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More "Well-bred" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. Kuypers was a well-bred man, but this time he could not conceal his amazement. He laid down knife and fork both, looked up and almost laughed, as ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... to take upon himself a part which he finds himself unable to present, and who comes to a pause when it is most to be expected that he should speak. While he endeavoured to cover his embarrassment with the exterior ceremonials of a well-bred demeanour, it was obvious that, in making his bow, one foot shuffled forward, as if to advance, the other backward, as if with the purpose of escape; and as he undid the cape of his coat, and raised his beaver from his face, his fingers fumbled as if the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 prominent a role in the event ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... House of Burgundy, you can understand that we could not admit a wife separated from her husband into our society here. We are foolish enough still to cling to these old-fashioned ideas. There was the less excuse for the Vicomtesse, because M. de Beauseant is a well-bred man of the world, who would have been quite ready to listen to reason. But his wife is quite mad——" and so ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... host possessed a spaniel bitch, which, being well-bred gave him much anxiety. The fear of mesalliances was ever in his mind, and furiously would he drive away the village pariahs when they came slinking round the house, with lolling tongues. One brown and white dog, larger than the others and with bristling hair, was a particular aversion, the thought ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... her hands, 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 ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... "mixed company" implies that, save Yourself and friends, and half a hundred more, Whom you may bow to without looking grave, The rest are but a vulgar set, the Bore Of public places, where they basely brave The fashionable stare of twenty score Of well-bred persons, called "The World;" but I, Although I know them, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... the greatest indignation had been manifested in the enlightened Anglo-circle of that year, which happened to comprise within it—amidst a considerable leaven of Welbeck Street and Devonshire Place, broken loose upon their travels—several really well-born and well-bred families, who did not the less participate in the feeling of the hour. 'Why should he return to England?' was the general exclamation—I answer why? It is a question I have occasionally asked myself, and I never yet could give it a satisfactory reply. I had then no thoughts ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... Puzzled, but too well-bred to pry into other people's affairs, Miss Maitland finished her directions to the stage-driver and general express agent for the village, and went home. Montgomery's relief at her departure made Reuben laugh, but he liked the lad and listened very patiently to the almost ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... other: "I've three nieces—fine girls, Von Taer—who will some day inherit my money. They are already independent, financially, and they're educated, well-bred and amiable young women. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... attends them. After taking leave of the Greek folk and of his daughter and of Cliges and of the emperor, he has remained in Germany; and the emperor of the Greeks goes away right glad and right joyful. Cliges, the valiant, the well-bred, thinks of his father's command. If his uncle the emperor will grant him leave, he will go to request and pray him to let him go to Britain to speak to his uncle the king; for he craves to know and see him. ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... literature over life is that its characters are clearly defined, and act consistently. Nature, always inartistic, takes pleasure in creating the impossible. Reginald Blake was as typical a specimen of the well-bred cad as one could hope to find between Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park Corner. Vicious without passion, and possessing brain without mind, existence presented to him no difficulties, while his pleasures brought him no pains. His morality was bounded by the doctor on the one side, and the ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... shabby coats and pigtails, sunning themselves on the benches in the walls; they had seen better days, to be sure, but they were gentlemen still: and so we found, this morning, old dowager Bruges basking in the pleasant August sun, and looking if not prosperous, at least cheerful and well-bred. It is the quaintest and prettiest of all the quaint and pretty towns I have seen. A painter might spend months here, and wander from church to church, and admire old towers and pinnacles, tall gables, bright canals, and pretty little patches of green garden and ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... manufacturing. The wealthy owner is really a merchant, forced to look for a market for his products, like the owner of ironworks or cotton factories. He does not even escape competition; the peasant, the small proprietor, is at his heels with an avidity which leads to transactions to which well-bred persons cannot condescend. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... of Malacca without any untoward excitement, and we steamed along pleasantly with a group of passengers who looked well-bred and agreeable; as time went on, our first impression of them was corroborated. A delightful feature aboard was music every evening in the salon, mostly singing. There was a service on Sunday, both for the first-class and second-class passengers. We soon entered the China Sea, ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... Virginia had until to-day accepted with humility the doctrine that a natural curiosity about the universe is the beginning of infidelity. The chief object of her upbringing, which differed in no essential particular from that of every other well-born and well-bred Southern woman of her day, was to paralyze her reasoning faculties so completely that all danger of mental "unsettling" or even movement was eliminated from her future. To solidify the forces of mind into the inherited mould of fixed beliefs was, in the opinion of the age, to achieve ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... was considered "well-bred." He listened to the arguments of the older people, and did not seem hot about politics—a remarkable thing for a young man. Then he had some accomplishments; he painted in water-colours, could read the key of ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... the room I noticed, for the first time, a pair of heavy oaken folding-doors communicating with the adjoining apartment, and as I sat there I fancied I heard a woman's shrill but refined voice—the voice of a well-bred young woman, followed by a peal of light, almost hysterical, laughter, in which a ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... magnificently furnished, wherein a table had been spread with sumptuous meats and rarest cates; and having seated himself thereat he motioned them to do likewise. Hereupon the brothers making low obeisance also took their seats and ate in well-bred silence with respectful mien. Then the Shah, desiring to warm then into talk[FN373] and thereby to test their wit and wisdom, addressed them on themes galore and asked of them many questions; and, inasmuch ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 our critic brings out, drinking was the symbol of hospitality as roast ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... whence comes all this, except from that famous bugbear "equality?" Is there any real gentleman throughout the Empire State who would, in his heart, approve of this ridiculous hustling together of well-bred and ill-bred? But it pleases the masses, and they must submit to this incongruous herding and feeding, like the hungry dogs of ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... stature and proportions, who is almost nose to nose with us as we pass her ladyship's door on the outside of the omnibus. I think Jeames has a contempt for a man whom he witnesses in that position. I have fancied something like that feeling showed itself (as far as it may in a well-bred gentleman accustomed to society) in his behavior, while waiting behind my ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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
... How many of the Empire men I've seen who suffered horribly through their wives! It is a great condition of happiness not to feel one's pride or one's vanity wounded by the companion we have chosen. A man can never be really unhappy with a well-bred wife; she will never make him ridiculous; such a woman is certain to be useful to him. Natalie will receive in her ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... could scarcely credit the confirmation of my judgment. Had life been smooth and comfortable for that old couple, as it was for most of their acquaintances and friends, they would have lived and died regarding themselves, and regarded, as well-bred, kindly people, of the finest instincts and tastes. But calamity was putting to the test the system on which they had molded their apparently elegant, graceful lives. The storm had ripped off the attractive ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... was accused of not choosing to have any visitors but men; then it was said that she did not care for women—and that was a crime. Not a thing could she do, not her most trifling action, could escape criticism and misrepresentation. After making every sacrifice that a well-bred woman can make, and placing herself entirely in the right, Madame de la Baudraye was so rash as to say to a false friend who condoled with her ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... man, who counsel can bestow, Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know? Unbiass'd, or by favour, or by spite; Not dully prepossess'd, nor blindly right; Though learn'd, well-bred; and though well-bred, sincere; Modestly bold, and humanly severe: Who to a friend his faults can freely show, And gladly praise the merit of a foe? Bless'd with a taste exact, yet unconfined; 640 A knowledge both of books and human kind; Generous converse; ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... trial of 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
