"Polite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (the solitary one on the island), stood a short way above the landing quay; and once or twice, catching sight of her in her doorway and lifting his hat as he went by (for the Commandant was ever polite), he had found it in his mind to stop and inquire after ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... in my letter to amount to anything," he replied. "Miss Emory only wanted to know if I'd please have her trunks shipped out here from New Orleans—only that; and she asked me please to bring her a box of marshmallows, as hers were all gone. She's polite, always, dear old Helena—she says, here, 'So pleasant is our journey in every way, and so kind have you gentlemen been, and so thoughtful in providing every luxury, that I can not think of a single thing I could ask for except some more marshmallows. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... feel them toes till they're took an' buried an' rotted away in the ground.' An' then 'e tells 'bout 'is sister's boy. 'Nonsense,' sez the doctor, 'tain't 'is toes at all. 'Is toes 'as nothin' to do with it.' 'W'at then?' asks father quite polite. 'It's the feelin' of 'is toes 'e's feelin'.' ''Ow can 'e 'ave any feelin' of 'is toes if 'e hain't got no toes?' 'Well,' sez the doctor, ''is feelin's hain't in 'is toes at all.' 'Well, that's ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... talked a polite amount with their respective neighbors. But if so, they regarded it as untimely interruption of the real business of the evening. It was amazing the number of things they found to discuss and they discussed ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... Capetown until we reached Johannesburg, which (taking evidence at the various places on the way) occupied several weeks. This sumptuous train consisted of dining car, sleeping cars and parlour car, was liberally staffed and provisioned; with a skilful chef, polite and attentive waiters and attendants. It was practically our hotel during those forty days ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... much left out and desirous of showing how well accustomed he was to the casual manners of polite society, consoled himself with an evening paper. Laura Ussher led Riatt to a comfortable corner out of ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... pointed to an old woman who, seated before the door of her hut, was spinning at her wheel. Then the young men went up to her with polite salutations and said, "Mother, we are travelling traders, and our stock is coming after us; we have come on in advance for the purpose of finding a place to live in. If you will give us a house, we will remain ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... man of fifty. He was tall, spare, with closely shaven face and gray hair, worn rather long. He spoke with the accent of a Southerner, and although to Ford he was studiously polite, he was obviously greatly ill at ease. He had the abrupt, inattentive manners, the trembling fingers and quivering lips, of one who had long been a slave to the drug habit, and who now, with difficulty, was holding himself ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... Boulevard Malesherbes, to cook onions in. I don't know what he didn't say to me in his effervescent state. For my part, I was naturally vexed to be spoken to in that insolent tone. The least one can do is to be polite to people whom one neglects to pay, deuce take it! So I retorted that it was too bad, really; but, if the Caisse Territoriale would pay what they owe me, to wit my arrears of salary for four years, plus seven thousand francs advanced by ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the courtier; he came on another errand. Whoever, reading these colloquies of his with the Queen, thinks they are vulgar insolences of a plebeian priest to a delicate high lady, mistakes the purport and essence of them altogether. It was unfortunately not possible to be polite with the Queen of Scotland, unless one proved untrue to the Nation and Cause of Scotland. A man who did not wish to see the land of his birth made a hunting-field for intriguing ambitious Guises, and the Cause of God trampled underfoot of Falsehoods, Formulas and the Devil's ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... hitherto evinced nascent and budding life by these exfoliations from its slender stem, died of a sudden blight the moment its sun, in the shape of Uncle Jack, set in the Cimmerian regions of the Fleet; and a polite letter from another printer (O William Caxton, William Caxton, fatal progenitor!) informing my father of this event, stated complimentarily that it was to him, "as the most respectable member of the Association," ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her speech than usual, but very talkative too. Every one crowded round them, and Walter had some difficulty in leading his bride through the throng. There was laughter and hand-shaking and a general polite uproar. At last they got themselves into the carriage, which rolled away with them to their new life. It was really Joan and Nancy who had conceived the idea of tying a pair of goloshes on behind, but the Misses Conroy had provided them, one apiece, and claimed an equal ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... was the first to give him warning, for he was often on duty at or near the Commissary's quarters, and, indeed, had often taken notes from Foster to the fair Dolly. He showed a warm interest in the matter, for Foster was always polite to the sergeant, and did not turn up his nose at "soldier men," as other masters of ships were but ...
— Foster's Letter Of Marque - A Tale Of Old Sydney - 1901 • Louis Becke
... selfish fear of his own downfall with that of State supremacy was so well known that a smile wrinkled across the polite group of gentlemen surrounding him, deepened his colour to purple under this assault, and stammered: "Sir, have I not myself proposed an enlargement of the powers of Congress, in order to counteract the damnable policy of Britain? Did ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Tower, and Bolingbroke a voluntary exile in France, and an open adherent of the Pretender. Swift came to Dublin to be met by the jeers of the populace, the suspicion of the government officials, and the polite indifference of his clerical colleagues. He had time enough now in which to reflect and employ his brain powers. For several years he kept himself altogether to his duties as Dean of the Cathedral of St. Patrick's, only venturing ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... It was not very polite for Mrs. Cricky to laugh, but really she could not help it. Never did she see such a buzzing, clumsy attempt at imitation as this. By this time the Noisy Fly had spied Mrs. Cricky, and his popping black eyes scanned her anxiously, for he was accustomed ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... always treated her as if she were a mere acquaintance, some one who was of no consequence to you. Oh, yes, you have been polite, kind, in a way, but not in a way a woman wants. I am only a girl, but—but"—she thought again of Drake, of her own love story, and her lips trembled—"but I have seen enough of the world to know that there is nothing which will hurt and harden a woman more than the 'kindness' with which ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... of us; no, vengeance! let us combat until the end," he repeated to himself; "the power of poetry over people is great; I will bring them back. We shall see which will carry the day, grimaces or polite literature." ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... are brought to me. There will be no one else now to-night, I think, unless Colonel Goldapp sends for me. They are very polite. I think I shall be alone most of the time. They have no idea that I will try to get away, because they think I know they have so many sentries and patrols about that it would be useless for me to ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... even had the master been regarding us he would have seen no reason for mortification in the manner of his servant. The man was extremely polite and attentive, suggesting various refreshments, such as wine and biscuits, and I never was treated by a ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... also, to meet Mr. Knox, the bookseller, who was polite and affable to all, particularly to ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... the presence of the emperor, the bishop paid his respects to him, in the most polite and proper manner. Then he was about to retire from the palace, without taking any special notice of the emperor's son. This made the father angry. He said to the bishop, "Do you take no notice of my son? Have you not heard ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... prove yourself a man of erudition in polite literature and cosmography, manage that the river Tagus shall be named in your story, and there you are at once with another famous annotation, setting forth—The river Tagus was so called after a King of Spain: it has ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... view this matter entirely from the standpoint of the polite world, from the outlook of social respectability, where self rules every action with the question, 'What will others say?' So should I two years ago, but conditions have somewhat changed my views. Professional necessity can never afford to be quite ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... old saying that "you must summer and winter" a man before you know him. Mr. Parasyte was considered a tyrant; not a coarse and brutal tyrant, but a refined and gentlemanly one, who cows you by his polite impertinence. He seldom indulged in harsh speech, never in personal violence—at least no instance of it was known to the students. He indulged in sneers and polished browbeating. A boy was never stupid—he lacked common intelligence; never a blockhead—his perceptions ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... "you can't rub me the right way till I'm contented here as I was yesterday. Florence is all right, and the Florentines are mighty polite; but—" She looked at the fire a moment, while he tried, and failed, to find something effectively soothing to say. "In the State of Massachusetts there's a sort of spit running into the sea, and on a sand hill of this there's a little shingled ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... too polite to tell that to his cousin. And when Mr. Mole Cricket asked him how he liked the tune, Chirpy replied that it was very, ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... neat and austere. He fancied it would not be pleasant to be very late for one's meals—in fact, Sidney had hinted as much. Some of the "mealers"—the Street's name for them—ventured on various small familiarities of speech with Tillie. K. Le Moyne himself was scrupulously polite, but reserved. He was determined not to let the Street encroach on his wretchedness. Because he had come to live there was no reason why it should adopt him. But he was very polite. When the deaf-and-dumb book agent wrote something ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that it might have had with an Englishman in similar circumstances, and the manager became polite and anxious to assist. Yes, the gentleman had come about a room. He had ordered lunch in a private room for a party of seven for 1.30 on the following Tuesday. He had been very particular about the room, had insisted on seeing it, and had ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... neither laugh nor sing nor talk an hour upon nothing. The latter of these is a sensible loss, for it excludes a gentleman from all good company and makes him entirely unfit for the conversation of the polite world." "I don't know how the mathematics may assist the judgment, but they have a great tendency to make men dull. I who am far from being sprightly even in my gaiety, am the very reverse of it at this time." Certainly to produce sprightliness ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... appeal to conductors, "Set me down as near as you can to Brown and Hodgkinson's!"), and there was purchased a blouse of white lace—costing so much that Gertie, on hearing the amount, had to clutch at one of the high chairs; and as Clarence paid readily with gold, the polite young woman on the other side of the counter assured him it was well worth the money. Gertie, at another establishment, bought a pair of slippers, saying to herself that they would come in handy, even though she did not go to Ewelme. ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... August W. went to his Conseil-General at Laon, and I went down to my brother-in-law's place at St. Leger near Rouen. We were a very happy cosmopolitan family-party. My mother-in-law was born a Scotch-woman (Chisholm). She was a fine type of the old-fashioned cultivated lady, with a charming polite manner, keenly interested in all that was going on in the world. She was an old lady when I married, and had outlived almost all her contemporaries, but she had a beautiful old age, surrounded by children and grandchildren. She had lived through many vicissitudes from the ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... Gres, in 1391, Heliot, 1390, and Henry de Senlis, in 1484. Heliot is recorded as having produced for Philip the Bold "two large ivory tablets with images, one of which is the... life of Monsieur St. John Baptist." This polite description occurs in the Accounts ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... and made two low bows. I felt for my scalp-knife, for I thought they was approaching to take me, but I couldn't use it —they was so darned polite. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... the general in this company, where he had himself the 'vantage ground—so different now from what it had been in the Old-Forest battle, when only man to man, ward to guardian. Before these distinguished persons there was a look—a tone of deference at once most affectionate and polite. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... magnificently. At the close Queen Victoria asked to have Will presented to her, and paid him so many compliments as almost to bring a blush to his bronzed cheek. Red Shirt was also presented, and informed her Majesty that he had come across the Great Water solely to see her, and his heart was glad. This polite speech discovered a streak in Indian nature that, properly cultivated, would fit the red man to shine as a courtier or politician. Red Shirt walked away with the insouciance of a king dismissing an audience, ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... thereafter Mrs. Potter called upon Mrs. Drysdale and passed the afternoon very pleasantly. When Mr. Drysdale came home he was very polite and agreeable; he seemed glad to find his wife enjoying herself, and when Mrs. Potter rose to go, both husband and wife urged her warmly ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... friend Fouque asked him whether he hadn't also lost his shadow? The friends pleased their fancies in imagining what would have happened to him if he had. Not long afterwards he was reading in La Fontaine of a polite man who drew out of his pocket whatever was asked for. Chamisso thought, He will be bringing out next a coach and horses. Out of these hints came the fancy of "Peter Schlemihl, the Shadowless Man." In all thought that goes with invention of a poet, there are depths as well as shallows, and the reader ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... if not polite—was shaping itself a brief distance below his staring eyes, when, recovering himself and tiptoeing to his full height, he peered into the branches and ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... blew out behind and her ribbons flew like blue butterflies all about her hat. She forgot to hold down the brim, as polite little girls did who knew how to wear their Sunday clothes. She, too, held three small packages in her lap. For days, ever since Peter Junior and Richard Kildene had taken tea with them in their new uniforms, the little girls had patiently sewed to make the articles which ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... boarders from their rich portrait frames on the parlor wall! Fallen greatness always gives me an uncomfortable thrill. Yet here was the heiress of these shadows on the wall, gay, talkative, bustling, active; with a word of caution, or a word of advice to all; polite, attentive, agreeable to her guests, quarreling and exacting with her servants, grasping and avaricious with all; singing a piece from "Norma" in a voice, about the size of a thread No. 150, that showed traces of former excellence; or cheapening a bushel of corn meal ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... the whole trouble with the Newfoundland Labrador. All moneys granted for education are handed to the churches for sectarian schools. It is almost writing ourselves down as still living in the Middle Ages, when the Clergy had a monopoly of polite learning. In more densely populated countries this division of grants need not be so disastrous. Here it means that one often finds a Roman Catholic, a Church of England, a Methodist, and a Salvation Army school, all in one little village—and no school ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... deemed a token of elegant and fashionable taste, and while the charms of this beverage in the reigns of Queen Anne and George I. were so highly esteemed by courtiers, by lords and ladies and fine gentlemen in the polite world, the learned physicians extolled its medicinal virtues." From the coffee house and its more aristocratic relative the chocolate house, there developed a new feature in English social life—the Club. As the years passed the Chocolate House remained a rendezvous, but the character of its habitues ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... the eyes of everyone who knew anything of her at this prospect of getting rid of the trial. Both the ladies, and everyone who had known her for longer than the week, voted, hands and feet, for her extinction, but four of the men were foolishly too polite to express their real wishes. So she herself was left with the casting vote, and chose to go on! Thus The Instigator's well-thought plan to remove an incubus was frustrated. He was so disgusted with his failure in a laudable object that, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... seeing her free. "I have done the heavy polite act, discussed D'Annunzio, polo and psycho-analysis and finished all three subjects neatly. Do I get ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... confidence that they will be found deserving the same mark of distinction that has been conferred upon an officer junior to me in the list of admirals. I beg leave to express my unfeigned acknowledgments to your lordship for the polite manner in which you have been pleased to convey to me the ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... comprehend our mirth. He had, he thought, delivered himself of very sound and very gentlemanly philosophy, and he was really shocked to find it had made an impression so different from what he had expected. He had travelled much, he said, and met men of many lands, of whom Irishmen were ever the most polite and best bred gentlemen; a fact which rendered our laughing in his face rather inexplicable. The conversation was again resumed and again waxed warm. I expressed my opinion of English paupers in Ireland, and said they ought to be transported in a convict ship back to Liverpool, in the same ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... afraid with a bull to protect us. We went down the ladder and the farmer didn't say a word. I guess he was thinking about the money he got from Brown's hats all right. He said to Mr. Bull, very nice and polite, "I kinder thought they wuz trespassin', you know. 'N I was a-scared they'd ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... certain that he would a few thousand times rather have been standing there upon the old-gold sand, with only one eye doing duty and an unspeakable agony in the other eye, than be that herring-gull in the condition he was then, going back to the bosom of his tribe. It is not a thing to dwell upon in polite society, but I tell you that the gull-folk do not always treat their wounded well, and there would be no chance, no earthly chance at all, of his finding a place in all that vast horizon of sea and sky and island where they, the ceaseless, never-resting "White ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... explained Miss Gascoigne, when, Dr. Grey having quitted the room, Christian, for want of something to converse about, began to make a few polite inquiries concerning it. "So you have got your piano just in time, and may practice all day long, to be ready for your performance. Of course you will be asked to perform, since every body knows about your father and his musical genius. By- the-by, I met lately ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... not so good, but they are worthy of registration. One boy described a blackguard as "one who has been a shoeblack,'' while another thought he was "a man dressed in black.'' "Polite'' is said to be derived from "Pole,'' owing to the affability of the Polish race. "Heathen'' means "covered with heath''; but this explanation is commonplace when compared with the brilliant guess—"Heathen, from Latin ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... for the pleasures of the mind is moreover so natural to the heart of civilized man, that amongst the polite nations, which are least disposed to give themselves up to these pursuits, a certain number of citizens are always to be found who take part in them. This intellectual craving, when once felt, would very soon have been satisfied. But at the very time when ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Influence is extended thro-out the united States. Boston has its full share of them and yet I do not hear that Measures have been taken to suppress them. On the Contrary I am informd that the Citizens are grown so polite as to treat them with Tokens of Civility and respect. Can a Man take fire into his Bosom and not be burnd? Your Massachusetts Tories communicate with the Enemy in Britain as well as New York. They give and receive Intelligences ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... with a very polite air, "let me introduce you to Mr. Quirk"—(This was the senior partner, a short, stout elderly gentleman, dressed in black, with a shining bald crown fringed with white hair, and sharp black eyes, and ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... ugly things went on in the Osborn bungalow. It was known that scenes occurred between the husband and wife which were not of the order admitted as among the methods of polite society. One evening Mrs. Osborn walked slowly down the Mall dressed in her best gown and hat, and bearing on her cheek a broad, purpling mark. When asked questions, she merely smiled and made no answer, which was extremely awkward for ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... him and moved in there with her suit case and rugs. When the train had started and she had parried one or two polite enquiries as to place and ventilation, she said: "I think I ought to tell you who I am, in case you would not like to be seen speaking to me—I imagine you are in diplomacy, as I noticed you went through with a Red passport.—I am Vivien Warren, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... house as his prison, and withdrawing him to an apartment, he seized all Don Esteban's goods; by this time the afternoon was ended. On the following day, Don Juan de Vargas, having returned to the city, was promptly visited; and after a polite visit, he was told that he must remain a prisoner in his own house, without leaving it, under a penalty of one thousand ducados. On this day, it was published that all acts by the royal Council in favor of the archbishop, the governor, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... were all very polite, and I rested as sweetly that night as if in my own room at Levi Coffin's, or in my own Michigan home. The next day the colonel was very free to talk of the false ideas of Northern people about slavery; spoke of Elizabeth Margaret ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... would be so!" he exclaimed, when he recovered himself. "Mynheer Von Kniper was very polite, and so was his wife; and they introduced me to all their company. I believe the governor-general was there, or some great person. They paid me much more attention than they did the captain, who, if he had not been a right honest, good-natured ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... or should share power with the Duke of Portland. In all those barterings and borrowings we never hear the name of the nation. No whisper announces that there is such a thing in existence as the people. No allusion ever proceeds from the stately lips, or offends the "ears polite," of the embroidered conclave, referring to either the interests, the feelings, or the necessities of the nation. All was done as in an assemblage of a higher race of existence, calmly carving out the world for themselves—a tribe of Epicurean deities, with the cabinet for their Olympus, stooping ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... long time, he suddenly went over to the enemy, and swore to everything his sister said. However, as Tom observed the same night before going to bed, it was only in joke, and John had always been famous for being polite to ladies, even when he was quite a boy. Ruth said, 'Oh! indeed!' ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... swarms a vari-coloured crowd, but it was out of the question for the time being. I thought that Cairo, more complaisant in this respect than the mountain to the prophet, would come to me if I could not go to it, and as a matter of fact, Cairo was polite enough to do so. ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... taught the children to be kind and polite to each other, just as well as to strangers and to "company." Though of course Bunny Brown and his sister Sue had little troubles and "spats" and differences, now and then, just ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... you are, the more certain you will be to practice in your own home every courtesy which you know is due elsewhere. If you are not polite and considerate in your home, you cannot help showing that fact away ...
— Manners And Conduct In School And Out • Anonymous
... appeared suddenly from behind a curtain; oh, he was an awful Beast, and Beauty's heart beat fast! But he seemed a polite Beast ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... I take a fine thick sandwich out of my bag, I always feel like making it a polite bow, and before I bite into a big brown doughnut, I am tempted to say, "By your leave, madam," and as for MINCE PIE——-Beau Brummel himself could not outdo me in respectful consideration. But Bill Hahn neither saw, nor smelled, nor, ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... his most flute-like tones, "I have brought a friend to see you, my little girl; turn round and give him your pretty hand. It is good to be devout; but it is necessary to be polite, my niece." ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... sent in a polite message to the girls, and on the receipt of the answer that they would be very pleased to have the captain's company, he and Harry went down. The meal was an excellent one, but the girls ate but little, for ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... professor. It is a liberality which shines more brightly, as reflected by one, whose religious education was drawn solely from the pure fountain of truth—the holy oracles; and however unlettered he was, as to polite literature or the learned languages, his Christian liberality can no more be enlightened by the niggard spirit of learned sectarians, than the sun could be illuminated by a rush-light. The inquiry was then, as, alas, it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hope. Distances in Capernaum were short, and the messenger would soon find Jesus. There was little sympathy in the harsh, bald announcement of the death, or in the appended suggestion that the Rabbi need not be further troubled. The speaker evidently was thinking more of being polite to Jesus than of the poor father's stricken heart, Jairus would feel then what most of us have felt in like circumstances,—that he had been more hopeful than he knew. Only when the last glimmer ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... is true," she agreed, "but why London? I think that of all great cities it is the most provincial. It lacks what you call the atmosphere. The people are all so polite, and so deadly, deadly dull. How different in Paris ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... half-holiday I went out with the boys from my brothers' school. They always liked me to play with them, and, though not pleasant-tongued boys, were always civil and polite to me. I organized games and fortifications that they would never have imagined for themselves, led storming parties, and instituted some rather dangerous games of a fighting kind. I taught my brothers; to throw ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... "MA'AM! dear, how polite we are grown of a sudden!" cried Bab, winking at her maid. "One may see you've been in good company this morning—hey, Susan? Come, let's hear ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... more agreeable. That is to say she was very polite, her smile was more fixed and her eyes more unfathomable than ever. Evidently Zikali had spoken to her and she had listened. Yet to tell the truth my distrust of this handsome young woman grew deeper day by day. ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... cultivation. In active service Grodman had been clean-shaven, like all members of the profession—for surely your detective is the most versatile of actors. Mrs. Drabdump closed the street door quietly, and pointed to the stairs, fear operating like a polite desire to give him precedence. Grodman ascended, amusement still glimmering in his eyes. Arrived on the landing he knocked peremptorily at the door, crying, "Nine o'clock, Mr. Constant; nine o'clock!" When he ceased there was ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... ourselves, for some cause unknown to us was considerably disturbed, internally or externally. It was impossible for any land-lubbers to stand; it was equally impossible to eat in the form prescribed by the rules of polite society, food being snatched at a venture, and not always arriving at the mouth for which it was originally intended. One or two were pitched out of their cots, and a murmuring of fear that this should be a tempest, ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... This polite person, now taking his wife aside, asked her "what she thought of the ladies lately arrived?" "Think of them?" said the wife, "why, what should I think of them?" "I know," answered he, "what I think. The guides ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... the "Jenan" for Sept. 1, 1872, written by Frances Effendi Merrash, brother of the Sitt Mariana, whose paper we have translated on a preceding page. It is evident that the Effendi writes from the atmosphere of Aleppo. The more "polite" society of that city is largely made up of that mongrel population, half French and half Arab, which is styled "Levantine" and too often combines the vices of both, with the virtues of neither. It will be seen that the able author is combatting ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... chatting with Rose. He rose with a bland, "Good-evening," and gallantly handed Elsie to a seat. Arthur was a good deal changed since his recall from college; and in nothing more than in his manner to Elsie; he was now always polite; often cordial even when alone with her. He was not thoroughly reformed, but had ceased to gamble and ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... from him proved to me in a thousandfold manner how deep and strong was the bond that bound me to him. We had scarcely more than become well settled in Rome than a letter arrived which he had mailed at Vienna, and which the polite consul came and delivered in person. And what a letter it was!—only a page or two, but words alive with the love and passion of his heart. And that was the last letter, as it was the first, that I ever received ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... of you speak of it, and I noticed Oliver stammer dreadfully when Mrs. Maxwell mentioned Mr. Jardine; but I thought that at this time of day, when everybody knew there was no malice borne originally, and Uncle Crawfurd might have been killed, you might have been polite and neighbourly with quiet consciences. I tell you, I mean to set my cap at young Mr. Jardine of Whitethorn, and when I marry him, and constitute him a family connexion, of course the relics of that old accident will be scattered ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... both the major and he speedily showed that they were not unfamiliar with the use of a gun. Whether the birds came at them like bomb-shells, or sprung like a sky-rocket through the leafless branches, they met with the same polite attention; though occasionally one would double back on the beaters and get clear away, sailing far into the silver-clear sky. Lord Beauregard scarcely shot at all, unless he was fairly challenged by a bird flying right past him: he seemed quite ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... done votin', Sonny, after first thankin' 'em,—which I think was a mighty polite thing to do, an' they full o' the giggles at his little expense that minute,—why, he went on to say thet he requie'd 'em to make thess one condition, an' that was thet any question he missed was to be passed on to them thet had been a-gradj'atin' ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... her untutored faiths and instincts, shaking off all rule, ignorant of all conventionalities, only bent, amidst difficulties, and obstacles, and delays, on steadily working towards one fixed and well-defined end—surely, tried by any of the received laws of polite society, concerning correct, well-educated young ladies of thirteen, she would be found sadly wanting. Shall we blame her? or shall we not rather, with a kindly compassion, try for a while to understand from what point of view she had learnt to look at life, and to arrive at some comprehension ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... to pay a fifty dollar fine. At last in a fit of desperation, Paul said he would call on the editor and see what kind of a man he was, anyway, and if he proved to be all right, he might be induced to join them as a guest, which would be a more polite way to put it. They were willing to give twenty-five or thirty dollars; but they felt a delicacy in making such ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... question, with his own end in view. Paving the way for Mr. Vimpany's departure from the cottage at Passy, he made a polite offer of ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... seize upon some salient point, or one generally overlooked by foreigners, or some very subtle one known only to the scholar, and devote myself to its mastery. A little knowledge here blinds the hearer to much ignorance elsewhere. In Italian, for example, the polite way of addressing one's equal is to speak in the third person singular, using Ella (she) as the pronoun. "Come sta Ella?" (How are you? but ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... answered, perfunctorily polite, and with her eyes still fixed darkly on space. And as if half to herself, she added, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... its haunches, it said, in tones polite, "There seems to be but two of us to stay in here to-night!" Tim muttered in a trembling voice, as for the door he run, "Perhaps you think there will be two, but ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... loud crowing," said the Portuguese duck; "but, still, he's a handsome bird, there's no denying that, although he's not a drake. He ought to moderate his voice, like those little birds who are singing in the lime-trees over there in our neighbor's garden, but that is an art only acquired in polite society. How sweetly they sing there; it is quite a pleasure to listen to them! I call it Portuguese singing. If I had only such a little singing-bird, I'd be kind and good as a mother to him, for it's in my ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... cowardice, imbecility or weakness; and because there can be no middle course in carrying on a war. We have suffered enough by it already in money and men; we must suffer no more. Besides, we lose self-respect, and gain only the contempt of the enemy. When the bearer of General Sherman's polite proclamation, addressed 'to the loyal citizens of South Carolina,' communicated it to the two officers near Beaufort, they replied, with courteous nonchalance, 'Your mission is fruitless; there are no loyal citizens in the State.' The general's action in the premises reminds us of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... perfectly. Six years ago, as I went down to my early breakfast at our Pension in Vevey, I saw that a stranger had arrived. He was a tall youth, of eighteen or twenty, with a thin, intelligent face, and the charmingly polite manners of a foreigner. As the other boarders came in, one by one, they left the door open, and a draught of cold autumn air blew in from the stone corridor, making the new-comer cough, shiver, and cast wistful glances towards the warm corner ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... man raised in camp, and brought up in the midst of the rough and tough elements that are collected together there, should possess qualities not calculated to fit him for the polite transactions that take place in drawing rooms and parlors. General Clarke's self-reliance was extreme. Having commanded men from the time he was sixteen, it was natural that his temper and his manners should be offensive, ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... Buddhist as well as Christian professors. Doctors Anderson and Franklin were also guests, and when they followed me, they made the same mistake and made Christian addresses. But the Japanese management is very polite and very liberal, and even in the dinner that followed our faux pas did not provoke a word of criticism. The guests at that dinner served by the students were from the most prominent educational institutions of Japan. We highly ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... words. I believe it has never been successfully reduced to writing, and the restoration of pure Arabic has been proposed, with much reason, as preferable to an attempt to improve or refine it. Italian is the language used in the courts of justice and polite society, and is spoken here with much more purity than either in Naples ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... leave the house with her lover? Why does a man never kill a man? Why does a man never kill himself? Why is nothing ever accomplished? In real life murder, adultery, and suicide are of common occurrence; but Mr. James's people live in a calm, sad, and very polite twilight of volition. Suicide or adultery has happened before the story begins, suicide or adultery happens some years hence, when the characters have left the stage, but bang in front of the reader nothing happens. The suppression or maintenance of story in a novel is a matter ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... polite attitude to "la belle antiquite" than Saint Sorlin, but his criticism is more insidious. Greek and Roman men of genius, he suggests, were all very well in their own times, and might be considered divine by our ancestors. But nowadays Plato is rather tiresome; and the "inimitable ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... the eighteenth century was sharply assailed. Then Barere found an old stone inscribed with three Latin words, and wrote a dissertation upon it, which procured him a seat in a learned Assembly, called the Toulouse Academy of Sciences, Inscriptions, and Polite Literature. At length the doors of the Academy of the Floral Games were opened to so much merit. Barere, in his thirty-third year, took his seat as one of that illustrious brotherhood, and made an inaugural oration which was greatly admired. He apologises for recounting these triumphs of his youthful ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... unbroken silence while she poured out the tea, "for the last time, dear," as her step-mother jocosely remarked, and for his sake alone she exerted herself to make polite conversation with this new mistress ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... manner toward me is quite as polite, nay, rather more considerate than when I first came here. Beside, you know, we are almost strangers; sometimes weeks elapse without ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... respectability, he perhaps erred on the side of virtue. Honest, brave, and high-minded, he was also penurious and cold, and the ostentatious good humour of the colonists dashed itself in vain against his polite indifference. In opposition to this official society created by Governor Arthur was that of the free settlers and the ticket-of-leave men. The latter were more numerous than one would be apt to suppose. On the 2nd ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... himself was a living contradiction of the fallacious statement that all men are equal, and now, moved by her unhappiness, she caught a glimpse of that lying beneath the impregnable reserve of a polite and agreeable exterior which made the distinction. She realized more strongly than before that he lived upon a different plane from that of any man she ever ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... looked about her for the guest of honor. It transpired that the affair was quite informal, after all. The Englishwoman was sitting in a tea-tent discoursing with a number of gentlemen who hung over her with polite attentions. They were well-known bachelors of advanced ideas—men with honorary titles and personal ambitions. The great suffragist was very much at home with them. Her deep, musical voice resounded like a bell as she uttered her dicta and her witticisms. She—like the men—was smoking ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... footfall was heard upon the marble floor, soft, quick and decided. She paused a moment in the middle of the room when she saw that the artist was not alone. He went forward to meet her and asked leave to present Orsino, with that polite indistinctness which leaves to the persons introduced the task ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... thrust into his swelling bosom, he rose and fell on his toes, and for ten minutes, almost without drawing breath, went on hurling himself intellectually to the assault of Charles Gould's polite silence; and when, stopping abruptly, he fell back into his chair, it was as though he had been beaten off from a fortress. To save his dignity he hastened to dismiss this silent man with a solemn inclination of the head and the words, pronounced ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the Channel. It is a proverb, that the London policemen are never at hand. The stout fellows with their clubs look as if they might do service; but what a contrast they are to the Paris sergents de ville! The latter, with his dress-coat, cocked hat, long rapier, white gloves, neat, polite, attentive, alert,—always with the manner of a jesuit turned soldier,—you learn to trust very much, if not respect; and you feel perfectly secure that he will protect you, and give you your rights in any corner of Paris. It does look as ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Disposition. That he had acquired a Fortune by Commerce, and having no Relations to leave it to, he travelled through Arabia, Persia, India, Libia and Utopia in search of a real Friend. In this Pursuit he found several with whom he exchanged good Offices, and that were polite and obliging, but they often flew off for Trifles; or as soon as he pretended to be in Distress, and requested their Assistance, left him to struggle with his own Difficulties. So true is that Copy in our Books, which says, Adversity ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... him after a moment by his voice. We have reckoned it up, and find that she has not seen him since the Easter before last. At first he called her Fraulein, but her mother said: Don't be silly. It did not seem silly to me, but most polite!!! ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... man to put off the work," Matilda went on. "The man was very polite, but he said his orders from Mrs. De Peyster had been strict, and if he wasn't allowed to go on with the work, he said, in order to protect himself, he'd have to cable Mrs. De Peyster that the people occupying her house wouldn't let him. Judge Harvey didn't want Mrs. De Peyster to find out ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... French oficers. There awful polite. I wish the Captin could hear them. Joe says he was made a gentleman by an act of Congress when they made him an oficer. Congress certinly has a lot of power in ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... Arthur Payson Noyes, National Theatre. With the simplicity and dispatch that characterized her, she went to that place. To the man reposing somnolently in the broken old chair beside the door she said she had a letter for Mr. Noyes. The doorkeeper saw it was a large, swanking envelope with very polite writing. He straightened up in the chair long enough to pass her in, and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... your pardon, Yourii Nicolaijevitch; I seem to be always pushing against you," he said, laughing, as he lurched forward in an endeavour to be polite. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... her with polite attention or gushing cordiality, and she was beginning to calm into something like sober ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... published a little book which interests persons who in civilized society form a respectable minority, and in the savage world an overpowering majority. But, savage or polite, almost all men must shave, or must be shaved, and the author of "A Few Useful Hints on Shaving," is, in his degree, a benefactor to his fellow-creatures. The mere existence of the beard may be accounted ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... she might add also of Mr. Slope, depicted her own grievous state, and concluded by being assured that Mrs. Proudie would forgive her extreme hardihood in petitioning to be allowed to be carried to a sofa. She then enclosed one of her beautiful cards. In return she received as polite an answer from Mr. Slope—a sofa should be kept in the large drawing-room, immediately at the top of the grand stairs, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... waking - They poison his slumbers - Like the Banbury Lady, whom every one knows, He's cursed with its music wherever he goes! Though its words but imperfectly rhyme, And the devil himself couldn't scan them; With composure polite he endures day and night ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... enthroned her, but made no introductions at the moment; a young man stood by the piano, violin in hand, evidently waiting for the stir over the guest of honor to subside. The hostess gave the signal and the guests were polite if restless. However, the playing was admirable; and Madame Zattiany, at least, gave it her undivided attention. She was, as ever, apparently unconscious of glances veiled and open, but Clavering laid a bet with himself that before the end of the encore—politely demanded—she knew ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... embarkation a portage was necessary. Wilmington was twelve miles distant, and I reached the railroad station of that city with my canoe packed in a bed of corn-husks, on a one-horse dray, in time to take the evening train to Flemington, on Lake Waccamaw. The polite general freight-agent, Mr. A. Pope, allowed my canoe to be transported in the passenger baggage-car, where, as it had no covering, I was obliged to steady it during the ride of thirty-two miles, to protect it from the friction caused by the motion ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... they have been our next-door neighbors, and she has never been inside the house. Nor he either, for that matter, except once when it took fire, you know, and he came in with that funny little chemical engine tucked under his arm, and took off his hat in the same prim, polite way that he takes it off when he talks to Sibyl, and said, 'If you'll excuse me offering advice, Miss Hopkins, it is not necessary to move anything; it mars furniture very much to move it at a fire. ...
— Different Girls • Various
... exceed all truth," exclaimed the second Athenian, not at all angered by the praise. But Simonides, whose tongue was brisk, ran on with a torrent of flattery and of polite insinuation, until Cimon halted ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... superiority. Your bodies, and not your brains, are stronger than ours. Believe me, it is well for you that you are able to beat us; or, such is the superiority of our understanding, we should make all of you what the brave, and wise, and witty, and polite are already—our slaves."—"I am glad I know your mind," answered the squire. "But we'll talk more of this matter another time. At present, do tell me what man is it you mean about my daughter?"—"Hold a moment," ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... plump, middle-aged body who had a little—a very little—English, but whose ideas of discipline, recitation, and study were too well fixed to permit of accommodation to our methods. She was unfailingly polite and kind, though I could see that she was often harassed by the innovations to which she ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... uncle a calm, polite, and clearly worded letter to confirm my decision. He has not answered it, nor did ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of the Burlingame treaty may need to be replaced by more careful methods, securing the Chinese and ourselves against a larger and more rapid infusion of this foreign race than our system of industry and society can take up and assimilate with ease and safety. This ancient Government, ruling a polite and sensitive people, distinguished by a high sense of national pride, may properly desire an adjustment of their relations with us which would in all things confirm and in no degree endanger the permanent peace and amity ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... at his watch in that furtive way which polite persons employ when time presses and a companion is garrulous. He had finished his rice pudding and his milk, and in five minutes he would be expected to hang up his hat behind the mirrored partition of the New Era Drug Store and walk out smilingly to serve the New Era customers, patrons, the ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower |
