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Well-meant   /wɛl-mɛnt/   Listen
Well-meant

adjective
1.
Marked by good intentions though often producing unfortunate results.  Synonyms: well-intentioned, well-meaning.  "A well-meaning but tactless fellow" , "The son's well-meaning efforts threw a singular chill upon the father's admirers" , "Blunt but well-meant criticism"






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"Well-meant" Quotes from Famous Books



... we do in return for this well-meant kindness? Must we not endeavour to weed out those few errors, for few I hope they are, which impoverish a mind in itself apparently fertile and of high rank?—Yes, it instantly suggested itself to me as an indispensable act of duty—The attempt must be made—With ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... the house in Curzon Street in a sort of bewilderment of hope and happiness and gratitude. He would even try to accept Calabressa's well-meant counsel: why should he not be friends with everybody? The world had grown very beautiful; there was to be no more quarrelling in it, or envy, ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... quantity of well-meant attempt to enforce, sometimes motive, sometimes doctrine, by arguments drawn from mathematics, the proponents being persons unskilled in that science for the most part. The ground is very dangerous: for the illustration often turns the other way with greater power, in a manner ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... slender girlish figure with curious eyes. Nothing could have been more unexpected than this meeting with Marmaduke Lovel's daughter. He had done his best, in the first year or so of his residence at the Court, to cultivate friendly relations with Mr. Lovel, and had most completely failed in that well-meant attempt. Some men in Mr. Granger's position might have been piqued by this coldness. But Daniel Granger was not such a one; he was not given to undervalue the advantage of his friendship or patronage. A career of unbroken prosperity, and a character by nature self-contained ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... wrath arose in my throat and formed ugly words, Jupiter, a great friend of ours, who has had more comfortable meals in our kitchen during the winter than the careless kennel men would have wished to be known, sprang toward me with well-meant, if rough, caresses,—evidently the few scratches he had amounted to nothing. I forgave him the cat cheerfully, but my poor carnations! They do not belong to the grovelling tribe of herbs that bend and refuse to break like portulaca, chickweed, and pusley ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... Washington, in his reply, said that he needed no proofs of Jefferson's fidelity to the Constitution, and reiterated his earnest desire for an accommodation of all differences. "I will frankly and solemnly declare," he said, "that I believe the views of both of you to be pure and well-meant, and that experience only will decide with respect to the salutariness of the measures which are the subjects of dispute.... I could, and indeed was about to, add more on this interesting subject, but will forbear, at least for the present, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... boy, into a divided and disaffected court—a court, too, that was subjected to the closest espionage on the part of a people already deeply incensed and irritated by the scandal and debauchery of the nobility, and utterly insensible to the king's well-meant efforts to institute a ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... Christianity is sometimes preached at the present day in India, in response to these well-meant but dangerous promptings, may possibly lead to the disastrous result of the incorporation of a kind of false Christ into Hinduism. Our Lord is greatly admired by a large number of intelligent Hindus. The Bible is often quoted by public speakers to ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... to be friendly with such spoiled horses. I remember a very violent animal in Pretoria which showed resentment in this respect by rushing at me after I had dismounted, simply because I endeavoured to pat and say a kind word to him. I have no doubt that he would have accepted my well-meant advances if we had had time to mutually understand each other. A show jumper named Mons Meg was so terrified of the man who used to ride her that, on hearing his voice, even from a distance, she would break ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... her children, in the failure to secure the promised subsidy for her mulberry plantations, was the income of the old archdeacon, who was now confined to his room, and growing feebler every day under attacks of gout. Unfortunately, Joseph's well-meant efforts ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... larger class of our people are inclined to go to the opposite extreme, and ignore veneration, in its human aspect, altogether. They have no reverence for anybody or anything. This class of people will read our book, and, we trust, profit by its well-meant hints. We respect them, though we can not always commend their manners. They have independence and manliness, but fail to accord due respect to the manhood of others. It is for their special benefit that we leave ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells

... occasional snatches of the talk. Presently she rose; softly entered the house and listened at a closed door on the northward side—Captain Wren's own room. An hour previous, tortured between his own thoughts and her well-meant, but unwelcome efforts to cheer him, he had begged to be left alone, and had closed ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... and Lady Bona, heare me speake, Before you answer Warwicke. His demand Springs not from Edwards well-meant honest Loue, But from Deceit, bred by Necessitie: For how can Tyrants safely gouerne home, Vnlesse abroad they purchase great allyance? To proue him Tyrant, this reason may suffice, That Henry liueth still: but were hee dead, Yet ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... Petulengro, who was by this time somewhat the worse for liquor, now fell into a passion, swore several oaths, and asking me who had made me a Moses over him and his brethren, told me to return to the encampment by myself. Incensed at the unworthy return which my well-meant words had received, I forthwith left the house, and having purchased a few articles of provision, I set out for the dingle alone. It was a dark night when I reached it, and descending I saw the glimmer of a fire from the depths of the dingle; my heart ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... spirit. I was here but a very short time when I began to doze, and just as my chin was sinking placidly on my breast, and the words of an Ave Maria dying upon my lips, I felt the charm all at once broken by a well-meant rap upon the occiput, conferred through the instrumentality of a little angry-looking squat urchin of sixty years, and a remarkably good black-thorn cudgel, with which he was engaged in thwacking the heads of such sinners, as, not having the dread of insanity and the regulations of ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... well-meant solicitude, however, Win's vitality was at an exceedingly low ebb toward five o'clock in the afternoon of the third day. There had been no time to go out for an alleged luncheon and a breath of fresh air. She had eaten nothing since her breakfast of hot chocolate at ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... the unjust censures, as they are undesirous of the applause of man. Their aim is, the good of their fellow-creatures,—their reward, the pleasure of doing good, and the approbation of Him who is goodness itself. That their well-meant and praiseworthy exertions are not more successful can only be accounted for by the awfully depraved affections which habitual vice produces; when every principle of action, which should be subservient to virtue, becomes ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... stand for the French phrase, "Pour prendre conge"—to take leave. Such cards are sent when one is to be absent from home for a considerable period. They are left to be mailed after departure. Thus the intending traveler is not incommoded by well-meant but ill-timed calls at an hour when she is most busy. "P. p. c." cards intimate the acquaintance is to be resumed on the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... Walpole, good-naturedly considering that it was no "grave crime in a young bard to have forged false notes of hand that were to pass current only in the parish of Parnassus," wrote his ingenious correspondent a letter of well-meant advice, counseling him to stick to his profession, and saying that he "had communicated his transcripts to much better judges, and that they were by no means satisfied with the authenticity of his supposed manuscripts." Chatterton then wrote for ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... constitution was generally regarded as the death-blow to Polish independence.[80] Whether he added these words to please Grenville, who had always discouraged the Polish cause,[81] is not easy to say; but the statement cannot be reconciled with Hailes's earlier enthusiasm for that well-meant effort. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... a revolutionist in politics and an infidel in religion, and he arrived conscientiously at the conclusion that it was his bounden duty to summon the lord of the manor to hear sound views enunciated in the parish church. Sir Felix fiercely resented the clergyman's well-meant but ill-directed interference, insulting him so grossly and so publicly, that the families in the neighbourhood sent letters of indignant remonstrance to the Park, and even the tenants of the Blackwater property expressed their opinion as strongly as they ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... of the dear familiar figure, so little changed, must have afforded a brief reprieve, and lent a sense of almost glad incredulity to the distress which had gone before. But the well-meant whisper of one of the attendants of "Ein sanftes ende" destroyed the passing illusion. "Seeing that my presence did not disturb her," the Queen wrote afterwards, "I knelt before her, kissed her dear hand and placed it next my cheek; but though ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... not to stir up angry opposition in those who do not accept it. There is commonly an anxious look about a first Preface. The author thinks he shall be misapprehended about this or that matter, that his well-meant expressions will probably be invidiously interpreted by those whom he looks upon as prejudiced critics, and if he deals with living questions that he will be attacked as a destructive by the conservatives and reproached for his timidity ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... thus I feel this parting, But thy course must onward lead; Take my blessing, song, on starting, And the cat's well-meant good speed! The green Rhine, the Schwarzwald breezes, Bring with them health, peace, and rest; Such a merry fellow pleases, And ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... But, alas! these well-meant words were of no avail. On a beautiful spring day, when all the world seemed to be holding him to the joys of living, Peter passed quietly away in his little truckle bed, unattended even by a doctor, whose fees would have necessitated a loan ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... In this involuntary flight the little creature unfortunately struck the tent-pole with considerable force, and half of his tail was broken off—a matter of no very great importance to a lizard, perhaps, but still a discouraging reward for a well-meant warning. Notwithstanding this the little reptile returned to the bed, keeping close to his master, but he continued to be very restless and excited for the remainder of ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... dear sir, to convey to General Music-Director Lachner my best thanks for his well-meant sentiments towards me, and I remain, with high esteem, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... an anthropomorphic god of enormous procreative power and innumerable amours, a religion so modified has received a death-blow. The step that was meant to soften its grossness has resulted in its moral degradation. This result was intensified by another well-meant effort at elevation. The leading tribes of central Greece were, as we have mentioned, apt to count their descent from some heroine-ancestress. Her consort was sometimes unknown and, in a matrilinear society, unimportant. Sometimes he was a ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... have been set off against Grettir's outlawry, and he would have become a freeman, had not Thorir of Garth, the father of the men he had accidentally killed in the burning house, refused; and so the well-meant efforts of Grettir's kin ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... Foiled in his well-meant attempt, Sir John then consulted the Colonial Office. Into that {88} department a new spirit had come with the arrival in 1846 of Lord Grey, who replied with a dispatch in which the principles of Responsible Government were laid down in the clearest terms, while at the same ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant

... impertinent interference with the rights of the individual. But those who hold to this view seldom have the courage of their convictions. When they see suffering, they are very likely to interfere by sending help, though this well-meant interference, unaccompanied by personal knowledge of all the circumstances, often does more harm than good, and becomes a temptation rather than a help. We must interfere when confronted by human suffering and need. ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond

... his seat for more leisurely inspection later on. He had to smile to think of the patience, the ingenuity and the eccentric operation of the well-meant project of his young inventor friend. The bellows principle of increasing the furnace draft might have been harmless in a stationary engine. Even on the locomotive it had shown some added suction power while the locomotive was going ahead, but the moment the furnace door ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman

... Konig, his well-meant visit to Berlin proving so futile, had left Maupertuis in the humor we saw;—pirouetting round his Apartment, in tempests of rage at such contradiction of sinners on his sublime Law of Thrift; and fulminating permission to Konig: 'No time to read your Paper of Contradictions; publish it ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... all pleasant in the neighborhood. We'd fall into the hands of the Japanese or the English. As a matter of fact, we again had great luck. On the day before a Japanese warship had been cruising around here. Naturally, I rejected all the well-meant and kindly advice, and did this in the presence of my lieutenants. I demanded provisions, water, sails, tackle, and clothing. They replied we could take on board everything which we had formerly had on board, but nothing which would mean ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... complaints against you?" "I have not beaten her, but just because she looked so strange I wanted to comb her hair with my hand; she, however, got away from me, and left me quite spitefully. Then I hurried after her, and in order to bring her back to her duty, I threw at her as a well-meant admonition whatever came readily to hand. I have shared joy and sorrow with her also, for whenever I hit her I was full of joy, and she of sorrow, and if I missed her, then she was joyful, and I sorry." The judges ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... Lord Dreever in the rose-garden. This, however, was not the case. The woman incapable of seeing through the machinations of two men of the mental caliber of Sir Thomas Blunt and Mr. McEachern has yet to be born. For some considerable time, Molly had been alive to the well-meant plottings of that worthy pair, and had derived little pleasure from the fact. It may be that woman loves to be pursued; but she does not love to be pursued ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... years of life on the soil of Cheverley, the people tolerated in "the ould squire" many things that they would not have passed over in a younger man or a stranger. They shrugged their shoulders and gave way to his well-meant tyranny, for man and boy, everybody on the estate had experienced his kindness and realized his good intentions towards ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil

... abandoned all hope; and her brother could not find a single word to say by way of encouragement. In the presence of these poor, unhappy creatures, the professor realized the utter futility of any well-meant attempt at consolation. Hulda and Joel crossed the threshold only to stand and gaze in the direction of Moel, or to walk up the road leading to Rjukanfos. Ole Kamp would probably come by the way of Bergen, but he might come by way of Christiania if the destination of the "Viking" had been ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne

... fellow prisoners was particularly communicative and obliging, and gave me a great deal of well-meant advice, no doubt, as to how I might live at the public expense outside the prison walls, as well as explanations in every department of crime. I remember the following dialogue taking place between us, which ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... Science may be well-meant, but it is always an error. It may even make a ludicrous impression, which is a very dangerous thing for the authority of religion. If a church has established schools, it must see to it that all which is there taught outside of the religious instruction, i.e. all ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... dignity). I am willing to make great allowances for your state of mind, PODBURY, but such an expression as—as jabber, applied to my—er—well-meant attempts at consolation, and just as I was about to propose an arrangement—really, it's too much! The moment we reach the hotel, I will relieve you from any further infliction from (bitterly) what you are pleased to call ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 20, 1892 • Various

... reform. Russia and England remonstrated at this measure, and war was declared. The Turkish army was defeated and driven across the Danube. The Janissaries, ignorantly attributing their defeat to Selim's reforms in military discipline, rose in rebellion. The well-meant but too mild sultan fell a victim to their violence, and was succeeded by Mustapha, who had instigated the insurgents to revolt. His short reign is signalized by the vigorous measures he took to destroy Selim's reforms. Shortly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... out for glass, nails, and the country mechanic,—of the three, the mechanic can do the largest amount of damage in a given time. His well-meant efforts may wreck you; his mistakes are sure to. The average mechanic along the route is a veritable bull in a china shop,—once inside your machine, and you are done for. He knows it all, and more too. He once lived next ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... its sequester'd dell, A shade upon me fell. Dead Millicent indeed had been most sweet, But I how little meet To call such graces in a Maiden mine! A boy's proud passion free affection blunts; His well-meant flatteries oft are blind affronts, And many a tear Was Millicent's before I, manlier, knew That maidens shine As diamonds do, Which, though most clear, Are not to be seen through; And, if she put her virgin self aside And ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... He received occasional commendation, it is true, from his superiors, but to counterbalance it he continued to have many a rebuke thrown at him during the year he and Nat toiled together tanning hides. The newness of the work combined with a score of well-meant blunders placed Peter Strong on entirely equal footing with other workmen, and quite as liable to correction. Even had these conditions been otherwise the memory of the lazy little snob who was a great disappointment to his father would have served to crush in the lad ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... word, they tried to treat him like a son; and so forceful and constant were their efforts in this direction that he sometimes wished their well-meant attentions were less formidable. The easy American "forget it," "why bother," "never again," were expressions of a mood unfamiliar to them. They visibly had small patience with such slackness which only, to their minds, ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... an equally unappetising bill-of-fare, in which Ireland figured appropriately as the piece de resistance. Sir JOHN REES' well-meant endeavour to furnish some lighter refreshment by an allusion to the Nauru islanders' habit of "broiling their brothers for breakfast" fell a little flat. The latest news from Belfast suggests that in the expression ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various

... turned toward her, and began to ask well-meant questions and to give pompous encouragement to the new player. No reference was made to that other time when she had visited the Palace. A servant poured for each of the three a glass of wine. His Excellency graciously desired ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... in nearly every office. We are most of us endeavouring to rearrange the mechanism in other heads than our own. This is always dangerous and generally futile. Considering the difficulty we have in our own brains, where our efforts are sure of being accepted as well-meant, and where we have at any rate a rough notion of the machine's construction, our intrepidity in adventuring among the delicate adjustments of other brains is remarkable. We are cursed by too much of the missionary ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett

... Notwithstanding these well-meant hints, the gauger made his way across the hills to Stokoe's house. He was alone, but then he was a powerful man, well armed and brave enough, and never in all his experience had a bold front, backed ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... ever kind and good-natured, though I could smile sometimes at his hearty and well-meant patronage. Patronage! it was rather wholesale "backing" of his friends. Thus, one morning he addressed me with momentous solemnity, "My dear fellow, I have been thinking about you for a long time, and I have come to this conclusion: you must write a comedy. ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

... emotions of love—that of a father and an uncle, a teacher and an admirer. Effi was affected by all these attentions and wrote to Hohen-Cremmen about them so often that her mother began to tease her about her "love for the alchymist." But this well-meant teasing failed of its purpose; it was almost painful to her, in fact, because it made her conscious, even though but dimly, of what was really lacking in her married life, viz., outspoken admiration, helpful ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... tell the colonel that his well-meant postponement of the sad news was wasted effort. He ventured awkwardly to comment upon the death of ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... which her brother and sister had always accorded her had fitted her but poorly to cope with the trials of her new life. True, Mrs. Fair was an unpleasant woman to live with, but if Emily had chosen to be more patient under petty insults, and less resentful of her husband's well-meant though clumsy efforts for harmony, the older woman could have effected real little mischief. But this Emily refused to be, and the breach between husband and wife ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... it outraged or left unsatisfied. Even before heresy burst forth this religious restlessness found vent in many directions. It endowed Christianity with several beautiful but insidious gifts, several incongruous though well-meant forms of expression. Among these we may count Gothic art, chivalrous sentiment, and even scholastic philosophy. These things came, as we know, ostensibly to serve Christianity, which has learned to regard them as its own emanations. But in truth they barbarised ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... the enemy were immediately turned; they retreated in confusion, amid the laughter of all France; and a quiet, dignified statement as to the rights of scientific instructors by Wurtz, dean of the faculty, completed their discomfiture. Thus a well-meant attempt to check science simply ended in bringing ridicule on religion, and in thrusting still deeper into the minds of thousands of men that most mistaken of all mistaken ideas: the conviction that religion and ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... government should be the good of the people—but considered that it could only be carried out for the people, not by them. The weakness of the principle consisted in the difficulty of securing a heritable succession of capable benevolence, and the collapse of Prussia at Jena and of Joseph II's well-meant but unreflective reforms led, in the nineteenth century, to the triumph of the principle first enunciated in America and carried out in France—of government for the people by the people. The transition to the next stage, from religious toleration to religious liberty, is marked, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... not allow this well-meant warning to influence him, nor did he listen to the admonitions of those other Cubans who tried to argue him out of his purpose, once it became generally known. On the contrary, he proceeded with his preparations and spent that afternoon in satisfying himself that ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... very day on which he stole your wife I was awaiting him with five thousand falcons, and waged a fearful battle with him. Blood flowed knee-deep around us, yet we could not prevail against him. And how shall you, a single man, overmaster him? So I give you this well-meant advice: Go back home. So much of my treasure as your heart desires is yours; take it ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... in its principle was not unwise; but, like most other of his well-meant designs, it failed in his hands. It failed partly from mere ill fortune, to which speculators are rarely pleased to assign that very large share to which she is justly entitled in human affairs. The failure, perhaps, in part was owing to his suffering his system to be vitiated and ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... The well-meant effort of the boatswain to pacify the culprit was a failure, and Peaks, going on deck, delivered the key of the brig to Mr. Lowington. Shuffles kicked against the partition till he was tired ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... no crowds of idle admiring disciples about him, but followed what his conscience dictated. He listened not to the counsel of his relatives and friends, who thought he had gone mad; and he bore in patience the well-meant but harsh rebukes of his second wife. After a long mental struggle, the agonies of which he has recorded in heart-rending words, now entreating God in the tenderest of terms, now resigning himself to despair, ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... estrangement which had been growing for some years. According to a rather nebulous story, for which Johnson is the popular authority, Addison, or Addison's lawyer, put an execution for L. 100 in Steele's house by way of reading his friend a lesson on his extravagance. This well-meant interference seems to have been pardoned by Steele, but his letters show that he resented the favour shown to Tickell by Addison and his own neglect by the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... what he could to soften the proceedings. Jean de la Fontaine, too, was a milder man than her former questioners, and in so small an assembly she could not be disturbed and interrupted by Frere Isambard's well-meant signs and whispers. She speaks at length and with a self-disclosure which seems to have little that was painful in it, like one matured into a kind of age by long weariness and trouble, who regards ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... up his courage and told her warily, that though it was well-meant of her, and "'tis you have the kind warm heart, Bridget me dear," still, ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... London journals well-meant but injudicious paragraphs saying that we have a grievance against the New York managers because they have played our pieces and have offered us no share of the profits. [Laughter.] We have no grievance whatever. Our only complaint ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... was arranged that I should retire gracefully and recommend my official successor to my American friends in a short speech. This I did with perfect good-will. But the Foreign Office, though they did not reckon without their host, had reckoned without his guests. When the concrete proposal (well-meant, I am sure) was made in all its glorious navet in a little speech by the new host, it was received with something like annoyance—a fact which worried me not a little, for I had, rather unwisely ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... young lady," he said tentatively, awed in spite of himself by the self-possessed behavior of a maid whom up to now he had regarded as a mere child, "let me, as a man of vast experience in such matters, repeat to you the well-meant ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... the summer-house, and suggested suitable employments for their idle hands and brains. "Never waste a precious minute" was her motto, and the girls groaned under it. Healthy hobbies were all very well, but to be urged to ride them in season and out of season was distinctly trying. One well-meant effort on Miss Gibbs's part met with particular disapproval. She had decided to take the girls on Saturday afternoons to visit various old castles, Roman camps, and other objects of historical and archaeological interest in the neighbourhood. On former similar occasions she ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... wish that you could do so," the colonel said. "Poor fellow! he has paid dearly indeed for his well-meant though rash attempt to seize Faulkner's murderer. I shall have finished my business in two or three minutes, and shall be glad if you will stop to ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... village was traversed; then, through a mist of them, she saw a hand stretched to meet her own and heard a voice which rang kindly on her ears. It was Sally Trevennick, who faced the spiteful laughter without flinching and said a few loud, friendly words, though indeed her well-meant support brought scant comfort ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... shifted from the East Side, there has come over there an epidemic of child crime of meaner sort, but following the same principle of gang organization. It is difficult to ascertain the exact extent of it, because of the well-meant but, I am inclined to think, mistaken effort on the part oL the children's societies to suppress the record of it for the sake of the boy. Enough testimony comes from the police and the courts, however, to make it clear that thieving is largely on the increase among ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... was superfluous, for the "Eolus" went nowhere else except to Newport; but it was well-meant, for the Captain thought that Candace seemed lonely and ill at ease, and he ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... they have entered their teens she lives in daily expectation of trouble. This leads to many questions. If the girl is of a sensitive nature, timidity keeps her from answering truthfully, and this well-meant course has a tendency to drive her from maternal counsels. Presently, in came my mistress, like a mad woman, and accused me concerning her husband. My grandmother, whose suspicions had been previously awakened, believed what she said. She exclaimed, "O Linda! Has it come ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... attraction to strangers and townspeople. I found instead an unsightly wilderness, without shade (the first requirement of every tropical garden) or other beauties than some isolated grand trees, which had survived the indiscriminate destruction of the useful and ornamental which had attended the well-meant but ill-judged attempt to render a garden a botanical class-book. It is impossible to praise too highly Dr. Griffith's abilities and acquirements as a botanist, his perseverance and success as a traveller, or his matchless industry in the field and in the closet; and it is not wonderful, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... future success of the school upon their youthful shoulders, and it gave them huge satisfaction to think that so much depended upon them. They practised cricket quite diligently, and made even the youngest observe the rules, and they bandaged one another's arms and legs in well-meant efforts at ambulance work. Their ambition soared as high as a debating society, where they evidently allowed full freedom of speech on popular topics, for Mavis, by mistake getting hold of one of their secret notices, ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil

... when a small man came on in the character of Hector, they cried out with one voice: 'Here is Astyanax; and where is Hector?' On another occasion, an exceedingly tall man was taking the part of Capaneus scaling the walls of Thebes; 'Step over' suggested the audience; 'you need no ladder.' The well-meant activity of a fat and heavy dancer was met with earnest entreaties to 'spare the platform'; while a thin performer was recommended to 'take care of his health.' I mention these criticisms, not on account of their ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... amusement the incredulous and obstinate resistance of the clerk to my insistence on paying my way. I hope that the genial proprietors do not attribute the asterisk that I gave the hotel to their well-meant efforts to give me quid pro quo, but credit me with a totally unbiassed admiration for their good ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... he was an exceedingly rich man, he only regarded the matter as one of the casual losses incurred in business. But his old friend's losses troubled him deeply, and he resolved to do everything in his power to repair the effects of his well-meant, but unfortunate, advice. ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... a practical temperance example by pouring the liquor into the sink, but had not offended Green by declining his well-meant offerings. ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman

... have been made of late years to defend the King against the odium heaped upon him by the older historians. But these well-meant efforts to prove him less black than tradition painted him are answered by the fact that his memory was thoroughly hated by those who knew him best. No one of the age when he lived thought of vindicating ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... at talking, and I always seem to say wrong things when I do talk. I'm sorry if my well-meant words don't suit your taste, but I thought you came ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse

... bowsprit of a schooner, then broke one of the piles of the wharf to pieces, crushing her fender to atoms at the same time. Some persons on the pier, compassionating our helplessness, attempted to stave the ship off with long poles, but this well-meant attempt failed, as did several others, until some one suggested to the captain the very simple expedient of working the engines, when the steamer moved slowly away, smashing the bulwarks of a new brig, and soon in the dark and murky atmosphere the few lights of ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... Fred and his mother were very anxious to draw Yaspard within the circle of their best affections, but they knew they must be careful not to touch Mr. Adiesen's weak points in extending the hand of friendship to his nephew. He would, as likely as not, resent their well-meant intentions if they invited the boy to their house, but a picnic under Dr. Holtum's auspices to the neighbourhood ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby

... haste to assume the offhand air I thought most likely to overcome her apprehension. But the effect of the blank walls before her, relieved, but in no reassuring way, by the long dark folds of the rugs hanging straight down over the mysterious partition, held its own against my well-meant efforts, and I was not surprised to hear her voice falter as she asked what I expected to ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... parasol at this burst of candor; but her independent nature prompted her to make a fair beginning, in spite of Aunt Pen's polite fictions and well-meant plans. ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... already come to such a pass, that even well-meant and judicious changes, if not immediately carried out, no longer gave satisfaction. A wild zeal for innovation also found vent in frequent brutish expressions and disorderly scenes. If unpopular ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... and fro in well-meant but futile efforts to reassure the children. Evan seized him and planted him at one of ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... paid to their individuality, their likes and dislikes, and if their needs were too often left until the needs of everybody else had been considered,—on the other hand, they were not surfeited with well-meant but ill-directed attentions. If the hay was thrown so high in the rack that they could not pluck a single straw without stretching up for it, why, the hay was generally worth stretching for, and was, perhaps, quite as healthful ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... complacent, good-humored. warm-hearted, kind-hearted, tender-hearted, large-hearted, broad- hearted; merciful &c. 914; charitable, beneficent, humane, benignant; bounteous, bountiful. good-natured, well-natured; spleenless[obs3]; sympathizing, sympathetic; complaisant &c. (courteous) 894; well-meant, well-intentioned. fatherly, motherly, brotherly, sisterly; paternal, maternal, fraternal; sororal[obs3]; friendly &c. 888. Adv. with a good intention, with the best intentions. Int. Godspeed! much good may it do! Phr. " act a charity ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... recovery of his kingdom, he was accompanied thither by the Earl. There he took part in the siege of Londonderry and in other engagements, and as an expression of gratitude James created him Marquis of Seaforth, under which title he repeatedly appears in various legal documents. This well-meant and deserved honour, however, came too late in the falling fortunes and declining powers of the ex-King, and does little more than mark his Royal confirmation of the steady adherence of the chiefs of Kintail to the cause of the ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... you know, is dead." Only those who have felt how strong the ties of kindred are, as they decrease in number, can tell how this news fell upon my heart. All my poor uncle's kindnesses came one by one full upon my memory; his affectionate letters of advice; his well-meant chidings, too, even dearer to me than his praise and approval, completely unmanned me; and I stood speechless and powerless before my cousin as he continued to detail to me the rapid progress of Sir Guy's malady, and attack of gout in the head, which carried ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... as a right, not yielded as a concession. As the friend of the negro assumes that one man cannot by right hold another in bondage, so should the friend of Woman assume that Man cannot by right lay even well-meant restrictions on Woman. If the negro be a soul, if the woman be a soul, apparelled in flesh, to one Master only are they accountable. There is but one law for souls, and, if there is to be an interpreter of ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... nomination from Franklin of some "honest and responsible" man in Philadelphia. Franklin readily named a trustworthy merchant of his acquaintance, Mr. Hughes. The Stamp Act itself hardly turned out a greater blunder for Grenville than this well-meant suggestion was near turning out for Franklin. When the Philadelphians got news of the passage of the act, the preparations for its enforcement, the nomination of Mr. Hughes, and the fact that he had been suggested by Franklin, the whole city rose in a wild frenzy of rage. Never was such a ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... charged with the duty of not only learning how to use the new machine guns but to keep guard over the quays and prevent rioting by the turbulent Russian sailors. Their undying enmity had been earned by the well-meant but untactful, yes, to the sailors apparently treacherous, conduct of General Poole toward them on the Russian ships in the Murmansk when he got them off on a pretext and then seized the ships to prevent their falling into the hands of the Red Guards. And while the doughboys on the ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... In contemplating the events of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in their influence on English civilisation, we are reminded once more of the futility of certain modern aspirations. No amount of University Commissions, nor of well-meant reforms, will change the nature of Englishmen. It is impossible, by distributions of University prizes and professorships, to attract into the career of letters that proportion of industry and ingenuity which, in Germany for example, is devoted ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang

... pounds that are yearly wasted in well-meant but useless charity accomplish no lasting good, because while charity soothes the symptoms it ignores the disease, which is—the PRIVATE OWNERSHIP of the means of producing the necessaries of life, and the restriction of production, by a few selfish individuals ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... been quite well for some days past, and poor old Jup annoys me, almost beyond endurance, by his well-meant attentions. Would you believe it?—he had prepared a huge stick, the other day, with which to chastise me for giving him the slip, and spending the day, solus, among the hills on the mainland. I verily believe that my ill looks ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... and turned to meet a perfect shower of offers, all of which he accepted smilingly. And I—oh, I was sick to sit there without a penny laid to show my loyalty to Sir Peter. But it must be so, and I bit my lip and strove to smile and parry with a jest the well-meant offers which now and then came flying my way. But O'Neil and Harkness backed the Flatbush birds right loyally, cautioned by Sir Peter, who begged that they wait; but they would not—and one was Irish—so nothing would do but a bold front and an officer ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... the sale without an escort? She had not given it a thought. Surely one might go about a matter of business without a gentleman's escort? The Fremont girls did so. That it might be improper had not occurred to her, and it vexed her to be reminded of it by Hugh, so his well-meant offer failed ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... attention of his hearers, till he happened to notice that they all had their eyes fixed in a diabolical squint. Something of the same kind would, we fear, be the effect on a large number of persons of well-meant expositions of the English civil-service reform and its admirable results. Nor will any appeals to the moral sense excite an indignation at the workings of our present system sufficiently deep and general to demand its overthrow. Civil-service reform ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... in the wild Bacchanalian revels. Anxious to save him from the consequences of his impiety, Dionysus appeared to him under the form of a youth in the king's train, and earnestly warned him to desist from his denunciations. But the well-meant admonition failed in its purpose, for Pentheus only became more incensed at this interference, and, commanding Dionysus to be cast into prison, caused the most cruel preparations to be made for his ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... a touch of Gaelic courtesy to an elder, well-meant, pardonable; it visibly pleased the old gentleman to whom it was addressed, and he looked more in admiration than before upon this ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... death it was postponed for three months. Before two weeks had elapsed, however, Mr. Hempstead was, in the poetic language of the journals, "sleeping beneath the coral wave," and poor Ida received as many well-meant condolences over his death as over ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... 27th.—The Lords rejected the Health Resorts and Watering Places Bill under which local authorities could have raised a penny rate for advertising purposes. Lord SOUTHWARK'S well-meant endeavour to support the Bill by reminding the House that Irish local authorities had enjoyed this power since 1909 was perhaps the proximate cause of its defeat, for it can hardly be said that the last few weeks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various

... twenty letters a day,—most of which letters were not only of a strongly incendiary nature, but expressed a wholly false conception of his political position and desires. He was being inundated by indiscriminate praise and abuse. There were reams of well-meant advice and quires of threats ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... an insult to the reader's comprehension, if I were to enter into an elaborate explanation of the effect this letter had upon Mr. Bultitude. He took it in by degrees, trying to steady his nerves at each additional item of poor Barbara's well-meant intelligence by a sip at his tin-flavoured coffee. But when he came to the postscript, in spite of its purport being mercifully broken to him gradually by the extreme difficulty of making it out from two undercurrents ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... suppress my griefs I've tried, And kept within its banks the swelling tide! But all in vain: unbidden numbers flow; Spite of myself my sorrows vocal grow. This be my plea.—Nor thou, dear Shade, refuse The well-meant tribute of the willing muse, Who trembles at the greatness of its theme, And fain would say what suits so high a name. Which, from the crowded journal of thy fame,— Which of thy many titles shall I name? 10 For, like a gallant prince, that ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... his cabin and read the book a second time; he underlined passages in red and blue, and when the dawn broke, he took "A well-meant little ablative on the play A Doll's House, written by the old Pal on board the Vanadis in the Atlantic off Bordeaux. (Lat. 45 ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... George, and slid into a seat at the back of the house, so as to be out of the way when the fighting started. Presently George hopped down off the stage and came and joined me, and fairly soon after that the curtain went down. The chappie at the piano whacked out a well-meant bar or two, and the ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... at him quietly with the faintest flicker of a smile. "Ah, I won't offend you again, my dear fellow. I'm afraid that I'm a bit too impulsive, and that you are too proud a man even to listen to a well-meant and kindly suggestion ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke

... poetess L1. Gibson writes me that L2300 is offered for the poor house; it is worth L300 more, but I will not oppose my own opinion, or convenience to good and well-meant counsel: so farewell, poor No. 39. What a portion of my life has been spent there! It has sheltered me from the prime of life to its decline; and now I must bid good-bye to it. I have bid good-bye to my poor wife, so long its courteous and kind ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... the very real misery—for any doubt of her own qualities, any fear of her ability to carry herself well in any situation, are among the most acute of a proud woman's miseries—which for some twenty-four hours was brought upon Maggie by the well-meant intrigue of which he was pulling the hidden strings, he might, because of his love for Maggie, have discarded his design even while he was creating it, and have sought a measure pregnant with less distress. But perhaps it was just as well that Larry ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... into a forced and therefore probably unfortunate marriage with her. That is to say that sexual relationships were, by the ecclesiastical traditions, placed on a pecuniary basis, on the same level as prostitution. By its well-meant intentions to support the theological morality which had developed on an ascetic basis, the Church was thus really undermining even that form of sexual ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... fault in Wagner? Who shall say? If it was, it was a fault which he shared with every earnest reformer who is not content with preaching, but enforces his precepts with action. Reform is no plaything; it cannot be achieved by listening to the well-meant advice of friends who know no higher goal than personal success, who have no glimmering of the motives that impel a great soul, who would fain tell the thunderbolt where it shall strike. Every great ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight

... a woman lets her lover see that she has the generosity to approve of and reward a well-meant service; that she has a mind that lifts her above the little captious follies, which some (too licentiously, I hope,) attribute to the sex in general: that she resents not (if ever she thinks she has reason to be displeased) with petulance, or through pride: nor thinks it necessary to insist upon ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... to their gardens and provide themselves with either a single flower, or rosemary, with which they would await us in the street and offer them as we passed by. Throughout Cyprus we have received similar well-meant attention, and the simplicity and delicacy of the offering contrasts in an anomalous manner with the dirty habits and appearance of the people. Even Georgi's pretty wife was untidy about the hair, although she was in her best attire; and a close ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... personally, for I know nothing. On that subject, as on several others, I profess myself an agnostic. But, if he is, as he may be, a saint actuated by the purest of motives, he is not the first saint who, as you have said, has shown himself "in the ardour of prosecuting a well-meant object" to be capable of overlooking "the plain maxims of every-day morality." If I were a Salvationist soldier, I should cry with Othello, "Cassio, I love thee; but never more be ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... into which they flowered; one of these latter in especial arriving at the highest intensity. Putting vividly before one the perfect system on which the awkward age is handled in most other European societies, it threw again into relief the inveterate English trick of the so morally well-meant and so intellectually helpless compromise. We live notoriously, as I suppose every age lives, in an "epoch of transition"; but it may still be said of the French for instance, I assume, that their social scheme absolutely provides ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... absolute distinctness, and loves the detail of the labour that makes the execution flawless and perfect. The artist, if he would prevail, must not be seduced by any temptation, any extraneous desire, any peevish criticism, any well-meant rebuke, into trying a subject that he knows is too large for him. He must be his own severest critic. No artistic effort can be effective, if it is a joyless straining after things falteringly grasped. Joy is the essential quality; ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... French ecole maternelle attended by children 4 to 6 years of age, where instruction was given daily in regard to the date, and yet not a single one of the children was able to pass this test. This is a beautiful illustration of the futility of precocious teaching. In spite of well-meant instruction, it is not until the age of 8 or 9 years that children have enough comprehension of time periods, and sufficient interest in them, to keep very close track of the date. Failure to pass the test at the age of 10 ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... all sorts of luxuries on board, in the firm faith that they shall be able to profit by them all. Friends send them various indigestibles. To many all these well-meant preparations soon become a mockery, almost an insult. It is a clear case of Sic(k) vos non vobis. The tougher neighbor is the gainer by these acts of kindness; the generosity of a sea-sick sufferer in giving away the delicacies ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... his case of pistols and offer them for a settlement. As the proposal came from me, it was found acceptable. The major remonstrated with the prince, and expressed to me his regrets and et caeteras of well-meant civility. He had a hard task to keep out of the hands of Bandelmeyer, who had seized my sword, and wanted vi et armis to defend the cause of Learning and the People against military brigands on the spot. If I had not fallen we should have had one ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... unfortunate outcome of the well-meant and honest attempt to procure the horse-dealer satisfaction for the injustice that had been committed against him. The knacker of Doebeln, whose business was concluded, and who did not wish to delay any longer, tied the horses to a lamppost, since ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... you must have noticed, I am pretty well read, and my memory is remarkably copious and accurate. (Clarice did indeed say that I sometimes got the lines wrong; but what she meant was that the passages I quoted in my well-meant efforts to console her were of too gay a character for ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... chirped the patriarch in well-meant friendliness. "They jest brought in a bear cub over to Antoine's. If you'd like to take a look at him, I'll show you where ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... I met day by day were real beings. As to my awful loss, I am sure I did not realise it. What I did realise, however, was the necessity for immediate action. Like a dream to me also is the memory of the sincere grief of my blacks and their well-meant endeavours to console me. The women kept up a mournful howl, which nearly drove me crazy, and only strengthened my resolve to get away from that frightful place. So dazed did I become, that the blacks concluded some strange spirit must ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... almost to the end, but, being assured by his senatorial friends that there was no possibility of the bill being reached, and unable to bear the final blow of hearing the gavel fall which should signalize his defeat, shrinking from the well-meant condolences of his friends, he returned almost broken-hearted ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... their well-meant zeal, and loud in their remonstrances on the imprudence and rashness of my conduct. They called me presumptuous and cruel in exposing my wife and child, as well as myself, to such imminent hazard, for the sake of one, too, who most probably was worthless, and ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... cheek and the sparkle in her eye. Guy had been there, bringing and leaving a world of sunshine, but, alas, his chances for coming ever again as he had done were fearfully small, when, at the close of Mrs. Green's well-meant visit, Maddy lay on her bed, her white, frightened face buried in the pillows, and herself half wishing she had died before the last hour had come, with the terrible awakening it had brought; awakening to the fact that of all living beings, Guy Remington was the one ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... Talbot and Johnny, however, seemed right at home. They capped the old gentleman's most elaborate and involved speeches, they talked at length and pompously about nothing at all; their smiles were rare and sad and lingering—not a bit like my imbecile though well-meant grinning—and they seemed to be able to stick it out until judgment day. Not until I heard their private language after it was all over did I realize they were not enjoying the ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... overheard them speaking loudly, and advised me strongly not to trust myself to them any more, as they would be sure to cause my death. He was all along a sincere friend, and I could not but take his words as well-meant ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... side by side with Father Laverty, who, with head bent on his breast, scarcely noticed the lamentations of the women, who came to their cross-doors, and poured out a Jeremiad of lamentations that made me think my own well-meant ministrations were ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... a guide, are you?" observed Professor Smawl when William, cap in hand, had approached her with well-meant advice. "The woods are full of lazy guides. Pick up those Gladstone bags! I'll do the guiding ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... a manner which, though well-meant, was exceedingly ill-timed and in bad taste. She was kindly-disposed, but had not the faintest trace of that delicate perception of others' feelings, and consideration for them, which constitutes the real difference between Nature's ladies and ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt



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