... good-natured type, named Bert Chester, and a young Frenchman of musical tastes. The latter was a violinist, by the name of Pierre Pauvret. He seemed a trifle melancholy, Patty thought, but exceedingly refined and well-bred. He stood by her side as she leaned against the rail, looking at the water, and though evidently desirous to be entertaining, he seemed to be at a ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... said Jimmy Jocks, in his old-fashioned way; "but no well-bred dog," says he, looking most scornful at the St. Bernards, who were howling behind the palings, "would refer to your misfortune before you, certainly not cast it in your face. I myself remember your father's father, when he made his ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... given him originally from its resemblance to "Solemn-un," the latter having been applied to him by Hickathrift—refused to hold still. In fact he grew more energetic and playful every minute, cantering round the yard and dodging his pursuers in a way which would have done credit to a well-bred pony, and the chances of getting the collar on or bit into his mouth ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... Patricia," said her father, mildly patient, "you are quite wrong. Our people at home, your uncle Arthur, I mean, and your cousins, and all well-bred folk, do not allow class distinctions to limit friendship. Friends are chosen on purely personal grounds of real ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... well-bred Person, by Fortune: I see there's hopes of thee, Celinda; thou wilt in time learn to make a very fashionable Wife, having so much Beauty too. I see Attracts, and Allurements, wanton Eyes, the languishing turn of the Head, and all ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... I felt my heart bleed, Sore wounded with horror and pity; So I flew, with all possible speed, To our Protestant champion's committee. True gentlemen, kind and well-bred! No fleering! no distance! no scorn! They asked after my wife who is dead, And my children who never ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... forbids the obvious convenience of hot and cold water supply to the bedroom, and there is a mighty fetching and carrying of water and slops to be got through daily. All that will cease. Every bedroom will have its own bath-dressing room which any well-bred person will be intelligent and considerate enough to use and leave without the slightest disarrangement. This, so far as "upstairs" goes, really only leaves bedmaking to be done, and a bed does not take ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... who on the one hand ignores the form track, and on the other tears swiftly over a running track, is not a well-bred dog." Al. {ta eunaia}, "traces of the form"; {ta dromaia}, "tracks of a running hare." See ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... must 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 ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... this tirade, had fallen back upon the attitude of a well-bred man who has dropped in upon a painful family quarrel and cannot well escape. He had taken his hat and stood with his gaze for the most part fastened on the carpet, but lifted now and then when directly ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... ears. Anthony, opening the door of his stern-cabin had naturally exclaimed. What else could you expect? And the exclamation must have been fairly loud if you consider the nature of the sight which met his eye. There, before him, stood his second officer, a seemingly decent, well-bred young man, who, being on duty, had left the deck and had sneaked into the saloon, apparently for the inexpressibly mean purpose of drinking up what was left of his captain's brandy-and-water. There he was, caught absolutely with the glass ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... shoulders, remained to remind people that her point of view was still essentially foreign. Rainham, who had from his boyhood found England somewhat a prison-house, adored her for this trait. The quaint old woman, indeed, with her smooth, well-bred voice, her elaborate complexion, her little, dignified incongruities, had always been the greatest solace to him. She had the charm of all rococo things; she represented so much that had passed away, exhaling a sort of elegant wickedness to find a parallel ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... 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
... them with well-bred curiosity—-Mrs. Bentley, too—-at the other guests of the evening, who were arriving rapidly. The scene was one of animated life. It would have been hard to say whether the handsome gowns of the young ladies, or the cadet dress uniforms, ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... of his fences he had imported well-bred cattle and set them grazing within his confines. He set men to riding by night and day a patrol of his long lines of wire, rifles under their thighs, with orders to shoot anybody found cutting the fences in accordance with the many threats to serve them so. Contentions and feuds began, and battles ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... to be sure, and my purpose is simple. We cannot have a rival party of treasure-seekers on the island. We have ladies in our charge—gentle, well-bred ladies—and of the crew of that boat, one man, to my knowledge, is a pretty desperate ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... are full of trouble," began Madam Wetherill in her well-bred tones. What with education on the one side, and equable temperament on the other, perhaps too, the softness of the climate and the easier modes of life, voices and manners both had a refinement for which they are seldom given credit. The intercourse between England and ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... "He's well-bred, anyhow," said Will Palmer to Benny Mallow. "I hope he'll be man enough to stand no nonsense. He's big enough, and smart enough, if looks go for anything, to run this school, and I'd like to see him do it—anything to get ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... went. The war was over. And then Lady Clarice, whom the children never expected to see again, sent for them, and the forester, and Nurse Heine, to her castle. She provided for them all, and Greta grew up into a pretty and well-bred young lady. ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... refer to the young man who had taken her away in the cab. Mrs. Braddock noted this and was not slow to divine the well-bred restraint that lay ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... for society only comes upon him when he's excited by drink. Then, and only then, does he go among his fellows. There is some truth in that, my son, for as long as I have known him I have never seen him in his cups except that one night at my house. A courteous, well-bred gentleman, my boy—most punctilious about all his obligations and very honest about his failings. All he said to me the next day when he sobered up—I kept him all that night, you remember—was: 'I was ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the prairie when a party of three sat in a first-class car as the local train went jolting westward. Henry Colston leaned back in his seat with a Winnipeg paper on his knee; and his appearance stamped him as a well-bred Englishman traveling for pleasure. He was thirty-four; his dress, though dusty, was fastidiously neat; his expression was pleasant, but there was an air of formality about him. One would not have expected him to ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... 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 make several of you, if souls were divisible. His ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Courtesy required that I should beg the distinguished man who made it to give me, if he could, the title of the work in which he had found it. This he promptly replied that he was at the moment unable to do. He, however, very nearly asphyxiated a very quiet and well-bred young Frenchman attached to the French Embassy in London, who was present, by appealing to him on the subject. 'No, no!' exclaimed the alarmed attache, 'I dare say there is such a book, no doubt—no doubt—but I have never ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... of uncommon talents for education, as all her young ladies were, in after-life, fond of reading, wrote and spelled admirably, were well acquainted with history and the belles-lettres, without neglecting the more homely duties of the needle and accompt book; and perfectly well-bred in society." Mr. Chambers adds: "Sir W. further communicated that his mother, and many others of Mrs. Sinclair's pupils, were sent afterwards to be finished off by the Honorable Mrs. Ogilvie, a lady who trained her young friends ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... as she was gentle, intelligent, and well-bred, the Princess plainly preferred her to the other three. In temperament they suited each other ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... 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 ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... these sprites with a sort of deferential fear. These girls are simply living pictures walking about the earth, deriding everything they are incapable of understanding. And who could be charmed with such women? with such 'Grecian Bends,' Grecian noses? The genuine well-bred woman will shine out from beneath the plainest garb; and shoddy vulgarity, even should it be incased in rubies and diamonds, will only be rendered the more obvious and conspicuous to those who at a glance can discover the difference—to those who cannot be deceived, even ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... Edna. "Of course Sylvia is too well-bred to love anything to eat. I don't know the fate she designs for those treasures of hers, but I suspect she intends to have them set in a necklace with ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... them 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 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... favorably, saying that she "had not been used as hard as many others 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 ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... chosen to express to Roger her real opinion of this new man, but in reality she did not approve of him. Though fairly good-looking and correctly dressed, there was about him a certain something—or perhaps, rather, he lacked a certain something that invariably stamps the well-bred man. He stared at Patty a trifle too freely; he sat down beside her with a little too much informality; and he began conversation a little too familiarly. All of these things Patty saw and resented, but as hostess she could not, of course, ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... Malipiero's draw-room, one evening, when my opinion about her was asked, that she could please only a glutton with depraved tastes; that she had neither the fascination of simple nature nor any knowledge of society, that she was deficient in well-bred, easy manners as well as in striking talents and that those were the qualities which a thorough gentleman liked to find in a woman. This opinion met the general approbation of his friends, but M. de Malipiero kindly whispered to me that Juliette would certainly be informed of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... one's own faults, and therefore it is a great advantage to have kind friends who will point them out to us. I believed Rose when she told me of mine; so I had a right to believe her when she gave me the agreeable assurance of their cure, and to indulge the hope that I was becoming a pleasing, well-bred little doll. ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... and talk in his impetuous way to Warrington. "I was in love so fiercely in my youth, that I have burned out that flame forever, I think, and if ever I marry, it will be a marriage of reason that I will make, with a well-bred, good-tempered, good-looking person who has a little money, and so forth, that will cushion our carriage in its course through life. As for romance, it is all done; I have spent that out, and am old before ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... herself and him. Where had her careless society manner and well-bred composure gone? She felt weak and hysterical. What if she should burst into tears before the whole crowd—before those coldly critical grey eyes? She ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... took. In stamps the fjord now to look on their party, Lifts his sou'-wester, gives greeting to them. Whoever at times in their fog could view them Has seen him near to their very noses;— The fjord's not famed for his well-bred poses. ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... who was well-bred and saw Emiliuses meaning, withdrew: but Roderick with the utmost indifference put on his mask again, took his stand before the glass, and exclaimed: "Verily, I am a most hideous figure, am I not? After all my pains it is ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... the stranger, who had been wrinkling his brows and twisting his moustaches with well-bred patience, took advantage of an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... described him as a man "rather under the middle size, of a florid complexion, and a lively and pleasing aspect; well made, and extremely active. His appearance at first sight impressed the spectator with the idea of a well-born and well-bred English gentleman. With an uncommon equability of temper, which, however, never degenerated into insipidity or apathy, he possessed a constant flow of spirits which rendered him at all times a most pleasing companion.... He appeared ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... straining ears. What strange person is this? She does not talk bad grammar, though her manner of expressing herself is somewhat quaint and foreign. But she is babyish—perfectly babyish! The idea of any well-bred woman condescending to sing the praises of her own husband in public! Absurd! "Deserves every-one's good wishes!"—pooh! her "great desire is to make him always happy!"—what utter rubbish!—and he is a "light-hearted boy!" Good gracious!—what ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... both the seamy side of life and, in the drawing rooms where Vance and she exhibited their mind reading tricks, had been made much of by great ladies and, for an hour as brief as Cinderella's, had looked upon a world of kind and well-bred people. Since she was fourteen, for seven years, this had been her life—a life as open to the public as the life of an actress, as easy of access as that of the stenographer in the hotel lobby. As a result, the girl ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... Eye has interested the farmers. It has persuaded them that high grade seed is better than mongrel seed. Consequently the farmers are shelling more bushels of corn to the acre planted. The school has persuaded the farmers that well-bred cattle are more profitable than mongrel cattle. Consequently the farmers are raising the standard of their herds. When the farmers come into Sleepy Eye they go to the school. Perhaps they have milk to be tested; perhaps they are looking for suggestions regarding soil ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... many of those little bitternesses and restraints and disappointments which all well-bred city children must suffer in the course of their training for the more or less factitious life of society:—obligations to remain very still with every nimble nerve quivering in dumb revolt;—the injustice of being found troublesome and being sent to bed early ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... intolerant of the practical joking to which midshipmen are so prone, yet, on the whole, we should not have much cause to regret the arrival of either himself or Mr Sutcliffe among us, for both of them impressed me as being exceedingly well-bred men. Whether or not they would turn out to be capable seamen, however, was a matter which only time and more ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... No 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 mind, and qualifies the noun in it with adjectives ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... future mother-in-law? Was it she? She was such a well-bred, quiet woman. Are you sure you are not mistaken? One or two notes, ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... whatever it considered valuable from Italy, he pleased the dilettanti. There is something distinctly "swell" in his work. He does not perhaps express any overmastering personal feeling, nor does he stamp the impress of French national character on his work with any particular emphasis. He is too well-bred and too cultivated, he has too much aplomb. But his works show both more personal feeling and more national character than the works of his contemporaries elsewhere. For line he has a very intimate instinct, and of mass, in the sculptor's as well as the painter's sense, he has a native comprehension. ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... sat a handsome, well-bred boy of eighteen or so, one of the tennis four, answering to the name of Bob—evidently a cheerful soul, but at ease in the persuasion that comparative children should be seen and so forth. His partner of the courts sat next him—name, Babs—a frank-eyed, wholesome girl, perhaps ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... pyramidal shape. We rode through Taximaroa without stopping, and breakfasted at a rancho, where the whole family were exceedingly handsome. The ranchero himself was a model for a fine-looking farmer, hospitable and well-bred; knowing his place, yet without any servility. The rancherita, who was engaged in the kitchen, was so handsome, that we made every possible excuse for going to ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... you will soon learn. Now look up, Fan, and let me see those wonderful eyes of yours; yes, they are very pretty. You don't mind my teaching you a little, do you, Fan, so that you will know how to behave when you are with well-bred people?" ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... their becoming the object of it: his wit, to use the expression of one who knew him well, and who was himself a good judge,[*] could not be said so much to be very refined or elevated, qualities apt to beget jealousy and apprehension in company, as to be a plain, gaining, well-bred, recommending kind of wit. And though, perhaps, he talked more than strict rules of behavior might permit, men were so pleased with the affable communicative deportment of the monarch that they always went away contented both with him ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... only occasionally approached her. When he did so his manner was so gentle and courteous that she could not help acknowledging to herself that she had no reason to complain of him. Captain Gerardin was good-natured and hearty, and laughed and talked with her and her father and mother with well-bred ease ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... with him through such a variety of places and circumstances; and the whole of his deportment was suitable to these impressions. Strangers were agreeably struck with his first appearance, there being much of the Christian, the well-bred man, and the universal friend in it; and as they came more intimately to know him, they discovered more and more the uniformity and consistency of his whole temper and behaviour; so that whether he made only a visit for a few days to any place, or continued there for many weeks or months, he was ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... that the girl is seven years old, her first thought, when she rises in the morning, is to eat her breakfast and be off to her school. There really is no more time than enough to allow her to make that complete toilet which every well-bred female ought to make, and to take her morning meal before her school begins. She returns at noon with just time to eat her dinner, and the afternoon session begins. She comes home at night with books, slate, and lessons enough to occupy her evening. What time is there for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... foot-board behind. His coachman sat beside him; he never took the reins when his master was there. Mr. Bevis drove like a gentleman, in an easy, informal, yet thoroughly business-like way. His horses were black—large, well-bred, and well-fed, but neither young nor showy, and the harness was just the least bit shabby. Indeed, the entire turnout, including his own hat and the coachman's, offered the beholder that aspect of indifference to show, which, by the suggestion ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... pretty they are!" She tossed the big armful of glossy green stuff down to him. To her surprise and indignation Alec dodged her offering and let the vines fall in a heap on the ground. Kitty paused in the act of dismounting and stared at him, speechless with surprise at this act from well-bred Alec. ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... do you not think they are a very superior class to the ordinary run of peasantry in Scotland?-They are careful and intelligent, and they are [Page 371] pretty well-bred. They have a good deal of the , more so than the most of peasants but there is that want of proper independence amongst them which I have mentioned, and they are of a very conservative disposition. I mean by that, that there is a want of desire to better themselves; for instance, to improve their ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... of friends. They are often more original and enterprising than their too highly-bred cousins, and they are very self-reliant; but as a rule they are not so courageous nor so steadfast as a well-bred dog. The chief advantage of possessing a mongrel is that dog-stealers are less likely to be tempted by him, and you can give him more freedom, which will make him more interesting and intelligent than a dog you need to shut up ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... harm from the books that did her mother no harm but pastime to read. As for other things, her father's house was a perfect model of the very best morals and the very best manners. Alonso de Cepeda was a well-born and a well-bred Spanish gentleman. He came of an ancient and an illustrious Castilian stock; and, though not a rich man, his household enjoyed all the nobility of breeding and all the culture of mind and all the refinement of taste for which Spain ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... words so polite and in so well-bred a tone, coming from a boy of Reginald's poor appearance, for he ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... answered Mr. Kinsella, who had sunk into the chair vacated by Mrs. Brown. "Your mother is a rare woman: beautiful and honest and tolerant, charming and well-bred, broad-minded and cultured. Eternal youth is in her heart, but she has a character gracefully to accept the years that Providence has allotted her and that only serve to make her more lovely. I have no patience with the assumption of extreme youth in ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... 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
... dozen guests sitting at the other tables rose also and bowed to me as I passed out. Of all people I have ever met, the Chinese are, I think, the politest. My illiterate Laohwan, who could neither read nor write, had a courtesy of demeanour, a well-bred ease of manner, a graceful deference that never approached servility, which it was a constant ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... vulgar little purse-proud citizen made an impudent sort of distant bow, and looked for all the world like a coated Caliban sarcastically cringing to a well-bred Ferdinand. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... one of the principal kinds, and one most prized, is the specimen represented here—the short-faced Tumbler. Its beak is reduced to a mere nothing. Just compare the beak of this one and that of the first one, the Carrier—I believe the orthodox comparison of the head and beak of a thoroughly well-bred Tumbler is to stick an oat into a cherry, and that will give you the proper relative proportions of the head and beak. The feet and legs are exceedingly small, and the bird appears to be quite a dwarf when placed side by side with this ...
— The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission And Variation • Thomas H. Huxley
... with well-bred gravity to receive us, George advanced with such a heightened color, and such a blending of tenderness and respect in his manner, that I was touched to the heart by so much devotion in the careless youth. In fact, my eyes were still dazzled by the effect of the outer sunshine, and ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... "A well-bred turtle-dove, indeed!" exclaimed Orso, and the emotion with which he kissed his sister contrasted strongly with the jesting tone ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... difficult but imperative, which Social Hygiene presents and the course of modern civilization renders insistent. Again, the adequate adjustment of the claims of the individual and the claims of the community, each carried to its farthest point, can but prove an exquisite test of the quality of any well-bred and well-trained race. It is exactly in that balancing of apparent opposites, the necessity of pushing to extremes both opposites, and the consequent need of cultivating that quality of temperance the Greeks estimated so highly, that the supreme difficulties ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... launch into detailed symptoms, listen to him with the most respectful attention. Under the influence of this new and sweet recognition his plain and common face kindled into something almost manly and individual. He had never before been so spoken to by a well-bred ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... accent, of the woman who had been speaking, told that she was what, in good old English, used to be called a lady. Alec Trenholme, who had never had much to do with well-bred women, was inclined to see around each a halo of charm; and now, after his long, rough exile, this disposition was increased in him tenfold. Here, in night and storm, to be roused from the half lethargy of mechanical exercise by ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the first to the last the book overflows with the strange knowledge of child-nature which so rarely survives childhood; and moreover, with inexhaustible quiet humor, which is never anything but innocent and well-bred, never ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... ground. As each succeeding camel reached the spot it lay down also, until they were all stretched in one long line. The riders sprang off, and laid out the chopped tibbin upon cloths in front of them, for no well-bred camel will eat from the ground. In their gentle eyes, their quiet, leisurely way of eating, and their condescending, mincing manner, there was something both feminine and genteel, as though a party of prim old maids had foregathered in the ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... walking, she met 'by chance—the usual way,' Prince Dashuranti, and our young lady said pretty much the same sort of thing to him as to the 'Creeper,' falling violently in love with him at first sight. It struck H. R. H. as a little peculiar—rather extraordinary in a well-bred miss; but as it was leap year, and learning that she was the only child, and would inherit all of papa's immense fortune, he married her 'off-hand;'—well, that very afternoon at four o'clock—by the sundial. You ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Parisian to the marrow of his bones, says, "Provincials and fools are always ready to lose their temper and believe that one is laughing at them or despising them. You must never venture on a joke, even the mildest, except with well-bred, witty people." Perhaps he had been trying Godefroi de La Bruyere off on the stolid inhabitants of Caen. He received a salary, however, which was far from being all paid away to a substitute, and he rose, in the curious social scale of those days, from Mister (roturier) ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... given by the Emperor in the Hermitage Palace. The guests, only two hundred in number, were bidden to come in ordinary evening-dress, and their Imperial Majesties moved about among them as simply and unostentatiously as any well-bred American host and hostess. On a staircase at one side of the Moorish Hall sat a distinguished Hungarian artist, sketching the scene, with its principal figures, for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... it of 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," ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... proved to be right; and in another moment Rupert Merton was receiving the affectionate greetings of his sister and cousins. Elizabeth felt some embarrassment in performing a regular introduction of Mr. Merton to the Miss Hazlebys; but Rupert's easy well-bred manners rendered the formidable ceremony much easier than she had expected, and the cousins soon fell into ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the table, and Freda felt as if she were in a dream. But nothing could be more perfect than her ladyship's manner. She behaved as if nothing had ever happened to cause the least estrangement between them, and almost as if she were still Lady Mary Nugent. Handsome as ever, and perfectly well-bred, she almost made even Freda believe, after her long absence from her, that she really was what she seemed. However, Freda tried to take her as she was, and to feel thankful that she was no worse. It was she who principally kept up the conversation; Freda ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... still, in certain colleges, owing to circumstances which I should be very sorry to see altered, a fair sprinkling of young men who, at least before they have passed through a Cambridge career, would not be called well-bred. But they do not lower the tone of the University; the tone of the University raises them. Wherever there is intellectual power, good manners are easily acquired; the public opinion of young men expresses itself so freely, and possibly coarsely, that priggishness ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... Francisco there are comparatively few of those of the higher class. The difference between them and the masses is very pronounced, and they appreciate the difference to the fullest extent. They are educated, well-bred gentlemen. The coolie and lower class are an ignorant, repulsive and ill-mannered people. They seem to be mere brutes, and not a gleam of intelligence is apparent in their dull, ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... softly in at the hour of gloaming and, with her head on her hand, lean against the mantel, look sadly into the faces of the occupants of the room, and vanish without a sound—of course, it is undeniable that Annapolis would have only well-bred ghosts. ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... too rigid in her social orthodoxy to have admitted into her rooms anything that savoured of what she considered bad form, according to her lights. It was only vulgar with the underlying vulgarity of mere tasteless fashionable uniformity. There was nothing in it that any well-bred footman could object to; nothing that anybody with one grain of genuine originality could possibly tolerate. The little occasional chairs and tables set casually about the room were of the strictest neglige Belgravian type, a sort of studied protest against the ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... thoughts 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
... canons of correct conduct, scrupulously adhered to (when convenient) by all well-bred persons, that an acquaintance should be initiated by a proper introduction. To this salutary rule, which I have disregarded to the extent of an entire chapter, I now hasten to conform; and the more so inasmuch as nearly two years have passed ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... and well-bred, was so confused she could hardly speak. Her kind visitor endeavoured to relieve her by not noticing her embarrassment. "I am come, Madam," continued she, "to request you will spend the day with me. I shall be alone; ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... 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
... him, or rather a girl whose exceedingly simple dress accentuated her well-bred appearance. Her pretty face wore a sad and anxious expression. ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... personally removed their veils and their izars. When they took their leave, I reveiled them, and accompanied them to the door. With the men I did not shake hands: we saluted at a distance. If my visitor was a well-bred man, he would not expect me to rise, but would come and kiss my hand, and had to be pressed two or three times before he would consent to sit down. The only man I was in the habit of rising for was the Wali, or Governor- ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... Chaucer, considering the former only in relation to the latter. With Ovid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue; from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began. The manners of the poets were not unlike: both of them were well-bred, well-natured, amorous, and libertine, at least in their writings, it may be also in their lives. Their studies were the same, philosophy and philology. Both of them were known in astronomy, of which Ovid's books of the Roman ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... There was not the same conscious brilliance, the same thrill in the air, as 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 there was no tension, and the agreeable nobodies ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... gentlemen wore swords, and some of the more reckless bloods were daringly beginning to discard the Ramillie-tie and the pigtail for their own hair; when politeness was obligatory, and morality a matter of taste, and when well-bred people went about the day's work with an ample leisure and very few scruples. In fine, we begin toward the end of March, in the year 1750, when Lady Allonby and her brother, Mr. Henry Heleigh, of Trevor's Folly, were the guests of Lord Rokesle, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... crashing cheers at Commonwealth Hall; in Mr. Westlake's study it was received with well-bred expressions of approval. ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... emphatic negative, and the two young fellows started off by themselves. Charlie's manner was affected by the ceremonious courtesy which a well-bred host betrays towards a guest not very well-beloved, but Victor did not notice this. It seldom occurred to him that people did not ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... was 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 ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... desiring the ostler to saddle his horse and fix on his saddle-bags. As soon as this was done he mounted and rode off. Before he was well clear of the town the highwaymen cantered past him on three well-bred active horses. "I presume we shall meet again," thought Edward, who for some time cantered at a gentle rate, and then, as his horse was very fresh, he put him to a faster pace, intending to do a long day's work. He had ridden about fifteen miles, when ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... or the gentlemen lifted me to pass their hands over my snowy back to make the sparks fly from my hair, the old woman remarked with pride, "You can hold her without having any fear for your dress; she is admirably well-bred!" Everybody said I was an angel; I was loaded with delicacies, but I assure you that I was profoundly bored. I was well aware of the fact that a young female Cat of the neighbourhood had run away with a Tom. This word, Tom, caused ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... seeking amusement, and finding it in the littered dressing-room of a woman star at a local theater; Clare Rossiter brooding, and the little question being whispered behind hands, figuratively, of course—the village was entirely well-bred; Gregory calling round to see Bassett, and turning away with the information that he had gone away for an indefinite time; and Maggie Donaldson, lying in the cemetery at the foot of the mountains outside Norada, having shriven her soul to the limit of her strength so that ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the order of the household; when Mina—always busy in her friend's interest—suggested re-arrangement of furniture or of curios, Cecily's manner implied that she was prepared to take no such liberties in another man's house. It would have been all very well-bred if Harry had put his house at her disposal for a fortnight. Seeing that the place was her own and that she had accepted it as being her own, Mina declared that her conduct was little less than an absurdity. This assertion was limited to Mina's own mind; it had not been ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... Lord Ilchester?(115) He shewed me a letter which he had received from Ste on his mother's death, and some trifling things which had belonged to Lord H(olland). Lord Ilchester was extremely pleased with this mark of his affection, and indeed the letter was a very kind and well-bred letter as any ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... Kendrick was forced to be glad of the chance to have the Jackson child come over and play with Ellen. A nurse she could have hired, but a child near the afflicted girl's age, a sound-natured, sweet-tempered, well-bred little girl, was not to be had for money—love was the only coin current that could ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... gratitude, but said nothing. Not the least of her charms, to the well-bred people who employed her, was her exquisite reticence, her gentle and unconscious withdrawal into herself, in spite of all familiarity with ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Shaftesbury's writings can hardly fail to lead us to the same conclusion. He writes, indeed, as an easy, well-bred man of the world, and was no doubt perfectly sincere in his constantly repeated disavowal of any wish to disturb the existing state of things. But his reason obviously is that 'the game would not be worth the candle.' No one ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... very 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 to hobble him at night. When we reached camp ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... Renaissance learning, and evidently determined to fix himself as a new and dazzling star in the literary sky. In this ambition he achieved a remarkable and immediate success, by the publication of a little book entitled 'Euphues and His Anatomie of Wit.' 'Euphues' means 'the well-bred man,' and though there is a slight action, the work is mainly a series of moralizing disquisitions (mostly rearranged from Sir Thomas North's translation of 'The Dial of Princes' of the Spaniard Guevara) on love, religion, and conduct. Most influential, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... every one else seemed to be having such fun, and they all call each other by pet names, and shorten up all their adjectives (it is adjectives I mean, not adverbs). I am sure you made a mistake in what you told me, that all well-bred people behave nicely at dinner, and sit up, because they don't a bit; lots of them put their elbows on the table, and nearly all sat anyhow in their chairs. Only Lady Cecilia and Mrs. Vavaseur behaved like you; but then they ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... modern 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 ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... he had some faults, being as proud as was endurable, as shy as a child, and altogether endowed with a full appreciation, to say the least, of his own charms and merits: but he was sincere, and loyal, and tender; well cultivated, yet not priggish or pedantic; brave, well-bred, and high-principled; handsome besides. I knew him thoroughly; I had held him on my lap, fed him with sugar-plums, soothed his child-sorrows, and scolded his naughtiness, many a time; I had stood with him by his mother's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... Accomplished men. Infant prodigies. A widow with eight sons and one daughter. Primitive laundering, but generous patrons. The bloomer costume appropriate for overland journey. Dances in barroom. Unwilling female partners. Some illiterate immigrants. Many intelligent and well-bred women. The journey back to Indian Bar. The tame frog in the rancho barroom. The dining-table a bed at night. Elation of the author on arriving ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... and bearing. So much at least he observed at a glance quite instinctively. But it was not this quiet and unobtrusive tone, as of the Best Society, that surprised and astonished him; Brackenhurst prided itself, indeed, on being a most well-bred and distinguished neighbourhood; people of note grew as thick there as heather or whortleberries. What puzzled him more was the abstruser question, where on earth the stranger could have come from so suddenly. Philip had glanced up the road and down ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... he thanked: "It is good, all the same! it warms you up and it cheats the appetite."—The drink put him in good humor and he proposed that they should do as on the small boat in the song: "eat the fattest of the passengers." This indirect allusion to Boule de Suif shocked the well-bred passengers. There was no response. Cornudet alone smiled. The two good Sisters had ceased to mumble their rosary, and with their hands thrust down in their wide sleeves, they held themselves motionless, obstinately lowering their eyes and doubtless offering up as a sacrifice to God the suffering ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... it. Some weeks after this he took me to see Florence Nightingale in her house in South Street. Groups of hospital nurses were waiting outside in the hall to see her. When we went in I noted her fine, handsome, well-bred face. She was lying on a sofa, with a white shawl round her shoulders and, after shaking hands with her, the Master and I sat down. She pointed to the beautiful Richmond print of Sidney Herbert, hanging above her mantelpiece, and said ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... daughter to marry the sort of negro who steals hens, but then you would also not like your daughter to marry a pure English hunchback with a squint, or a drunken cab tout of Norman blood. As a matter of fact, very few well-bred English girls do commit that sort of indiscretion. But you don't think it necessary to generalise against men of your own race because there are drunken cab touts, and why should you generalise against negroes? Because the proportion of undesirables is higher among negroes, that does ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... his chair Richard observed that Ted had risen also, and he now heard Ted's voice presenting him to his sister with the ease of the well-bred youngster. ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... lumber of the Latin store, Spoil'd his own language, and acquir'd no more; All classic learning lost on classic ground; And last turn'd Air, the echo of a sound! See now, half-cur'd, and perfectly well-bred, With nothing but a solo in his head; As much estate, and principle, and wit, As Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber shall think fit; Stol'n from a duel, follow'd by a nun, And, if a borough choose him, not undone; See, to my country happy I restore This glorious youth, and add one Venus more. Her too receive, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... look in her eyes. This America beats me. That poor lass would make a model princess—according to common ideals of royalty—and here you find her coming out of some hut in the mountains and going to work in a factory. Miss Lydia Sessions is a well-bred young woman, now; she's been all over Europe, and profited by her advantages of travel. I call her an exceedingly ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... by this law is very plain. It shows the importance of seeking thorough-bred or well-bred animals; and by these terms are simply meant such as are descended from a line of ancestors in which for many generations the desirable forms, qualities, and characteristics have been uniformly shown. In such ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... excessively annoyed at their behaviour, and at the behaviour of the birds. 'It only shows,' they said, 'what a vulgarising effect this incessant rushing and flying about has. Well-bred people always stay exactly in the same place, as we do. No one ever saw us hopping up and down the walks, or galloping madly through the grass after dragon-flies. When we do want change of air, we send for the gardener, and he carries us to another bed. This is dignified, and as ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... in a big sack that grew on the side of his captor; and of the taste of peppermint candy, which he ate in his prettiest style, sitting on his haunches and clutching the morsel in both forepaws like any well-bred baby woodchuck. And then those delicious sugar cookies that Mrs. Spiker had just baked! How could he make his ignorant brother chuckies appreciate those cookies! Poor little Johnny is a marked woodchuck. ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... 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 ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... averred, at the end of the ends. "Of course you can't bank much on that. He might have said to a perfect stranger, 'After you,' or whatever it was that he did say; and she would acknowledge the courtesy with the nod and the smile—any well-bred woman would. But you can take it for what it is worth; my thought at the moment was that they had met before; casually, perhaps, as people meet on trains or in hotels; that there was at ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... indecent haste to make way with the dishes that were set before them without number, and heaped up without measure, on Mr. Chamberlin's ample board. On the contrary, they partook of the good things of the table with a well-bred slowness, that would have been beyond his endurance to bear, had Mars been thundering with his iron fist at the gates of his fortress. But as it was Cupid, only tapping with his rosy knuckles at the casement of his heart, that ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... flattering artist." It is a fact—to the cook; and another fact, which only shows that the Hebrew baron is a Jew d'esprit, is that after coffee, the cook actually came up, and was presented to her. "He," says her ladyship, "was a well-bred gentleman, perfectly free from pedantry, and when we had mutually complimented each other on our respective works, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... Cowslip and Tom Clarke, set out immediately for the house of Dr. Kawdle, who happened to be abroad, but his wife received them with great courtesy. She was a well-bred, sensible, genteel woman, and strongly attached to Aurelia by the ties of affection, as well as of consanguinity. She no sooner learned the situation of her cousin than she expressed the most impatient concern for her being set at liberty, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... the drollery could be, of a man choaked with swallowing too hastily, was more than I could comprehend. The appellation of droll dog however was repeated, till the two gentlemen could appease their titillation. I own I thought it a little rude; but they seemed neither of them so well-bred as the lady, and I concluded they could be nothing more than travelling acquaintance. I even supposed I saw them wink at each other, as if there had been something strange or ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... himself, he, like a well-bred gentleman, did not further press the delicate subject. After a further conversation on other subjects, I begged that he would excuse me, as I wished to go back to my white friends who were waiting for me round their camp-fire, and having once more carefully dressed ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... man west of the Missouri River ever could do that it would be you, Clarenden. By the holy Jerusalem, the military lost one grand commander when you chose a college instead of West Point, and the East lost one well-bred gentleman from its circles of commerce and culture when you elected to do business on the old Santa Fe Trail instead of Broadway. But I reckon the West will need just such men as you long after the frontier fort has become ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... bishopricke at present there is no house), he did intend to dwell here. By and by to dinner, and in comes Mr. Creed; I saluted his lady and the young ladies, and his sister, the Bishop's widow; who was, it seems, Sir W. Russel's daughter, the Treasurer of the Navy; who I find to be very well-bred, and a woman of excellent discourse. Towards the evening we bade them adieu! and took horse; being resolved that, instead of the race which fails us, we would go to Epsom. When we come there we could hear of no lodging the town so full; but which was better, I went ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... 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 ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... 