"Courtliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one else denounced it as a breach of good literary manners, I do not know that I should protest. The habit is the more curious in that all authorities agree as to the exceptional combination of scholarliness and courtliness which marked De Quincey's colloquial style and expression. Wilson's daughter, Mrs. Gordon, says that he used to address her father's cook "as if she had been a duchess"; and that the cook, though much flattered, was somewhat aghast ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... was a brilliant and entertaining speaker. He was at this time about thirty-five, nearly six feet tall, a handsome brunette, with curling hair and flashing dark eyes, the picture of vigorous health. He was exquisitely neat in person and irreproachable in habits, and had a fine courtliness of bearing toward women which suggested the old-school gentleman. Miss Anthony often said that all the severe criticisms made upon him for years had not been able to impair the respect with which he inspired her during that most trying campaign. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Virginia as governor of the colony Sir William Berkeley, then almost forty years of age, when John Stevens was only seventeen. Berkeley was a man of charming manners, proverbially polite, and he delighted the Virginians, who had a weakness for courtliness. He belonged to an ancient English family, and believed in monarchy as a devotee believes in his saint, "and he brought to the little capital at Jamestown all the graces, amenities, and well-bred ways which at that time were characteristic of the cavaliers. ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... she sighed, "you have missed such a treat! You have no conception of these Scottish ministers of the Establishment,—such culture, such courtliness of manner, such scholarship, such spirituality, such wise benignity of opinion! I asked the doctor to explain the Disruption movement to me, and he was most interesting and lucid, and most affecting, too, when he described the misunderstandings and misconceptions that the Church ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... than that bestowed upon his fellows. Speeches were made by Judge Daly, William Steinway, Dr. Leopold Damrosch, William Winter and others, but, as Colonel Mapleson had carried off the palm by his courtliness at the reception, Max Maretzek made himself the most envied of men at the dinner. Quite informally he was asked to say something after the set programme had been disposed of. Where the other speakers had brought ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... manners were concerned, however, the others, with the exception of Albert de Courcy, who did not need it, gained more than he did, for Mr. Ormskirk had, during his long residence at foreign universities and his close connection with professors, acquired a certain foreign courtliness of bearing that was in strong contrast to the rough bluffness of speech and manner that characterized the English of that period, and had some share in rendering them so unpopular upon the Continent, where, although their strength and fighting power made them respected, they were regarded ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... proving thereby that spiritual love was not merely a poetic fiction but the profoundest belief of the period, supported by the full complement of its philosophical weapons. "In the whole world there is no good and no courtliness outside the fountain of love. Therefore love is the beginning and foundation of all good." He also proved that a noble-minded man must be a lover, for if he were not, he could not have attained virtue. "Love disregards all barriers, and makes ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... a sigh and—sat down. He was no longer on familiar ground. Then Fra Diavolo proceeded to verify mademoiselle's judgment of him. Sombrero in hand and with a pompous courtliness, he repeated his natural supposition that the senorita was on her way to the City (meaning the City of Mexico), and perhaps to the court of His Glorious Majesty, Maximiliano. He offered himself, therefore, in case he might have the felicity to ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... presentation of the Nine Worthies too absurd in itself to mix well with the courtliness, learning, and elaborate wit of the rest of the Play? Note Berowne's defence of it (V, ii, 569-571) and his rebuke to the King for despising it? The Princess's defence of it and its correspondence with that ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... muffler at the window, gazing out. His age was about that of the doctor—forty or so; and like the doctor he was rather stout and clean-shaven. Their Scotch accents mingled in greeting, the doctor's being the more marked. Buchanan shook my hand with a certain courtliness, indicating that he was well accustomed to receive strangers. As an expert in small talk, however, he shone no brighter than his visitors, and the three of us stood there by the window awkwardly in the heaped disorder of the room, while the other ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... Peachem and his contemporaries. There is one author of whom he cannot speak without indignation, which is Chesterfield. He avers that he did much, for a time, to injure the true national character, and to introduce, instead of open, manly sincerity, a hollow, perfidious courtliness. "His maxims," he affirms, "were calculated to chill the delightful enthusiasm of youth; to make them ashamed of that romance which is the dawn of generous manhood, and to impart to them a cold polish and ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... sunset-gun had been fired just as they left McLean's. By this time the doctor should be entertaining his guest at dinner, and Miller wondered how even "Chesterfield" would rally to the occasion and preserve his suavity and courtliness after the shock of the last hour. But Miller had no idea that it was the last of three shocks that had assailed him in quick succession and with increasing severity that very day, and never dreamed of the gulf of distress in which poor Bayard was plunged. He had gone at once to his library ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... three brothers carried on trade as mercers. He became a Gentleman Usher Extraordinary to Henry VIII., and at the tearing to pieces of the monasteries by that monarch, he obtained, by judicious courtliness, no less than five successive grants of Church lands. He advocated the construction of an Exchange, encouraged freedom of trade, and is said to have invented bills of exchange. In 1525 he was nearly expelled the Common Council for trying, at Wolsey's instigation, to ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... and, above all, instructed him with endless insistence as to his bearing in society, impressed upon him the importance of good breeding, the "graces," and the general deportment required of a person of quality. The letters are a classic of courtliness and worldly wisdom. They were prepared for the press by Philip Stanhope's widow, and were published in 1774, under the title of "Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield, together with Several other Pieces on Various Subjects." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... appeared indefinitely prolonged, judging by Percy Dacier's behaviour to Miss Asper. Lady Wathin watched them narrowly when she had the chance, a little ashamed of her sex, or indignant rather at his display of courtliness in exchange for her open betrayal of her preference. It was almost to be wished that she would punish him by sacrificing herself to one of her many brilliant proposals of marriage. But such are women!—precisely because of his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to suppose, therefore, that his portraits have merely the merit of reproducing the external facts of Nature, like photographs, would do him wrong; for he was faithful to expression as well as form, and has perpetuated upon his canvas the voluptuous sweetness of Anne Boleyn, the courtliness and manly grace of Wyatt, and the severity, the energy, and the penetrating judgment of Sir Thomas More. His portrait of the last is one of the greatest portraits ever painted. Some competent critics consider it the greatest. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... accented kind of writing. It is felt that a little roughness, a little harshness, even, would give relief to his pictures of life. There is, for instance, something a little irritating in the old-fashioned courtliness of his manner toward women; and one reads with a certain impatience smoothly punctuated passages like the following: "As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... moment. After some time Canon Spratte, the vicar of the church which Lady Kelsey attended, sent up to ask if he might see her; and Mrs. Crowley, thinking to distract her, asked him to come in. The Canon's breezy courtliness as a rule soothed Lady Kelsey's gravest troubles, but now ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... application is the conjecture of Black, vol. i. p. 317. Serassi suppressed the whole passage. The indecent word would have been known but for the delicacy or courtliness of Muratori, who substituted an et-cetera in its place, observing, that he had "covered" with it "an indecent word not fit to be printed" ("sotto quell'et-cetera ho io coperta un'indecente parola, che ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... sign that he intended to call back his men to tread out this last flicker of life in Aora Glen he would never have died on the gibbet at the Grassmarket of Dunedin, Years after, when Grahame met his doom (with much more courtliness and dignity than I could have given him credit for), M'Iver would speak of his narrow escape at ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... her chair composedly, a figure of matured grace and practised courtliness, and above all with an air of what he flattered himself was friendliness. She directed ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... every mood of human feeling. Endymion listened to him in silence and admiration. He had never heard Waldershare talk before, and he had never heard anybody like him. All this time, what was now, and ever, remarkable in Waldershare were his manners. They were finished, even to courtliness. Affable and winning, he was never familiar. He always addressed Sylvia as if she were one of those duchesses round whom he used to linger. He would bow deferentially to her remarks, and elicit from ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... disapproving of the work, or doubting of the poetical faculties of the elder Piso, or both, wished to dissuade him from all thoughts of publication. With this view he wrote his Epistle, addressing it, with a courtliness and delicacy perfectly agreeable to his acknowledged character, indifferently to the whole family, the father ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... recognizing them. Also, I was apparently quite easily recognizable myself. The first corner I turned brought me suddenly face to face with Henry VIII, a person whom I had been implacably disliking for sixty years; but when he put out his hand with royal courtliness and grace and said, "Welcome, well-beloved stranger, to my century and to the hospitalities of my realm," my old prejudices vanished away and I forgave him. I think now that Henry the Eighth has been over-abused, and that most of us, if we had been situated ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... a very glorious style of warfare for those days of vaunted chivalry, yet one, nevertheless, characteristic enough of the times. Every undertaking, however small, gave scope for deeds of individual gallantry and the exercise of individual acts of courtliness and chivalry; and even the battles were often little more than a countless number of hand-to-hand conflicts carried on by the individual members of the opposing armies. The Prince and his chosen comrades, always on the watch for opportunities of showing their prowess ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the author never. And indeed some of the distinctive quality of Japanese poetry is undoubtedly due to the air in which it flourished. It is never religious, and it is often immoral, but it is always suffused with a certain hue of courtliness, even gentleness. The language is of the most refined delicacy, the thought is never boorish or rude; there is the self-collectedness which we find in the poetry of France and Italy during the Renaissance, and in England during ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... approaching to a joke was made, there was scarcely a smile upon the countenance of any present; and yet the tone of courtliness and deference to the opinions of each other, the grave politeness, the pride with which each spoke of his country, their enthusiasm in the cause, and the hatred with which they spoke of the enemy, impressed Jack very favorably; and though, as he said to himself when thinking ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... Cornwallis in 1783. Although he rose from a comparatively humble origin, 'his parents,' he tells us, 'were plain, honest, and good people' (his father was, in fact, a farmer); he seems to have been gifted by nature with great courtliness of manner, and with aristocratic tastes. On his first introduction at Court he won by these graces the heart of the King, who remarked that he thought him more naturally polite than any man he had ever met with. Hurd subsequently became the most trusted friend and constant adviser of ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... taste for literature as well as diplomacy, this respected and respectable peer also possessed a curious felicity for applying quotation; and nothing rejoiced him so much as when, in the same phrase, he was enabled to set the two jewels of his courtliness of flattery and his profundity of erudition. Unhappily enough, his compliments were seldom as well taken as they were meant; and, whether from the ingratitude of the persons complimented or the ill fortune of the noble adulator, seemed ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... scales and smiles as he caresses a little child with folded hands, while a goat-headed devil watches eagerly to seize him if the Archangel should turn away; and behind this lingering demon begins the dolorous procession of the outcast. Nor have we here the infernal courtliness of the scene as represented at Chartres, the doubtful consideration of an evil spirit gently driving in a nun; it is brutality in all its horror, the lowest violence; the sometimes comic side of these struggles is not to be seen ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... At sixty-three years of age he stands as erect as a solitary pine on a lonely hill crest. He has the bearing and dignity of a royal prince and wears his honours and war dress with all the pride and courtliness of a patrician. He glories in the fact that from his earliest days he has never fought the white man, but his life has been a long series of conflicts with other Indian nations. Before the white man ever placed ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... passed from the chamber arm-in-arm with his elder brother, while the King, chuckling greatly over the lad's show of courtliness and ceremony, went into a learned discussion with my lord of Montacute and Master Sandy as to the origin of the snapdragon, which he, with his customary assumption of deep learning, declared was "but a modern paraphrase, my lord, of the ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... English friends can so brightly paint that particular order of humanity which we call "gentlemen and ladies," but neither heroes, nor saints, nor angels? Can it be because they were both country-bred boys, and for ever after strangely sensitive to courtliness? Why, Giotto also was a country-bred boy. Allegri's native Correggio, Titian's Cadore, were but hill villages; yet these men painted, not the court, nor the drawing-room, but the Earth: and not a little of Heaven besides: while ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... not home to the heart of your Rinaldo. I look in vain through all the circle for an equal and a friend. It is true, when I repair to the levee of my prince, I behold many equals; but they are strangers to me, their faces are dressed in studied smiles, they appear all suppleness, complaisance and courtliness. A countenance, fraught with art, and that carries nothing of the soul in it, is uninteresting, and ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... then he was not compelled to play Joseph Surface. Indeed, we may go further, and say that if he is a man with friends he must have been dissuaded from it. The Sir Peter Teazle of Mr. Ruskin reminded us of other Sir Peter Teazles—probably because Sir Peter is played nowadays with his courtliness omitted. ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... fields not yet green; that was the fashionable promenade, she said. After the two o'clock dinner, Belem walked. All her acquaintances seemed to be in the street, so many bows were given and returned with ceremony. Nothing familiar was attempted, nothing beyond the courtliness of an ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... Mr. Linder," said the rancher, with a courtliness which sat strangely on his otherwise rough-and-ready speech. "I been tellin' her the fine job you boys has made in the hay fields, an' I reckon she's got a bite of ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... and amiable words, And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... ready wit is with us, sire," he answered in his pleasant courtliness; then, as we heard William Adolphus trotting off and Vohrenlorf came back, he went ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... nomad in a picturesque suit of corduroy who crosses my path from time to time with an eccentric music-machine. Sometimes I see him gravely organ-grinding for a crowd of youngsters, sometimes—with an innate courtliness characteristic of him—for a white-haired couple by a garden gate. He is wandering about in search of health. Oddly, his way lies, too, through Kentucky and Tennessee, to Florida. He—and Ann, dear, this confidence of his I must beg ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their "good breeding" respects only secondary objects. The finest manners in the world are awkwardness and fatuity, when contrasted with a finer intelligence. They appear but as the fashions of past days,—mere courtliness, knee-buckles and small-clothes, out of date. It is the vice, but not the excellence of manners, that they are continually being deserted by the character; they are cast-off clothes or shells, claiming the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... backlog period having passed, we are beginning to have in society people of the cultured manner, as it is called, or polished bearing, in which the polish is the most noticeable thing about the man. Not the courtliness, the easy simplicity of the old-school gentleman, in whose presence the milkmaid was as much at her ease as the countess, but something far finer than this. These are the people of unruffled demeanor, who never forget it for a moment, and never let you forget it. Their presence ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... on him, with his handsome eyes! Regnald had envied Eustace many a day,— Envied his fame, and that exceeding grace And courtliness which he had learned at Court Of Sidney, Raleigh, Essex, and the rest: For when their father, lean Sir Egbert, died, Eustace, whose fortune dangled at his thigh,— A Damask blade,—had hastened to the Court To line his purse, perchance to build a name; And catching there the passion of the time, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... that was absolutely appalling to them. He went straight to the mark aimed at with Napoleonic directness. They were stunned. They had been accustomed to be treated so differently. Hitherto there had been so much courtliness of manner in Halifax; the gradations of rank had been recognized by every one; and the great men and the great women had been treated always with deference. But here was a Jacobin who changed all this; who in dealing with them called a spade a spade; who searched pitilessly into their claims ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... way yesterday, from Agawam, when a dashing young gallant rode up very fast behind us. He was fairly clad in rich stuffs, and rode a nag of good mettle. He saluted us with much ease and courtliness, offering especial compliments to Rebecca, to whom he seemed well known, and who I thought was both glad and surprised at his coming. As I rode near, she said it gave her great joy to bring to each other's acquaintance, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... drank and Don Federigo ministering to my wants, he told me of Adam Penfeather, praising his courtliness and seamanship; he spoke also of my lady and how she had cared for him in his sickness. He told me further how they had been attacked by a great ship and having beaten off this vessel were themselves so much further shattered ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... from without, drave backward to the wall, And midmost of a rout of roisterers, Femininely fair and dissolutely pale, Her suitor in old years before Geraint, Enter'd, the wild lord of the place, Limours. He moving up with pliant courtliness, Greeted Geraint full face, but stealthily, In the mid-warmth of welcome and graspt hand, Found Enid with the corner of his eye, And knew her sitting sad and solitary. Then cried Geraint for wine and goodly cheer To feed the sudden guest, and sumptuously According to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... chapels; and, coarse and scanty as it was, I seldom recollect an evening which I passed with a lighter sense of the burden of a prisoner's time. I found the Vendean nobles a manlier race than their more courtly countrymen. Yet they had courtliness of their own; but it was more the manner of our own country gentlemen of the last century, than the polish of Versailles. Their habits of living on their domains, of country sports, of intercourse with their peasantry, and of the general simplicity of country life, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... Harran came with him, wearing a cut-away suit of black. He was undeniably handsome, young and fresh looking, his cheeks highly coloured, quite the finest looking of all the younger men; blond, strong, with that certain courtliness of manner that had always made him liked. He took his mother upon his arm and conducted her to a seat by ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... a color in her cheeks and her eyes were bright and quiet. To Senor Jose Barrydos y Maria y Leon she gave both her hands, and he bowed over them and kissed them both. His courtliness made Harrigan and McTee exchange a glance, perhaps of envy and perhaps of disquiet, for she accepted this profound courtesy with an ease as if she had been accustomed to nothing else all ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... Gard, there was no knight, unless it was Sir Launcelot himself, who could surpass him in skill at arms; nay, not even his own brother, Sir Lamorack; nor was there anybody, even if one were Sir Gawaine or Sir Geraint, who surpassed him in civility of courtliness or ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... frame and above the medium height, he carried himself and rode with a courtliness and ease that bespoke the accomplished horseman and gentleman. His splendid head and face showed the marks of an adventurous career, and all bespoke the blood of the family from which he had sprung, the ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... Hagen / with noble courtliness: "Why wilt thou of thy mother / beg such services? Only let thy sister / hear our mind and mood: So shall for this our journey / ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... noon. He told me he had a boat leaving in two weeks and that I could go on her. He said he had several of these boats plying to Traverse des Sioux. He was a gentlemanly looking man and very pleasant spoken. With the courtliness that always distinguished him, he asked me if I had dined and being informed that I had not, invited me to do so; I replied, "I am obliged to you sir." I was told that the furniture of massive mahogany had been brought ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... singular,' as Dryden says, We bring a fancy of those Georgian days, Whose style still breathed a faint and fine perfume Of old-world courtliness and old-world bloom: When speech was elegant and talk was fit For slang had not been canonised as wit; When manners reigned, when breeding had the wall, And Women - yes! - were ladies first of all; When Grace was conscious of its ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... young man now of twenty-seven, tall, and finely-formed, with all his mother's good looks, and his Uncle Arthur's courtliness of manner when he felt that his companions were worthy of his notice, but proud, and arrogant, and self-asserting with his inferiors, or those whom he thought such. He had never overcome his unwarrantable dislike of Harold, whom he considered far beneath ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... ended my days in peace, for it was very productive. He never answered. To-day I came to ask him for money to buy bread. He roared at me like a bull, and vowed he'd blow my brains out if I ever entered his house again. He looks like—" He paused abruptly. There was much of the old-time courtliness in his manner. ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... however, he laid aside his courtliness, as it may be called, and used the utmost haste in placing ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... had thus far offended decorum, Achilles Tatius, and his soldier Hereward, entered the apartment. The former bore him with even more than his usual degree of courtliness, as if to set his own good- breeding off by a comparison with the inexpert bearing of his follower; while, nevertheless, he had a secret pride in exhibiting, as one under his own immediate and distinct command, a man whom he was accustomed to consider as one of the finest soldiers ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... civilization. Neither would quibble or uphold an argument which he thought unjust, even though his nation might gain in a material sense, and neither would pitch the discussion in any other key than forbearance and mutual accommodation and courtliness. For both men had the same end in view. They were both thinking, not of the present, but of the coming centuries. The cooeperation of the two nations in meeting the dangers of autocracy and Prussian barbarism, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... me," said Myles, presently, "that I have in sooth offended thee in asking this thing. I know that it is a parlous bold matter for one so raw in chivalry and in courtliness as I am, and one so poor in rank, to ask thee for thy favor. An I ha' offended, I prithee let it be as though I ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... dash of waters, we hear now and then their petty alarms, their steamers and fire-bells, and the dozen other occasions upon which they see fit to make a great noise in the world; but the travelled sound has a courtliness that is rather pleasant than otherwise; and as a key-note to our mocking-birds, it is quite worthy of the sweet south that brings it up. Whenever there is any sudden ebullition that cannot be pared down to the common air, we are made aware of it by a cannonading that is ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... he did not have the perpetual tyranny of young children about him. He treated her mother with great courtliness, to which Mrs. Brangwen returned an easy, friendly hospitality. Something pleased the girl in her mother's calm assumption of state. It seemed impossible to abate Mrs. Brangwen's position. She could never be beneath anyone in public relation. Between Brangwen and Skrebensky there ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... on one of his journeys in Europe his business led him across London Bridge. The Bridge was crowded with traffic. Everyone was bustling to and fro, intent on his own business or pleasure. Not many people had leisure to notice one slight figure distinguished by a foreign air of courtliness and grace, in spite of the stiff, severe lines of its Quaker hat and coat. Not many people, even if they had noticed the earnest face under the broad-brimmed hat, would have stopped to gaze a second time upon it that busy afternoon. Not many ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... been deeply moved by his eloquence, and even to have been influenced by it in the formation of her final resolve. But far other success attended the efforts of a different character, who labored with equal zeal, equal reason, and probably not inferior purity of intention, though for less courtliness of address, to deter rather than dissuade her from the match, on grounds much more offensive to her feelings, and by means of what was then accounted a seditious appeal to the passions and prejudices of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... wholly distinct; it was only when some child of marked grace and beauty was born on the farm, that it was transferred to the mansion as containing a promise that would be wasted on rustic toil.[35] In every part of the establishment the taste and wealth of the owner might be tested by the courtliness and beauty of its living instruments. The chained dog at the gate had been replaced by a human janitor, often himself in chains.[36] The visitor, when he had passed the porter, was received by the butler in the hall, and admitted to the master's presence ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... the courtliness of his manner when receiving friendly visits from the ladies of his community, who delighted to call on him in his neat cottage, to have the pleasure of his rare conversation. On these occasions he would sometimes allude ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... of frame, and not at all imposing in stature, but he bore himself with a certain shy courtliness of carriage which had a distinction of its own. His face, with its little black moustache and large dark eyes, was fine upon examination, but in some elusively foreign way. There lingered a foreign note, too, in the way he talked. His speech was English enough to the ear, it ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... will pardon me," said Pobloff, with his ever-scoffing courtliness. "A mere glance will be necessary, to make sure that ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... niece and housekeeper, Mrs. Donelson, one of the anti-Eatonites, he turned out of the White House, with her husband, his private secretary. The breach was serious anyway, and might have been far more so but for the healing offices of Van Buren, who used all his courtliness and power of place to help the President bring about the social recognition of Mrs. Eaton. He called upon her, made parties in her honor, and secured her entree to the families of the greatest foreign ministers. Mrs. Eaton triumphed, but the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... watched, starry-eyed, a function which in essentials had not altered in very many years. Its hostess had grown more gray, but no less alert, had changed in years more than in age. And it was with a courtly bow, which also had not varied in angle or courtliness, that little Miss Maitland saw Mr. Augustus Lispenard bend ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... delighted to say, which our hero never forgot; nor did he ever forget the man who taught it. One of his greatest delights in after-years was to raise his hat to this incomparable embodiment of the dignity and courtliness of the old school. The old gentleman had long since forgotten the young fellow, but that made no difference to Oliver—he would cross the street any time to lift his ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... his opportunities well. He had caught the major's little idiosyncrasies of speech, accent, and intonation and his pompous courtliness to perfection—exaggerating all to the purposes of the stage. When he performed that marvellous bow that the major fondly imagined to be the pink of all salutations, the audience sent forth a sudden round ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... and clear cut, his hair black and closely cropped, while his eyes were of a steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character, filled with fire and initiative. His manners were perfect, and his courtliness was that of a typical southern gentleman of ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... street came a man whose white hairs might have marked him as aged had not his bright eyes and resolute bearing spoken of undying youth. He paused a moment at the gate, bowing to the Rabbi with all the formal courtliness of his day. ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... hostility toward him or his section in the men with whom he dealt and associated. They invited him to their homes; he met the women of their families, from whom he often received rather more than courtesy, for his fine appearance and a certain courtliness of manner, inherited from his aristocratic father, had won a thinly veiled admiration of which he had been agreeably conscious. Since these people had no controversy with him, how could he continue to cherish enmity and prejudice against them? His warm Southern ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... you looking so well, my dear," he remarked to his wife, with a courtliness in which there was less polish than personality. "Ah, Miss Lydia, I know whom to thank for this," he added, taking up a pale tea rosebud from his plate, and bowing to one of the two old ladies seated beside his wife. "Have you noticed, Julia, that ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... Carr had been some years in France, and being a handsome youth—"straight-limbed, well-formed, strong-shouldered, and smooth-faced"—he had been led to believe that if he cultivated his personal appearance and a courtliness of address, he was sure of making his fortune at the Court of James. "Accordingly he managed to appear as page to Lord Dingwall at a grand tilting match at Westminster, in 1606. According to chivalric usage ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... pleased wonder sprang into his eyes, a question as his glance lingered, held by the tumult in her face, and the unmistakable personality of her glance. Then his face lit up with its old smile, graver, oh, much! and more deferential than it used to be, with a certain courtliness in it that spoke of maturity of spirit. He lifted his hat a little higher and waved it just a trifle in recognition of her greeting, wondering in sudden confusion if he were really not mistaken after all and had perhaps been appropriating a farewell ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... apology. It was uttered, he tells us, in the extremity of bodily pain; and he thought "it did not exceed the privilege and the dignity of the place he held." Clarendon certainly set himself no very strict bonds of courtliness in the freedom of his utterances to his King. On this particular occasion his plain speaking seems to ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... extending their aggressions to seizing the remaining prerogatives of the alarmed and conceding King. Weak, vain, passionate, and unprincipled, with no determined object but her own aggrandizement—no claim to attention but an attractive person and soft courtliness of manner (which polished insincerity often assumes to disguise a stubborn, wayward, ungoverned temper),—Lady Bellingham supplied by a shew of benevolence her total want of the reality. He had seen her, without even the affectation of compassion, listen to a detail of the measures which were intended ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... in the lyrics which abound in the plays of John Fletcher, and yet it cannot be said that Fletcher's sweet melody is more classical than Elizabethan. His other distinctive quality is the tone of somewhat artificial courtliness which was soon to mark the lyrics of the other poets of the Cavalier party. An avowed disciple of Jonson and his classicism and a greater poet than Fletcher is Robert Herrick, who, indeed, after Shakspere and Milton, is the finest lyric poet ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... friends have testified to his personal charm and courtliness of bearing. “Unmistakably an aristocrat, and with all the ease and polish which one associates with high breeding, there was, even in the cordiality with which he would rise and come forward to welcome a visitor a suspicion of the shy nervousness ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... Starkweather lifted up her cup of tea, and with the little finger of her right hand stiffly extended to Mr. Mix's good health. Mr. Mix, sitting upright in a gilded chair which was three sizes too small for him, bowed with a courtliness which belonged to the same historical period as the chair, and also drank. Over the rim of his cup, ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and amiable words, And courtliness, and the desire for fame, And love of truth, and all ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... one. But there are excuses; at least there may be excuses, especially in such a land as France, where temptation assumes every seducing form; and a young woman, like this lady, might have been easily led to believe your courtliness to be that of the heart, whereas it was only that ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... encouraging his men to provide good quarters, and in furnishing every facility in his power to make them comfortable. The general was a portly gentleman, with light red hair and whiskers, and a small blue eye, ceremonious in his style, and a perfect pattern of courtliness. He had, at West Point, won the appellation of "Beau Neill," a title which never left him. He was a good commander in camp. He originated the brigade dress parade that winter, often calling out the brigade on fine evenings, and substituting ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... too much drinking, too much gambling, too loose a companionship, altogether too much spending; but in this case the life was redeemed from its usual significance by a fantastic spirit of play, a generosity of soul, a regard for the unfortunate, a courtliness toward all the world, a refusal to believe in meanness or sordidness or cruelty. Chuck Gates was inbred with the spirit ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... considerable time at Saumur, for the sake of the instruction and company of Moses Amyrault, an eminent Protestant divine. Here he confirmed and improved his religious impressions, and at the same time acquired, from the insensible influence of those who surrounded him, an increased polish and courtliness of demeanor, which greatly gratified the admiral on his return ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... the fact of her hospitality. "My dear young lady," he said, with a trace of courtliness, "you shouldn't have troubled—" and reached out a trembling hand for the cup. There was a ring on the hand, a seal ring with a coat of arms. As he drank the chocolate eagerly, he spilled some of it ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... all things, herself—the beautiful Marchioness de Bonaletta," interrupted the king, with somewhat of his youthful courtliness and grace. "You propose her as your substitute, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... state; it was its creature. If the state declined, it declined, there was little strength at the roots, little that sprang from the soil, but in New York, which men already forecast as the metropolis of the New World, there was strength everywhere. It might be a sprawling town. There might be no courtliness to equal the courtliness at the heart of Quebec, but there was vigor, vigor everywhere. The people were eager, restless, curious, always they worked ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... scarcely recognized the limitations of the dramatist's art. Few consciences, at times, seem so enlightened as that of this personally unknown person, so withdrawn into his work, and so lost to the intensest curiosity of after-time; at other times he seems merely Elizabethan in his coarseness, his courtliness, his imperfect sympathy. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... precise courtliness which contrasted oddly with his boyish face (I guessed his age at nineteen or twenty), and still more oddly with his clothes, which were threadbare and patched in many places, yet with a deftness which told of a woman's care. We introduced ourselves by name, ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... hypocrisy in the high-bred courtesy of polished society, that among many religious persons there has come to be an indifference, nay, almost an opposition, to Manners that savor of elegance or courtliness. If, however, Christian charity reign within, rudeness or indifference cannot reign without. One may as well look for a healthy physical frame under a skin revolting from disease, as for a healthy moral frame under Manners rude and discourteous; for Manners indicate the ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... Adams with another for his Treatise on the Globes; and wrote the dedication to the King, prefixed to Gough's London and Westminster Improved. He seems to have been always ready to supply a dedication for a friend, a task which he executed with more than ordinary courtliness. In this way, he told Boswell, that he believed he "had dedicated to all the royal family round." But in his own case, either pride hindered him from prefixing to his works what he perhaps considered as a token of servility, or his better judgment ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... phrase in his career. For twenty-odd years they had been written on the tablets of his heart and worn as frontlets between his brows. They had first been used in connection with him by a great dowager countess now deceased. She had said to his mother, apropos of some forgotten bit of courtliness on his part, "You can always be sure that Rupert will do precisely the right thing." Though he was but a lad at Eton at the time, he had been so proud of this opinion, expressed with all a dowager countess's authority, that from the moment it was repeated to him by his mother he ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... realize the necessity for grafting a little gringo hustle to our family tree. Consider the supergrandson you will have if you leave me to follow my own desires in this matter. In him will be blended the courtliness and chivalry of Spain, the imagery and romance and belligerency of the Irish, the thrift and caution of the Scotch, and the go-get-him-boy, knock-down-and-drag-out spirit of our own Uncle Sam. Why, that's a combination you cannot ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... his arm and lifted it to his lips; there was a courtliness about Blair, and a certain gravity, which at moments gave him positive distinction. "If there is any good in me," he said, "you would bring it out." Then he smiled. "But probably ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... and with the courtliness that was ever his he indulged in a rare exhibition of feeling. He laid his hand on ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Colonna he embraced her with great courtliness, and from that time consulted her on every arrangement. He took a very early occasion of presenting her with a diamond necklace of great value. The Marquess was fond of making presents to persons to whom he thought he had not behaved very well, and who ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... well-known old song, are now almost forgotten. Other things have passed away in company with the wigs and ruffles, the patches and snuff. The grace may remain, and the refinement be thorough where then it was superficial, but the courtliness of conscious superiority, the picturesque contrarieties and broken natural land that lay below the heaths and craters, exist but as the black gloom and ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... from his Edinburgh patrons would separate the singer of Bohemia from the rhyming duke. And it is hard to imagine that Villon's training amongst thieves, loose women, and vagabond students, had fitted him to move in a society of any dignity and courtliness. Ballades are very admirable things; and a poet is doubtless a most interesting visitor. But among the courtiers of Charles, there would be considerable regard for the proprieties of etiquette; and even a duke will sometimes have an eye to his teaspoons. Moreover, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... knew Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and amiable words And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote |
