If we may confine it in a definition complaisance
is a mode of address intended to give pleasure, but not from the best
motives. The complaisant man is the kind of person who will call to you
from a distance, 'Ha, my noble friend,' and after expressing due astonishment
will grip your hands and refuse to let go. He will escort you for a little
to ask, 'When will I see you?' and takes himself off with a compliment.
If he is asked to be an arbiter,1 he will do his best not only
to please his friend who asked him but also his opponent, and thus gain
the reputation of impartiality. He is capable of affirming that a foreigner
speaks more justly than his countrymen. When invited to dinner he will
ask his host to call the children, and when they appear he will say to
them that they and their father are as like as peas.2 He will
bring them near him and kiss them and set them by him, even playing with
them, crying out' Wineskin,' 'Axe,'3 and allowing them to go
to sleep in his lap, greatly to his discomfort.
1 At Athens private disputes were settled
by three arbiters, one from each party and a third as umpire.
If we may confine it in a definition complaisance
is a mode of address intended to give pleasure, but not from the best
motives. The complaisant man is the kind of person who will call to you
from a distance, 'Ha, my noble friend,' and after expressing due astonishment
will grip your hands and refuse to let go. He will escort you for a little
to ask, 'When will I see you?' and takes himself off with a compliment.
If he is asked to be an arbiter,1 he will do his best not only
to please his friend who asked him but also his opponent, and thus gain
the reputation of impartiality. He is capable of affirming that a foreigner
speaks more justly than his countrymen. When invited to dinner he will
ask his host to call the children, and when they appear he will say to
them that they and their father are as like as peas.2 He will
bring them near him and kiss them and set them by him, even playing with
them, crying out' Wineskin,' 'Axe,'3 and allowing them to go
to sleep in his lap, greatly to his discomfort.
