"Polite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... women wretched—how many more has the cold unmeaning intercourse of gallantry rendered vain and useless! yet this heartless attention to the sex is reckoned so manly, so polite, that till society is very differently organized, I fear, this vestige of gothic manners will not be done away by a more reasonable and affectionate mode of conduct. Besides, to strip it of its imaginary dignity, I ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... been nodding for a minute. I hope Colonel French did not observe it—it would scarcely seem polite. He hasn't ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... literature, science, art, there is one woman,—that dashing Princess Elizaveta Romanovna Dashkoff, who helped Katherine to her throne. As Empress, Katherine appointed her to be first president of the newly founded Academy of Sciences, but afterward withdrew her favor, and condemned her to both polite and impolite exile,—because of her services, the princess hints, in her ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... labour. In the letter prefixed to the posterior Academica, 45 B.C., Cicero evinces much impatience at having been kept two years waiting for his promised boon, and inscribes his own treatise with Varro's name as a polite reminder which he hopes his friend will not think immodest. In the opening chapters Cicero extols Varro's learning with that warmth of heart and total absence of jealousy which form so pleasing a trait in his character. Their ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... containing revised versions of incidents and dialogue. The whole packet is now far from clean, and has a business-like and travelled air about it, which should command respect. I always accompany it with a polite letter, expressing my willingness to cut it down, or expand it, or change the conclusion. Nobody can say that I am proud. But it always comes back from the Publishers and Editors, without any explanation as to why it will not ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... Merla escorted the strangers down the length of the great room toward the royal throne, they met with pleasant looks and smiles on every side, for the sea maidens were too polite to indulge in curious stares. They paused just before the throne, and the queen raised her head upon one elbow to observe them. "Welcome, Mayre," she said, "and welcome, Cap'n Bill. I trust you are pleased with your glimpse of the life beneath the surface ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... thumb. Nine times with averted glance he spat a black bean out of his mouth and cried: "With these I redeem me and mine.'' The ghosts followed and picked up, or perhaps entered into the beans. Then he washed afresh, and rattled his brass vessels, and nine times over bade them begone with the polite formula, Manes exite paterni, "Go forth, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... polite, and let down rope ladders for us. After a few hours they would be on board with us. We ourselves never set foot in their cabins, nor took charge of them. The officers often acted on their own initiative, and signaled to us the nature of their cargo. Then the commandant decided as to whether ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... the dock, with his fate in the balance—the condemned cell or a favoured table at Claridge's. And your meeting! One can imagine him gripping your hands, with tears in his eyes, his voice broken with emotion, sobbing out his thanks. And instead you exchange polite bows. I would not have missed ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have a pleasing address, and be thoroughly posted on the commercial news of the day, and it is requisite that the layer-down be well dressed, quick witted, and possessed of an unlimited amount of polite assurance, a cheek that never pales and an eye that never droops. In selecting a person to fill this important position, the forger prefers to have a man who has, at some time or other, been convicted of crime, so that ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... "You are very polite!" cried Hadria. "Why should I not lay up store for myself in heaven, as well as Mrs. Walker and ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... with her. The visit altogether was one of the pleasantest larks he had ever had, not the less so perhaps because he suspected that his queer cousin Tertius wished him away: though Lydgate, who would rather (hyperbolically speaking) have died than have failed in polite hospitality, suppressed his dislike, and only pretended generally not to hear what the gallant officer said, consigning the task of answering him to Rosamond. For he was not at all a jealous husband, and preferred leaving a ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the two bears," she said to herself, "but I'll try again, and when that hateful Miss Deane goes away, everything will be right again. I know Ned has to be polite to her; and it's very silly in me to get vexed when he talks to her; but I can't help it, ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... their mother, who was fast asleep on the rug, with her tail curled round her; but they did not mind that—which I think was not quite polite—for when people and cats are taking a nap, everybody must keep very quiet, and not go near them or make a noise; but our friends, the kittens, did not think, you see: they just went pounce right on top of ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... compelled to eat what was set before me, which I did without any great difficulty. Sir Reginald was too polite to ask me the object of my visit till I had finished. He pressed me to take more, but I declined, and I then told him that I had heard that Mark Riddle had been taken poaching with some other lads ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... of all these officers besetting her with their civilities and polite assiduities, nothing of the old and silly jealousy seemed to stir within me. Perhaps because, although for days I had not seen her, I knew her better. And also I had begun to know myself. Even though she loved not me in the manner I desired, yet the lesser, cruder, ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... wet, but she was merry and talkative, and Mrs. Graham was more brusque in 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 ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... despatched a wireless to the agent of his government at Brussels, directing him to secure at once all the information available about Andre Chevrial, 18 Rue des Chantiers, Paris; and that evening a very polite gentleman called at the house in question. It was a tall, hideous house, with a cabaret on the first floor. To its proprietor the visitor addressed himself. But yes, the proprietor knew M. Chevrial, a merchant of wine, who had honoured his house for many years ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... had 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, ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... His hunch-back daughter kept coming in and out, humming gaily all the time. The father was glum and harsh, and had an anxious look. As soon as we had ordered the box we took our leave. Madame Petit went out first; Leontine's sister held me back by the hand and said quietly, "Father is not very polite, but it is because he is jealous. He wanted my sister to ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... his ideal of fame. Now when I start out of Apia on a dark night, you should see my changed horse; at a fast steady walk, with his head down, and sometimes his nose to the ground—when he wants to do that, he asks for his head with a little eloquent polite movement indescribable—he climbs the long ascent and threads the darkest of the wood. The first night I came it was starry; and it was singular to see the starlight drip down into the crypt of the wood, and shine in the open ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... skeletons to the discreet exhibition of a few carefully chosen bones in the plays of Bernstein and Bataille, direct descendants of Scribe, Sardou, et Cie, but I may be permitted to indulge in a slight snicker of polite amazement when I discover these gentlemen applying their fingers to their noses in no very pretty-meaning gesture, directed at a grandson of Moliere. For such is Georges Feydeau. His method is not that of the Seventeenth Century master, nor yet that of Mirbeau; nevertheless, aside from ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... and began to marshal the broken forces of Irish democracy against his own class. Butt had been a polite parliamentarian, reverencing the courtesy of debate and at heart loving the British Constitution. Parnell felt that his mission lay in breaking rather than interpreting the law. The well-bred House stared and protested when he defied ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... haunt him when 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 That illiterate ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... to the Island of Manhattan.... Chap. ix. How the city of New Amsterdam waxed great under the protection of St. Nicholas, and the absence of laws and statutes. Book III., chap. iii. How the town of New Amsterdam arose out of mud, and came to be marvellously polished and polite, together with a picture of the manners of our great-great-grandfathers.... Book IV., chap. vi. Projects of William the Testy for increasing the currency; he is outwitted by the Yankees. The great Oyster War.... Book V., chap. viii. How the Yankee crusade against ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... things were characteristics of the old-time American scouts and of the King Arthur knights. Their honor was sacred. They were courteous and polite to women and children, especially to the aged, protected the weak, and helped others to live better. They taught themselves to be strong, so as to be able to protect their country against enemies. They kept themselves strong and healthy, so that they might ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... somewhat awkward in pitching it, and three times did the whole structure come down by the run, burying several of us in the flapping canvas, and inflicting some tolerably hard knocks with the poles. However, at length we succeeded in getting it fixed; and, kindling a blazing fire close to it, as a polite intimation to the bears that they were not wanted, cooked our supper over the embers, and then, wrapped in our blankets, slept far better than the fleas had allowed us to do the ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... molested by any of the "bad men" of the frontier, with whom he had often come in contact. "Only once," he said. The cowboys had always treated him with the utmost courtesy, both on the round-up and in camp; "and the few real desperadoes I have seen were also perfectly polite." Once only was he maliciously shot at, and then not by a cowboy nor a bona fide "bad man," but by a "broad-hatted ruffian of a cheap and commonplace type." He had been compelled to pass the night at a little frontier hotel where the bar-room occupied the whole lower floor, and was, in ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... giving me back his shilling fee. "Don't say anything about it, for it mightn't be approved of in a business point of view, if it came to some people's ears. Has the landlord said anything more to you? no, I thought not. He's too polite a man to give me the trouble of pulling him up. Don't stop crying here, my dear. Take the advice of a man familiar with funerals, ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... not have been considered polite in Tellurian social circles the four Primes stood still, each couple facing the other with blocks set tight, studying each other with their eyes. Delcamp was, as Garlock had said, a big bruiser. ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... or of a willingness to generalize from wholly insufficient grounds, and take the chances of hitting or missing, you might affirm a domestic simplicity of feeling in some phases of functions exalted far beyond the range of republican experiences or means of comparison. In the polite intelligence which we sometimes have cabled to our press at home, by more than usually ardent enterprise, one may have read that the king held a levee at St. James's; and one conceived of it as something dramatic, something ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... figure finale finance financier flaccid florid flotsam folio forbade forehead fortnight franchise n. fraternize fratricide fulsome gala gallant (polite) ...
— A Manual of Pronunciation - For Practical Use in Schools and Families • Otis Ashmore
... ashamed that his secret sentiments had been discovered thus, "monsieur, you are very polite, but in truth I am ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the woods for hundreds of feet, twining round trees in its path, and at times forming so dense a wattle that it is impossible to get through it. The stem and leaves are studded with the sharpest thorns, which continually cling to you and draw blood, hence its not very polite name of lawyer-palm." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... train their vows express'd, With feathers crown'd, with gay embroidery dress'd: 'Hither' (they cried) 'direct your eyes, and see 380 The men of pleasure, dress, and gallantry; Ours is the place at banquets, balls, and plays, Sprightly our nights, polite are all our days; Courts we frequent, where 'tis our pleasing care To pay due visits, and address the fair: In fact, 'tis true, no nymph we could persuade, But still in fancy vanquish'd every maid; Of unknown duchesses ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... know, I am telling you the real names and not imaginary ones. Mme. Husson took a special interest in good works, in helping the poor and encouraging the deserving. She was a little woman with a quick walk and wore a black wig. She was ceremonious, polite, on very good terms with the Almighty in the person of Abby Malon, and had a profound horror, an inborn horror of vice, and, in particular, of the vice the Church calls lasciviousness. Any irregularity ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... in Mecklenburgh Square a learned Queen's Counsel, for whose preservation the prayers of the neighborhood constantly ascend. To his more scholarly and polite neighbors this gentleman is an object of intellectual interest and anxious affection. As the last of an extinct species, as a still animate Dodo, as a lordly Mohican who has outlived his tribe, this isolated counselor of her Gracious Majesty is watched by heedful eyes whenever he crosses ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... would rather suppose it to be soil, than any durable material.—The monks still remain, and although the decree has passed for their suppression, they cannot suppose it will take place. They are mostly old men, and, though I am no friend to these institutions, they were so polite and hospitable that I could not help wishing they were permitted, according to the design of the first Assembly, to die in their habitations— especially as the situation of St. Eloy renders the building useless for any other purpose.—A friend of Mr. ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... were too sweet and polite to ask for their characters, for fear of hurting their feelings? I suppose you gave them twice as much as they asked? This is the sort of house servants like. ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... ceased to expound her views, when the old courtier began eagerly to refute her arguments, and they started a polite but very heated discussion. ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... for some coloured face, and finally saw one among the porters who were handling the baggage. To Joe's inquiry he gave them an address, and also proffered his advice as to the best way to reach the place. He was exceedingly polite, and he looked hard at Kitty. They found the house to which they had been directed, and were a good deal surprised at its apparent grandeur. It was a four-storied brick dwelling on Twenty-seventh Street. As they looked from the outside, they were afraid that the price of staying in such a place ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... found that Daisy said nothing about her visit, she decided to remain silent. Unless the girl made herself impossible, Anne did not see why she should turn out of a good situation where she was earning excellent wages. Daisy avoided her, and was coldly polite on such occasions as they had to speak. Seeing this, Anne forbore to force her company upon the unhappy girl and attended to ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... her bosom was there no interest awakened for one who thought so much of her? Yes, but it was an interest of a different nature from his. She liked him, because he was so much more polite to her than she had expected him to be, and more than all, she liked him for his kindness to her brother, never dreaming that for her sake alone those kindly acts were done. Of James De Vere she often thought, repeating sometimes to herself the name ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... 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 lackey with ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... where they quenched their thirst and reposed themselves in the shade of some trees. Sitting there, and finding no better subject of conversation, one of them asked the others, whether they did not remark how particularly the soldier had distinguished him by his polite salutation. "You!" said another; "it was not you that he saluted, but me." "You are both mistaken," says a third; "for you may remember that when the soldier said, 'Dandamarya!' he cast his eyes upon me." "Not at all," replied the fourth; "it was I only ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... had off-saddled by the side of the road. As they were fully armed and their appearance was not prepossessing, we expected to be ordered to alight while our conveyance was being searched. However, our fears were unfounded, and they were most polite. The driver muttered something in Dutch, whereupon the leader came to the door, and said in broken English: "Peeck neeck—I see all right." I am sorry to say one of the gentlemen of our party muttered "Brute" in an ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... besides she had neither mind nor will enough to have a voice in so important a matter as the disposal of her hand. Nay, she was not even told that she was going to be married. She only got an inkling of it from various phenomena that struck her from time to time, such as the polite attentions of the baron, the whispering of the domestics, the altered attitude towards her of the various members of the family—who now addressed her in the tone you employ when speaking to a baroness that is to be. And then there was ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... indeed," said the man, with a polite bow. "Our mighty Emperor has lately caused himself ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... ask him to come again, and it was plain that he did not expect such an invitation. The few remarks he made about his future plans precluded the supposition that they might meet again. He was pleasant, he was polite, he was even kind; but when he departed he left her with a heart of stone. There was now nothing in the world for which she cared to live. She despised herself for such a feeling, but existence was ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... weak side, again plunged into formulas more than polite, and went as far as the stairhead ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... purple bluffs of the Palisades. To the right towered the long, unbroken rows of brick and stone: story on story of shining windows, draped and muffled in silk and lace; flight after flight of clean granite steps; polite, impersonal, hostile as ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... up! wake up!" cried Langdon. "It's not polite to your hosts to be snoring away when breakfast is almost ready. Go down on a piece of the back porch that's left, and you'll find two pans of cold water in which you can wash your faces. It's true the pans are frozen over, but you can break the ice, and it will ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... him and go aft. We followed him along the ship, which seemed to be very crowded, to the well deck aft, where we met the remaining few passengers and some of the crew of the Hitachi. We had evidently come across a new type of Hun. The young Lieutenant was most polite, and courteous and attentive. He apologized profusely for the discomfort which the ladies and ourselves would have to put up with—"But it is war, you know, and your Government is to blame for allowing you to travel when they know a raider is out"—assured ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... them, and held aloof with her. This kept him a country person in his experiences much longer than he need have remained; and tended to that sort of defensive secretiveness which grew more and more upon him, and qualified his conduct in matters where there was no question of his knowledge of the polite world. It was not until after his wife's death, and until his daughters began to grow up into the circles where his money and his business associations authorized them to move, that he began to see a little of that world. Even then he left it chiefly to his children; for himself he continued ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... strongest accusation against him was his personal love of economy, and his entire indifference to show, literature, or art. It was also considered a fault in him as a French president that he showed little inclination to travel. Socially, the polite world accused him of wearing old hats and no gloves. On cold days he put his hands in his pockets, which in the eyes of some was worse than putting them for his own purposes into ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... thermometer, a toy unknown to the Doctors of my youth, who, indeed, were disposed to regard even the stethoscope as new-fangled. Then "the courtly manners of the old school"—when did they go out? I do not mean to cast the slightest aspersion on the manners of my present doctor, who is as polite and gentlemanlike a young fellow as one could wish to meet. But his manners are not "courtly," nor the least "of the old school." He does not bow when he enters my room, but shakes hands and says it's an A1 day and I had better get out in the motor. Whatever the symptoms presented ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... with great emphasis, "that's what a lot more of us would like to know. P'r'aps if you'd been more polite to Mrs. Cooper, instead o' putting it about that she looked young enough to be his mother, it ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... On another occasion a waiter who mistook his order was rewarded by having the contents of a dish of stew poured over his head. Even where his temper was not concerned his manners were directly opposed to those prevailing in polite society—though, in a large measure, this may have been due to his perfect simplicity and his ignorance of what was expected of him. Thus, it is told that, returning from one of his long walks in the pouring rain, he would make straight for the sitting-room of the house in which ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... windward; the weather conditions, however, were ideal for the frigate, and we overhauled the brig so rapidly that by ten o'clock in the forenoon we were within gunshot of her; whereupon we hoisted our colours and fired a shot across her forefoot as a polite hint to her to heave-to. Her reply to this was to pour in her broadside of seven 8-pounders, the shot from which flew over and between our masts, doing us no damage whatever. Upon perceiving which, and noticing ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... else. Mind: I'm not bigoted about it. I'm not a doctrinaire: not the slave of a theory. You and Lord Summerhays are experienced married men. If you can tell me of any trustworthy method of selecting a wife, I shall be happy to make use of it. I await your suggestions. [He looks with polite attention to Lord Summerhays, who, having nothing to say, avoids his eye. He looks to Tarleton, who purses his lips glumly and rattles his money in his pockets without a word]. Apparently neither of you has anything to suggest. Then ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... the young ladies with polite bows, supplemented by an aimless compliment on the neatness ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... wanted him that they might go together to call upon Lady Clavering. Foker went away disconsolate, and whiled away an hour or two vaguely at clubs: and when it was time to pay a visit, he thought it would be but decent and polite to drive to Grosvenor-place and leave a card upon Lady Clavering. He had not the courage to ask to see her when the door was opened, he only delivered two cards, with Mr. Henry Foker engraved upon them, to Jeames, in a speechless agony. Jeames received ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... day Ivan Petrovich sent his father a letter, which was frigidly and ironically polite, and then betook himself to the estate of two of his second cousins,—Dmitry Pestof, and his sister Marfa Timofeevna, with the latter of whom the reader is already acquainted. He told them everything that had happened, announced his intention of going to St. Petersburg to seek an appointment, ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... northern coast of South America was that of Ojeda in 1499-1500, in company with Juan de la Cosa, next to Columbus the most expert navigator and pilot of the age, and Vespucci, perhaps his equal in nautical science as he {5} was his superior in other departments of polite learning. There were several other explorations of the Gulf coast, and its continuations on every side, during the same year, by one of the Pizons, who had accompanied Columbus on his first voyage; by Lepe; by ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... to England a ruined man. He had expended his whole capital, amounting to upwards of a thousand pounds, in settling his family during his absence, and in providing for his outfit and voyage. The first lord of the admiralty expressed polite surprise that such a mistake should have occurred, and promised compensation for his loss and another command on the first opportunity. Neither promise was kept, and Parker's spirit and health gave way under his misfortunes, and he sank into the grave. Cochrane, finding that he too had small ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... the same language, of which he was by no means a master. As for his minor works in the vernacular, the earlier of them shew that he had not as yet wrought himself free from the conventionalism which the polite literature of Italy inherited from the Sicilians. It is therefore inevitable that the twentieth century should find the Filocopo, Ameto, and Amorosa Visione tedious reading. The Teseide determined the form ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... watchful waiter instantly makes his appearance with a tray containing small chunks of a pasty sweetmeat, known in England as " Turkish Delight," one of which you are expected to take and pay half a piastre for, this being a polite way of obtaining payment for the privilege of using the chair. The coffee is served steaming hot in tiny cups holding about two table-spoonfuls, the price varying from ten paras upward, according to the grade of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... leads to the single street, which, passing between two rows of antique gabled houses, and under the chancel of the little parish church, conducts one to the almost interminable flight of stone steps leading to the gateway of the monastery. Upon ringing the bell a polite lay brother opens the iron-studded door, and we are admitted into a solemn, vaulted hall, with another stone staircase opposite. Here we go up and up, to a second vaulted hall, where, in olden times, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... his happiness is nearly perfect. Indeed, if he were not a bureaucrat, he would very much belie his French origin. Take him all in all, however, Jean-Baptiste, as he is familiarly known, from the patron saint of French Canada, has many excellent qualities. He is naturally polite, steady in his habits, and conservative in his instincts. He is excitable and troublesome only when his political passions are thoroughly aroused, or his religious principles are at stake; and then it is impossible to say to what extreme ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... tall man with a dark, handsome face browned with the sun of warm climes, dark eyes that had in them a wistful sadness, and firm lips. He did not look like the gentlemen she was accustomed to. He was polite and respectful. When he heard her name, he took off his hat, and stood uncovered during ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... long neck, the same sweet expression around the bill!" That was just like the Black Spanish Cock. He always said something pleasant about people when he could, and it was much better than saying unpleasant things. Indeed, he was the most polite fowl in the poultry-yard, and the Black Spanish Hen ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... point, Mary insisted on serving lunch for her visitor, saying that she had lived with white people and knew how to cook. After a polite refusal, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... a very honest and sensible gentleman when we came to converse with him; somewhat austere, in the presence of his rattle-headed spouse at least, but polite and well-informed. He spoke pleasantly with me, saying that he was on his way to the farther Lake country on business, and that his wife was to remain, until ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... wearisomeness of his grievances! Those three sons in the Plungers, and their eternal scrapes! How you could manage to keep a civil face! It was a masterpiece of polite patience." ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Fa-Hsien states that the monks of Central Asia were all students of the language of India and even in the seventh century Hsuan Chuang tells us the same of Kucha. Portions of a Sanskrit grammar have been found near Turfan and in the earlier period at any rate Sanskrit was probably understood in polite and learned society. Some palm leaves from Ming-Oi contain fragments of two Buddhist religious dramas, one of which is the Sariputra-prakarana of Asvaghosha. The handwriting is believed to date from the epoch of Kanishka so that we have here the oldest known Sanskrit ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... run in to assist the diners from their couches; the Capuans, with dreams of relief, refreshment, and re-repletion; the Carthaginians, bored, but striving to be polite and to follow the customs of their entertainers. Even Hannibal, while his smile was half a frown, permitted ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the arrival at Gloucester: the carriage for her mistress, the dog-cart for herself with the luggage; the drive out past the river, the pleasant trees of the carriage-approach; and herself sitting beside Arthur, everybody so polite ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... lantern, Sam," went on the surgeon to the carter, "and search about for them. Of course, even give the Ugly Leap a call, and make inquiry for them; and when I've played the polite man, and seen the doctor well on his way with these young ladies, I'll join you—two heads are better than one even in the matter of looking up two boys that we're not sure are lost ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... yet?" Jason asked. "By tying up Snarbi I'm only conforming to a local code of ethic, like saluting in the army or not eating with your fingers in polite society. In fact I'm being a little slipshod, since by local custom I should kill him before ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... 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 is quenched do we feel, by the blackness, how much light ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... attention of the porter or some other inmate were unavailing. At last, after much ringing, knocking, and shouting, a voice from within asked us who we were and what we wanted. A brief reply from my companion, not couched in the most polite or amiable terms, made the bolts rattle and the door open with surprising rapidity, and we saw before us an old man with long dishevelled hair, who, as far as appearance went, might have been one of the lunatics, bowing obsequiously ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... turning and glaring at this latest polite tormentor, "will you be good enough to remember that I am not extremely ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... 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 literally ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of Boston, advertises in 1767 to provide all who wish with wigs "in the most genteel and polite taste," assuring judges, divines, lawyers, and physicians, "because of the importance of their heads, that he can assort his wigs to suit their respective occupations and inclinations." He tells the ladies that he can furnish ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... approve of these sports of wit or fancy. Dr. Arbuthnot, in his Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, a topic extremely barren of amusement, takes every opportunity of enlivening the dulness of his task; even in these mathematical calculations he betrays his wit; and observes that "the polite Augustus, the emperor of the world, had neither any glass in his windows, nor a shirt to his back!" Those uses of glass and linen indeed were not known in his time. Our physician is not less curious and facetious in the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... for instance. She's a good woman and her pies have produced more deep religious satisfaction at the Methodist church socials than many a sermon. But St. Peter himself couldn't live on the same telephone line with her. She's polite and refined in any other way, but when she gets on a telephone line she's a hostile monopolist. Early in the morning she grabs it and holds it fiercely against all comers, while talking with her friends about the awful time she ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... It had worked—the Salariki—or these Salariki—were accepting them at their own valuation—a good omen for the day's business. Dane's spirits rose, but he schooled his features into a mask as wooden as his superior's. After all this was a very minor victory and they had ten or twelve hours of polite, and hidden, maneuvering ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... these are fewer than is sometimes taken for granted. But I think some fair defence may be made against the charge of vulgarity. Properly speaking, vulgarity is in the thought, and not in the word or the way of pronouncing it. Modern French, the most polite of languages, is barbarously vulgar if compared with the Latin out of which it has been corrupted, or even with Italian. There is a wider gap, and one implying greater boorishness, between ministerium and metier, or sapiens and sachant, than between druv and drove or agin and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... these calamities in the future, and as a means of restoring this unfortunate talker into his proper position in the ranks of modern polite and intelligent society, I have been led to search in my books for a cure of his fault, and I have discovered the following ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... "it is no great honour for a virtuous woman to refuse a man so ugly as you represent this secretary to have been. Had he been handsome and polite, her virtue would then have been clear. I think I know who he is, and, if it were my turn, I could tell you another story about him that ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... head, and flung himself from the bough, throwing his weight upon his wings; and these, beating the fleeting air, now here, now there, bearing about inquisitively, while his tail served as a rudder to steer him, he came to a gourd; then with a handsome bow and a few polite words, he obtained the required seeds, and carried them to the willow, who received him with a cheerful face. And when he had scraped away with his foot a small quantity of the earth near the willow, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... like her,—and I'll be polite to her, of course; but I know I shan't want her for an ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... till 2 A.M. on Friday. He was up again at six, left by the 7.15 train, reached Dundee at 10.30, and was worried by deputations till past twelve. Part of the Liberal party had accepted another candidate, and met him with a polite request that he would at once return to the place whence he came. He preferred to take a night's rest and postpone the question. On Saturday he again 'rushed hither and thither' all day; spoke to 2,000 people for nearly ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... conversation, for she gathered a little philosophy and charity from their cheering smile and arch twinkling, and she managed to listen civilly to her neighbour, while she saw that her cousin was being very polite to Mrs. Smithers. She was a great way from all other friends, for the table had been spread for a more numerous assembly, and the company sat in little clusters, with dreary gaps between, where moulds of jelly quaked in vain, and lobster-salads wasted their sweetness on the desert air. Her ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "That's polite," said the girl, indignantly. "After giving you your clothes, too. What do you think my uncle will say to me? He was going to keep you ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... of these tea-parties are exclusively for gentlemen, and their forms and ceremonies rank among the most refined usages of polite society. The customs of these gatherings are so peculiarly characteristic of the Japanese that few foreign observers have an opportunity of attending them. These are the tea-parties of a semi-literary or aesthetic character, and the ceremonious Cha-no-ya. In the first ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... got the crop cut, and they drawed up a list of things that he couldn't do, and then they goes to him, and says they: 'Sign this, yer Highness;' and he takes the paper and wipes his glasses on his hanky, and he reads them all over polite enough, and then he says, says he, handing it back: ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... cup, filled it with water at the little faucet, and, very politely, offered it to his sister first. Freddie was no better than most boys of his age, but he did not forget some of the little polite ways his mamma was continually teaching him. One of these was "ladies first," though Freddie did not always carry it out, especially when he was in ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... played for time, because every minute was of value to the real Feisul, speeding on his way to British territory. The French officer who did the talking for his side—a little squat, pale, pug-faced fellow, who gave the impression of having risen from the ranks without learning polite manners on the way, agreed to accept our surrender and spare our lives for the time being; and by that time the smell in the cave had nearly overcome our party, so ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... behind women drivers frequently. They drive carefully and well and are much kinder to their horses than the old, red-faced, brutal French cochers are. I like them. They have a wonderful command of language, not always entirely or even partially polite, but they are accommodating and less greedy for tips than ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... description had been introduced the night of the escape by a man celebrated, not indeed for robberies, or larcenies, or crimes of the coarser kind, but for address in all that more large and complex character which comes under the denomination of living upon one's wits, to a polite rendezvous frequented by persons of a similar profession. Since then, however, all clue of Philip was lost. But though Mr. Blackwell, in the way of his profession, was thus publicly benevolent towards the fugitive, he did not the less privately represent to his ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... free scope for his doctrine of Delicacy, one day remonstrating with a correspondent for "living in a place with the absurd, and worse, name of 'Marine Retreat'"; another, preaching that "a piano in a Quaker's drawing-room is a step for him to more humane life;" and again "liking and respecting polite tastes in a grandee," when Lord Ravensworth consulted him about Latin verses. "At present far too many of Lord Ravensworth's class are mere men of business, or mere farmers, or mere horse-racers, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... more striking passages of his speech. His delivery was far from animated, and his intonation was rather conversational than declamatory. He has a quiet dignity at all times, which is yet consistent with a polite and amiable demeanor; and while the former inspires the respect, the latter elicits the esteem of all ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... little too secure, and too much at home on these prairies, retired to a small grove of willows to amuse themselves with a social game of cards called "old sledge," which is as popular among these trampers of the prairies as whist or ecarte among the polite circles of the cities. From the midst of their sport they were suddenly roused by a discharge of firearms and a shrill war-whoop. Starting on their feet, and snatching up their rifles, they beheld in dismay their horses and mules already in possession of the enemy, who had stolen ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... literary influence, in a raw and crude nation, has been very great; but the defect of this standard is that it ends in utterly renouncing all the great traditions of literature, and ignoring the magnificent mystery of words. Human language may be polite and powerless in itself, uplifted with difficulty into expression by the high thoughts it utters, or it may in itself become so saturated with warm life and delicious association that every sentence shall palpitate and thrill with the mere fascination ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... arose she affectionately turned to the chair and said, "Thank you, dear chair, for making me so good." Having been declared "good" after sitting in the chair, she attributed the beneficent change in her behavior to the chair; and, being a polite little ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... get on better terms with her future mother-in-law met with no success. Lady Gertrude had presented an imperturbably polite and hostile front almost from the moment of the girl's arrival at the Hall. Even at dinner the first evening, she had cast a disapproving eye upon Nan's frock—a diaphanous little garment in black: with veiled gleams of hyacinth and gold beneath ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... very polite," replied Tuppence. "But I dare say you mean it all right. Well, there it is! I'm ready and willing—but I never meet any rich men! All the boys I know are about as hard up as ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... truly. [Aside.]—Your polite address does me too much honour, sir;—I cannot conceive how you can be my obliged slave, as I do not recollect I ever saw ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... hands with her in a paralytic manner, battering his brains for a reply to her polite commonplaces. Inwardly he was furious. He felt that he had been duped, tricked, infamously cheated of his legitimate desire; and he hated the woman as if she, poor soul, ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... explained that the form of government would be based upon the administration of the great corporations of America, which was his extremely polite method of informing them that the Chairman of the Board was the power, and the President was but the icing on ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... conclusion of the "Tale of a Tub," he says, "Among a very polite nation in Greece there were the same temples built and consecrated to Sleep and the Muses, between which two deities they believed the greatest friendship was established. He says he differs from other writers ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... material. Hers was a cumbrous beauty. She usurped rather than charmed. She trod upon hearts. She was earthly. She would have been as much astonished at being proved to have a soul in her bosom as wings on her back. She discoursed on Locke; she was polite; she was suspected ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... atrocious nature. In general, the best of simple words are believed to be such as sound loudest in exclamation, or sweetest in a pleasing strain. Modest words will ever be preferred to those that must offend a chaste ear, and no polite discourse ever makes allowance for a filthy or sordid expression. Magnificent, noble, and sublime words are to be estimated by their congruity with the subject; for what is magnificent in one place, swells into ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... shrugged his shoulders. "Has not the citizen of the country a right to spend his money? I have heard that the Major is polite. He must not be well to-day. Shall I ride on now? Ah, ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... very quiet and very polite, and Mrs. Cristie, who was opposite to him, though not at all quiet, was also very polite, but bestowed her attention almost entirely upon Mr. Tippengray, who sat beside her. The Greek scholar liked this, and his ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... noise from the cloisters, as a playground. He bore an unfortunate name—Ketch—and the boys, you may be very sure, did not fail to take advantage of it, joining to it sundry embellishments, more pointed than polite. ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of the two princes, who were well acquainted with the way) they quickly sailed to Colchis. When the king of the country, whose name was AEetes, heard of their arrival, he instantly summoned Jason to court. The king was a stern and cruel-looking potentate, and though he put on as polite and hospitable an expression as he could, Jason did not like his face a whit better than that of the wicked King Pelias, who ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... is unaccountably polite and helpful to his mother some day, and when asked about it replies that he simply wants to help—while his real motive may have been to score against his brother or sister, who is to some extent ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... little, and said little. But they were always extraordinarily polite and courteous to each other. They never neglected their prayers, even ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... retained the feathered end of the arrow-shaft, and he proceeded to examine it with an appearance of polite interest. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... cheat, deceive, and flatter? Who rarely speak the Meaning of their Hearts? Whose Tongues are full of Promises and Vows? Whose very Language is a downright Lie? Who swear and call on Gods when they mean nothing? Who call it complaisant, polite good Breeding, To say Ten thousand things they don't intend, And tell their nearest Friends the basest Falsehood? I know you cannot think me so perverse, Such Baseness dwells not in an Indian's Heart, And I'll convince you that ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... the latest, four; the meetings at coffee-houses; the book-sales; the visit to the London sights—the lions at the Tower, Bedlam, the tombs in Westminster Abbey, and the puppet-show; the terrible Mohocks, of whom Swift stood in so much fear; the polite "howdees" sent to friends by footmen; these and more are all described in the Journal. We read of curious habits and practices of fashionable ladies; of the snuff used by Mrs. Dingley and others; of the jokes—"bites," puns, and the like—indulged ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... cryed just as much when she was like Alice is. I wish I could see you becose I would like to ask you many questions about when I was a little girl. I am sure if I had a little sister like Alice I would try and be more polite than Peggy is, but Peggy says that families are all like that. Billy is awful. I do not think I like him very much. He says the queerest words and acts rude and rough. Tante would not like his manners at all. I am ashamed becose I do not ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... getting as much money as they can for as little as they can, to please me. Were the London girls to recognize that men do not like a tipsy woman, and that where there is so much competition the person who is most skillful and most polite gets the most custom, the alien invasion in Regent street would soon come ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... relative, LEOPOLD, couldn't get his blood up to accept the Spanish Crown. Well, as it turned out, the Duchess was right. Anyhow, she went for L., (a letter by the way, which few Englishman can pronounce in polite society,) and told him ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... refused to admit the Platypus, because it was of so many kinds; and at last Noah turned it out to swim for itself, because there was such a row. That's why the Platypus is so secluded. Ever since then no Platypus is friendly with any other creature, and no animal or bird is more than just polite to it. They couldn't be, you see, because of that trouble ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... lie to certain misconceptions—which is an extremely polite word—especially the one which holds that the various blocs or groups within a free country cannot forego their political and economic differences in time of crisis and work together toward ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... francs over and above Chesnel's remittance. As Cardot very carefully refrained from using his right of remonstrance, Victurnien now learned for the first time that he had overdrawn his account. He was the more offended by an extremely polite refusal to make any further advance, since it so happened that he had just lost six thousand francs at play at the club, and he could not very well show himself there until ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... 