"Blue blood" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... N. nobility, rank, condition, distinction, optimacy^, blood, pur sang [Fr.], birth, high descent, order; quality, gentility; blue blood of Castile; ancien regime [Fr.]. high life, haute monde [Fr.]; upper classes, upper ten thousand; the four hundred [U.S.]; elite, aristocracy, great folks; fashionable world &c (fashion) 852. peer, peerage; house of lords, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... some great chance, which no one Can be free from, should have happened, Since the delicate sense of honour Is a thing so fine, so fragile, That the slightest touch may break it, Or the faintest breath may tarnish, What could he do more, do more, He whose cheek the blue blood mantles, But at many risks to have come here It again to re-establish? Yes, he is my son, my blood, Since he shows himself so manly. And thus then betwixt two doubts A mid course alone is granted: 'Tis to seek the King, and tell him Who he is, let what will happen. A desire to save my honour ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... bandits own the bluest of blue blood. Their forefather was one Wl, who left by his descendants two great tribes. The first and the eldest took a name from their Ma'z ("he-goats"); while the junior called themselves after the Annz ("she-goats"): from the latter sprung the great Anezah family, which occupies the largest ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... care a damn what it is, I'd do it. I earned my way in the world, but she's got blue blood in her and she was born to a position; she goes everywhere. When she comes out she'll be able to marry into the best circles in America. She could marry a duke, if she wanted to. I'd buy her one if she said the word. Naturally, I can't stand for ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... like water, and much of it was the proud blue blood of the old nobility. We should have saved France, I am sure, if there had been any one who had known how to consolidate and lead us. No one did; so it ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... of plebeian origin, is ambitious that his blood should be mingled with that of the military hidalgo. The soldier has no money—beyond his pay; and that is mortgaged for months in advance; but he is a true Gachupino, of "blue blood," a genuine "hijo de algo." Not a singular ambition of the old miser, ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... was right," he thought, "and if my judgment is correct the whole ex-Confederate army shan't keep me from getting acquainted with her. Ah! how I liked that severe look in her eyes till she knew what my first thoughts were! She has blue blood of the right sort, and I'm sorely mistaken if it doesn't feed a brain that ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... ball, attended by over a thousand of the elect, and for the multitude there were dramatic and musical entertainments. At Her Majesty's Theatre one night the famous tragedian, Mr. Phelps, and the great actress, Miss Helen Faucit, in the tragedy of Macbeth, froze the blue blood of a whole tier of royal personages and made them realize what crowns were worth, and how little they had earned theirs, by showing what men and women will go through with to secure one. The Emperor and Empress of France were not among the guests. They had been a little upset by an event more ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... Perdee wears the sure air of a queen, Which only queens and Perdees can achieve. The Perdees had blue blood in Adam's veins When Adam had the ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... whether to show Mr Cupples out or in. His blue blood boiled at this insult to his great progenitor. But a half-crown would cover a greater wrong than that even, and he obeyed. Cupples followed him up-stairs, murmuring ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... since that particular branch had severed its connection with the family in the old world. But now Mary felt a peculiar thrill of satisfaction when she found the name in the peerage and realized that some of the blue blood which had inspired those great-great-grandfathers to knightly deeds was coursing through her own veins. The crest was a winged spur, with ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... belief in blue blood and noble birth. He was almost, though not quite, a Socialist. He had no definite, constructive social policy. He was rather a champion of the rights of the poor, and an apostle of the simple life. "The whole value of noble birth," he said, "is founded on a wicked invention ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... it got there. They ain't like the fellow in the story—who was he?—who couldn't think how the apples got into the dumplings. They're just grabbing a pretext to break because—because, well, they don't think you're blue blood. They're delighted to strike a pretext they can work, and they're all cackling over the egg it has taken so many hens of 'em to lay. That's MY diagnosis if you ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... mate of Black's, a younger son of a well-to-do English family (with blue blood in it, I believe), and sent out to Australia with a thousand pounds to make his way, as many younger sons are, with more or less. They think they're hard done by; they blue their thousand pounds in ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... a moment looking solemnly at each other—that tall, stately woman, born a peasant, and the delicate, proud, sensitive peeress, whose blue blood rolled through a series of dead greatness back to the Conqueror. The contrast was touching. Both had begun to stoop at the shoulders, both had suffered, and they were as far apart in station as social power could place them; but a host of memories linked them together, and the common sympathies ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... Mrs. Hawley had hardly anticipated; she well knew the exclusive proclivities of British blue blood, and was highly elated by the prospect of being introduced into London society by Isabel, only child of the ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Duncan, son of Prince Duncan, president of the Groveton Bank, and a prominent town official. Prince Duncan was supposed to be a rich man, and lived in a style quite beyond that of his neighbors. Randolph was his only son, a boy of sixteen, and felt that in social position and blue blood he was without a peer in the village. He was a tall, athletic boy, and disposed to act the part of boss among ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... keep house and not try to board. Of course you will come here first and we can take our time about getting settled for the winter. Mrs. Pace, the landlady, (but you had better not call her that to her face, as she is very much the grande dame, with so much blue blood she finds it difficult to keep it to herself,) wants you to stay all winter with her and has many arguments against housekeeping, but I'll let her get them off ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... am to do it," retorted Chick-chick. "I do it whenever they want anything I can handle, from gasoline to a new machine. Lem'me sell you a new car, Matty. Lem'me sell you one that'll make your blue blood bubble all over itself. Tell ye 'bout it jest as soon as I ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... exclusive). The Count had a grand manner; he treated some great personages in a cavalier way, as if he were at least their equal. On the whole, if not really the son of a princess, he probably persuaded Louis XV. that he did come of that blue blood, and the King would have every access to authentic information. Horace Walpole's reasons for thinking Saint-Germain 'not a ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... faithful terrier, which had dogged my heels for three years, seemed a member of the family, and reasonably satisfied my dog needs. That Jane should wish a terrier of some sort to tug at her skirts and claw her lace was no more than natural, and I was quite willing to buy a blue blood and think nothing of the $20 or $30 which it might cost. We canvassed the list of terriers,—bull, Boston, fox, Irish, Skye, Scotch, Airedale, and all,—and had much to say in favor of ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... whom you can somehow know the former so readily. They were each attended by their several retinues of womankind, the daughters all much alike, but the mothers somewhat different. They were going to Saratoga, where perhaps the exigencies of fashion would bring them acquainted, and where the blue blood of a quarter of a century would be kind to the yesterday's fluid of warmer hue. There was something pleasanter in the face of the hereditary aristocrat, but not so strong, nor, altogether, so admirable; particularly if you reflected that he really represented nothing in the world, no great culture, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... seen the old lady's face before, but that she had seen somewhere, some time, a face of a similar cast. It occurred to Nella to look at the 'Almanach de Gotha'—that record of all the mazes of Continental blue blood; but the 'Almanach de Gotha' made no reference to any barony of Zerlinski. Nella inquired where the Baroness meant to take lunch, and was informed that a table had been reserved for her in the dining-room, and she at once decided ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... blood nowadays, and, as your brother began it all with his Paragon Detergent, I certainly saw no reason why I should not have your paints. As for colour, that is always a matter of taste: the Cantervilles have blue blood, for instance, the very bluest in England; but I know you Americans don't care for ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... marriage between an upstart's daughter and a decayed relic of feudalism; when it is really a marriage between an upstart's daughter and an upstart's grandson. The sentimental socialist often seems to admit the blue blood of the nobleman, even when he wants to shed it; just as he seems to admit the marvellous brains of the millionaire, even when he wants to blow them out. Unfortunately (in the interests of social science, of course) the sentimental socialist never does go so far as bloodshed or blowing ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... about that blue blood," Tisdale said tersely. "Weatherbee told me how it could be traced back through a Spanish mother to some buccaneering adventurer, Don Silva de y somebody, who made his headquarters in Mexico. And that means a trace of Mexican in the race, ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... Geoffry), a fossilized old country gentleman, who believes in "blue blood" and the "British peerage." Father of Talbot, and neighbor of Perkyn Middlewick, a retired butterman. The sons of these two magnates are fast friends, but are turned adrift by their fathers for marrying in opposition to their ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... great human democracy, revolution cannot uncrown the builder of bridges to place upon his throne the builder of pantry shelves. Gray matter and blue blood and white pigment are not dynasties of man's making. Accident of birth, and not primogeniture, makes master minds and mulattoes, seamstresses and rich men's sons. Wharf-rats are ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... through the thin, glittering air their voices and laughter at intervals came faintly to me. I sprang over the crevasse and walked on quickly to a point where the fissures grew thick about my feet and the green-blue blood of the glacier glowed ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... duplicate the scenes of brutality that are reported from New Orleans. In the heat of blind fury one might conceive how a mad mob might beat and kill a man taken red-handed in a brutal murder. But it is almost past belief to read that civilized white people, men who boast of their chivalry and blue blood, actually had fun in beating, chasing and shooting men who had no possible connection with ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... situation, he married a native girl and raised a large and presumably interesting family, his descendants being scattered all over the island. The Misamis branch were extremely aristocratic, and so proud of their blue blood that since the arrival of the American troops they have associated with no one else in the village. It is said that the girls even refer to the United States as "home," and occasionally wear European clothes in preference to the far more becoming and picturesque ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... gave a detailed account of the wedding, and of the brilliant gathering of the "blue blood" of the aristocratic old town as well as of the colonies. Had the ceremony taken place in the old Quincy home, as had originally been intended, in a room which had been specially paneled with flowers and cupids for the auspicious event, it would doubtless have been ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to have a suspicion once that I had a drop of blue blood in me somewhere, and it worried me a lot; but I asked my old mother about it one day, and she scalded me—God bless her!—and father chased me with a stockwhip, so I gave up ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... the painter had anatomized Time's ruin, beauty's wreck, and grim cares reign: Her cheeks with chops and wrinkles were disguised; Of what she was no semblance did remain: Her blue blood changed to black in every vein, Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed, Show'd life imprison'd in ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... nothing but old wives' nonsense and laugh about it, but all of a sudden he himself seemed to believe in it, at the very time when he was making the queer demand of me to consider such hauntings a mark of blue blood and old nobility. But I can't do it and I won't, either. Kind as he is in other regards, in this particular he is not kind and considerate enough toward me. That there is something in it I know from Johanna and also from Mrs. Kruse. The latter is our coachman's ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... the other hand the tramp and the street-walker may have as "royal" blood in their veins as any lineal princely personage. It is records, therefore, that differentiate "civilized" from uncivilized people, blue blood from plebeian; and as we see millions of people living without records to-day in various parts of the world, notwithstanding that for centuries, or even for millenniums, they have been surrounded by or in immediate contact with neighbours possessing records, it seems to follow ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... or apply for your next housemaid to a Society for Destitute Aristocrats, blue blood ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... it don't happen once in three years. 'Nuts' they call 'em now, but when I was a young scout they called 'em 'dogs,' and gay dogs they were, I can tell you. 'Bloods' they call 'em, too, but there ain't much blue blood in these modern Blutocrats." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... literature is always an interesting spectacle. We are prone to regard his performance as a test of the worth of long descent and high breeding. If he does well, he vindicates the claims of his caste; if ill, we infer that inherited estates and blue blood are but surface advantages, leaving the effective brain unimproved, or even causing deterioration. But the argument is still open; and whether genius be the creature of circumstance or divinely independent, is a question which prejudice ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... 67: "Dinna steer him," says Hobbie Elliot; "ye may think Elshie's but a lamiter, but I warrant ye, grippie for grippie, he'll gar the blue blood spin frae your nails—his hand's like a smith's vice."—Black Dwarf, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... by stealing real estate in 1820, and some by selling Jamaica rum and niggers way back before the Revolutionary War—they've been respectable so long that they know mighty well and good that nobody except a Britisher is going to question their blue blood—and oh my, what good blueing third-generation money does make. But out here in God's Country, the marquises of milling and the barons of beef are still uneasy. Even their pretty women, after going to the best hair-dressers and patronizing the best charities, sometimes get scared lest somebody ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... was a proud man—as proud as the Merchant of Venice—and in his veins there ran a strain of the blue blood of the Castilian Jew. Too much success is most unfortunate. Heinrich Schopenhauer was proud, unbending, harsh, arbitrary, wore a full beard and a withering smile, and looked upon musicians, painters, sculptors and writers as court clowns, to be trusted only as far as you could fling Taurus by ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... I mean—the duke, is a cripple, you know, and he is toque on one point too—their blue blood. He will never marry, but he can cut Robert off with almost the bare ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... that the place would be attacked ere long. The commandant took the information very coolly. He prided himself, I observed, on his dignified behaviour on all occasions; for though he had joined the Republicans, he could still boast that the bluest of blue blood of the ancient hidalgoes of ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... Dr. Soupnoodle, "dot der beasts haf a speech vich dey use, uddervise how can dey find our fairst families in der blue book und go after deir blue blood?" ...
— Skiddoo! • Hugh McHugh
... old-established folk of the blue blood of Springhaven, such as the Tugwells, the Shankses, the Praters, the Bowleses, the Stickfasts, the Blocks, or the Kedgers, would have anything to do with this Association, which had formed itself among them, like an anti-corn-law league, for the destruction of their rights and properties. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... monarchy has been steeped in gloom, transmitting its melancholy from one generation to another. If by any chance there appeared among them anyone happy and pleased with life, it was because in the blue blood of the maternal veins there was a plebeian drop, which pierced like the rays of the ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... if I am to have any peace of mind, we must charge the foe and drive them back into the Fog Bank. But take all the prisoners you can, my brave men, and tomorrow we will have a jolly time patching them. Don't be afraid; those pink creatures have no blue blood in their veins, and they'll run like rabbits ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... say it in so many words, but I can see that she wonders how you can have anything in common with Sara. She prides herself on being able to distinguish blue blood at a glance. Silly notion she's ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... horses here mentioned may have been the celebrated Godolphin Arabian from whom descends all the blue blood of the racecourse, and who was the grandfather of Eclipse" (Larwood's Story of the London ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... rare flower, as dainty as the rose, as piquant as the daisy. The unmistakable mark of the high bred glowed in her face, the fine traces of blue blood graced her every movement, her every tone and look. At the time that she, as well as every one else in Tinkletown, for that matter, was twenty years older than when she first came to Anderson's home, we find her the queen of the village, its one rich human possession, its one truly sophisticated ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... her disdain. "Why didn't you do it that first night in the bunk-house? Unless," she challenged, "in spite of all your blue blood and white hands and father's name, Brayley is the ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... man; adroit, patient and faithful was primitive woman; he, the strongest, she, the fairest and cleverest of the time, could protect their offspring, breed and care for great children of similar powers and so insure a lasting race. Thus has the good blue blood come down. This is not romance, this is not fancy; this ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... he was sent to perform, Laval had eminent qualifications. A haughty spirit went with the ultra-blue blood in his veins; he had a temperament that loved to lead and to govern, and that could not endure to yield or to lag behind. His intellectual talents were high beyond question, and to them he added the blessing of a rugged physical frame. No one ever came to a new land with more ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... profile, the long supple line of bosom and hip, the little foot. Then he closed the door softly and walked slowly toward her. She stood like stone, without a quiver; only her eye followed the crooked line of the Cresswell blue blood on his marble forehead as she looked down from her greater height; her hand closed almost caressingly on a rusty poker lying on the stove nearby; and as she sensed the hot breath of him she felt herself purring in ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... it shines bright through the snow; it has a well-bred willingness to be background, with the well-bred gift of presence, whether as background or foreground. The soul of the box-tree is an aristocrat, and the sap that runs through it is the blue blood of vegetation. ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... had titles, military or civil, and were generally English lords and ladies; the villains, as generally, were French or Italian. But think as she might over the whole list, she could remember none in which the highbred scion of blue blood had married either a cook or a milliner. One might marry the milliner if she was very young and madly beautiful, but Lorena Jane was neither. She remembered also that beautiful though the milliner or bailiff's daughter, or housekeeper's niece might be, it was only the villain in high ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... gentleman in the way that all the good people in the country round are gentlefolk, because they're self-respecting and kind-hearted and intelligent. But he comes of generations of workers. They make no pretensions to blue blood, though perhaps they may have some in their veins, and don't think themselves superior socially to their own farm hands—like that one over there. Nor do they consider themselves inferior to anybody. Not that they would think of asserting ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... will let me? Do I have to show blue blood before I can be presented? One of my ancestors came over on the Mayflower. ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... ripple, nothing more. It would ill become a town, boasting its aristocracy and "style," to grow frenzied over the woes of such common people. But W—— possessed a goodly number of wealthy families, and some blue blood. These were worthy of consideration, and upon these calamity had fallen. Let us read an extract or two from the W—— Argus, a newspaper of much enterprise and ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... subject," cried Diamond. "Speaking of Ditson, I believe he claims to have blue blood in his veins. Says his ancestors came over on the Mayflower, and were among the first to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... manner neighbors, for Larch Avenue was the next street to Maple Place. Both streets were now given over to what is termed decayed gentility. The larches were old and ragged and brown with clustering cones, and the blue blood of the denizens had ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... wonderfully-dressed ladies, who after one good look began to laugh in a very reassuring and kindly way, and made room in their midst for the little city maiden with that ease of true good breeding which has ever been the truest test of the blue blood of the English aristocracy. She looked such a child, in her pretty confusion and bashfulness, that not one of them resented her presence amongst them. Courtesy and kindliness had always been Lady Andover's salient characteristics, and there was a native refinement and quaint simplicity ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was blue in colour and of a velvet texture, and of course showed off her diamond necklace as no white throat could have glorified it. The high-born fairies obtain this admired effect by pricking their skin, which lets the blue blood come through and dye them, and you cannot imagine anything so dazzling unless you have seen the ladies' busts ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... governesses' drill, I had mounted steadily until I was now but one from the top—or, as we put it, was "next to head." The topmost place had been held for over a month by Mary Morgan, a slovenly and indolent girl of sixteen, who wrote poetry and had a great deal of old blue blood in her veins, as she was fond of informing all who had the patience to listen to her. Her recitations in most of her classes were so imperfect that everybody was surprised at her keeping an honorable place in any ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... Strato were correct in his speculations with reference to Psyche's throne, then verily my little girl did not cramp her soul in its fleshy palace. Daintily moulded in figure and face, every feature instinct with a certain delicate patricianism, that testified to genuine "blue blood," there was withal a melting tenderness about the parted lips that softened the regal contour of one who, amid the universal catalogue of feminine names, could never have been appropriately called ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... gayer than the palace of today. In his house gathered chivalrous subalterns from English homes, stalwart Virginians of inherited gallantry, the men and women from whom sprung the first families of that blue blood which all ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon |
