"Urbane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the urbane and alert showman. He explained how the pressure was regulated. He pulled the capstan-like arms of the motive wheel and the blanketed steel bed slid smoothly under the glittering cylinder. Although George had often been in his stepfather's printing works he now felt for the first ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... a State Convention was a new experience for him. He walked behind the Duke, who made his slow, urbane way here and there, drawling good-humored replies to salutations. He had quip ready for jest, handclasp for his intimates, tactful word for the newer men who were dragged forward to meet him. Even the Governor of the State, a ponderous dignitary with a banner of beard, did not receive so hearty ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... hurricanes of the Minch. If you speak to a ship-captain, you are certain to get the utmost civility and politeness. It is true that most of them have several sets of vocabularies: to passengers they are urbane and choice of speech; but they have, within easy reach, another set of phrases, which they find of service in ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... eloquence was of an order much better suited to the bar than the senate, he had nevertheless acquired a very considerable reputation in the latter, and was looked upon by many as likely to win to the same brilliant fortunes as the courtly Mansfield,—a great man, whose political principles and urbane address Brandon was supposed especially to affect as his own model. Of unblemished integrity in public life,—for, as he supported all things that exist with the most unbending rigidity, he could not be accused of ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... feed on air, a la prairie. She had tired of looking at the same half-dozen raw-boned gallants, and had come to the grand final decision, that her charms should not be wasted thus; and now that she was surrounded by those urbane solicitors, which do mingle with those of more enlargement of brain in fashionable life, they, in turn, began to fear lest those charms might not prove for ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... them a little social sense. He preaches, not against distinct moral turpitude like hypocrisy and avarice, but against inordinate affection for lap-dogs (Melampe), pietistic objections to masked balls {Masquerades}, and superstitious belief in legerdemain (Witchcraft). Holberg voices the urbane humanistic spirit that characterized the eighteenth ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... while the still smirking bartender was mixing the decoctions ordered by the cordial and generous Mr. Ketchem. A moment later four glasses clinked together, and Haldane's first acquaintance—the young man with the air of slight but urbane superiority—felicitated himself that he had "made two free drinks" within ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... without apparent embarrassment to meet the gentleman who entered, though I knew she could not help but feel keenly the niggardly appearance of the board she left with such grace. The stranger—he was certainly a stranger; this I could see by the formality of her manner—was a gentleman of urbane bearing and a general ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... the book. They have an unction which never, as it so often does in the case of Mr Arnold's dangerous master and model Renan, degenerates into unctuosity; they are nobly serious, but without being in the least dull; they contain some exceedingly just and at the same time perfectly urbane criticism of the ordinary reviewing kind, and though they are not without instances of the author's by-blows of slightly unproved opinion, yet these are by no means eminent in them, and are not of a provocative nature. And I ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... for roomy spaciousness and gentle luxury had been exchanged the dinginess and squalor of the place in Soho. The occasional visits to the theatre where her father played the flute, now and then a Sunday walk with him when the weather was sufficiently urbane (marred, always, by his peering watch of every passing face, which had never been rewarded till they met the staring stranger in Hyde Park) had been almost the only variations of a dull routine of life, until this journey had begun which had just brought them to the mighty New ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... Is he hopeful or pessimistic? Is he a writer of prose, poetry, or both? To what school of writing does he belong? What is the mood or spirit,—humorous, buoyant, serious, sad, ironical, angry, genial, urbane? What is its purpose,—to instruct, ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING PAID,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... to the conventional excuses. So few people recognize the simple fact that they need never apologize for going away. Sebastian stood at the head of the stairs bowing in his most Germanic manner. The urbane host, with a charm entirely French, who had dispensed a simple hospitality so easily and gracefully a few minutes earlier, seemed to have disappeared behind a pale and ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... and conditions which he began to comprehend and have an amiable contempt for, he became urbane and conversational, and a little amused to find navigation so simple, even when out of ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... quantity of their hair before the image of St. Urbane, trusting that by so doing their hair would grow long ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... at that period.[309] Carefully avoiding all political intrigue, she made no distinction of persons beyond that due to their rank; and thus, while her intercourse with the Queen was marked by an affectionate respect peculiarly gratifying to its object, she was no less urbane and condescending to the Marquise de Verneuil; who had, as may have been anticipated, already regained all her former influence over the mind of the monarch, his passion even appearing to have derived new ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... be partially restored to our self-esteem, if not entirely comforted for our losses, when we sat down to dinner in the Hotel Washington, and the urbane head-waiter, catching the drift of our English ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... flattering when one sees it to be so completely deserved?" Ludovic Quayle inquired in his most urbane manner. "Prompt and perpetual sacrifice of private conviction to party interest, for example—how can such devotion receive ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... a view to the greatest uprightness and with exactitude, not esteeming one influence above another; he called to account many of the senators and many of the knights, as well as other individuals. Mummius, on the other hand, was more urbane and humane in his behavior; he imputed no dishonor to any one, and abolished many of the regulations framed by Africanus, so far as was possible. To such an extent of amiability did his nature lead him, that he lent some statues ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... professed diner-out. But it was to Mr. Granger that Marmaduke Lovel was most particularly gracious. He seemed eager to atone, on this one occasion, for all former coldness towards the purchaser of his estate. Nor was Daniel Granger slow to take advantage of his urbane humour. For some reason or other, that gentleman was keenly desirous of acquiring Mr. Lovel's friendship. It might be the commoner's slavish worship of ancient race, it might be some deeper motive, that influenced him, but about the fact itself there could be no doubt. The master of Arden was ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... leading young latitudinarian divines, in which he was most anxious to prove that Our Lord had all the graces of a well-bred young man about town, including a pretty wit. He actually claimed that the pun on Peter's name was an example of Our Lord's urbane and genial humour! It gives away the latitudinarian position completely. They're really ashamed of Christianity. They want to bring it into line with modern thought. They hope by throwing overboard the Incarnation, ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... country under the sun. Tartars, Mongols, Little Russians, Chinamen, Japanese, French officers, British officers, peasants and fashionable women, schoolboys, officials, actors and artists and business men and priests and sailors and beggars and hawkers and, guarding them all, friendly, urbane, filled with a pleasant self-importance that seemed at that hour the simplest and easiest of attitudes, the Police. "Rum—rum—rum—whirr—whirr—whirr—whirr"—like the regular beat of a shuttle the hum rose and fell, as the sun faded into rosy mist ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... to increase the personal loyalty already existing there. The Toronto Globe of April 20, 1903, voiced a strong feeling in Canada when it hoped for a future Royal visit to the Dominion and declared that "it would be a mistake to suppose that Edward VII. is merely an urbane gentleman, not to say a lover of the common people; he is a statesman and diplomat of breadth of view, depth of insight, and quickness of intuition. He knows how to time his visits in the interest of the peace of the world for which he ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... pounds sterling. In his left hand he held a string of small coral beads, a comboloio which he twisted backwards and forwards during the greater part of the visit." "In his manners," says Galt, "I found him free and urbane, with a considerable tincture ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... of your servants can give the necessary information," replied the urbane official. If I had lost an umbrella he could not have viewed my ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... known what a brave, gallant, and daring sailor he was, she would have made a hero of him; but Mrs. Cliff had never said much about Burke, and Willy simply admired him as the best specimen of the urbane man of the world with whom ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... was no conflict between art and religion, or art and curiosity—no reaction against previous pietism, no perplexity of conscience, no confusion of aims. Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese were children of the people, men of the world, men of pleasure; wealthy, urbane, independent, pious:—they were all these by turns; but they were never mystics, scholars, or philosophers. In their aesthetic ideal religion found a place, nor was sensuality rejected; but the religion was sane and manly, the sensuality was vigorous and virile. Not the intellectual ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... after Collins had half-depopulated the car by leading the more jovial spirits back in search of liquid refreshments that an urbane clergyman, now of Boston but formerly of Pekin, Illinois, professedly much interested in the sheriff's touch-and-go manner as presumably quite characteristic of the West, dropped into the vacant seat ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... were only fascinated by the hectic bloom and rouged refinement of its Court. And even the least sympathetic student must confess that the Court at any rate was seductive. A more cunningly combined medley of polite culture, political astuteness, urbane learning, sumptuous display, diplomatic love-intrigue and genial artistic productiveness, never before or since has been exhibited upon a scale so grandiose within limits so precisely circumscribed, or been raised to eminence so high from such ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... said nothing of these transactions when on the appointed evening he once more sat in the presence of the urbane prince of the tribe of Al-Yam. Having handed him a bowl of delicately flavored sherbet, Achmed began to narrate The ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... laughter. Yet he was as witty as anyone of whom we have record, and some of the best epigrams in English are his. "The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" is better than the best of La Rochefoucauld, as good as the best of Vauvenargues or Joubert. He was as wittily urbane as Congreve. But all the witty things that one man can say may be numbered on one's fingers. It was through his humour that Wilde reigned supreme. It was his humour that lent his talk its singular attraction. He ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... good fellow, but he seems to me a little—what shall I say?—too elaborate. Too urbane; too ornate. He expresses himself so dreadfully well! I don't believe he ever uses a shorter ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... Raymond Rashleigh sat before a blazing sea-coal fire, in his cozy study, in comfortable, after-dinner mood. He lay back in his cushioned and carved arm-chair, a florid, portly, urbane prelate, with iron-gray hair and patriarchal whiskers, a steaming glass of wine punch at his elbow, that day's paper open upon his lap, an overfed pussy purring at his knee, the genius of comfort personified in ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... Addison Brayton. How it would spite Cynthia!' With renewed energy, but this time more cautiously, the sagacious lady laid her trap for the unwary footsteps of the unconscious Townsend. He was a frequent visitor at the house, feeling always sure of a warm welcome from the urbane hostess. The plan worked admirably, and at last the gentleman called to solicit a private interview with ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the yellow-haired "devil" arrived at the office of the Jack Creek Pizenweed, at 7 o'clock, and found the editor in. It was so unusual to find the editor in at that hour that the boy whistled in a low contralto voice, and passed on into the "news room," leaving the gentlemanly, genial and urbane editor of the Pizenweed as he had found him, sitting in his foundered chair, with his head immersed in a pile of exchanges on the table and his venerable Smith & Wesson near by, acting as a paper-weight. ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... Kate between Dr. von Shierbrand and Marna Cartan. Opposite to her sat Mrs. Goodrich with her quiet smile. Everyone had something pleasant to say; when Kate spoke, all were inclined to listen. The atmosphere was quiet, urbane, gracious. Even David Fulham's exotic personality seemed to soften under the regard ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... he saw how it was with me. I ought to have spoken and told him the case, in plain, civil terms, and offered my dollar, and then waited the event. But I felt too wicked for that. He did not wait a great while, but spoke first himself; and in a gruff voice, very unlike his urbane accents when accosting the wine and cigar party, demanded my ticket. I replied that I had none. He then demanded the money; and upon my answering that I had not enough, in a loud angry voice that attracted all eyes, he ordered me out ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... why Mr. Prigg should have done so on this occasion I am not aware. I merely saw in my dream that he did so. There was not a change in his countenance; his piety was intact; there was not even a suffusion of colour. Placid, sweet-tempered, and urbane, as a Christian should be, he looked pityingly towards the hot and irascible Bumpkin, as though he should say, "You have smitten me on this cheek, now smite me on that!" and placed the great envelope on the ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... to the busybodies who sought by direct question to verify their several conjectures. All comers were received with a hearty handshake and were entertained with urbane speeches. Not the humblest caller was slighted. It was late in the evening when, having affably gotten rid of his last visitor, Burr proposed that he and Arlington should retire. They were well content to make the best of the scanty accommodations ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... she were a horse under him, to whom he must give way just so far as was necessary to keep mastery of her. A man to whom ideas were of no value, except when wedded to immediate action; essentially neat; demanding to be 'done well,' but capable of stoicism if necessary; urbane, yet always in readiness to thrust; able only to condone the failings and to compassionate the kinds of distress which his own experience had taught him to understand. Such was Miltoun's younger brother at the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... very little more; he took the keys of the house out of his bureau, gave them to me,—and thanking him cordially for his frankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, I carried ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... father, Cuthbert was fastidious in his tastes, and an ardent devotee to female beauty; but when finally accomplished, General Laurance considered his paternal obligations fully discharged, and henceforth roamed from city to city, sipping such enjoyment as money, aristocratic status, urbane manners, and a heritage of well-preserved good looks enabled him ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... in Holywell Street indicates possibilities in the Oriental imagination of the eminent statesman who stooped to conquer fact through fiction. Thackeray's attitude in his great novels is that of the composedly urbane lecturer, on a level with a select audience, assured of interesting, above requirements to excite. The slow movement of the narrative has a grace of style to charm like the dance of the Minuet de la Cour: it is the limpidity of Addison flavoured with salt of a racy vernacular; and such ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... puckering into a perfect net-work of lines about a mouth whose predominant expression was one of mingled cynicism and suspicion. There was suspicion, too, in his small black eyes, as well as a sort of lurking fierceness which not even his most urbane and elaborate smile could altogether eliminate. In person he was very thin and somewhat under the middle height, and had all the air of a confirmed valetudinarian. He was dressed as no English gentleman would care to be seen dressed in public. A long brown velvet coat trimmed with fur; lavender-coloured ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... been looking at him, puzzled. Years of association with Uncle Chris had enabled her to read his moods quickly, and she was sure that there was something on his mind. It was not likely that the others had noticed it, for his manner was as genial and urbane as ever. But something about him, a look in his eyes that came and went, an occasional quick twitching of his mouth, told her that all was not well. She was a little troubled, but not greatly. Uncle Chris ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... when he found himself, as it were, segregated, and he sulked openly; but Hicks, on the contrary, was so urbane and respectful that everyone remarked his changed manner, and Mrs. Stott triumphantly demanded to know if it were not proof of her contention that servants were the better for being occasionally ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... willing to undertake everybody else's business, and an Easy Chair naturally supposes, therefore, that it could show the able editor a plan of securing and retaining a large audience. The plan would be that described by the urbane reporter as the plan of his own paper. It is nothing else than truth-telling in the news column, and the peremptory punishment of all criminals who cook the news, and "write up" the situation, ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... hospitality, I don't quite like to descend on him all at once with the whole strength of our party. It will be better for one of us to break the ice, and as you are the best-looking and most hypocritically urbane, when you choose, I think we could not do better than devolve ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... married, but left no children. The date of his death is unknown. The "Letters of Pliny the Younger" are valuable as throwing light upon the life of the Roman people; but they are also models of Latin style, and have all the charm of their author's upright, urbane, and tolerant character. His epistle to the Emperor Trajan with regard to the Christians is of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... frightened at the people galloping about them. Our next reception was at a Spanish Benedictine Monastery and Home for natives, called New Norcia. This Monastery was presided over by the Right Reverend Lord Bishop Salvado, the kindest and most urbane of holy fathers. We were saluted on our arrival, by a regular feu-de-joie, fired off by the natives and half-castes belonging to the mission. The land and property of this establishment is some of the best in the Colony. Here was the ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... "Urbane" on the lips of Jacob had mysteriously all the shapeliness of a character which Bonamy thought daily more sublime, devastating, terrific than ever, though he was still, and perhaps would be ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... his reputation was firmly established. The success of this sombre classical tragedy, which shows Cherubini's genius in its full power, is an honour to the Paris public. If Cherubini had known how to combine his high ideals with an urbane tolerance of the opinions of persons of inferior taste, the severity of his music would not have prevented his attaining the height of prosperity. But Napoleon Bonaparte irritated him by an enthusiasm for the kind of Italian music against which his whole career, from the time he became ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... Icelanders urbane, witty, lazy ... and yet they are all Icelanders ... so there are cold, uproarious, observant, subservient, slangy, sympathetic, indifferent, ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... smiling, urbane, pleasing as to manner—but not too pleasing; urbanity mixed, so to speak, with ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... stormy old man and take refuge in the quiet haven of the Oratory at Birmingham, with his great Protagonist, who, throughout an equally long life spent in painful controversy, and wielding weapons as terrible as Carlyle's own, has rarely forgotten to be urbane, and whose every sentence is a 'thing of beauty.' It must, then, be owned that too many of Carlyle's literary achievements 'lack a gracious somewhat.' By force of his genius he 'smites the rock and spreads the water;' but then, ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... the chief with an admiring smile. He had never ceased to wonder at the multifarious qualities which enabled the man to remain indispensable to native and cottager alike. Courteous, handsome, urbane, diplomatic, debonair, when a matron of the very highest caste sent for him to enlist his efforts in the regaining of some jewel, tiara, or piece of vertu, missing after a weekend, he never for a moment forgot that it was all a bit of carelessness, which ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... a trifle pallid, but bland and urbane, strolled out to the porch, saluting us gracefully. He paused beside Dorothy, who slipped her needle through her work and held out her hand for ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... his companion which took in everything. The tall man in glasses looked too human for a lawyer, too intelligent for a schoolmaster, and too well-dressed for an ordinary medical man. Colwyn, versed in judging men swiftly from externals, noting the urbane, somewhat pompous face, the authoritative, professional pose, the well-shaped, plump white hands, and the general air of well-being and prosperity which exuded from the whole man, placed him as a successful practitioner ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... brutish mind of the born and bred Parisian,—the goblin-creature with whom pure virtues, whether in man or woman, are no more sacred than nuts to a monkey. The suave charm of a polished civility sat on M le Due's smooth brow, and beamed in his urbane smile,—his manners were exquisite, his courtesy irreproachable, his whole demeanor that of a very precise and elegant master of deportment. Yet, notwithstanding his calm and perfectly self-possessed exterior, he was, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... him to attend the opening session of the revival the following Sunday night. Arthur blushed and stammered a little, so that, since Arthur wasn't given to embarrassment, Missy at once surmised he had a "date." Trying for an impersonal yet urbane and hospitable manner, ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... wouldn't want to pull its head off and stick it in a vawse o water to look at. [The grasshopper chirps: Keegan turns his head and addresses it in the vernacular]. Be aisy, me son: she won't spoil the swing-swong in your little three. [To Nora, resuming his urbane style] You see I'm quite cracked; but never mind: I'm ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... "My dear lady," urbane William rose and bowed. "If Robert Burroughs is elected to the United States Senate, the judge shall be Minister to Berlin. It is practically arranged already. Bob's a big man in his party. What he asks for he'll get, never ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... more affable and urbane with her than any one whom Pollyooly had ever met. He was careful to ask her whether she disliked the smell of tobacco smoke before taking her into the smoking-room, where he made a light meal on whiskey and soda and biscuits. He invited her ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... pressure after the Washington copy was run off, and blink rapidly. At the same moment Mr. David Sterne gave utterance to an exclamation, partly of annoyance, partly of surprise. Mr. Harrington Surtaine, wearing an expression both businesslike and urbane ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... that quarter, had been bound up in his life. He had not, forty years ago, been the famous painter, honoured, decorated, taken by the arm by monarchs; he had been a student, wild and raw as any, with that tranquil and urbane philosophy that had made his success still in abeyance within him. As his eyes had rested on the doorknocker next to the restaurant a smile had crossed his face. How had that door-knocker come to be left by the old crowd that had wrenched off so many others? By what accident had that survived, ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... in the stern had picked up a magazine and was lolling back reading it. As the boat passed under him Cleggett saw on the cover page of the magazine a picture of the very man who was perusing it. It was a singularly urbane face; both the counterfeit presentment on the cover page and the real face were smiling and calm and benign. Cleggett could read the legend on the magazine cover accompanying the picture. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... love-making would be, of the spice and variety which would form its characteristics, and of the little bursts of warmth and affection that would render it delightful. It was not soothing to think of all this being lavished on a shabby young man who was not always urbane in demeanor and who stubbornly objected ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... appear until the arrival of the dinner hour. He was under the impression that he had gone a little too far the night before, and tried to make amends by an immaculate toilet and an urbane yet dignified courtesy towards all whom he knew. Society very readily winks at the indiscretions of wealthy young men. Moreover, he had been inveigled back to his room before his condition had been observed to any extent. There fore he found himself so well received in the main, that ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... only philosophising upon these scenes of inexpensive patriotism which fill even the most urbane and peaceful among us full of truculence. . . . I recently saw my tailor wearing a sword, attired in the made-to-measure ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... who carried a rose in his hand. Noticing at once that I was blind, he arose and said to me, "Although you cannot see the beautiful flowers you can inhale their sweetness," at the same time asking me to accept the rose. His delicate kindness and urbane manner struck a deep chord in my heart, and I never think of Houston without recalling ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... with Borrow's works was far behind that of some Borrovians who did not know Lavengro in the flesh, such as Saintsbury and Mr. Birrell. Borrow was shy, angular, eccentric, rustic in accent and in locution, but with a charm for me, at least, that was irresistible. Hake was polished, easy and urbane in everything, and, although not without prejudice and bias, ready to ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... collected and an urbane character, and did much to temper and turn aside the thriftless ordinances of his superior. He, seeing how much our prosperity was dependent on the speed with which we could reach Edinburgh, hastened forward everything with such alacrity that we were ready on ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... eminent surgeon by much in the north of England. He had by one whole generation run before the phrenologists and craniologists,—having already measured innumerable skulls amongst the omnigenous seafaring population of Liverpool, illustrating all the races of men,—and was in society a most urbane and pleasant companion. On my mother's suggestion, he had been summoned to Laxton, in the hope that he might mitigate the torments of Mrs. Schreiber's malady. If I am right in supposing that to have been cancer, I presume that he could not have added much to the prescriptions of the local doctor. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... them, with astonishing knowledge and shrewdness, for half an hour. Complete composure, complete good-humour, complete good manners—he possessed them all. Easy to see that he was the son of an old race, moulded by long centuries of urbane and civilised living! ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... this order, but he was not one of them. He had become a scholar in his 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 ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... existence; the hostler adored them, especially Mr. Joseph; when the latter was there, which he was every Saturday till Monday, he would stroll over the stable with Squires—that was the hostler's name—joking incessantly, and treating the latter to an occasional cigar. Urbane Mr. Joseph would joke with anybody, Mr. George was more severe and had according to the landlady, the most perfect and ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... moment also absolutely paralysed with amazement and concern, then saying hurriedly, "Forgive me, Lady Chaloner, I must go and see what has happened," he quickly followed. Lord Stamfordham drew up his chair to the table and sat down. His urbane, genial manner had returned, and he spoke as though nothing had happened; the rest instantly took their cue ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... Dimekratic Congressmen, but that cood only last a short time, there not bein many uv that persuasion here to personate. I had gone the rounds uv the House ez often ez it wuz safe, and one nite commenced on the Senit. Goin into Willard's, I called for a go uv gin, wich the gentlemanly and urbane bar keeper sot afore me, and I drank. "Put it down with the rest uv mine," sez I, with a impressive ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... which would cause a loss of considerable time and a deflection from the intended route, was declined in courteous terms by Marcoy through the interpretation of Pepe Garcia. Among civilized folk this urbane refusal would have sufficed, but the savages, taking such a reply as a challenge to verbal warfare, returned to the charge with increased tenacity. It were hard to say what natural logic they put in practice or what sylvan persuasions they wrought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... manager and the institution rose steadily. Mr. Grau was no more of a sentimentalist in art than Mr. Abbey had been. He was quiet, undemonstrative, alert, and wholly willing to let the public dictate the course of the establishment. Outwardly he was always calm, urbane, neither communicative nor secretive. I sat behind him during all the years of his divided and undivided directorship, and never failed of a pleasant greeting, no matter what the expression of The Tribune had been on the morning ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... happens, by personal acquaintance. He had not only the courtesy of the good type of the man of the world, but an air of moral suavity, when one came near enough to him, that was infinitely attractive and engaging. He was urbane, essentially modest, and readily interested in ideas and subjects other than his own. There was in his manner and address something of what the French call liant. When the chances of residence made me his neighbour, an evening in ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... at heart, when he heard Katharine upon the stairs. A moment later it was plain that he had been mistaken, it was not Katharine; but he could not settle himself to his letter. His temper had changed from one of urbane contentment—indeed of delicious expansion—to one of uneasiness and expectation. The dinner was brought in, and had to be set by the fire to keep hot. It was now a quarter of an hour beyond the specified time. He bethought him of a piece of news which had depressed him in the earlier part ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... excellent piece of fun was followed by another explosion of laughter. The Frenchman who sat opposite to me—a man, as I have said, of grave but urbane deportment, became curious to know what it was that our neighbours had been conversing about, and which had occasioned so much hilarity. He very politely expressed this wish to me. If it was not an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... Invisible are his wages, yet in some coin are they paid. Invisible is the thing he does, and yet it is done. Let us hope that some sense of this tardy appreciation may soothe his spirit beyond the grave. On the present occasion there was nothing to soothe his spirit. The Speaker sat, urbane and courteous, with his eyes turned towards the unfortunate orator; but no other ears in the House seemed to listen to him. The corps of reporters had dwindled down to two, and they used their pens very listlessly, taking down here ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... A.M. on the day of assignation I presented myself at the riparian premises of a certain Boating Society, and, on exhibiting my letter of credit to the Mentor or Corypheus aforesaid, was received a bras ouverts and with an urbane offhandedness. ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... it that this was no idle speech, but that only time prevented him from walking up the hill and paying his respects. I felt also, the longer we talked, I will not say a fear of him, for his manner was too urbane to permit it, but an increasing respect. Crazed he might be, as his questions were disconnected and now and again bewildering, as when he asked if my father had travelled much abroad, and again it I really preferred to remain idle at home instead of returning to finish my education with Mr. Stimcoe; ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Negro journalism. If ever persuaded to forget for a moment, and be drawn from his business cares, you will find him a pleasant entertainer, both in music and conversation, for beneath his seeming austere countenance there lies an urbane streak of humor, piquant with wit and pleasant ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... to overcome the instinctive antipathy that he had felt toward Braxton from the first, but he had kept this under restraint, and Braxton himself, though he might have suspected this feeling, was always suave and urbane. ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... cocked hats were round hats—the fiddlers were foreigners—the Rotunda was Astley's—the night was moon-shiny—and there was not—our pen weeps whilst we trace the mournful fact—there was not "Simpson" to exclaim, "Welcome to the royal property!" Urbane M.A.C., wouldst that thou hadst been a Mussulman, then wouldst thou doubtlessly be gliding about amid an Eden of Houris, uttering to the verge of time the hospitable sentence which has rendered thy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Richard was again at Chinon. King Philip sent messengers—William des Barres, the Bishop of Beauvais, and Stephen of Meaux—about the homage due to him for Normandy and all the French fiefs. So far well; King Richard was very urbane, as bland as such an incisive dealer could be. He would do homage for Normandy, Anjou, and the rest on such and such a day. 'But,' he added quietly, 'I attach the condition that it be done at Vezelay, when I am there with my army for the East, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... expressed the national variety of rich and poor, plain and fashionable, urbane and rustic; they elbowed and shouldered each other upon a perfect equality in a place where all were as free to come as to the White House, and they jostled quaint groups of almond-eyed legations in the yellows and purples of the East, who looked dreamily on as if puzzled past all surmise ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... my companions on this journey, two Russian gentlemen, with whom afterwards, at several points of my tour, I came into contact. They were urbane and intelligent men, full of their own country and of the Czar, yet professing great respect for England, which they had just visited, and looking down with a contempt they were at little pains to conceal, upon the Frenchmen and Italians among whom they were moving. They possessed the sobriety ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... in her canoe, with her hat over her face, declaring it too hot to eat, but consuming, under protest, a croquette occasionally tossed in for her sustenance. Miss Prosody, quite genial and urbane after luncheon, was deep in consultation with the boatman as to the locality of certain ferns she proposed spudding up for her pet rockery at "The Maples," where her lighter hours were diurnally spent in washing and ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... our sarcastic little skipper in the blandest and most urbane humour. He received me with a courtesy that almost made me feel affection for him. We found Mr Farmer, the first-lieutenant, with him, and had it not been for a sly twinkling of the eye of the captain, and ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... His appetite was not unusual among these South Sea giants. I noticed that he ate more than three pounds of pig and a quart of poi after all his previous devastation of shellfish, feis, chicken, and taro, besides two fish as big as both my hands. My right-hand neighbor was Mr. Davey, an urbane and unreserved American, who informed me in a breath that he was a dentist, a graduate of Harvard University, seventy-two years old, and had been in Tahiti forty-two years. He called his granddaughter of eighteen to meet me, and she ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... it, fast enough, whenever you go back to Cambridge and play the condescending metropolitan in Combination Room. There, seventy minutes from Liverpool Street, you pose—yes, pose, Jack—as the urbane man, Horatius Flaccus life-size; whereas your job as a citizen is confined to cursing the rates, swearing if a pit in the wood pavement jolts you on the way home from the theatre, supposing it's somebody's business, supposing there's graft in it, and talking superciliously of Glasgow ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in the Greek, since he talked on in his usual urbane way, and made no allusion of any sort the whole evening, either to the floral tribute he had sent, to his letter to Sir James, or to the ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... Sixth was one of Vermont's best men. A kind yet faithful commander in camp, gallant and fearless on the field. He was the highest type of a man; a christian gentleman. Colonel Stone had been killed instantly on the 5th. His urbane manners were remembered by all who frequented our division head-quarters, and his bravery had endeared him to his men. Colonel Tyler, too, of the Second was among the mortally wounded, and ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... pistol misses fire, you must knock your adversary down with the butt end of it. This procedure, though inartistic to be sure, is in some contingencies the only kind that will serve. But you should cultivate procedure of a type more urbane. Let your very reasonableness be the most potent weapon you wield. To this end you should form the habit of looking for good points on both sides of a question. As a still further precaution against contentiousness you should uphold the ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... comrades is a faithful and photographic picture of aspects of the urban activity of vast multitudes of industrials combining to assist each one in his fellow in the struggle for existence and fullness of life. The forces revealed are full of danger, the temper is ugly, the manners are always urbane, the judgment not always well informed, the range of knowledge often limited; but there is wondrous power, vigor, and the chaotic promise of a better and larger morality than anything the churches ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... headquarters. The major had been in garrison at Peking when the war began. If my shipmate on a long battleship cruise, Lt.-Col. Dion Williams, U.S.M.C, reads this out in Peking let it tell him that the major is just as urbane in the cellar of a second-rate farmhouse on the outskirts of Neuve Chapelle as he would be in a corner of the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... He had no territory, and was not apparently scheming to get any, either of his own or other people's. Nobody at the Foreign Office believed that he corresponded with any intransigent; he used to go there often and exchange urbane gossip with under-secretaries. He lodged in Duke Street, gave dinner-parties at the Bachelors, had a large visiting-list, and was, as they say, always "about." One saw him everywhere—in the city, in Mayfair drawing-rooms, at Kensington tea- parties, and at Lambeth ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... ecstasy of the bride of the Holy Ghost. Jesus is refined and softened almost out of recognition: the stern peremptory disciple of John the Baptist, who never addresses a Pharisee or a Scribe without an insulting epithet, becomes a considerate, gentle, sociable, almost urbane person; and the Chauvinist Jew becomes a pro-Gentile who is thrown out of the synagogue in his own town for reminding the congregation that the prophets had sometimes preferred Gentiles to Jews. In fact they try ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... greeted at their entrance by Yeardley, who stood at a table near the upper end of the room, with a secretary beside him and a clergyman of the Church of England on his other hand. The colonists looked at his urbane and conciliating countenance, and glanced at the document he held in his hand, and wondered what would be the issue. Nothing of moment, doubtless; still, they could scarcely be much worse off than they were; and the new governor certainly ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... the Dean, she got very near the subject. In fact, she ventured to say a word expressive of her belief that British troops were to be sent to France. But he snubbed her with a sharpness very unlike his urbane self. "Nonsense!" he cried. "There isn't the slightest thought of such a thing. Any small force we could send to the Continent would be useless—in fact, ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... him both polite and considerate and most anxious to meet the wishes of the several parts of his command; in fact, he was a gentleman whom it was a pleasure to meet and work with. His battalion-commander, Major Malley, was equally urbane, and together I think we ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... him for contempt of the Federal Court on the ground that he had induced Dodge to attempt to jump his bond. In place of the blustering Kaffenburgh was sent another member of the famous law firm of Howe and Hummel, David May, an entirely different type of man. May was as mild as a day in June—as urbane as Kaffenburgh had been insolent. He fluttered into Houston like a white dove of peace with the proverbial olive branch in his mouth. From now on the tactics employed by the representatives of Hummel were conciliatory in the extreme. Mr. May, however, did not long remain ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... bottle, ovally labeled with the engraving of a countenance full of soft pity as that of the Romish-painted Madonna, the herb-doctor passes slowly among them, benignly urbane, turning this way ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... hundred and ten thousand pious pilgrims visited Mount Ararat in a body this year. The urbane and gentlemanly proprietors of the Ark Tavern complain that their receipts have hardly been sufficient to pay for the late improvements in this snug retreat. These gentlemen continue to keep on hand their usual assortment of ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... the head of the receiving-line, attended strictly to the task in hand as an urbane ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... Royal Courts of Justice, where Sir EDWARD MARSHALL HALL, K.C., "will describe the methods of conducting civil actions." What GILBERT WHITE would say to all this brick-and-mortar sophistication we do not dare to guess. All that we venture to do is to suggest one or two more urbane adventures. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... with its blue-grey frock, the white doeskin trousers which strapped under the patent-leather boots, the gold braid, the silver saber and the little rope of medals strung across his full, broad breast. It was thus he created awe; it was thus he became truly the sovereign, urbane and majestic. ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... perched upon the sandy bluff above us. The captain, in a nautical way, claimed us as salvage, and we were soon enjoying his generous hospitality. In this isolated town, once a busy cotton-shipping port, there was a population of about one thousand souls, among whom, conspicuous for his urbane manners and scientific ability, lived Dr. A. W. Chapman, the author of the "Flora of the Southern ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... over him. He knew all the time that that was all was left to him, but he snatched at everything. He could not obtain the floor-walker position of which he had spoken to Anderson. He thought that possibly his fine presence and urbane manner might recommend him for a place of that sort, but it was already filled. He went to several of the great department stores and inquired if there was a vacancy. He felt that the superintendents to whom he applied regarded his good ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the prisoner pleaded clearly through her veil, in the first breathless minutes of all; it was not a little later, when the urbane counsel for the prosecution, wagging his pince-nez at the jury, thrilled every other hearer with a mellifluous forecast of the new evidence to be laid before them. The missing watch and chain had been found; they would presently be produced, and the jury would have ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... he, following my eye. "It is a handsome machine, a full dress concern with all its plating and brown leather, and in use it is as willing and quiet as any tricycle could be, a most urbane and gentlemanly affair—if you will pardon the adjective. I am glad these things have not come too late for me. Frankly, the bicycle is altogether too flippant for a man of my age, and the tricycle hitherto, with its two larger wheels behind and a smaller one in front, ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... behind them in Carolina; it had been large enough to stretch across the sea. As to what it was in Carolina there was no need of being explicit. This adoptive Parisian was by nature presupposing, but he was admirably urbane—that was why they let him talk so before the fire; he was the oracle persuasive, the conciliatory voice—and after the death of his wife and of Mme. de Marignac, who had been her friend too, the young man's mother's, he was gentler, if more ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... genteel, urbane, civil, cultivated, gracious, well-behaved, complaisant, cultured, obliging, well-bred, courteous, elegant, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... heavily, cradling his glossy hat. But his urbane smile became brilliant again and he made ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... Chase—the name by which I signify the tradesman—for he, too, had once so lived in France; and by the time he reached the tavern he had talked himself into a very good opinion of his new patron. The French gentleman was very urbane, gave Mr Chase his instructions, let him understand expense was not to be studied, and, as he was at lunch, would not be satisfied unless the tradesman sat down with him. This was a great honour for the latter, as he found his employer was a baron. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... aside an oppression of muffling crape. This admirable power still temperamentally to react and take notice lurks in all her darkness and dirt and decay—a something more careless and hopeless than our thrifty northern cheer, and yet more genial and urbane than the Parisian spirit of blague. The collective Roman nature is a healthy and hearty one, and you feel it abroad in the streets even when the sirocco blows and the medium of life seems to proceed more or less from the mouth of a furnace. But who shall analyse even the simplest ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... himself disclosed the situation. He looked at Grassette with a look of poignant pity and interest combined. In his own placid life he had never had any tragic happening, his blood had run coolly, his days had been blessed by an urbane fate; such scenes as this were but a spectacle to him; there was no answering chord of human suffering in his own breast to make him realize what Grassette was undergoing now; but he had read widely, he had ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... Dorrit, 'I took the liberty' (he laid an emphasis on the phrase and repeated it, as though he stipulated, with urbane firmness, that he must not be contradicted again), 'I took the liberty of requesting this interview, in order that I might mention the topic to you, and inquire how you ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... plans, and struts for an hour before the public eye. So with the writer in his preface: he may have never a word to say, but he must show himself for a moment in the portico, hat in hand, and with an urbane demeanour. ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as they had was rudely broken off. Temple, a man of high position, treated Swift with an urbane condescension which drove the young man's independent soul into a frenzy. He returned to Ireland, where he was ordained a clergyman, and received a small parish ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... About the middle of the seventeenth century women romancers, like women poets, were elegant triflers, content to add the lustre of wit to their other charms. While Mme de La Fayette was gaining the plaudits of the urbane world for the delicatesse of "La Princesse de Cleves" and the eccentric Duchess of Newcastle was employing her genius upon the fantastic, philosophical "Description of a New World, called the Blazing World" (1668), women of another stamp were beginning to write fiction. ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... by accepting from herself; they had burdened her memory as little as her conscience. "Oh yes, I see what you mean—you've been very nice about that; but why drag it in so often?" She had been perfectly urbane with him ever since the rough scene of explanation in his room the morning he made her accept his "terms"—the necessity of his making his case known to Morgan. She had felt no resentment after seeing there was ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... urbane and spent nearly half an hour of his valuable time with the principal. When the latter rose to go they shook hands. The two understood ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... of religion, of politics, or society, a literary courtesy and reserve, a well-bred temperance and modesty of tone and phrase. It was in the hands of the town-bred essayist that our literature first became urbane. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... "An apple is round," said I, "and the world is round; the apple is a sour, disagreeable fruit, and who has tasted much of the world without having his teeth set on edge?" I, however, treated the publisher, upon the whole, in the most urbane and Oxford-like manner; complimenting him upon his style, acknowledging the general soundness of his views, and only differing with him in the affair of the apple ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... by those who aspire to urbane and liberal judgments because they think it can be defended on humanistic grounds. But, as a matter of fact, it is as offensive to the thoroughgoing humanist as it is to the sincere religionist. They have a common ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... have since been embodied in his masterful volume on "Systematic Theology." Dr. Joseph Addison Alexander, who, Dr. Hodge said, was, taking him all in all, "the most gifted man with whom I was ever personally acquainted," was in the chair of Hebrew and Old Testament literature. Urbane, old Dr. Samuel Miller, was the Professor of Ecclesiastical History. Those wise men taught us not only to think, but to believe. All education is atmospheric, and the atmosphere of Princeton Seminary was deeply and sweetly Evangelical. At five o'clock on the morning after I received ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... to go back to Four Winds he found the Captain on the point of starting off for a cruise in his yacht. He was urbane and friendly, utterly ignoring the incident of Alan's last visit and regretting that business compelled him to go down the lake. Alan saw him off with small regret and turned joyfully to Lynde, who was ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... voice and urbane manners and on a finger of his plump clean hand he displayed at ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... first; the directors rose as one man, urbane, sprightly, and gallant. She was exceedingly pretty; they recognised it. They ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... accuse some of the American crew of treachery; the Americans, in turn, accuse the British of revolting brutality. Of course in such a fight things are not managed with urbane courtesy, and, moreover, writers are prejudiced. Those who would like to hear one side are referred to James; if they wish to hear the other, to the various letters from officers published in "Niles' Register," especially ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the recollection that, most likely, she had never before been spoken to by a strange man adding to my assurance. I don't know why an emotional tenseness should have crept into the situation. But it did. And just as I was becoming aware of it a slight scream cut short my flow of urbane speech. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... send one's duty to, &c. n. render polite &c. adj.; polish, civilize, humanize. Adj. courteous, polite, civil, mannerly, urbane; well-behaved, well- mannered, well-bred, well-brought up; good-mannered, polished, civilized, cultivated; refined &c. (taste) 850; gentlemanlike &c. (fashion) 852[obs3]; gallant; on one's good behavior. fine spoken, fair spoken, soft-spoken; honey-mouthed, honey-tongued; oily, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the 'seventies were, after all, in many cases more anxious to damage theology than to build up Philosophy. They read Hume without any delicate sense for his urbane ironies, and believed in good faith that he and John Stuart Mill between them had shown that by a mysterious process called 'induction' it is possible to prove rigorously universal conclusions in science without ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... progress, be the exact reverse; and that another use of words may be forced upon us by a new aspect of facts, so that we may find ourselves saying: "Such and such a person is very gentle and kind—he is quite rustic; and such and such another person is very rude and ill-taught—he is quite urbane." ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... having been accommodated with paper and ink, the young jeweller made out the account and receipt, whilst M. Lambert, the secretary, counted out before him 105 crisp Bank of England notes of L100 each. Then, with a final bow to his exceedingly urbane and eminently satisfactory customer, Mr. Schwarz took his leave. In the hall he saw and spoke to Mr. Pettitt, and then he ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... I gained at Mr. Mackay's house was C. R. Leslie, the painter. I was charmed with him from the first, and retain to this day the liveliest recollection of his exquisitely urbane manners, and even of the tones of his voice. Leslie was a man of unquestionable genius, but entirely free from the tendency to despise other people, which so often accompanies genius. On first meeting with him I took him for a clergyman, and ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... The wig serves its turn, inspiring what without it would be intolerable. I am sure my friend had no trouble in accounting for Addison in full dress and his learned sock. Nor need he have had with Addison the urbane, Addison of the Spectator condescending to Sir Roger de Coverley and Will Honeycomb. There is in that, the very best gentlemanly humour our literature possesses, nothing inconsistent with the full-bottomed ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... wig and gown he carried himself with a dignity which fully made up for the lack of inches. His voice was mellow, and his utterance slightly pompous, so that the lightest word which fell from his lips conveyed a sense of urbane majesty. He looked what he was, and what the traditions of the House required—a country gentleman of the highest type. One of the most noticeable traits was his complexion, fresh and rosy as a boy's. I well remember one day, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... Pope Urbane And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, Apparelled in magnificent attire, With retinue of many a knight and squire, On St. John's eve, at vespers, proudly sat And heard the priests chant the Magnificat, And as he listened, o'er ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Century," February 1889), published two years ago. I there said, in referring to the Gadarene story, "Everything I know of law and justice convinces me that the wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of evil example." On this, Mr. Gladstone, continuing his candid and urbane observations, remarks ("Impregnable Rock," p. 273) that, "Exercising his rapid judgment on the text," and "not inquiring what anybody else had known or said about it," I had missed a point in support of that "accusation against our Lord" which he has now been constrained to admit ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... sure, the Turk had given but few lessons, as, soon after making his engagement, he had been obliged to go to New York to join a tobacconist's firm. Mr. Peterkin had not regretted his payment for instruction in advance; for the Turk had been very urbane in his manners, and had always assented to whatever the little boys or any of the family had said ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... nothing more remarkable than the difference which exists between the Salvini of the stage and the Salvini of private life, the one so imposing, impetuous and fiery, the other so gentle, urbane, and even retiring. He is a gentleman possessing the manners of the good old school—courtly and somewhat ceremonious, reminding one of those Italian nobles of the sixteenth century of whom we lead in the novels of Giraldo Cinthio and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... which induce fierce distraction, Job himself would become irritable, insanely furious, and choleric. A man in such a state regards himself as the focus of all miseries. When recovered, he feels chastened, becomes urbane and ludicrously amiable, he conjures up fictitious delights from all things which, but yesterday, possessed for him such awful portentous aspects. His men he regards with love and friendship; whatever is trite he views with ecstasy. Nature appears charming; in the dead woods ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... well-proportioned, and active. He had blue eyes, rather a fair complexion, prominent features, and a high, capacious forehead. His aspect was severe and forbidding; his voice clear and powerful; his action dignified, but neither graceful nor engaging; his tone and manners, although urbane and complacent in society, were lofty, and even arrogant, in the senate. On entering the house, it was his custom to stalk sternly to his place, without honouring even his most favoured adherents with a word, a nod, or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... Sifting-Time; he gave their broad theology literary form; and for thirty years, by his wisdom, his skill, and his patience, he guided them through many a dangerous financial crisis. Amid all his labours he was modest, urbane and cheerful. In appearance his admirers called him apostolic. "He looked," said one, "as Peter must have looked when he stood before Ananias, or John, when he said, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... importance, among the first men in the city. His stock consists of Jewelry and Silver Wares, and consequently, are always valuable, requiring a heavy capital to keep up business. His name and paper, has a respectable credit, even among the urbane denizens of ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... (where the best specimens of them are to be found, except perhaps at the universities), there are seven of them to whom I am personally known, and who never pass me without the compliment of the hat on either side. My truly polite and urbane friend Mr. A——m, of Flower-de-luce Court, in Fleet Street, will forgive my mention of him in particular. I can truly say that I never spent a quarter of an hour under his hands without deriving some profit from the agreeable discussions which ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... an urbane bow, laid his hand upon the knob of the door. "I thank you for your courtesy, Mr. Raymond, and I bid you good-day. I hope you will have no need of consulting that paper before I see you again." And with another bow, he ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... ever more favourable than our own for the composition of verse which should, above all things, never be betrayed into exaggeration—which may have, if it please, a soupcon of wit and humour, and even of sentiment, but which should, in particular, be tolerant and urbane. ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... He nodded urbane acquiescence, strolled away immediately, and minutely inspected the surface of the funnel, till some female passengers of Giant's Town tittered at what they must have thought a rebuff—for the approaching wedding was known to many on St Maria's Island, though to nobody elsewhere. Baptista ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... urbane to Urquhart when they met, and himself opened the topic of the Norwegian jaunt. Urquhart took up the ball. "I think you might come. Your wife and boy will love it, and you'll kindle at their joy. 'They for life only, you for life in them,' to flout ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Greece we owe the rudiments of our Western art, philosophy, letters; and not only the rudiments but the continuing inspiration, so that—though entirely superseded in worship, as even in the Athens of Pericles they were worshipped only by an easy, urbane, more than half humorous tolerance—Apollo and the Muses, Zeus and the great ones of Olympus, Hermes and Hephaestus, Athene in her armour, with her vanquisher the foam-born irresistible Aphrodite, these remain the authentic gods of our literature, ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... doubtless due to this urbane wisdom that the history of the conversion of Ireland is without one story of martyrdom. The change was carried out in open-hearted frankness and good-will, the old order giving place to the new as gently as spring changes to summer. ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston |
