productivity of spirit to shine through them in little deviation from them, as if it were fully able to make others ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... of moment happened, and then we spent an hour one morning with the surveyor and a gray-haired gentleman from Winnipeg. He differed from the former in many ways, and spoke with a deliberate urbanity, but I felt that he also spoke with authority and was quietly taking stock of us. We signed several papers, a receipt among them, and it was only then that I realized what that unfortunate coulee had cost us, while, when at last we ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss |
