Language: en
Meaning: (idiomatic,often in the negative orironic)That which isgood,pleasant,pure, etc.1704, [Jonathan Swift], “A Full and True Account of the Battel Fought Last Friday, between the Antient and the Modern Books in St. James’s Library”, inA Tale of a Tub.[…], London:[…]John Nutt,[…], published1705,→OCLC,page251:The Difference is, that inſtead of Dirt and Poiſon, we have rather choſe to fill our Hives with Honey and Wax, thus furniſhing Mankind with the two Nobleſt of Things, which areSweetneſs and Light.1927April 9,P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “The Story of William”, inMeet Mr. Mulliner, London:Herbert Jenkins[…], published 27 September 1927,→OCLC,page186:Sorrow and disillusionment racked William Mulliner like a physical pain. That his friends inside there, in spite of the fact that he had been allsweetness and lightand had not done a thing to them, should have thrown him out into the hard street was the saddest thing he had ever heard of; and for some minutes he sat there, weeping silently.1985, Rodger Bradley,Amtrak: The US National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Poole, Dorset: Blandford Press,→ISBN, page164:The working relationship between Amtrak and the contracting railroads, and the Government for that matter, is not, and has never been allsweetness and light, and many railroads still find the passenger train to be a hindrance to the beloved freight.2003, Richard Holt, “Great Britain: The Amateur Tradition”, inArnd Krüger, William[J.]Murray, editors,The Nazi Olympics: Sport, Politics and Appeasement in the 1930s, Urbana; Chicago, Ill.:University of Illinois Press,→ISBN,page76:So it transpired, though not everything at Garmisch wassweetness and light. The leader of the British team,Arnold Lunn, the "father of alpine ski racing" and a British public school amateur to the core, was a conservative Catholic who disliked the "professionalism" of National Socialist sport.2009August,Jono Bacon, “Communicating Clearly”, in Andy Oram, Simon St. Laurent, editors,The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation, Sebastopol, Calif.:O’Reilly Media,→ISBN,page72:Mailing lists are not allsweetness and light, though. Joining a mailing list is a little complex. It requires people to know how to join, sign up with an email address, respond to the mail, and know where to send messages.
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