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 who ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... mother very well. When we were in England, we were a week with them down at their beautiful place in shire the loveliest time! You see, she was over here with Mr. Carleton once before, a good while ago; and mamma and papa were polite to them, and so they showed us a great deal of attention when we were in England. We had the loveliest time down there you can possibly conceive. And, my dear Fleda, he wears such a fur cloak! lined with the ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... all the crowd to a great shed of corrugated iron, and the rain began to fall in torrents. They stood there for some time and then were joined by Mr Davidson. He had been polite enough to the Macphails during the journey, but he had not his wife's sociability, and had spent much of his time reading. He was a silent, rather sullen man, and you felt that his affability was a duty that he imposed upon himself Christianly; ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... nation,—are entitled to a much higher place than they have yet assumed. We believe in this "good time coming," for working men and women,—when an atmosphere of intelligence shall pervade them—when they will prove themselves as enlightened, polite, and independent as the other classes of society; and, as the first and surest step towards this consummation, we counsel them to PROVIDE—to provide for the future as well as for the present—to provide, in times of youth and plenty, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... shall find that, after all, he took more real interest in Seth Peterson, and John Taylor, and Porter Wright, men connected with him in fishing and farming, than he did in the ambassadors of foreign states whom he met as Senator or as Secretary of State, or in all the members of the polite society of Washington, New York, and Boston. He was very near to Nature himself; and the nearer a man was to Nature, the more he esteemed him. Thus persons who superintended his farms and cattle, or who pulled an oar in his boat when he ventured out in search of cod and halibut, thought "Squire ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... by Syrians, is mostly in the hands of Dominicans. The stores are generally small, with a limited stock of goods; they have no show-windows, but are arranged on the style of bazars. Fixed prices are rare and most sales become negotiations with the polite shopkeeper. In the country it is customary for the storekeeper to make advances of merchandise to the smaller farmers until crop time; they then pay him in cacao, coffee, tobacco or other farm products, which he remits ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... wedding will take place in Brixton," said Barry, with an assumption of polite interest, and Owen coloured in spite ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... You will be poor, but not free. You will not gain the independence you seek for. The sight of a vacant, discontented face in that opposite chair will be worse than solitude. And as to grateful affection," added the man of the world, "it is a polite ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dear Praddy: you forget that I have to live with the governor. When two people live together—it don't matter whether theyre father and son or husband and wife or brother and sister—they can't keep up the polite humbug thats so easy for ten minutes on an afternoon call. Now the governor, who unites to many admirable domestic qualities the irresoluteness of a sheep and the pompousness and aggressiveness ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... is not polite, nor am I in a mood of politeness. I consider such phrases as the "progress of art," the "improvement of art" and "higher average of art" distinctly and harmfully misleading. I haven't the leisure just now ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... prompts him to the task. There is plenty of work to occupy his mind during the session of Parliament, and books enough to read and ponder over in the solitude of his chamber; and so long as he is alert and well prepared on every question of business to which his attention is called, affable and polite to persons with whom he is brought into official contact, gentle and generous to the poor and oppressed who appeal to him in person—and no one can deny that he is all this—why should he be blamed for preferring to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... think neither one of us was a great player. John was better than I, but I was the stronger in yon days, and I'd tak' a great swipe sometimes and pocket a' the balls. John was never quite sure whether I meant to mak' some o' the shots, but he was a polite laddie, and he'd no like to be accusing his faither o' just ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... we have an account of the behaviour of the Vespertilio-homo at meals. 'They seemed eminently happy, and even polite; for individuals would select large and bright specimens of fruit, and throw them archwise across to some friend who had extracted the nutriment from those scattered around him.' However, the lunar men are not on the whole particularly interesting beings according to this account. ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... accustomed to the world, or versed in diplomacy, would use some subterfuge, or would make a polite speech, or give a shrug of the shoulders, as the means of getting out of an embarrassing position, Lincoln raised a laugh by some bold west-country anecdote, and moved off in the cloud of merriment ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... Malesherbes, in order to roast onions in them. I don't know what he did not say to me in his passion. For my own part, naturally I got angry at hearing myself addressed in that insolent manner. It is surely the least a man can do to be polite with people in his service whom he does not pay. What the deuce! So I answered him that it was annoying, in truth, but that if the Territorial Bank paid me what it owed me, namely, four years' arrears ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... their "Thirst Dance." An Indian went to the bush and broke off a green bough, and carried it to the place arranged for the dance, and all the other Indians shot at it. Then the Indians got their squaws with them on horse-back; some thought it would not be polite if they did not invite the white women to help them also, and Mrs. Pritchard and another squaw came in and put Mrs. Delaney in one corner and covered her over, and me in another with a feather bed over me, so as not to find us. Then some said, "Oh, let the white women ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... do, most sagacious mariner," answered Lawrence, who had really comprehended the tenor of these remarks; they were of course made in much more broken English than has been used. "The priest may be an honest priest, as he is undoubtedly a most polite gentleman; and his ways may be good ways, in his own sight, though they are not my ways; but that he is not labouring for the good of the poor little fatherless child up there, I ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... here! You are going home to the north soon?" The polite query was in a tone which checked all his new impulses ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... wife noted that his words were not mere polite patter. Farrel's gravely courteous bearing, his respectful bow to Mrs. Parker and the solemnity with which he spoke impressed them with the conviction that this curious human study in light and shadow regarded their approval as an honor, not ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... counsellor that worshippeth persons of wisdom, is endued with learning, virtue, agreeable appearance, friends, sweet speech, and a good heart. Whether of low or high birth, he who doth not transgress the rules of polite intercourse, who hath an eye on virtue, who is endued with humility and modesty, is superior to a hundred persons of high birth. The friendship of those persons never cooleth, whose hearts, secret pursuits, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli |
