sweetness and light

American  

noun

1. extreme or excessive pleasantness or amiability.

2. decorous charm combined with intelligence.

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sweetness and light British  

noun

1. an apparently affable reasonableness

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sweetness and light Cultural  

1. A phrase popularized by the nineteenth-century English author Matthew Arnold; it had been used earlier by Jonathan Swift. According to Arnold, sweetness and light are two things that a culture should strive for. “Sweetness” is moral righteousness, and “light” is intellectual power and truth. He states that someone “who works for sweetness and light united, works to make reason and the will of God prevail.”

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sweetness and light Idioms  

1. Ostentatious amiability and friendliness, as in One day she has a temper tantrum, the next day she's all sweetness and light. This phrase was coined by Jonathan Swift in his Battle of the Books (1704), where it referred literally to the products of bees: honey and light from beeswax candles. But in Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy (1869), the term meant “beauty and intelligence.” In the 20th century, however, it was applied to personal qualities of friendliness and courtesy and to the general pleasantness of a situation, as in Working with him isn't all sweetness and light, you know. Today it is generally used ironically, indicating lack of trust in a person's seeming friendliness or for a difficult situation.

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Etymology

Origin of sweetness and light

First recorded in 1695–1705

Example Sentences

Sweetness and light were her stock in trade as Walt Disney's Pollyanna, but now that she's turned 18, Britain's Hayley Mills has become sweet lightning.

From Time Magazine Archive

"Sweetness and light" was not the best of phrases even in Victorian times.

From Time Magazine Archive

Sweetness and light would never have interfered with the slave trade, or fiercely fought beside Plimsoll for the load-line on the sides of ships.

From The Glory of English Prose Letters to My Grandson by Coleridge, Stephen

"Sweetness and light" met in Miss Johnson's nature, but free from sentimentality; and even a carping critic will find little to cavil at in her productions.

From The Moccasin Maker by Mair, Charles

Sweetness and light evidently have to do with the bent or side in humanity which we call Hellenic.

From Culture and Anarchy by Arnold, Matthew