"Well-bred" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sense. He never seemed to think that the thing we quarrelled about was worth while, and treated it all with a well-bred contempt. Spurling was usually the one who was unjust, and I the one who complained; so I was usually the one to start the wrangle. Therefore, though he despised Spurling, he always seemed to ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... that "there is one topic positively forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder stroke, I beseech you, by all the angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... devil! I can't tell it the professional way, after all. There's the woman. Well, the woman was young, and fair to see, dark, well-bred, with a tinge of lemon, and descended pretty straight from the Incas—"instead of which" she preferred to call herself Mrs. M'Kay or M'Kie, having been caught and married in an unguarded moment by someone who had arrived ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of wool — the careful acquisition of a good flock of well-bred sheep, and the attainment of the highest degree of perfection in preparing the fleeces for the English market — appears to us to be the proper ambition of an emigrant to the Australian colonies. When ill-health compelled ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... superscription, and cut the envelope open neatly with his pocket-knife so as not to break the seal. Frau von Sigmundskron was too well-bred to watch his face while he read the contents. Had she looked, she would ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... Toorak drawing-rooms and Melbourne Clubs, the case formed the principal subject of conversation. And Mrs. Grundy was horrified. Here was a young man, well born—"the Fitzgeralds, my dear, an Irish family, with royal blood in their veins"—well-bred—"most charming manners, I assure you, and so very good-looking" and engaged to one of the richest girls in Melbourne—"pretty enough, madam, no doubt, but he wanted her money, sly dog;" and this young man, who had been petted by the ladies, voted a good ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... clarified his passions, or tended that way. A self-respect, which differed appreciably from what he had formerly understood by that term, began to guard him against grossness; together with it there developed in him a new social pride which made him desire the acquaintance of well-bred people. Though he had no longer any communication with the good old Doctor, Amy frequently wrote to him, and in one of her letters she begged him to call on a family in London, one of whose younger members lived at Greystone and was Amy's friend. After much delay, he overcame ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... passed through his mind, they began to impart to his manner a tinge of gallantry, the beginning of a departure from his old fraternal and affectionate ways. He was too well-bred to show pique openly, or to reveal a sense of injury during the first hours of reunion, but he already felt absolved from being very attentive to a girl who not only had proved so conclusively that she could manage admirably for herself, ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... looked fair and delicate and gracious; but her helpless ignorance of the world's ways and usages attracted the world-hardened man more than her face. He had not spent a rou life in a great city for nothing; he had lived enough with gentlemen, broken-down and lost, it is true, but well-bred, to be able to ape their manners; and the devil's instinct that such people possess warned him of Hitty Hyde's weakest points. So, too, he contrived to make that first errand lead to another, and still another,—to make the solitary woman depend on his help, and expect his coming; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... this house," he said, in a voice soft and sweet as that of a well-bred woman. "A cup of cold water, I pray you." "Water? Cert. Steer yourself against the cooler over there. You look above the Weary Willie business. Sit down until I find a jumping-off place in this article on 'The Monetary Situation,' and perhaps I can fish ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... quiet unconcern. She even seemed mildly amused at the attention she attracted. Beth was a beautiful girl—the handsomest of the three cousins, by far; yet Eliza surpassed her in natural charm, and seemed well aware of the fact. Her manner was neither independent nor assertive, but rather one of well-bred composure and calm reliance. Beth felt that she was intruding and knew that she ought to go; yet some fascination held her to the spot. Her eyes wandered to the maid's hands. However her features and form might repress any evidence ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... young man," says Sir Hastings, following Hardinge's retreating figure with a delightfully lenient smile. "Good-looking too; but earnest. Have you noticed it? Entirely well-bred, but just a little earnest! Such ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... almost unnecessary to mention that the table-cloth is not the place to put your salt. Bread is the only comestible which the custom of well-bred people permits to be laid ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... their chatter, and low-voiced, well-bred laughter drifted back to the girl's ears between pauses in the louder comments of her immediate neighbors and the intermittent din of the band, and ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... badgered for his authority, when driven to give an instance from the London newspapers, he had sent the objectionable periodical. He had, in point of fact, made a mistake;—a stupid, foolish mistake, into which a really well-bred man would hardly have fallen. "Ought I to take advantage of it?" said the Doctor to himself when he had wandered for an hour or more alone through the wood. He certainly did not wish to be crushed himself. Ought he to be anxious to crush ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... purpose by Syracusans, or having escaped disguised as slaves. The rest were at length branded upon their foreheads with the figure of a horse, and sold into slavery. Yet even in this extremity their well-bred and dignified behaviour came to their aid; for they soon either obtained their freedom, or gained the confidence and respect of their masters. Some gained their freedom by their knowledge of Euripides. It appears that the dramas of Euripides were especially popular in Sicily, but that only ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... In the conversation of well-bred children we find the most interesting and helpful illustrations of unaffected speech. The exquisite modulation of the voice, the unstudied correctness of emphasis, and the sincerity and depth of feeling might well serve as ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... been made up, he was almost insupportable. The low bows, and the still humbler expressions of the Prussian Ambassador, the Marquis da Lucchesini, were hardly noticed; and the Saxon Ambassador, Count von Buneau, was addressed in a language that no well-bred master ever uses in speaking to a menial servant. He did not cast a look, or utter a word, that was not an insult to the audience and a disgrace to his rank. I never before saw him vent his rage and disappointment so indiscriminately. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... appeared, point-device for breakfast as to dress, but looking dazed and preoccupied, she found this lady and gentleman being well-bred, as shown by scanty, feelingless remarks about the absence of morning papers as well as morning people. Her advent opened a new era for them, in which they could cultivate ignorance of one another on the bosom of a newcomer common ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... possible fashion: "Do not be impatient; look at the pictures or chat with me, if you enjoy that. My master will be down in a minute." And when I come in she discreetly retires to an arm-chair or on top of the piano, and listens to the conversation without breaking in upon it, like a well-bred animal that is ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... caught the sentiment of dress from the elegant young women who came to the shop, and had learned from them certain movements of the head, certain ways of speaking and of moving; and she could play the well-bred woman in a way that turned the heads of all the young men, especially the clerks, in whose eyes she appeared truly distinguished. Popinot swore that he would have no other wife than Cesarine. The liquid brightness of that eye, which a look, or a tone of ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... little regard for men of letters as a fashionable, nor has he the same tact of concealing his indifference; the well-bred man of fashion, who is alone truly the man of fashion, studies tact above all things, and his tact prevents him ever regarding men of mind with any thing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... young blood of Charleston been up, there is little doubt but that I must have left the place sans ceremonie. Possessed of a natural urbanity, or, what in elevated society amongst white people, would be termed true politeness, the manner of the well-bred negro is prepossessing. This was very remarkable in my coloured friend, who was well informed, and possessed a refinement and intelligence I had never before met with in any of his race. On the subject of enslavement ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... You mistake the occasion for the cause, the means for the motive. Your alphabet is in fault. Such a set of vain, frivolous, dishonest, mean, hypocritical, and insufferably vulgar letters would be turned out of any respectable, well-bred spelling-book. Vanity, frivolity, dishonesty, meanness, hypocrisy, and vulgarity can be exhibited in all the affairs of life, not excepting those whose proper office is to sweeten and to beautify it; but it does not need all your ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... selfsame Pavilion of Chance. The idler from England, the idler from France, Shook hands, each, of course, with much cordial pleasure: An acquaintance at Ems is to most men a treasure, And they both were too well-bred in aught to betray One discourteous remembrance of things pass'd away. 'Twas a sight that was pleasant, indeed, to be seen, These friends exchange greetings;—the men who had been Foes so nearly in days that were past. This, no doubt, Is why, on the night I am speaking ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... pertained to the gatherings in Bruton Street. But there was a more solid social comfort, such as befits people untroubled by the certainty that the world is looking on. The guests of Bruton Street laughed, as well-bred people should, at the estimation in which Lady Henry's salon was held, by those especially who did not belong to it. Still, the mere knowledge of this outside estimate kept up a certain tension. At Lady Hubert's ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is one of the accomplishments of every well-bred girl, so carefully instilled that at last she can even ignore her own thoughts and ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... was arrested an instant by the arrival of Mrs. Burrage and her son, who had quitted the stage on observing the withdrawal of the Farrinders, and who swept into the room in the manner of people seeking shelter from a thunderstorm. The mother's face expressed the well-bred surprise of a person who should have been asked out to dinner and seen the cloth pulled off the table; the young man, who supported her on his arm, instantly lost himself in the spectacle of Verena disengaging herself from Mrs. Tarrant, only to be again ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... immediate and infinitesimal a sure premonition of things ultimate and important. Fine senses vibrate at once to harmonies which it may take long to verify; so sight is finer than touch, and thought than sensation. Well-bred instinct meets reason half-way, and is prepared for the consonances that may follow. Beautiful things, when taste is formed, are obviously and unaccountably beautiful. The grounds we may bring ourselves to assign for our preferences are discovered by analysing those preferences, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. (Plate facing page 57.) It depicts with beautiful naivete and much realism the discomfiture of Pharaoh and his army floundering in the Red Sea, while the serene and elegant children of Israel contemplate their distress with well-bred calm from the flowery banks of ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... her open door and faced him. Her eyes blazed, her whole attitude was that of defiance. The passions, which in well-bred women are educated clean down out of sight, were in Maggie Promoter's tongue tip and finger tips. Angus saw it would not do to anger her further, and he said, ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... tasty toilette than beauty unadorned; that shy manners are anything but graceful; that the useful and the beautiful are not likely to be found in the same person; and that girls, like articles de luxe, should be carefully kept. I like to recall that well-bred, unconscious air of Miss Haughton; I remember Miss Darling as a model of deportment: why, she could do the naughtiest things in a less objectionable manner than that of these ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... Pray observe this lesson vital - When a man of rank and title His position first discloses, Always cock your little noses. When at home, let all the class Try this in the looking-glass. (English girls of well-bred notions Shun all unrehearsed emotions, English girls of highest class Practise them ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... and if he found it necessary to refer to the Deity he did so under the name of Jehovah or Jah, or even Yaweh in a manner calculated not to hurt the sensitiveness of any of the parishioners. People who would shudder at brutal talk of the older fashion about the wrath of God listened with well-bred interest to a sermon on the personal characteristics of Jah. In the same way Mr. Furlong always referred to the devil, not as Satan but as Su or Swa, which took all the sting out of him. Beelzebub he ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... opinion on any of the subjects under discussion, Karl and Ivan seemed to accept his comments as oracle, making no adverse suggestions. Such deference is no infrequent tribute to well-bred reserve. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... and put them on himself. Then he wandered around and visited all famous spots, went into the market-places, the densely populated cities, learned how to conduct himself properly, and how to speak and act like a well-bred human being. Yet his heart was set on learning the teaching of the Buddhas, the blessed spirits and the holy gods. But the people of the country in which he was were only concerned with honors and wealth. Not one of them ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... "A well-bred turtle-dove, indeed!" exclaimed Orso, and the emotion with which he kissed his sister contrasted strongly with the jesting ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... young girl—the pretty Eva in Roeskelde. Mr. Thostrup and Wilhelm related to us this summer several things about her which make her interesting. We saw her on our journey hither, when mamma was prepossessed by her well-bred appearance. Upon her return, the young girl has quite won her heart. It really were a pity if such a pretty, respectable girl remained in a public-house. She is very pretty; is she ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... women had not nine or ten children at a birth?" Every inhabitant is obliged to hang a writing over his door, signifying the number and quality of the dwellers. The inside of their houses is very magnificent. The men are civil, well-bred, very ingenious, polite, and industrious, but extremely covetous, insomuch that they will not scruple to sell their very children, or drown them, when they think they have too many. This desire of wealth lets them never be idle, and makes them have a great ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... about fifty, and though dressed carelessly, bearing the marks of a gentleman. But Ashburner also saw that though the Judge was a gentleman, he was by no means a fashionable or even a polished one. He was simply one of those well-bred men in whom simplicity is more perceptible than refinement, while good sense and good feelings prevent any gross breaches ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Stuyvesant had angrily striven to silence the woman and had left her in disgust, her words had not failed of certain weight. Again he recalled with jealous pain the obvious indifference with which his approaches had been received. True, no well-bred girl would be more than conventionally civil to a stranger even under the exceptional circumstances of their meeting on the train. True, she was cordial, bright, winsome, and all that when at last he was formally presented; ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... be her attitude, thought Georgiana. Being exceedingly well-bred, the guest was prepared to like everything that was done for her. Though this was precisely what was to be expected and desired, Georgiana found herself already irritated by it—most unreasonably, it must ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... cardinal. These are so fine, that taken in conjunction with the whole work they prove their author to have been an excellent sculptor as well as a distinguished painter and architect. Besides this he was in all his deeds a pleasant, well-bred and amiable man so that his fellow was never seen. And since he never abandoned the study of one of his three professions when he took up another, he painted a picture in tempera with many small figures while the loggia was building, and a predella ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... Lady Kerry: we have struck up a mighty friendship; and she has much better sense than any other lady of your country. We are almost in love with one another: but she is most egregiously ugly; but perfectly well-bred, and governable as I please. I am resolved, when I come, to keep no company but MD: you know I kept my resolution last time; and, except Mr. Addison, conversed with none but you and your club of deans and Stoytes. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... his companion with a degree of hesitation exquisitely refined as it shadowed through her fine countenance, and which she presently conquered as she replied to his question with that shade of frankness which, in the well-bred, can never be mistaken for anything else: "It requires about a year's residence in this bedlam to replace the genuine with the artificial; I see no evidence of such an unhappy transformation ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... interesting to him than anyone else. "You have learned to dance and fence; you can speak with clearness, and think with precision; your hands are small, your senses acute, and your features well-shaped. Yes: I see all this in you, and will do it justice. You shall stand as none but a well-bred man could stand; and your fingers shall fall on the sword-hilt as no fingers could but those that knew the grasp of it. But for the rest, this grisly fisherman, with rusty cheek and rope-frayed hand, is a man as well as you, and might possibly ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... and I hope virtue will be rewarded; for though I had but five guineas in the world to carry me to London, I yet possessed chastity enough to refuse fifty for a night's lodging, and that too from a handsome well-bred man. I shall scarcely ever forget his words to me, as they seemed almost prophetic. "Well, madam, said he, you do not know London; you will be undone there." "Why, sir, said I, I hope you don't imagine I will go into a bad course of life?" "No, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... ranch house that is over there, and who owns it?" said the stranger, in a well-bred manner that yet had the freedom ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... were." At this period, Clarissa was about twenty-two years of age, of a bright brown complexion, with handsome features, exceedingly respectful and modest, and possessed all the characteristics of a well-bred young lady. For one so little acquainted with books as she was, the correctness of her speech was ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... by melancholy, yet made her wish to be silent. The music, more than the conversation, disturbed her reflections; but not at first. The gentleman who played on the german-flute, was a handsome, well-bred, sensible man; and his observations, if ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... Gilberte to Henriette, "as Captain de Gartlauben was coming downstairs just now he removed his hat as he passed the door of the room where my uncle's body is lying. Edmond saw it; he's an extremely well-bred man, don't you ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... names; then as Augustus Caesar neither married an heiress, nor was the eldest son of a man who had formed such a marriage; and as this custom of changing the termination of the name was familiar to all the Romans,—if not to every ignorant or ill-bred man, at least, to every well-informed, well-bred man among them,—it follows as clearly, as that 2 and 2 make 4, that Tacitus, the high-born gentleman and consul, could never have written ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... angry. But again came that detestation of making a scene, which every well-bred girl feels, no matter how strong the provocation. She would make a purchase to gain time, and then turn back ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... first as uncomfortably as it could, where three out of the four were well-bred people. Elsley was, of course, shy before Lord Scoutbush, and Scoutbush was equally shy before Elsley, though as civil as possible to him; for the little fellow stood in extreme awe of Elsley's talents, and was afraid of opening his lips before a poet. Lucia was nervous for both their sakes, as ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... bewitching little fool? She wasn't! He remembered her eyes and abjectly apologized to the memory of her. She was everything that was sweet and pure and womanly—everything that was desirable in every sense—well-bred, well-schooled, unspoiled of the world, without guile or subterfuge, beautiful, healthy, honest. That had been the only startling thing about her—just honesty. It spoke ill for himself and the world in which he lived that this should have seemed startling! ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... Like a well-bred rabbit, Bumper stuck his nose up and sniffed at the dainty proffered him; but when he got some of the jam on his nose he hopped away and sneezed. It was gooseberry jam, and Bumper hated gooseberries, although he had never tasted of ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... vibrated inaudibly. It was all extremely well done, infinitely better done than Cornelia could have known. It was tasteful and refined, with the taste and refinement of the decorator who had wished to produce the effect of long establishment and well-bred permanency; the Mandan Flats were really not two years old, and Mrs. Maybough had taken her apartment in the spring and had been in it only a ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... pole. Trontheim's face beamed with joy as our eyes fell on it. It was, he said, under the same flag as our expedition that his had been undertaken. There stood the dogs tied up, making a deafening clamor. Many of them appeared to be well-bred animals—long-haired, snow-white, with up-standing ears and pointed muzzles. With their gentle, good-natured looking faces they at once ingratiated themselves in our affections. Some of them more resembled a fox, and had shorter coats, ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... dogs, a well-bred pointer, has taken up his abode with us while his master is on the ship. We dare not leave him for an instant in the room by himself if there is any food on the table. The other morning he ate our breakfast of bacon, which had been ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... equalled, it surpassed all I had anticipated—but—(there must always be a but! always in the realities of this world something to disgust;) it happened that one or two gentlemen joined our party—young men too, and classical scholars, who perhaps thought it fine to affect a well-bred nonchalance, a fashionable disdain for all romance and enthusiasm, and amused themselves with quizzing our guide, insulting the gloom, the grandeur, and the silence around them, with loud impertinent laughter at ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... four major-generals appointed to serve under Washington, were residents of Virginia. Both were English army officers who had left the British army, settled in Berkeley County, and become ardent advocates of the colonials' cause. Lee, the well-bred son of English gentry had served under Braddock in the ill-fated Fort Duquesne expedition of 1756, was later wounded, left the army after the war, and became interested in western land schemes. He came to Virginia in 1775 after a stint as a general in the Polish army. ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... do everything in my power for your friends. Are you well-bred folk as well bred as we, Republican bourgeois, with the coarse hands (though you once told me mine were psychic hands when the mania of palmistry had not yet been succeeded by that of the Reconciliation between Church and State), I wonder, that you should apologize, you whose father fed me and ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... critically as he sat facing me, and the mere fact of his desire to send thanks to the authorities convinced me that he was a well-bred gentleman. He was about forty-five, with a merry round, good-natured face, red with the southern sun, blue eyes, and a short fair beard. His countenance was essentially that of a man devoted to open-air sport, for it was slightly furrowed and weather-beaten as a true yachtsman's ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... of kindred tastes to himself, who appreciated the cost and understood his feelings. On such people, however, his Dresden china was thrown away. Joe and Mrs. Joe were much more in their way than the elegant University man and the well-bred mother, who was "a poor little dowdy," they all said. Therefore the fact had been forced upon Mr. Copperhead that his circle must be widened and advanced, if his crowning glories were to be appreciated as ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... nobody had done anything intended to be wrong—least of all the dog. The Arab was defending institutions; Crothers and Joe Byng were bent on holiday, and full of kind regards for anything that lived; and the dog was living dogfully up to well-bred-terrier tradition. It was as if two harmless chemicals had ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... travellers, collected by father Graeme, a native of North-Britain, who had been an officer in the army of king James II. and is said to have turned monk of this mendicant order, by way of voluntary penance, for having killed his friend in a duel. Be that as it may, he was a well-bred, sensible man, of a very exemplary life and conversation; and his memory is much revered in this place. Being superior of the convent, he caused the British arms to be put up in the church, as a mark of gratitude for the benefactions ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... presuppositions, which he embraced heartily and without question, were those of common sense. He adopted what he calls a "plain, historical method", fit, in his own words, "to be brought into well-bred company and polite conversation". Men, "barely by the use of their natural faculties", might attain to all the knowledge possible or worth having. All children, he writes, "that are born into this world, being surrounded with bodies that perpetually and diversely affect ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... merry-go-round, with the skirts opening every now and then and showing his little stumpy tail, which was all the more expressive as it had to express itself very briefly. For I need hardly tell you that Tylo, like every well-bred bull-dog, had had his tail and his ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... landlady's daughter to go about with him when she could get a leisure hour or evening. Sometimes they took a seat at the theatre, more often at the old Ascension Church, and once they attended a President's reception. Joyce had the bearing of a well-bred lady, and the purity of thought of a child. She was noticed as if she had been a new ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... condescension, as it had seemed to him at the outset, and came more and more frequently. The druggist's son was a completely insignificant being. If any of the noblesse, men or women, calling upon Nais, found Lucien in the room, they met him with the overwhelming graciousness that well-bred people use towards their inferiors. Lucien thought them very kind for a time, and later found out the real reason for their specious amiability. It was not long before he detected a patronizing tone that stirred ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... sense and more virtues than almost any human being. If you choose to see any of the savans, let me recommend Monsieur Buffon. He has not only much more sense than any of them, but is an excellent old man, humane, gentle, well-bred, and with none of the arrogant pertness of all the rest. if he is at Paris, you will see a good deal of the Comte d e Broglie at Madame du Deffand's. He is not a genius of the first water, but lively and sometimes agreeable. The court, I fear, will be at Fontainbleau, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... few minutes, of Mrs. Norman's look of disapprobation; but he persuaded himself that there was nothing meant by it, and soon became very lively. There was something he did not like about Norman, who, though perfectly well-bred and attentive, showed a degree of indifference and disregard to any thing he said or did, that did not altogether suit Louis' present state of mind. If Louis addressed him, he listened very politely, ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... voice and not once failed in the naturalness of his expression—even when he had told her the whole strange plan—so she must in any circumstances which arose and in any difficult situation wear always the aspect of a well-bred and trained servant who knew nothing which did not concern her and did nothing which ordinary domestic service did not require that she should do. She must always seem to be only Sarah Ann Dowson and never forget. But delicate and unusual as this problem was, it was not ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... all his efforts to be and to appear at ease, he was constrained and abashed. A young laird, Mr. Archibald Mackenzie, seemed to enjoy his confusion with malignant, half-suppressed merriment, in which Dr. Campbell's son was too good-natured, and too well-bred, to participate. Henry Campbell was three or four years older than Forester, and though he looked like a gentleman, Forester could not help being pleased with the manner in which he drew him into conversation. The secret magic ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... expression on his face which made me wish for the moment that I had bitten out this impudent tongue of mine, before I so rashly touched some deep old wound.... That man has wept bitter tears ere now, be sure of it.... But he turned the conversation instantly, like a well-bred gentleman as he is, by saying, with the sweetest smile, that though he had made it a solemn rule never to be a party to making up any marriage, yet in our case Heaven had so plainly pointed us out for each other, etc. ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... the stranger, who had been wrinkling his brows and twisting his mustaches with well-bred patience, took ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... his plainness he was a pleasant, well-bred young fellow, with a fund of good humor and drollery, and a pair of honest eyes that people learned to trust. Every one liked him, and no one ever said a word in his dispraise; and for the rest, he could tyrannize as royally as any ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... Rousseaus; for him there was one school and no other, one college and no other, one regiment, club, restaurant, music-hall, tailor, hairdresser and no other. Eric was always meeting John Gaymers and never penetrating below the sleek, well-bred and uninterested exterior; they were politely repellent, as though an intrusion from outside would disturb their serenity and the advantageous bargain which they had struck with life; it might cause them to think, and thought was a ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... well-bred young gentleman who knows To speak of gentlemen in terms polite! Good sir,—whose shape and glossy coat reveal The tiger's ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... stranger rose and bowed. Nothing could have been simpler than the stranger's bow, yet there came with it to Mrs. Pennycherry a rush of old sensations long forgotten. For one brief moment Mrs. Pennycherry saw herself an amiable well-bred lady, widow of a solicitor: a visitor had called to see her. It was but a momentary fancy. The next instant Reality reasserted itself. Mrs. Pennycherry, a lodging-house keeper, existing precariously upon a daily round of petty meannesses, was prepared for contest with a possible new ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome
... Vandeleur gave Cecil. Very good for mediocre people, I dare say; but it wouldn't suit me. There are some people, you know, that won't iron down for the hardest rollers. M'effacer? No! I'd rather any day be an ill-bred originality than a well-bred nonentity." ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... living person of Sister Simplice: she had never been young, and it seemed as though she would never grow old. No one could have told Sister Simplice's age. She was a person—we dare not say a woman—who was gentle, austere, well-bred, cold, and who had never lied. She was so gentle that she appeared fragile; but she was more solid than granite. She touched the unhappy with fingers that were charmingly pure and fine. There was, so to speak, silence ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... speaking English like a native: for this she accounted, by informing me that her mother, the Viscondeca do Rio Seco, was an Irish woman. Nothing could be kinder and more flattering than her manner, and that of General do Rego's two daughters, whose air and manner are those of really well-bred women, and one of them is very handsome. After sitting some little time, refreshments were brought in, and shortly after, the governor himself appeared; a fine military-looking man. He appeared ill, being still suffering from the effects ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... raising his voice and eyebrows a trifle; and I think I never saw such a careless, laughing, well-bred countenance in which were set two eyes as shrewdly wise as the eyes of ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... in the way of hearing of since; and I named her in the gay tone with which one speaks of the brilliant and happy. We were sitting at the dinner-table, and I observed that I had mis-struck a chord of feeling in the company present, and with well-bred tact, the master of the house informed me that misfortunes had befallen the family since the period I spoke of, and turned the conversation to another topic. After dinner, I heard from him the following outline of the story, and its ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... butterfly upon a wheel? P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite: Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Whether in florid impotence he speaks And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... downstairs for something," Ruth explained in her quiet, well-bred fashion. "Bab and I heard a noise and, as we did not recognize her, we followed her. We frightened Mrs. Wilson so that she stumbled over these stools out in the hall. I am afraid she is a little hurt. I think you had better call the ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... contains two or three young women, who make it their pleasant duty to give to my parents all that personal attendance which is befitting well-bred cultured women. Those two girls—for a year they have been assisted by my sister—are young Freelanders such as are to be found in every Freeland house whose housewife has a special reputation for ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... world can show. But the war has turned out not to be a gentlemen's war. It has on the contrary been a war of technological exploits, reenforced with all the beastly devices of the heathen. It is a war in which all the specific traits of the well-bred and gently-minded man are a handicap; in which veracity, gallantry, humanity, liberality are conducive to nothing but defeat and humiliation. The death-rate among the British gentlemen-officers in the early months, and for many months, ran extravagantly high, for the most part because they were ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... also treated with the ridicule which they reflected proudly had been the lot of true followers of Christ in all ages. Often at their prayer meetings was the passage of St Paul referred to in which he bids his Corinthian converts note concerning themselves that they were for the most part neither well-bred nor intellectual people. They reflected with pride that they too had nothing to be proud of in these respects, and like St Paul, gloried in the fact that in the flesh they ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... strolling comedians were accustomed to find themselves in all sorts of odd, strange lodgings in the course of their wanderings, they now looked with astonishment at their extraordinary surroundings; being careful, however, like well-bred people, not to manifest too plainly the surprise they ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... over into grievances, and joined with them whatever the 'captatores verborum,' not extinct since Daniel Webster's time, could add to their number. This was the letter which was rendered so peculiarly offensive by a most undignified comparison which startled every well-bred reader. No answer was possible to such a letter, and the matter rested until the death of Mr. Motley caused it to be brought up once more ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... deliver, against the Bishop's orders. For the beautiful chapel in the piny glade was, somehow, false: or, at any rate, false for him. The architect had made it a dainty poem in stone and polished wood, but somehow God had evaded the neat little trap. Moreover, the God his well-bred congregation worshipped, the old traditionally imagined snow-white St. Bernard with radiant jowls of tenderness, shining dewlaps of love; paternal, omnipotent, calm—this deity, though sublime in its way, was too plainly an extension of their own desires. His prominent parishioners—Mr. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... in these days to ask a worshipful guest why he came, and what was his business—it is the address of a well-bred man to a stranger of whose rank and station he is ignorant. The vulgar would simply say, "Who art thou, and what is ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... but not until Hamilton, ascending the staircase, was nearly abreast of them. He raised his hat to her with well-bred composure, nodded familiarly to Oakhurst, and passed on. When he had gone, Mrs. Decker lifted her eyes to Mr. Oakhurst. "Some day I shall ask a great ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... you mean two people can live upon nothing?" His voice is cold, even hostile, and he speaks apparently to the panes, but the tones are well-bred and pleasing; and again the girl wonders dimly which is the predominating ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... in reselling ranches for farms, many English investors have multiplied their fortunes. In the outdoor life and freedom from conventional cares—there has been a peculiar charm in ranch life. In no life are the grit and efficiency of the well-bred in such marked contrast with the puling whine and shiftlessness of the settler from the cesspool of the city slums. I have gone into a prairie shanty where an Englishwoman sat in filth and rags and idleness, cursing the country ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... "Well-bred and healthy children possess a great deal; Nature has given to each everything that he needs for time and continuance: our duty is to develop this; often it is better developed by itself. But one ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... embarrassment, which I would have given a great deal to shake off. I thought it a degrading and unworthy feeling to attend one on such an occasion, having breathed the air of the Continent long enough to have imbibed the notion that lightness, gallantry, and something approaching to well-bred self-assurance, should distinguish the gentleman whom a fair lady selects for her companion ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... went away Lester would return to his old world, the world of the attractive, well-bred, clever woman who now hung upon his arm. The tears came into Jennie's eyes; she wished, for the moment, that she might die. It would be better so. Meanwhile Lester was dancing with Mrs. Gerald, or sitting ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... nothing I should be so glad to leave behind as inns, and for months I had been longing to sleep in a tent. So I fell to making my preparations with good heart. But the enemy had not reached the end of his resources (the enemy was usually a well-bred, intelligent European or American with charming manners and the kindest intentions.) An English officer just returned from Mongolia assured me I could never get my dog across, the savage Mongol brutes would tear him in pieces; but I ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... avoid a kind of joking and badinage that should never be heard among well-bred young people in society—that about courtship and marriage. Much harm, much blunting of fine sensibilities, much destruction of that delicate modesty which is the priceless dower of young girlhood, comes of such jesting and joking where it is permitted without restraint or reproof. A young ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... about seventeen years of age, a pretty, well-bred, modest, and sensible youth; greatly dejected with the loss of his mother, and, as it happened had lost his father bit a few months before at Barbados. He begged of the surgeon to speak to me, to take ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... allow; but woe unto her if I catch her hands and lips about you, my dearest and best friend! Don't scold me and praise her, or some fine day I shall jump at and strangle her, which you know would not be 'well-bred' or 'lady-like,' much less ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... voyage to Britain, what did he know or even care about the politics of France, or Germany, or Austria, or Russia? Not the slightest, you may be sure. Mark and his master represented the complete indifference of the Englishman or American—not necessarily a well-bred indifference, but an indifference that was insular on the one hand and republican on the other. If either of them had heard of a gentleman who pillaged an unmarried lady's luggage in order to secure a valuable paper for another lady, who was married, they would both have ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... upon the difference of speed between a well-bred greyhound and a racehorse if opposed to each other. Wishes had been frequently indulged by the sporting world that some criterion could be adopted by which the superiority of speed could be fairly ascertained, when the following ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... the Rev. Mr. Martens, and it is not necessary to have lived in Norway in order to recognize and enjoy the faithfulness and the artistic subtlety of these portraits. If they have a dash of satire (which I will not undertake to deny), it is such delicate and well-bred satire that no one, except the originals, would think of taking offence. People are willing, for the sake of the entertainment which it affords, to forgive a little quiet malice at their neighbors' expense. The members ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... awkward and embarrassed young fellow she remembered that summer at Long Lake. He had, she realized much to her agreeable surprise, the ease and manner of a well-bred man about him now. His honest, cheery frankness appealed to her; moreover, she ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... of extremely moderate interest and applicability, which the wise and noble minority of the other sex would be quite as willing to dispense with as the foolish and ignoble majority. It is as little the custom of well-bred men as of well-bred women to quote Latin in mixed parties; they can contain their familiarity with "the humane Cicero" without allowing it to boil over in ordinary conversation, and even references to "the pleasant Livy" are not absolutely irrepressible. But Ciceronian Latin is the ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... friend to introduce him to Mr. Sampson, and my friend did so. Mr. Slinkton was very happy to see me. Not too happy; there was no over-doing of the matter; happy in a thoroughly well-bred, perfectly unmeaning way. ...
— Hunted Down • Charles Dickens
... every turn by some incongruity of speech or demeanor, such as book-makers have attributed to our American cousins, he would not fill a page of his mental note-book. I had no such prejudices to be disappointed. After experience of society in many lands, I begin to think that well-bred and educated people speak and behave after much the same fashion all the world over. Few Baltimorean voices are free from a perceptible accent; it is more marked in the gentler sex, but rarely so strong as to be disagreeable. The ear is never offended by the New England twang, or Connecticut ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... to, the blue-eyed Saxons and plump Bavarians with whom I travelled for awhile after the battle of Neuve Chapelle, seemed to me uncommonly like the yokels of our own Somersetshire and Devonshire. Their officers were polite and well-bred men in whom I saw no sign of fiendish lusts and cruelties. In normal moods they are a good-natured people, with a little touch of Teuton grossness perhaps, which makes them swill overmuch beer, and with an arrogance ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... in paring down a name, All civil well-bred authors do the same. Survey the columns of our daily writers— You'll find that some Initials are great fighters. How fierce the shock, how fatal is the jar, When Ensign W. meets Lieutenant R. With two stout seconds, just of their own gizard, Cross Captain X. and rough old ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... leg, not only taking part in the ceremony, filling a place next in importance to that of the contracting pair and the maid of honour, but apparently in active and undisputed charge of the principal details. However, being well-bred persons, they did not betray their astonishment by word, look or deed. Perhaps they figured it as one of the customs of the country that an old shrill-voiced negress, smelling of snuff and black silk, should play so ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... his daughter, white of face and with tightly compressed lips, on the other. Between these two women—his wife and his child—as different in body as they were different in soul, came Lavedan with a firm step, a good colour, and a look of well-bred, ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... the grounds of your exceptions. It ought to be a very clear case. If a young lady is unwell in a trifling degree, so as to need no assistance, you would evidently do wrong to talk to her. The rule, in fact, is very similar to that which all well-bred people observe at church. They never speak or leave their seats unless some really important cause, such as sickness, requires them to break over all rules and go out. You have, in the same manner, in really important cases, such as ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... dependence upon him. From his narrative we gather that this literary and gentlemanly common-sailor is quite a young man. His life, therefore, since he emerged from boyhood, has been spent in a ship's forecastle, amongst the wildest and most ignorant class of mariners. Yet his tone is refined and well-bred; he writes like one accustomed to good European society, who has read books and collected stores of information, other than could be perused or gathered in the places and amongst the rude associates he describes. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... Countess, a wonderful setter, with a first-rate scent—she took everything. Sometimes I'd go to a marsh and call "Seek." If she refused, you might go with a dozen dogs, and you'd find nothing. But when she was after anything, it was a sight to see her. And in the house so well-bred. If you gave her bread with your left hand and said, "A Jew's tasted it," she wouldn't touch it; but give it with your right and say, "The young lady's had some," and she'd take it and eat it at once. I had a pup of hers—capital pup he was, and I meant to bring him with me to Moscow, but ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... that her father treated his companion with unusual consideration, and L'Isle was induced to prolong his visit for an hour and more. He was certainly well-bred and well-informed, and seemed disposed to make himself agreeable; yet there was something in his manner that puzzled and annoyed her. It was not the little reserve which he exhibited toward her father, ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... at Mr. Mulhausen's (one of Mr. Pointer's senior partners), that I may not be at the needless expense of paying for my lodging without making use of it. This Mr. Pointer lived long in Germany, and is politely partial to us and our language, and speaks it well. He is a well-bred and singularly obliging man; and one who possesses a vast fund of information, and a good taste. I cannot but feel myself happy in having obtained a recommendation to so accomplished a man. I got it from Messrs. Persent and Dorner, to whom I had the honour to be recommended by Mr. ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... doubt the omission of of a gives the right number of syllables to the verse, and makes room for the interpretation which a dash between generous and chief renders clearer: 'Are most select and generous—chief in that,'—'are most choice and well-bred—chief, indeed—at the head or top, in the matter of dress.' But without necessity or authority—one of the two, I would not throw away a word; and suggest therefore that Shakspere had here the French idiom de son chef in his ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... bobbed up simultaneously, with a joyful "Here's Mother!" and George, turning, glanced with innate, well-bred curiosity at a stout, pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... displayed themselves in daily life, which then separated Italy from the Teutonic nations. But this is not all. Spiritual quality in the architect himself finds clear expression in his work. Coldness combined with violence marks Brunelleschi's churches; a certain suavity and well-bred taste the work of Bramante; while Michelangelo exhibits wayward energy in his Library of S. Lorenzo, and Amadeo self-abandonment to fancy in his Lombard chapels. I have chosen examples from one nation ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... enlightened days are piously shocked at the amount of drinking described by Dickens. Well-bred and garrulous ladies have shuddered at the scenes described, and have declared that Dickens was at least fond of the Bacchanalian element. So he was, but the reason was not that he loved hard drinking, but that, as ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... there is least previous doubt and difficulty the new impression is most easily accepted. Yet Cato, they say, was very obedient to his preceptor, and would do whatever he was commanded; but he would also ask the reason, and inquire the cause of everything. And, indeed, his teacher was a very well-bred man, more ready to instruct, than to beat his scholars. His name ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... introduction to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter." She was very beautiful,—a complexion of clearest and lightest olive, eyes large, deep-set, and dazzling, of the finest Italian brown, and a profusion of black hair. Her manners had the well-bred reserve of an Englishwoman, and something of the coquetry of the French from whom she was descended. She spoke with a slight accent, and with much vivacity. Madame Charpentier had made her escape to England during the Revolution,—her ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... to eat, and enjoy themselves; and now they were so changed, that each helped her next neighbour before she would touch any for herself; and the moment they were grown thus good natured and friendly, they were as well-bred, and as polite, as ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... with a small plated bowl, champagne bottle and glass of lager.) I regred fery moch to haf to dell you zat zere is only shust enough Bisque for von berson. [He bows with well-bred concern. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... a week or two, it was found that I really could make their discordant and turbulent children to some extent obedient and studious during certain portions of the day; and in fact I soon acquired in the whole family that ascendancy which a well-bred person who respects himself, and can keep his temper, must have over passionate ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... swarm of straw hats, a crowd of men, women, and children were floundering, swimming, screaming, laughing, tumbling through the waves, that lifted them up, flung them down, pitched them forward, and behaved in a way that no well-bred ocean would have thought ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... you have any difficulty with the house, with teachers, with social relations, you have that honest Kranitski, who will serve you with great good will. I am very much pleased with that acquaintance. Just such a man did I need. He has extensive and very good connections; he is perfectly well-bred, obliging, polite. Foreseeing that he might be very useful to us, I became familiar with him. It is true that he has borrowed money a number of times of me, but he has rendered a number of services. Pay in return for value, that is the ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... prevent them from neighing. During the visit of the Confederates, which seemed to us interminably long, owing to our anxiety about the horses, General Johnson sat directly over their hiding place; but they behaved like well-bred beasts and never uttered a sound. I had serious misgivings, however, when I saw a mounted officer, riding around the house to make a survey of the premises, stop at the upturned steps. For a moment I thought all was over ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... his incessant effort to control it in politics made him less watchful in private life. Mrs. Lee's tacit assumption of superior refinement irritated him, and sometimes made him show his teeth like a bull-dog, at the cost of receiving from Mrs. Lee a quick stroke in return such as a well-bred tortoise-shell cat administers to check over-familiarity; innocent to the eye, but drawing blood. One evening when he was more than commonly out of sorts, after sitting some time in moody silence, he roused himself, ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... respectability, as well as in the affection of his countrymen. He appealed to a higher class, to the greater constituency of the whole nation; and remembering that a jest's prosperity lies in the ear that hears it, he transferred some of his allegiance from pit to stalls, and was content with the well-bred smile where before he had been eager for noisy ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... ladies have," says Mrs. Parvenue. Now, if these ladies were ladies, they would in each of these cases use the word man instead of gentleman, and woman instead of lady; further, Miss Snooks would say, "If I were." Well-bred men, men of culture and refinement—gentlemen, in short—use the terms lady and gentleman comparatively little, and they are especially careful not to call themselves gentlemen when they can avoid it. ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... the Second appointed governors and preceptors for the prince's children. Horace Walpole's description[96] of one of these is significant. "The other Preceptor was Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, a sensible well-bred man, natural son of Blackbourn, the jolly old Archbishop of York, who had all the manners of a man of quality, though he had been a Buccaneer and was a Clergyman; but he retained nothing of his ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... a plebeian like Dan supposing he could ever ride a horse! He! why, even the cats and the chickens laughed when they saw him go by. Of course, he would be thrown off. Of course, any well-bred horse wouldn't let a common, underbred person like Dan stay on his back! When they gathered him up he was just a bag of scraps, but they put him together, and you'll find him at his old place in the Enterprise ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... be inclined to laugh at the awkward beginners, and to ridicule them audibly—but really, Esmeralda, it should not be necessary to consider such an action, impossible in a well-bred woman, unlikely in a woman of good feeling! Leave your mother, if not at home, in the dressing-room or the reception room, and go to ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... soon discovered. It was hard to beat them on American ground, but as soon as you got them off that they were defeated. I wish the reader to understand particularly, that I am not speaking now of the well-bred Americans, but of that portion which would with us be considered as on a par with the middle class of shop-keepers; for I had a very extensive acquaintance. My amusement was, to make some comparison between the two countries, which I knew would immediately bring on the conflict I desired; and not ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... most of the Greeks. An approximation to the modern ideal is found only when we consider the curious Greek adoration of boys. Callicratides, in Lucian's [Greek: Erotes], after expressing his contempt for women and their ways, contrasts with them the manners of a well-bred youth who spends his time associating with poets and philosophers, or taking gymnastic and military exercises. "Who would ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... speak, and when silence fell, he asked if they knew they were at a Jew's table. "I hold it my duty to inform you," he said, "that I am a Jew, that my daughter is a Jewess, and my son-in-law a Jew. I will not purchase by deceit the honor of dining with you." The well-bred guests cheered the old fellow, but the host was ghastly with confusion, and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... she had modified all her ideas of life. To be with him she would have been content to dwell in the tents of the Patagonians, on the wild and snow-clad Pampas. A love which was strong enough to make her sacrifice duty, the world, her fair fame as a well-bred woman, was a love that recked but little of the paths along which her lover's hand was to lead. For him, to be with him, she renounced the world. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... to the new comers, and was altogether as much at his ease as everybody else seemed quite the contrary. Even Charles Holland found the difficulty of going up to such a well-bred, gentlemanly man, and saying, "Sir, we believe you to be a vampyre"—to ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... the officers he had served with, and in his alertness, his well-trained movements, his upright carriage, and his personal cleanliness, he came so near to looking like a gentleman that he escaped it only by a certain swagger, which proved an ill-chosen substitute for well-bred ease. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... so simplified the situation as Kut-le's calm reference to his plans for carrying on his profession. He stood in his well-cut clothes, not an Indian, but a well-bred, clean-cut man of the world. Even Porter recognized this, and with a sigh he resigned himself ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... much too well-bred to show that she had the advantage. She took it for granted that Miss Farrar was also acquainted with the circumstances of ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... certain nobility; he has a good person, but the loss of that eye, which the Duc de Berri struck out, disfigures him much. He is certainly very politic, and this quality he has from his mother. He is polite and well-bred; his mind is not very comprehensive, and he has been badly instructed. They say he is unfit for business for three reasons: first, on account of his ignorance; secondly, for his want of application; and, thirdly, for his impatience. I can see that in examining him narrowly one would find many defects ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... usually reigns around this problem of America. Mr. Du Bois seems to forget that we have the affairs of a great many people to attend to and persists in calling our attention to this affair of our own. And what is worse, in the minds of all well-bred persons he does not do it at all politely. He seems to be ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... Dolphus and Sophy Tetterby in the 'Haunted Man,' at one of the school festivals; and during the rehearsals I discovered that my Dolphus was—permit the expression, oh, well-bred readers!—a trump. What fun we had to be sure, acting the droll and pathetic scenes together, with a swarm of little Tetterbys skirmishing about us! From that time he has been my Dolphus and I his Sophy, and my ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... heir-presumptive to a title. So many American maidens had placidly stood by while their mammas "arranged" a marriage between their gold-banked selves and the impecunious scion of an historical house, that the English, when forced to admit them well-bred, found solace in the belief that these disgustingly rich and ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... many other artists of both sexes, Fraulein Bianchi is well-bred, without being stupidly stuck up, and, in addition, a pleasant and well-trained singer ...
— 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
... me every day since she has been here. She comes into my dressing-room to tell me. She comes to my nursery, and says, 'Ah, I wouldn't have a sister prowling about my nursery, that I wouldn't.' Ah, how pleasant it is to have amiable and well-bred ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of Cato, who is known to be one of the most modest, and most ingenious persons of the age we now live in, has given this virtue a delicate name in the tragedy of Cato, where the character of Marcia is first opened to us. I would have all ladies who have a mind to be thought well-bred, to think seriously on this virtue, which he so beautifully calls the sanctity ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... looked haughtily at the old knight as one looks upon an inferior person. He was neither a very bad man, nor a very cruel one, but he had the defect common to all Knights of the Cross, who in spite of their being well-bred and even humane, looked with contempt upon those whom they conquered, neither could they suppress their great pride when they ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of silence, in which I seemed to live a year. I was conscious of everything, the well-bred surprise of the young nobleman, the half-amused vexation of the priest, my own clumsy, boyish rage and confusion. In reality it was only a few seconds before I felt my friend's hand on my shoulder, with its kind, ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... me, that I could not look up; for I think it is one of the distinctions of persons of condition, and well-bred people, to put bashful bodies out of countenance. Well, Sir Simon, said my master, what say you now to my pretty rustic?—He swore a great oath, that he should better know what to say to me if he was as young as himself. Lady Darnford said, You ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... drink, and near swooning, and all at table. It is a strange picture. She tells me nothing can be more pure and ardent than this flame." Lady Hamilton may have had the self-control of an actress, but clearly not the reticence of a well-bred woman. ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... all things," said Mrs. Reverdy with her unfailing laugh; a little, well-bred, low murmur of a laugh. "It must be so delightful to have your biscuits always light and never tasting of soda; and your butter always as if it was made of cowslips; and your eggs always fresh. We never have fresh eggs," continued Mrs. Reverdy, shaking her head solemnly;—"never. ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... your ears, George, or I shall find a word to scorch you. You are the poorest thing in Nature's bag of samples. A well-bred woodlouse wouldn't employ you for a scavenger. If you shrank to your soul's dimensions you might wander lost for a century on the point of a cambric needle. You are the last rarefied essence of the contemptible—the final word of ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... good black boy, a little fellow of about 10 years of age, a native of Cooper's Creek, whom I called Billy. On one of my trips to the Gilbert, when passing Dalrymple, Billy Marks, the store and hotel-keeper, presented me with a well-bred cattle pup and a gin case to put him in. This I placed on top of the load. We had six miles to go over very rough basalt country to our camp. That day I had yoked a steer for the first time, and I intended ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... older than myself, dark, well-bred. I should say a man something like yourself, if you will pardon the comparison, with a less easy mind, if he remembers his friends and ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... untoward turning up, and it is, perhaps, as well to be prepared for emergencies. Personally I must confess that I am favourably disposed towards the much vilified agents. They are in many respects the most manly men in Ireland. Nearly always well-bred, they excite sympathy by the position they hold between the upper and nether millstone of landlord and tenant. Perhaps they have made a good thing of it, but if so they have earned it, for their position always reminds one of that assigned by Lord Macaulay ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker |
