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High-toned   Listen
adjective
High-toned  adj.  
1.
High in tone or sound.
2.
Elevated; high-principled; honorable. "In whose high-toned impartial mind Degrees of mortal rank and state Seem objects of indifferent weight."
3.
Pretentious, pompous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"High-toned" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the human family, for the sake of human advancement, women are bound as widely as possible to give to men the influence of their aid and presence; and finally, that universal experience attests that those nations and societies are most orderly, high-toned, and rich in varied prosperity, where women most freely intermingle with men in all spheres of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... was this—I've nothing against West, but my girl's good enough for anybody, and I can't have his people in England looking down on her and making trouble. If they're not satisfied, they had better call him back right now. There's to be no high-toned condescension in this matter." ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... leave. The man seized a whistle and in an instant two or three policemen came running, followed by a crowd. Belton stood still to await developments. The clerk said to the policeman: "This high-toned nigger bought a meal of me and because I would not let him sit down and eat like white people he refused to ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs

... Burton to name an early day. He had been with Cecilia, he told her—he had learned to call Mrs. Burton Cecilia in his letters—and she quite agreed with him that their income would be enough. He was to have two hundred a year from his father, having brought himself to abandon that high-toned resolve which he had made some time since, that he would never draw any part of his income from the parental coffers. His father had again offered it, and he had accepted it. Old Mr. Burton was to add a hundred, and Harry ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... Roll Winchell, the marshal, gloomily, "them high-toned Eastern crooks always comin' out here thinkin' they'll find the Coast ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... 'em, now Ambersons brought 'em to town. Yes, sir, the rest'll eat 'em, whether they get sick or not! Looks to me like some people in this city'd be willing to go crazy if they thought that would help 'em to be as high-toned as Ambersons. Old Aleck Minafer—he's about the closest old codger we got—he come in my office the other day, and he pretty near had a stroke tellin' me about his daughter Fanny. Seems Miss Isabel Amberson's got some kind of a dog—they call it a Saint Bernard—and ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... being such a large room, some of your speakers might not have a high enough tone of voice to be heard at the other end. They looked unutterable things at me, as much as to say that at New England dinners I would find the speakers could not be otherwise than high-toned. [Laughter.] ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... and boatmen contrived to be overtaken by night in their vicinity. Sometimes fifteen or twenty boats would be detained at one of these favorite resorts, and a jolly crowd fraternized in the primitive bar-room. The temperance sentiment had not yet taken a firm hold in New England. "Flip" was the high-toned beverage of those days; but "black-strap," a compound of rum and molasses, sold at three cents a glass, was the particular "vanity" of the boatmen. In the smaller taverns, a barrel of old Medford, surmounted by a pitcher of molasses, scorning ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various

... shaped and set in place, sir, by his own hands, would never have existed. He was a failure at the Fort, we are told. Why? I made inquiries concerning that. I was told by a gentleman who calls himself a Presbyterian—I need not mention his name—that he was not suitable to the peculiarly select and high-toned society of that place. No, sir, our missionary could not bow and scrape, he was a failure at tennis, he did not shine at card parties,' and here you could smell things sizzling. 'He could not smile upon ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... ringin' an' the room is filled with song, I like, to sit an' watch 'em, all that glad an' merry throng, For the ragtime they are playin' on the old piano there Beats any high-toned music where the bright lights shine an' glare, An' the racket they are makin' stirs my pulses more and more, So I whisper in my gladness: that's what home's ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest

... they stopped a minute to rest, The martial band discoursed its best; The ponderous drum and the pointed fife Proceeded to roll and shriek for life; And Bonaparte Crossed the Rhine, anon, And The Girl I Left Behind Me came on; And that was the way The bands did play On the loud, high-toned, harmonious day, That gave us— Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! (With some music of bullets, our sires would say,) Our ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton

... of hard times I could not afford to take a sleeper. I was on the fast West-bound express, and the emigrant sleepers are on the slow train, which takes nearly two days more. The high-toned Pullman was quite beyond me, so I stuck to the ordinary cars and put in a mighty rough time. After twenty-four hours of the Lehigh Valley Road, which runs into Canada, I came to Chicago. There I had to do a shift from one station to another, and after ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... or expense will be spared to make HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE the most entertaining, instructive, high-toned, and popular weekly paper for the youthful ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... is reaching a point in American literature seldom gained at so early a period by any young magazine. 'We hail its independence of thought as the development of a new era in the literature of our land. Its matter is high-toned and interesting, it is the most outspoken print we know of, and its outspokenness is the result of a fresh and vigorous life that is not warped by ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Rosie's high-toned, you know, Mrs. Masterman, and she's got a magnificent education. I guess you wouldn't come across them more refined, not in the most tip-top families. Pretty! My Lord! pretty isn't the word for it. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... erring barmaid at the inn, accused of too lavish a use of smiles, too much kindness—most likely a jealous tale only—aroused their righteous ire. With shawm and timbrel and ram's-horn trumpet—i.e. with cow's horns, poker and tongs, and tea-trays—the indignant and high-toned population collected night after night by the tavern, and made such fearful uproar that the poor girl, really quite innocent, had to leave her situation. Nothing could be more charitable, more truly righteous, after ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... like that.'" The Bible is, indeed, what that great philosopher, the Honorable Robert Boyle, called it, "that matchless book." We have often thought that the sublime descriptions which it gives of God, the humbling and exalting doctrines which it reveals, and the high-toned morality which it inculcates, are of themselves proofs decisive of its divine authority. For, certainly, there is nothing like them in the most admired productions of the most celebrated authors, either in ancient or ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... when it comes to expressing my feelings I'm in the kindergarten class; when it comes to handing out the high-toned dope I drop my cue every time; but when I'm needed to do the solid pardner stunt then you don't need to holler for me—I'm there. Well, I'm giving you a straight line of talk. Ever since the start I've taken a strong notion to you. You've always been ace-high ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... in the nostrils of the nation; we were probably on the eve of a bloodless yet important revolution; when Rockingham, a virtuous magnifico, alarmed and disgusted, resolved to revive something of the pristine purity and high-toned energy of the old whig connection; appealed to his "new generation" from a degenerate age, arrayed under his banner the generous youth of the whig families, and was fortunate to enlist in the service the supreme ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... the curious observations which that evening again I was able to make; how many the pleasant sallies, the high-toned jests exchanged among the servants upon all that world as it passed by! Not with the vine-dressers of Montbars in any case should I have heard such drolleries. I should remark that the worthy M. Barreau, to begin ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... Clara, his father's sister, and her husband, Professor Noria, both originals of a very special kind. Aunt Clara, at heart an ardent Freelander, has a passion for incessantly arguing about the equality which here prevails, in which 'truly high-toned' sentiments and manners cannot possibly permanently exist. But woe to anyone who would venture to agree with her in this. In spite of her sixty years, she is still a resolute lively woman, with a very respectable remnant of ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... herself unfavorable to the idea. She said they were gittin' along well enough without any church meetin's, and they did not want any of de high-toned people from de bottoms to come up there, putting on airs, treating them as ignorant, and no 'count white trash, and making fun of ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... drove on through the winding hills past another lake of intensest blue. "D'ye notice the difference in our treatment already between ridin' an' walkin' with packs on our backs? With Hazel an' Hattie an' Saxon an' Possum, an' yours truly, an' this high-toned wagon, folks most likely take us for ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... card. He waited in the hall, running his eyes over the rich decorations. From higher up the hall came sounds of revelry, and now and again he caught sight of figures flitting to and fro. The sound of a string band drifted down to him, and then laughter—cultured, high-toned laughter ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... he is there to make jokes— very good jokes I dare say, but not at all adapted to assist his client. He picks holes in science. He picks holes in my client's social popularity. He picks holes in my literary style, which doesn't seem to suit his high-toned European taste. But how does this picking of holes affect the issue? This Smith has picked two holes in my client's hat, and with an inch better aim would have picked two holes in his head. All the jokes in the world won't ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... live made him poorer than he needed to be; but with this the Government had no concern. Its only care should have been that its recompense was commensurate with his deserts, and it is revolting to see a man like Nelson, naturally high-toned and always liberal, forced to the undignified position of urging—and in vain—for the equal remuneration that should have ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... This earthly mind may be of noble calibre, enriched by culture, high-toned, virtuous, and pure. But if it know not God? What though its correspondences reach to the stars of heaven or grasp the magnitudes of Time and Space? The stars of heaven are not heaven. Space is not God. Natural ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond

... "ef this ain't Baldy o' Golconda! Why, I didn't know him right away, he's so sorta perky an' high-toned; all along of gettin' in with a speedy bunch, I expect," and the man stroked the ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... highest religious earnestness of the University,[60] and either in curiosity or inquiry, in approval or in condemnation, all that was deepest and most vigorous, all that was most refined, most serious, most high-toned, and most promising in Oxford was drawn to the issues which it raised. It is hardly too much to say that wherever men spoke seriously of the grounds and prospects of religion, in Oxford, or in Vacation reading-parties, in their walks and social meetings, in their studies or ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... Minty, lifting her black eyes to her father's; "I ain't no account, and you ain't no account either. You ain't got no college education, ain't got no friends in 'Frisco, and ain't got no high-toned style; I can't play the pianner, jabber French, nor get French dresses. We ain't got no fancy 'Shallet,' as they call it, with a first-class view of nothing; but only a shanty on dry rock. But, afore I'D take advantage of a lazy, gawky boy—for ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... is a rare genius. And most happily it is so; for elevated taste and high-toned morality are not, by any means, the common heritage of man. Anacreon and Burns were genuine Poets. They uttered, in fine style, many truths; and were not merely fluent in their respective languages, but affluent. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... to stand in awe of him also, but for reasons differing widely from those which caused her fear of Arnault. She dreaded the latter's pride, the resolute selfishness of his scheme of life, which would lead him to drop her should she interfere with it. She was learning to dread even more Graydon's high-toned sense of honor, the final decisions he reached from motives which had slight influence with her. What if she should permit both men to slip from her grasp, while she hesitated? She fairly turned cold with horror at the thought of this and of ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... my dear sister were of the most conservative and high-toned character, as was to have been expected ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... patches of shadow of soft purple-blue, which is so peculiarly Australian, across the yellow dust of the roadway. The mosquitoes were beginning to leave their shelters, and occasionally, within the shadows, the ping-zing of their high-toned note could be heard as one drifted by the ear. The wood-fire smoke rose straight and steadily from kitchen chimneys, as the sticks, set alight to boil the billy for tea, gradually went out, and the aromatic scent of it floated through the air, seeming to fit in with the chromatic whistle ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... bound, called upon him when he first arrived in the settlement, and a few days afterward Lester rode over and took dinner with them; and that was the last of their visiting. The boys could see nothing to admire in one another. Don and Bert were a little too "high-toned;" in other words, they were young gentlemen, and such fellows did not suit Lester, who preferred to associate with Bob Owens and a few others like him. Lester had been a leader among his city schoolmates, and he expected to occupy ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon

... character could please highly the popular palate in which there was not a distinct flavor of iniquity. More ability and less morality was the opinion generally entertained, though probably not often expressed. Hence it was not unnatural that the sentimental dandies and high-toned villains of Bulwer's earlier novels should have been the ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... DOOR. I have even noticed that murders have deteriorated; they are not so high-toned and mysterious as they used ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... engaged to write for the new literary paper—the "Californian" —same pay I used to receive on the "Golden Era"—one article a week, fifty dollars a month. I quit the "Era," long ago. It wasn't high-toned enough. The "Californian" circulates among the highest class of the community, and is the best weekly literary paper in the United States —and I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... parish church. A humiliating day for the stiff-necked old Squire of Stagholme; for he was introduced to many new relatives, who, if they could have bought up Stagholme and its master, were but poorly equipped with the letter "h." The bourgeois ostentation and would-be high-toned graciousness of the ladies, jarred on his nerves as harshly as did the personal appearance of their ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... the window, opened it, and pointing down into the street, he said, with a mocking laugh: "Just look, Gotzkowsky! There is the true test of your beautiful, high-toned principles. How often has Berlin not called you her benefactor, and yet she is overjoyed on the very day you are going to ruin! The whole town of Berlin knows that Gotzkowsky fails to-day, and yet they pass by your house with merry music, and ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... career. First we may quote the brief but emphatic words of the distinguished jurist, Judge Sidney Breese, Chief Justice of Illinois, who said: "For my single self, I have for a quarter of a century regarded Mr. Lincoln as the finest lawyer I ever knew, and of a professional bearing so high-toned and honorable, as justly, and without derogating from the claims of others, entitling him to be presented to the profession as a model well worthy of ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... creditable allotment, such my unworthy vagary, at the time this record opens. I had camped in the Dead Man's Bend late on the previous evening, had wakened-up a little after sunrise, and turned out a little after eleven. Then a dip in the river, to clear away the cobwebs, and a breakfast which, if not high-toned in its accessories, was at least enjoyed at a fashionable hour, had made me feel as if I wanted a quiet smoke out of the gigantic meerschaum which I unpack only on special occasions, and something ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... and refined. He is very different from the usual run of young men." (When a girl begins to think a man different from the "usual run," you may be sure she herself is off the common track.) "There's something very manly in all his sentiments, independent and high-toned. He cannot be engaged to Mary Morton, for I alluded to the report, and he seemed quite amused at the idea. I can see he thinks her very silly, which she is, though pretty—though he was two gentlemanly ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... all on account of Dolly. You know she is kind-hearted, and I understand this booby went to her and begged that she would give him a chance to see how a party of high-toned people looked. She couldn't very well refuse, and now she is trotting him around for the rest ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis

... one o' them high-toned, Sacramento shrimps!" he burst out gruffly; then he added meaningly: "Do you ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... high-toned missionary spirit of the Nestorians of our day, I will quote from the correspondence of Sarah, a daughter of Priest Abraham, of Geog Tapa. She was a convert of the first revival in 1846, and one of the ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... Hill"—let them testify to the loyalty of Massachusetts to this glorious Union! Not only did Mr. Webster come out of that controversy with South Carolina with the admiration of every man in the country, but with the respect and admiration of Calhoun, Hayne, McDuffie, and all the high-toned statesmen of the South. And why? Because he was not a Sumner, a Wilson, or an Abolition Blackguard. Times have changed—a different man takes the place of a Webster, with only the memory of an insulting speech and a ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... refining industry, and ally the action of capital to the advance of intellect. It will perform a noble and distinguished part in the great mission of the age and of future ages—that of vindicating the dignity of free labor and showing that the humblest work may be rendered high-toned and raised to a level with the calling of scholar or diplomatist through the influence of science. If we were called on to set forth the noble spirit of the North with all its free labor and all its glorious tendencies, we should, with whole heart and soul, choose this magnificent conception of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... of his preparations for the march from Babylon to Jerusalem gives us a glimpse of a high-toned faith, and a noble strain of feeling. He and his company had a long weary journey of four months before them. They had had little experience of arms and warfare, or of hardships and desert marches, in their Babylonian homes. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... well for any doubter to study the records of thoroughbreds in the animal world. The highest record ever made for milk and butter was by an animal of no family, and she was valuable only for what she could earn. None of her power went to her offspring. She was simply a high-toned freak, but an animal with a clean pedigree back to some great progenitor is valuable ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship

... engineer, spoke of Graines in the highest terms, not only in his official capacity, but as a high-toned, patriotic, and thoroughly reliable man. The moment the executive officer put his eye on the assistant engineer, he decided that Graines should be his right-hand man. As a matter of precaution the proposed expedition was to be a profound secret, for there were white men and negroes about the ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... great many wigwam poles near and in the pass hard by our camp, while by the creek we came across the remains of both summer and winter camps, probably those of hunters. "One of the beggars was high-toned," said George; "he had a stove." This was evidenced by the arrangement of stones within the circle of wigwam poles, and a few pieces ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... of the same sort of high-toned epistolary rhetoric, written and sent by a dear hand, whose fanciful pen seemed touched by the ambrosial tints of Autumn. So the year was going out in a gorgeous carnival, before the Lent-like ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... did not swear "by George" once. He did not he! he! The joyful keys and the cheerful ten-cent coins lay in his pocket with no loving hand to rattle them. He did not indulge in double-shuffles. He sang no high-toned negro-minstrel songs. He smoked steadily and solemnly, and he drank steadily and solemnly. His two clerks were made to tremble. They forgot Smith's bruised nose and swollen eye in fearing his awful temper. All the swearing he wanted to do and dared not ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... spiritual gifts; are morally high-toned; you build many castles—just see the mountains and balloons, the tower in the distance. You could study palmistry and occult laws to fine advantage. It has become so respectable, too, you know. Yet few do excel, though many attempts ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara

... describes a man as a "high-toned gentleman" he means exactly the same that a Bostonian means when, he says that a man is a "very good fellow," only the men described have a different culture, a different personal flavor; and it is fortunate that the Kentuckian is not like the Bostonian, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... with strokes of pleasantry and lively criticism, and ever and anon reveal most delightful pictures of fireside groups. A high-toned morality pervades the whole. We feel sure that the book will be a ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... refusal to enter upon the public business under the mouths of British cannon, adjourned it to Cambridge. On the night after this adjournment, the cannon were removed. These irritating proceedings made this body still more high-toned. While in this mood, it received from the Governor two messages, (July 6 and 12,) asking an appropriation of money to meet the expenses which had been incurred by the crown officers in quartering troops in Boston. The members nobly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... which may be taken as an index of the opinions of educated men in general, have always been true to principle in the discussion of this matter. The New York Review, which, during a brief but honourable career was regarded as speaking the high-toned sentiments of American churchmen, contained an elaborate article, as early as in 1839, in which the conduct of Congress, reference to the famous "British Authors' petition," was severely rebuked, and criticised as scandalously unprincipled and disgraceful. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... found me a most amusing guest; while, to my own conception, I had been singularly spiritless; but the little anecdotes which were trite to me had been novelties to them. Fashion has a charm even for philosophers; and the freaks and follies of the high-toned sons and daughters of fashion—who wore down my gentle mother's frame, drained my showy father's rental, and made even myself loathe the sight of loaded barouches coming to discharge their cargoes of beaux and belles on us for weeks together—were nectar and ambrosia to my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... which struck him as the most strange, was to find two beings such as those who were now left alone with him, graceful, beautiful, gentle, high-toned in manners, distinguished in appearance, fitted to mingle with the highest society, and adorn the highest rank, cognizant of, if not taking part in, things so dangerous ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... glorious faith. In the accomplishment of so vast a design, Motley has won our warmest gratitude, while he has awakened our deepest sympathies. Not alone to the learned, the scholarly, and the elegant, are these volumes addressed; their high-toned thought has met response in the people's heart, and children bend with flushed faces over the high romance of the struggle that cost the lives of thousands, and recognize, perhaps dimly, the import of that great ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... they wuz ignorant and degraded and wuz better off here than in their own land, but I'll say back to him, "Samuel, Josiah and I would probable be in a better house and more high-toned society if some king or other should steal us and carry us away from our humble farm to their palace. But do you spoze we would enjoy ourselves ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... you've got to go, and to go quick, you understand. I dare say you look on this as a land of barbarians, and think that any of your high-toned refinements are thrown away on people here. Well, perhaps it is so. Undoubtedly, the structure of the country is rough; the mountains may only represent the glacial epoch; but so far as I can gather from some of your exploits—for I have only learned ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... mightier than Napoleon. But to do it she must herself be strong in the right. She must be panoplied in the armor of spiritual warfare. She must be a true woman, girded and crowned with the royalty of noble womanhood. Being this, she must ask her brother to wear the royal badge of high-toned manhood. Let young women learn how men are made; how, by industry, labor, prudence, perseverance in the common vocations of life, and by a strict adherence to rectitude and goodness they grow to be useful and great, ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... of the highest truth, but the darkness, though for the moment relieved, is not dispelled. The truth has continued to elude them. They have not arrived at the knowledge of even the first principles of a theology worthy of God, and fitted to direct, purify, and guide man. Excellent, high-toned sentiments are no doubt found in Hindu writings, but these do not alter their general character. The Bible, by its teaching regarding God and man, above all by its record of the peerless excellence of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the provision made through Him for the supply of man's deepest ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... million of citizens, male and female—Gauls and Gaulusses—and then he sold another million of 'em into slavery. He continnered this cheerful stile of thing for sum time, when one day he was 'sassinated in Rome by sum high-toned Roman gen'lmen, led on by Mr. Brutus. When old Bruty inserted his knife into him, Caesar admitted that he was gone up. His funeral was a great success, the house bein crowded to its utmost capacity. Ten minutes after the doors were opened, the Ushers had to put up cards on which ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne

... on either branch of the legislature, to consider or decide upon official acts of the executive, for the purpose of censure, and without a view to legislation or impeachment. This, I think, Sir, is pretty high-toned pretension. According to this doctrine, neither house could assert its own rights, however the executive might assail them; neither house could point out the danger to the people, however fast executive encroachment might be extending itself, or whatever danger it might threaten to the public liberties. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... careful to keep a goodly number of the skins of wild animals stretched upon the outside walls of his cabin, so that visitors to his boat may be led to imagine that he is an industrious and legitimate trapper, of high-toned feelings, and one "who wouldn't stick a man's hog for no money." If there be a religious meeting in the vicinity of the shanty-boat, the whole family attend it with alacrity, and prove that their ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... knows that every one of those assertions which he or Thurlow Weed pushed down the throat of Mr. Lincoln is a flagrant lie. Every one knows that for many, many years the high-toned Wadsworth had in utter detestation Mr. Seward's character as a lawyer or as a public man, and that he never spoke to him, and never was his political ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... gaseous exhalations from the bottomless pit, taking a visible form in these latter days. From the well-known ability of the author, and the spicy relish of his pen, the work is adapted to make a sensation beyond the pale of the Catholic Church, without taking in account the high-toned sarcasm of the preface, in which department of composition the talents ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... then, it is indeed so; for Sabrey Haviland never uttered aught but perfect truth and sincerity in all her life. Why, God bless her for her spunk and independence, living and visiting, as she mostly has, from a child, in that circle of high-toned and bitter tories. And it argues well for your suit, too, Woodburn, which till now I have considered rather an unpromising one; for it tells me that she will struggle hard to get free from the fetters which Peters and her father have fastened on her, and by which, counting ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... Keene's, that one of the ladies of the party was rudely jostled by a large man, who caught his foot in the matting of the vestibule and fell against her with such violence as nearly to throw her to the floor. He turned and apologized at once, and with so much high-toned and gentlemanly dignity, that all the party felt almost glad that the little accident had occurred. This made the first step of an acquaintance between him and myself; and when, in the intermission the same evening, I met him for a few moments in a saloon near the theatre, we drank together, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... anybody in Europe, neither in cabinets, nor in saloons, nor the public at large. He looks and acts as a commis voyageur, will be considered as such at first sight by everybody, and his features and manners may not impress others as being distinguished and high-toned. ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... "high-toned" people; quite the reverse, in fact, as, I believe, I have previously described. We only "dropped in" of an evening to see friends, and spend a quiet hour or two over bezique and music. On these occasions, a carpet cotillon ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... character of a brave man, who, deprived of his natural rights by the partiality of laws, endeavoured to assert them by the strong hand of natural power; and he is most felicitously described as reasoning thus, in the high-toned poetry of ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... himself. He used to go to the boy's grave on holidays. Now he never went. For years his wife had lived with him and kept his house and prepared his food, and grown, like him, silent and apart from all around. She died at last and he gave her a high-toned funeral; had a coffin from the city and a preacher and all that. She had died of loneliness. He did not know it. She did not realize it. He went on as if it was a matter of course. The old house was kept up carefully; a Chinaman, as silent as ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher

... sure of his sense of honour, his pure morality, his good principles, his high-toned soul ("True," he said to himself, "I never set up to be one of your righteous-overmuch sort of people, nor a saint like my noble mother and my friend Mrs. Willoughby") that he staggered as he thought of what ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous

... has no superior as a writer of high-toned stories—pure in style, original in conception, and with skilfully wrought-out plots; but we have seen nothing from this lady's pen equal in dramatic energy to her latest work, Under False ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... high-toned. I believe the taxes here are higher than in any other city in the country. I would like to say a good deal more about Boston, but being a Boston man myself, my modesty prevents me. You will always notice this peculiarity in a Boston man—he ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various

... exertion destroys the continuity of high-toned, and intellectual conversation," said Captain ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... a couple of copies of my medallion, as gilt-edged and high-toned as it is possible to make them. One is for our house here, and should be addressed as above. The other is for my friend Sidney Colvin, and should be addressed—Sidney Colvin, Esq., Keeper of the Print ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 'em," put in Dr. Surtaine, "staking a high-toned scientific reputation that the one sure, unfailing, reliable upbuilder for brain-workers, nervous folks, tired-out, or broken-down folks of any kind at all is"—here Dr. Surtaine paused, looked about his entranced audience, and ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... balanced, fine-grained, high-toned mind and body responds to every tender influence, and is painfully jarred by that which is coarse. To such, fruits and delicately flavoured and easily digested foods are doubtless best and conducive to purity and ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan

... did not altogether dislike me, that she was pleased with my personal appearance. Why not? I had had my successes in my time, and may say, although it sounds conceited, that I had won the approval of other ladies quite as high-toned. By and by it might be my unpleasant duty to be disagreeable. In the meantime it would be amusing, ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... shake the heel and toe At the rattling rancher dances where much etiquet don't go. You can bet I set them laughing in quite an excited way, A-giving of their squinters an astonished sort of play, When I happened into Denver and was asked to take a prance In the smooth and easy mazes of a high-toned dance. ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various

... administration of the laws, however fair and equal they may appear on their face, that the constitutional rights of negroes to equal protection and treatment are denied, not only in the South but in many Northern States. There are noble exceptions, however, of high-toned honorable gentlemen on the bench as trial judges, and Supreme Court justices, in the South, who without regard to consequences have stood for fairness and justice to the negro ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... him, and he said: 'Very well, just wait till I've had supper, for I'm damned hungry, then we'll have a little understanding with my lady, who's so mighty high-toned since she worked for those swells. I'll soon show her, though, she is ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high-toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contributions to whatever ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... outside Wilkinson's Motor Garage last night. A policeman on duty had his attention drawn by larrikins to a man in prison dress who was stepping with considerable coolness into the steering-seat of a pretty high-toned Panhard; he was accompanied by a girl wrapped in a ragged shawl. On the police interfering, the young woman threw back the shawl, and all recognized Millionaire Todd's daughter, who had just come from the Slum Freak Dinner at the Pond, where all the choicest guests were in a similar ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... That shows you are a boy of sense. Now, as you are subject to my directions, just get on that bicycle and I will carry your gripsack, and we will seek Vance Villa, as we call it when we want to be high-toned, by the most ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger

... be supposed that Walter was prepared to follow out his brother Amos's moral courage at once and in everything. He was quite willing to admire this high-toned courage, and was learning to be content that his brother should enjoy the praise for it which was his due. He also fully intended to follow in the same steps some day or other; but then no real and radical ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... among as choice a collection of contractor's junk as you can find anywhere in town, and that's sayin' a good deal. But maybe you've noticed what's been happenin' along there where Fifty-ninth street gets high-toned? Looks like an earthquake had wandered by, but it's only that down below they're connectin' the new subway with another East river tunnel. And if there's anything in the way of old derricks, or scrap iron, or wooden beams, or construction ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford

... been made plain, Captain Bonnet of the Revenge was a punctilious man when the rules of society were concerned, be that society official, high-toned, or piratical. Thus it was a positive duty, in his mind, to return Blackbeard's visit on the next day, but until afternoon he was not able to do so on account of the difficulty of getting a sober and decently behaved boat's crew ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... the cause of the slave's freedom he gave with all his heart his money, his time, his talents. Fervent in soul, eloquent in speech, most gracious in manner, he was a favorite on the platform of Anti-slavery meetings. High-toned in moral nature, keenly sensitive in all matters pertaining to justice and integrity, he was a most valuable coadjutor with the leaders of an unpopular reform; and throughout the Anti-slavery conflict, he always received, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... was a remarkable man in many respects. He certainly could be called one of nature's noblemen. Besides being a perfect high-toned gentleman of the old school, he was One of the most efficient officers in the army, and his popularity was universal His greatest service was in the Quartermaster's Department, but he served for ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... which the banished Valentine becomes the captain of a band of outlaws on condition that they "do no outrages on silly women or poor passengers", and the outlaws reply that they "detest such vile, base practices."[24] He had also read, in 'Don Quixote', of the high-toned robber, Roque Guinart, who had more of compassion, in his nature than cruelty. Cervantes makes Roque comment thus upon his mode of life: "Injuries which I could not brook and thirst for revenge first led me ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... charges by which she was circumvented, her exhausted sensibility, her sullen despair, the hopeless horror of her situation, or, from what often was found to be the effect of the treatment such persons received, a high-toned consciousness of innocence, and a brave defiance and stern condemnation of her maligners and persecutors; if, from any cause, the fountain of tears was closed or dried up,—their failure to come forth at the bidding of her defamers was ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... He had read of this class of high-toned criminals in the gutter stories peddled by certain publishers, but he had never hoped to meet one in the flesh. He was still gazing open-mouthed at Chris as two ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... would only precipitate their own fate by impelling the savages to carry out whatever designs of murder, insult or capture they might have. Under the influence of the intense excitement of this critical interval it is to be feared that the performance degenerated from a high-toned concert and variety show into something very like a Howling-Dervish exhibition. But, at any rate, it answered its purpose until, after a period that seemed like a dozen eternities, the West-bound ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... away from us hevn't bin returned, and we are obleeged to git along ez best we kin without em. I knocked down a small nigger yisterday, for the purpus uv assertin the sooperiority uv the Cauchashun race over the Afrikin, and wuz to wunst hauled up afore a Freedmen's Buro, and fined. Our high-toned and chivalrous members are exclooded from Congris on the frivolus plea that they wuz kernels and briggydeer Ginerals in the Confederit servis; and all these outragis agin Dimocrisy Androo Johnson, ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby

... restrictions as disfigure such functions in the effete East [applause], and while I am only too anxious to exclaim with the poet, 'On with the dance, let joy be unconfined' [great applause], yet it must be remembered that this high-toned outfit has been got up for a special, definite purpose, as a fit welcome to one who has come among us with the high and holy object of instructing our offspring and elevating the educational ideals of this community. We, of this Bachelors' ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... succession of thrilling scenes from Byron's sensational poem, "The Corsair," for presentation by his fellow players. This melodramatic production was staged with all the pasteboard pomp and secondhand circumstance the little workshop theater could afford and was given with all the fire the high-toned author could impart to his company. The result ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears

... the philosophy of infidel making. Let a man be trained in the obsolete religions of an hundred years or more ago, and otherwise well educated, and he is, at once, an infidel. No man is to blame for setting his face like a flint against old-fashioned Roman Catholicism, and high-toned Calvinism, nor for repudiating Papal and clerical authority known in the Spanish Inquisition with all its horrible, unscriptural and ungodly barbarities. But why it is that the infidel's religious foot should set away back yonder in the smoke of the dark ages, and his scientific foot away down here ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880

... after a while, slow, "I know all about it now. You've been plumb crazy and you're crazy now. You've kept on remembering that low-down sneak next door. You've turned down a high-toned gentleman like Tom—and you done it for what? You ain't acted on the square, Bonnie Bell Wright," says I. "It ain't needful for me to tell all I know about him now. I could tell you ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough

... Carolina declared that no one should be elected President who was not worth $100,000 and that high property qualifications should be placed on members of Congress and judges. Other members of the convention were stoutly opposed to such "high-toned notions of government." Franklin and Wilson, both from Pennsylvania, vigorously championed popular election; while men like Madison insisted that at least one part of the government should rest on the broad foundation ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... got a kind of high-toned way of talking," she explained. "I don't mind the way you talk, though,—using big words and all that. That ain't none of our business, I tell the girls; but you do walk so funny and stand so funny, that it is all I can do to keep from bu'stin' out laughing to see you. And the other ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... feeling,—but there was, notwithstanding few could draw a veil entirely over the past, a rational conviction that true and permanent happiness must, and would crown that marriage union. And thus far, it has followed it, and must continue to follow it, for John Barclay is a man of high-toned principle, and would as soon think of committing a highway robbery, as violating ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... forego that pleasure for a while, for in making her a present he might also make a mistake—and Pete was becoming a bit cautious about making mistakes, even though he did think that that green velvet hat with a yellow feather, in the millinery store in Sanborn, was about the most high-toned ladies' sky-piece that he had ever beheld. Pete contented himself with buying a new Stetson for Sheriff Owen—to be delivered after ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... who jumps as easily and naturally as you do would jump the regulars any time, and go with the high-toned volunteer crowd." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock

... high-toned, pitiful whine suggestive of a dog's song on a moonlight night, but this plaint was drowned in the roars of laughter raised by ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... to take it, but—business is business," his companion laughed. Then to the policeman: "How much is our high-toned Mexican friend betting and what odds does ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... den,' said Wilson. 'No; this way, by the back'; and he showed Darnell another ingenious arrangement at the side door whereby a violent high-toned bell was set pealing in the house if one did but touch the latch. Indeed, Wilson handled it so briskly that the bell rang a wild alarm, and the servant, who was trying on her mistress's things in the ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... fate. 'He'll come for the horses; don't cry, little one, God won't forsake us.' While he listened, it seemed to him as if the whistling of the wind changed into the sound of bells. Was it his fancy? But the bells never ceased; some were deep-toned and some high-toned; voices were intermixed with them. They approached from behind like a swarm of bees in ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... Golden Gate, and, standing on the terrace of the Cliff House, looked out upon the blue Pacific, with the sea lions disporting on the rocks below. For he went there first, and then to China-town, and explored every nook and corner, and opium den in it, and drank tea at twenty dollars a pound in a high-toned restaurant, and visited the theatre and the Joss House, and patronized the push-cars, as he called them, every day, and experienced a wonderful exhilaration of spirits, as he sat upon the front seat, with the fresh air blowing in his face, and only the broad, steep street, ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... Hence it is, that the tone of the bark of the dog, or the neighing of the horse, depends so much on the age or size of the animal. Thus we compare the shrill bark of the puppy with the hoarse one of the adult dog; the high-toned but sweet music of the beagle with the fuller and lower cry of the fox-hound, and the deep but melodious baying of the mastiff. I may, perhaps, be permitted to add to these, the whinnying of the colt and the ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... by the cautiousness in procedure which was due to his rare training, made him an excellent public servant, and the country erred in not availing itself of his further service. The change from the regime of the first six Presidents to that of Jackson was probably inevitable. A high-toned democracy, based on a qualified suffrage, believing in the value of training for public life and administrative office, setting a value on refinement and good manners, was in the end sure to give way to a pure democracy based on universal suffrage whenever it could find a leader to give ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... Wilson, clumsily, "I mean I was his attendant up to the Retreat. It was a real high-toned place, and they did not take any dangerous ones, only folks like him. His people ain't the kind that stand for price. They've got plenty, and they don't care what they pay. I dare say you've been in ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... silence, Warburton gazing callously ahead and the officer watching him with a wary eye to observe any suggestive movement. He couldn't make out this chap. There was something wrong, some deep-dyed villainy—of this he hadn't the slightest doubt. It was them high-toned swells that was the craftiest an' most daring. Handsome is that handsome does. A quarter of an hour later they arrived at the third precinct, where our jehu was registered for the night under ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... It is the nature of slang to circulate freely among all classes, yet there are several kinds of this current form of language corresponding to the several classes of society. The two great divisions of slang are the vulgar of the uneducated and coarse-minded, and the high-toned slang of the so-called upper classes—the educated and the wealthy. The hoyden of the gutter does not use the same slang as my lady in her boudoir, but both use it, and so expressive is it that the one might readily understand the other if brought in contact. Therefore, there are what ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... the story. You want to know If Ryan came back to his Kate Carew; Of course he should have, as stories go, But the worst of it is, this story's true: And in real life it's a certain rule, Whatever poets and authors say Of high-toned robbers and all their school, These horsethief ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson



Words linked to "High-toned" :   high-class, elegant



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