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 had not ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... reached out the hand of assistance toward the halter rope; the astonished animal promptly snorted, tried to turn around, cannoned against the next in line. Then there was a mix-up. Two tall clean-cut well-bred looking girls of our slim patrician type offered us material assistance. They seemed to understand horses, and got out of the way in the proper manner, did just the right thing, and made sensible suggestions. I offer ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... the Squire listened smiling and Leila sat dumb with astonishment as the dinner went on. He ate little and kept in mind the endless lessons in regard to what he should or should not eat. Meanwhile, he silently approved of the old silver and these well-bred kinsfolk, with a reserve of doubt ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... a rude sailor, smelling of pitch and tar, and Antony will be a well-bred, point-device scholar, who will know how to give a lady his ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Burrell was thirty-eight years old. The rector wrote poetry, and understood Browning, and recited from Arnold and Morris. Burrell's tastes were for social science and statistics. He was thoughtful, intelligent, well-bred, and reticent; small in figure, with a large head and very fine eyes. The rector, on the contrary, was tall and fair, and so exceedingly handsome that women especially never perceived that the portal to all his ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... bright-faced girl with wind-tossed hair and rustic hat heaped with moss and many-tinted shells; they only saw that her gown was wet, her gloves forgotten, and her scarf trailing at her waist in a manner no well-bred lady could approve. The sunshine faded out of Debby's face, and there was a touch of bitterness in her tone, as she glanced at the circle of fashion-plates, saying, with an earnestness which caused Miss West to open her pale eyes to their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... confidence in her views upon the laugh cure for human woes. Yet in all civilized countries it is a fundamental principle of refined manners not to be ill-timed and unreasonably noisy and boisterous in mirth. One who is wise will never violate the proprieties of well-bred people. ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... from him unawares; and then, when 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 the Bishop ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... firecracker and penny-trumpet and cannon (there was but one), to say nothing of many an inebriated human voice, hailed in a roaring diapason the birth of a new year. At Mr. Beirne's the outer tumult was echoed in the manner of the well-bred. The doors were shut, with the infant inside; the lights flew up; glasses clinked, merry healths were pledged, new fealties sworn by look alone. Gaiety overcame silence. All talked ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... that did her mother no harm but pastime to read. As for other things, her father's house was a perfect model of the very best morals and the very best manners. Alonso de Cepeda was a well-born and a well-bred Spanish gentleman. He came of an ancient and an illustrious Castilian stock; and, though not a rich man, his household enjoyed all the nobility of breeding and all the culture of mind and all the refinement of taste for which Spain was so famous in that great age. All her days, and in ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... described as a sweet-tempered, arch, modest, sensible, and well-bred girl, that had received a far better education than her father's means would have permitted him to bestow, through the liberality and affection of a widowed sister of her mother's, who was affluent, and had caused her to attend the same school as that ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... fools as ever! Between asleep and awake, I pondered on the quantity and quality of Australian-novel lore which had found utterance there. The outlawed bushrangers; the lurking blackfellows; the squatter's lovely Diana-daughter, awaiting the well-bred greenhorn (for even she had cropped-up in conversation)—how these things recalled my reading! And yet they were quite as reasonable as the discovery of the rich reef by the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... was no more than twenty-two or three, possessed unusual beauty. Her great eyes were blue,—the lovely Irish blue,—her skin was fair and smooth, her features regular and of the delicate mould that defines the well-bred gentlewoman at a glance. Her hair, now in order, was dark and thick and lay softly about her small ears and neck. She was not surprised, I repeat, for she had never known Challis Wrandall to show interest in any but the most attractive of ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... were repeatedly launched against the practices of these well-bred offenders, but the ready covert of the forest made the evasion of the King's justice an easy matter. Moreover, the Church, while it suffered much from such children, did not venture to reprove too strongly their flagrant excesses, lest they should thenceforth dispense altogether with her sacraments; ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... curly than woolly, the features are frequently aquiline, and the lips are not unpleasantly thick, as is the case among most African races. But what struck us most was their exceedingly quiet and dignified air. They were as well-bred in their way as the habituees of a fashionable drawing-room, and in this respect they differ from Zulu women and their cousins the Masai who inhabit the district beyond Zanzibar. Their curiosity had brought them out to see us, but they allowed no rude expressions of astonishment or savage criticism ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... Lady Gwendolen 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 ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... were the means of conveying the principal mails throughout the country, must ever seem to us a period of romantic interest. There is something stirring even in the picture of a mail-coach bounding along at the heels of four well-bred horses; and we know by experience how exhilarating it is to be carried along the highway at a rapid ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... ago operating on a cat, seemed to have recognized his selfishness in keeping his amusements to himself. He had found a poor lost puppy, a little creature with bright pitiful eyes, almost human in their fond, friendly gaze. It was not a well-bred little dog; it was certainly not that famous puppy "by Vick out of Wasp"; it had rough hair and a foolish long tail which it wagged beseechingly, at once deprecating severity and asking kindness. The poor animal ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... from many of those little bitternesses and restraints and disappointments which all well-bred city children must suffer in the course of their training for the more or less factitious life of society:—obligations to remain very still with every nimble nerve quivering in dumb revolt;—the injustice of being found troublesome and being sent to bed early for the comfort of her elders;—the ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... "the spirit of Christianity is fled from among them." When the Prince of Wales died, George 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
... sinn'd 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 ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... extending to the high ceiling, and flanked on either side by sconces. The carpet was a golden brown, the hangings in the tall windows yellow. And in the morning the sun came in, not boisterously, but as a well-bred and cheerful guest. An amiable proprietor had permitted her also to add a wrought-iron balcony as an adjunct to this room, and sometimes she sat there on the warmer days reading under the seclusion of an awning, or gazing at the mysterious facades of the houses opposite, or ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that, Hypatia, I saw an 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. etc., that he could not refuse ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... conferring the franchise upon the women. What would be the next effect of such an extension of the suffrage? It was described by my friend from Missouri [Mr. Vest] and by other senators who have spoken upon this subject. The effect would be to drive the ladies of the land, as they are termed, the well-bred and well-educated women, the women of nice sensibilities, within their home circle, there to remain, while the ruder of that sex would thrust themselves out on the hustings and at the ballot-box, and fight their way to the polls through negroes and others who are not the best of company ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and one most prized, is the specimen represented here—the short-faced Tumbler. Its beak, you see, is reduced to a mere nothing. Just compare the beak of this one and that of the first one, the Carrier—I believe the orthodox comparison of the head and beak of a thoroughly well-bred Tumbler is to stick an oat into a cherry, and that will give you the proper relative proportions of the beak and head. The feet and legs are exceedingly small, and the bird appears to be quite a dwarf when placed side by side with ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... think," continued Bertha, without heeding the remark, "that you were at bottom kind-hearted, but too hopelessly well-bred ever to commit an act of any decided complexion, either good or bad. Now I see that I have misjudged you, and that you are capable of outraging the most sacred feelings of a woman's heart in mere wantonness, or for the sake ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... profession may be, he is not fit to be trusted; and when once discover'd, he will never be trusted by any but fools and children. To complement a great man to the injury of truth and liberty, may be in the opinion of a very degenerate age, the part of a polite and well-bred gentleman - Wise men however will denominate him a Traitor or a Fool. But how much more aggravated must be the folly and madness of those, who instead of worshipping GOD in the solemn assembly, "in spirit and ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... cave, he beheld an elderly hermit seated upon a stone, calmly surveying the sunset sky. The hermit looked up with a pleasant smile, for it had been long since a traveller had passed that way; and, perceiving that the stranger was not only well-bred but tired, invited him to take a seat upon a stone near by his own, at the same time motioning the Adherent to a smaller ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... witness the marriage of John Hutchinson, eldest son of Sir Thomas Hutchinson, with Lucy Apsley, the daughter of Sir Allen Apsley. The bride, who was only eighteen years of age, was, according to her contemporaries, exceedingly beautiful and very accomplished; her future husband was learned, well-bred and handsome. Both had a host of friends, and thus it was that a large crowd had gathered at the church to witness ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... anticipated rivalry, and was clearly jealous of every word that Morton did not address to her. Mildred looked at him again. He was better dressed than the others, and an air of success in his face made him seem younger than he was. He leaned across the table, and Mildred liked his brusque, but withal well-bred manner. She wondered what his pictures were like. At Daveau's only the names of the principal exhibitors at the Salon were known, and he had told her that he had not sent there for the last three years. He didn't care to send to the vulgar place ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... 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, but ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... was fading off the prairie when a party of three sat in a first-class car as the local train went jolting westward. Henry Colston leaned back in his seat with a Winnipeg paper on his knee; and his appearance stamped him as a well-bred Englishman traveling for pleasure. He was thirty-four; his dress, though dusty, was fastidiously neat; his expression was pleasant, but there was an air of formality about him. One would not have expected him to do anything startling ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... engagement, and the necessity of reviving the flirtatious game of croquet. Black coats, coloured dresses, flashing jewels, many-hued flowers,—the restless crowd resembled a bed of gaudy tulips tossed by the wind. And all this chattering, laughing, clattering, glittering mass of well-bred, well-groomed humanity moved, and swayed, and gyrated under the white glare of the electric lamps. Urbs in Rus; Belgravia in the Provinces; Vanity Fair amid the cornfields; no wonder this entertainment of Bishop and Mrs Pendle was the event of ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... If the offender can, after a short space, continue to make his usual personal appearances, he is safe, because the great bulk of his old friends would rather continue to recognise him, than come to a positive rupture—an event always felt as inconvenient. Of course, they will be too well-bred to allude before him to any unpleasant fact in his history. He will never recall it to their minds. By being thus thrown out of all common reference, it will become obscured to a wonderful degree, insomuch that many will at length think of it only as a kind of domestic myth, to which no importance ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... 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 off ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... was an awkwardness about them that convinced me they were not of the bon ton of Philadelphia. The answers to all my questions were quick, pert, and given with an air of assumed consequence; at the same time I observed a mode of expression which, though English, was not well-bred English. ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 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, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... nodding to people, as if they felt entirely at home, and would not be embarrassed in the least, if they met the Governor, or even the President of the United States, face to face. Some of these great folks are really well-bred, some of them are only purse-proud and assuming,—but they form a class, and are named as above in ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... something 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 ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... 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 ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... that she had gone among strangers to conceal disgrace. She died without telling her story. In 1788 she arrived at the Bell Tavern, Danvers, in company with a man, who, after seeing her properly bestowed, drove away and never returned. A graceful, beautiful, well-bred woman, with face overcast by a tender melancholy, she kept indoors with her books, her sewing, and a guitar, avoiding the gossip of the idle. She said that her husband was absent on a journey, and a letter addressed to "Mrs. ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... the seamy side of life and, in the drawing rooms where Vance and she exhibited their mind reading tricks, had been made much of by great ladies and, for an hour as brief as Cinderella's, had looked upon a world of kind and well-bred people. Since she was fourteen, for seven years, this had been her life—a life as open to the public as the life of an actress, as easy of access as that of the stenographer in the hotel lobby. As a result, the girl had encased herself in a defensive ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... best purveyors of information was a bright, blue-eyed, fair-haired little drummer boy, as handsome as a girl, well-bred as a lady, and evidently the darling of some refined loving mother. He belonged, I think, to some loyal Virginia regiment, was captured in one of the actions in the Shenandoa Valley, and had been with us in ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... grief through their familiarity with the social evil. One of these, a delicate boy of seventeen, had been put into the messenger service by his parents when their family doctor had recommended out-of-door work. Because he was well-bred and good-looking, he became especially popular with the inmates of disreputable houses. They gave him tips of a dollar and more when he returned from the errands which he had executed for them, such as buying candy, cocaine or morphine. He was inevitably ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... of the chapel he maintains, at a large expense, a pious and portly family chaplain. He is a most learned and decorous personage and a truly well-bred Christian, who always backs the old gentleman in his opinions, winks discreetly at his little peccadilloes, rebukes the children when refractory, and is of great use in exhorting the tenants to read their Bibles, say their prayers, and, above all, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... broken whisper, so cold it stabbed me like steel; and she put out her hand in the mechanical way of the well-bred ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... cause. But besides the crimes of violence committed during a drunken fit, the prolonged abuse of alcohol, opium, morphia, coca, and other nervines may give rise to chronic perturbation of the mind, and without other causes, congenital or educative, will transform an honest, well-bred, and industrious man into an idle, violent, and apathetic fellow,—into an ignoble being, capable of any depraved action, even when he is not directly under the influence of ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... glowing fires. She was a type of the ancient repression of woman, which finds its exceptions in the Aspasias and Helens and Cleopatras of legend and history. In features she looked exactly what she was, well-bred and well-born. Beauty she also had, but it was the cold beauty of northern winter nights. It compelled admiration rather than invited it. Spiritually, Elsa was asleep. The fire was there, the gift of loving greatly, only it smoldered, without radiating even ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... anything that savoured of what she considered bad form, according to her lights. It was only vulgar with the underlying vulgarity of mere tasteless fashionable uniformity. There was nothing in it that any well-bred footman could object to; nothing that anybody with one grain of genuine originality could possibly tolerate. The little occasional chairs and tables set casually about the room were of the strictest neglige Belgravian type, a sort of studied protest against the formal stiffness of the ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... 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. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... her relations' follies acting in concert, though unknown to themselves, with thy wicked, scheming head: considering how destitute of protection she is: considering the house she is to be in, where she will be surrounded with thy implements; specious, well-bred and genteel creatures, not easily to be detected when they are disposed to preserve appearances, especially by the young inexperienced lady wholly unacquainted with the town: considering all these things, I say, what ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... expert swordsman; he was known, talked about, appreciated everywhere, having very courteous manners, a very mediocre intellect, an absence of education and of the real culture needed in order to think like all well-bred people, and finally ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... 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 mind, and qualifies the noun in it with adjectives ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... into the little chapel to pray it is all too tender, the divine Mother and the Child and the holy atmosphere. I begin to feel rather sorry for myself, I don't know why; then I go and move beds and feel better; but I have found that just to behave like a well-bred woman is what keeps me up best. I had thought that the Flag or Religion would have been stronger incentives ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... stayed here some time viewing this town and coast, we had opportunity to observe the pleasant way of conversation as it is managed among the gentlemen of this county and their families, which are, without reflection, some of the most polite and well-bred people in the isle of Britain. As their hospitality is very great, and their bounty to the poor remarkable, so their generous friendly way of living with, visiting, and associating one with another is as hard to be described ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... You do not know why I talk like this, Cleanthis: I had been eating garlic, and, like a well-bred man, just turned ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... neither surprise nor fear, but laughed and uttered a "Really!" that was just such a "really" as any well-bred girl might use at a tea, or anywhere else that reputable folk congregate, to express faint surprise. Her way of laughing was altogether charming. A girl who donned a clown's garb for night prowling and manufactured moons for her own amusement could not ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... has come into your head? Frau Rupius' conduct is irreproachable! She is one of the most well-bred ladies ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... the forces of nature and thus shorten time and ignore space? Whence comes the improvement of live-stock in this country? Compare the cattle of early New England with those on modern farms. Was the little scrubby stock of our forefathers replaced by large, sleek, well-bred cattle through accident? No, it was by the discovery of investigators and its practical adaptation by breeders. Compare the vineyards and the orchards of the early history of the nation, the grains and the grasses, or the fruits and the flowers ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... and promises; he decides on one course, and the next day takes another. He himself says he is nervous, susceptible and passionate, and he may be right. He is no play actor, and does not disguise himself; he is, I think, too sensible and well-bred, indeed, too ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... the Donna Inez led For some time an unhappy sort of life, Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead;[d] They lived respectably as man and wife, Their conduct was exceedingly well-bred, And gave no outward signs of inward strife, Until at length the smothered fire broke out, And put the business past all kind ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... truly the patriarchal life; this is what we came to find.' They heard from home and had letters. At Kingsburgh they were welcomed by the lady of the house, 'the celebrated Miss Flora Macdonald, a little woman of genteel appearance; and uncommonly mild and well-bred.' 'I was in a cordial humour, and promoted a cheerful glass. Honest Mr M'Queen observed that I was in high glee, "my governor being gone to bed." ... The room where we lay was a celebrated one. Dr ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... result of physical causes; breeding tells as surely as it does in dogs or cows, and the probability of defects in the offspring of poverty and of lust is necessarily greater than in well-bred, well-fed, well-environed children. The proportion of mentally and morally deficient children that come to us absolutely demonstrates this fact; and the love needed to see such children through to the end is more comprehensive than the mere sentiment of having a child in the home, and ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... question of race into a question of unequal cultures. You would not like your daughter to marry the sort of negro who steals hens, but then you would also not like your daughter to marry a pure English hunchback with a squint, or a drunken cab tout of Norman blood. As a matter of fact, very few well-bred English girls do commit that sort of indiscretion. But you don't think it necessary to generalise against men of your own race because there are drunken cab touts, and why should you generalise against negroes? Because the proportion of undesirables is higher among negroes, ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... at my costume and the pistols on my belt in well-bred concealment of surprise. "I'm your military attache, Stonehenge; ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... (reappearing 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
... Allan, who was a very shrewd man, was perfectly aware of this. He was a sybarite of refined taste, with an exquisite appreciation of the finer and more artistic pleasures of life; and the society of educated and well-bred women was one of the chief of them. Rather than run any risk of deterioration in its quality he preferred to let things remain as they were, and that he might enjoy it the more thoroughly without the restraint placed upon other ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... YOUNG MEN.—Many of our "fast young men" have been thus corrupted, even as the children of the intemperate are proved to have been. Certainly no one can deny that many of our "well-bred" young men are little better than "high-class dogs" so lawless are they, and ready for the ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... naturally interested in the horses they were to ride. Sax had a grey mare named Fair Steel to ride in the mornings, and Ginger, a gelding, for the afternoons. Vaughan's two were both geldings: Boxer, a brown, and Don Juan, a tall black. All four horses were well-bred and thoroughly suitable for the month's hard work which ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... flouted her. She roat the notes, she kep the bills, she made the tea, she whipped the chocklate, she cleaned the canary birds, and gev out the linning for the wash. She was my lady's walking pocket, or rettycule; and fetched and carried her handkercher, or her smell-bottle, like a well-bred spaniel. All night, at her ladyship's swarries, she thumped kidrills (nobody ever thought of asking HER to dance!); when Miss Griffing sung, she played the piano, and was scolded because the singer ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... going to marry a German of the Junker class I suppose I must appease his relations,—at any rate till I've got them, by gentle and devious methods, a little more used to me. So I gave in sullenly. Don't be afraid,—only sullenly inside, not outside. Outside I was so well-bred and pleased, you can't think. It really is very kind of the Grafin, and her want of enthusiasm, which was marked, only makes it all the kinder. On that principle, too, my gratefulness, owing to an equal want of enthusiasm, is all ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... had just to moot the question And say you felt the closing hour had come And we should simply jump at your suggestion And all the Hague with overtures would hum; You'd but to call her up, And Peace would follow like a well-bred pup. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... you to begin before you go down to breakfast. There is a mountain called Dod, which has felt me upon its summit. It is not one of the highest in that range. Remember me to Grisedale Pike; a very well-bred mountain. If you paint—put him not only in a good light, but to leeward of you in a strong current of air. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... long way, in a big sack that grew on the side of his captor; and of the taste of peppermint candy, which he ate in his prettiest style, sitting on his haunches and clutching the morsel in both forepaws like any well-bred baby woodchuck. And then those delicious sugar cookies that Mrs. Spiker had just baked! How could he make his ignorant brother chuckies appreciate those cookies! Poor little Johnny is a marked woodchuck. He ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... gentleman, through and through, courteous, well-bred, and with an entirely sufficient sense of his own dignity. But he had little respect for any false notions of gentility, and had a habit of going straight at any difficulty himself. To this habit he owed much of his success in life. A very amusing story was told by Mrs. Washburn ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... aristocratic spareness, and utter fastidiousness did not, however, preclude a certain nervous intensity which occasionally lit up her weary eyes with a dangerous phosphorescence, under their brown fringes. Equally acceptable was Miss Chubb, her friend and traveling companion; a tall, well-bred girl, with faint salmon-pink hair and complexion, that darkened to a fiery ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... her to a group of sister graces standing near the sofas of mammas and chaperons—not each a different grace, but similar each, indeed upon the very same identical pattern air of young-lady fashion—well-bred, and apparently well-natured. No sooner was Miss Stanley made known to them by Lady Cecilia, than, smiling just enough, not a muscle too much, they moved; the ranks opened softly, but sufficiently, and Helen was in the group; amongst them, but not of them—and ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... he made me, poverty had never approached me. I dined with him at Parkgate, 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 ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... down the large sunny room, casting a glance over the handsome old pieces of furniture and the family portraits on the wall. It was evidently the home of generations of well-to-do, well-bred people, the narrow circle of whose life was made rich by congenial duties and a comfortable feeling of their standing ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... in these 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 our critic ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... ago (for the season as yet Was but young) in this 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, ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... napkin. Under the circumstances, however, they behaved very well; for, though Roy took rather large mouthfuls, and Sammy licked his fingers when he thought no one was looking, these were small delinquencies, and you will be glad to know that the girls were too well-bred to appear to notice. Mollie, now fully restored to favor, was allowed to pass the finger-bowl, while Susie collected the plates, distributed the work, and made every thing snug and tidy in the room. Then Miss ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... The drivers on this particular stage were more stupid than usual, or Fred Temple was not so bright. Be that as it may, about midnight they arrived at a gloomy, savage place, lying deep among the hills, with two or three wooden huts, so poor-looking and so dirty that a well-bred dog would have objected to go into them. Fred pulled up when he came to this place, and Grant's pony pulled up when his nose touched the back of Fred's cart. Grant himself and his man were sound asleep. In a ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... America. Your shadow in London was rather a dim and wavery gentleman who caught up with you as you turned out of the shaded by-street; who went with you a distance and then shyly vanished, but was good company while he stayed, being restful, as your well-bred Englishman nearly always is, and ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... 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 ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... flag on the top of a 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 ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... to anti-slavery ideas, the country would indeed have been turned "the seamy side without." That we were spared, in the severer crises of the war, the last uglinesses of tergiversation, is owing mainly to people of this class, the cheapest subjects for well-bred sneers and intellectual ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Companion Wanted, immediately, by young married woman; servant kept, and there are no children: applicant must be well educated, well read, well-bred, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... for jewellers were well-bred and flattering men, even at that day. 'But when these ear-rings glitter in the ears of the noble Ione, then, by Bacchus! you will see whether my ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... conforms. The nature of things is always and everywhere the same; but the modes of them vary more or less in every country, and an easy and genteel conformity to them, or rather the assuming of them at proper times and proper places, is what particularly constitutes a man of the world, and a well-bred man!" All true enough, but how shallow, and how ineffably conceited! Here is another absurd fragment—"My dear boy, let us resume our reflections upon men, their character, their manners—in a word, our reflections upon the World." It is quite like Mr. Pecksniff's finest vein. There is not ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... throughout the whole of that vast abode, the stillness and cautious tread of those within, answering to the quiet town without; but a young man, in whose countenance and air were to be seen most of the usual signs of a well-bred profligacy, sauntering along the suite of chambers, at length caught the eye of the senator, who beckoned him ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... she was; I told him 'twas the daughter of a reverend friend of mine in the west country. He returned, there was something very striking, to his idea, in her appearance. On my desiring to know what it was, he was pleased to say, "She has a great deal of the elegance of a well-bred lady about her, with all the sweet simplicity of a ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... If he had any doubts, they were soon dissipated by Sassacus, whose attention, with that of the other Indian, had been attracted by marks upon the ground which had escaped the notice of Sir Christopher. These plainly revealed to them by the light of the fire, the two, like well-bred hounds, had been examining in every direction, until, gathering together the various tracks into one trail, they had followed it into the wood. Returning to the Knight, and pointing out the traces, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... I sat by Lady Wickham. Her expression was one of patrician calm and well-bred repose, but it seemed to me she was not looking quite comfortable. I was not feeling quite comfortable myself. The atmosphere seemed a trifle oppressive: perhaps we had done wrong in having a fire after all. Lady Wickham appeared ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... almost all their knowledge is confined to their own country, especially in geography, which I 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; ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the remark with stolidity, imagining it to be a joke. Accepting the vein of humour, he said, with a well-bred indifference— ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... the Opera, the old coxcomb related the incident as follows: "A woman who did not want to tell a man she would be his,—an acknowledgment a well-bred woman never allows herself to make,—changed the words into 'You are mine.' Don't ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... himself calmly, with great politeness and in a remarkably well-bred voice; and he did not for a moment seem to suspect that his revelations, on the contrary, were justifying the measures ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... prepared for the supposed child were taken by Amy in very good part, but with the tact of a well-bred girl who would not spoil a jest, rather than with the undisguised ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... "had not been used as hard as many others 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
... spaniel bitch, which, being well-bred gave him much anxiety. The fear of mesalliances was ever in his mind, and furiously would he drive away the village pariahs when they came slinking round the house, with lolling tongues. One brown and white dog, larger than the others ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Reputation, Madam, you're a civil well-bred Person, you have all the Agreemony of your Sex, la belle Taille, la bonne Mine, & Reparteee bien, and are tout oure toore, as I'm a Gentleman, fort agreeable.—If this do not please your Lady, and nauseate ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... good understanding, and very capable to be in the ministry; a well-bred gentleman, and an agreeable companion.—Swift. A very moderate ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... man would make love to me? It is ridiculous. You seem to forget I have only been married five months. Even in a well-bred world, where they have gone back to nature, they don't begin as soon as ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... will yer,' he began. The rest of his remarks were lost in the hum of the conversation, and by well-bred transitions observations were made on the dancing and hunting prospects of the season. Mr. Adair took no interest in such subjects, and to everyone's relief he remained silent. May and Fred Scully had withdrawn to a corner of the room where they could talk more ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... of form is a very different thing from literary excellence. Irving wrote like a well-bred Englishman, brought up in the sound traditions of the days of good Queen Anne. Whatever local merit his work may have, belongs to theme rather than to treatment. Its delicate humor is as far as possible from what has come to be known as American ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... mother uttered a little cry of glad surprise, and rose to welcome me. Madame Bernard instantly assumed the air with which a well-bred woman prepares to condole with a person of her acquaintance upon a bereavement. All these little details I perceived in a moment, and also the shrug of M. Termonde's shoulders, the quick flutter of his eyelids, the rapidly-dismissed expression of disagreeable surprise ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... the provinces and fools are always ready to take offence, and to suppose that you are laughing at them: we should never risk a pleasantry, except with well-bred people, ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... with a zest of enjoyment that seemed foreign to one who had devoted her life to a serious profession from the highest motives. Alice liked society well enough, she thought, but there was nothing exciting in that of Fallkill, nor anything novel in the attentions of the well-bred young gentlemen one met in it. It must have worn a different aspect to Ruth, for she entered into its pleasures at first with curiosity, and then with interest and finally with a kind of staid abandon that no one would have deemed possible for her. Parties, picnics, rowing-matches, moonlight ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... van Cannan delayed them for a moment, giving some directions for the afternoon. If Christine could have seen herself with the children clinging to her, she would have been surprised that she could appear so beautiful. Her grace of carriage and well-bred face had always been remarkable, but gone were disdain and weariness from her. She passed out of the room without looking again at Dick Saltire, though he rose, as always, to open ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... what strange motive, Goddess! could compel A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle? O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd, Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord? 10 In tasks so bold, can little men engage, And in soft ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... reading German folk lore with ease. She was familiar with the best things in literature, was intensely interested in art and revealed unusual knowledge without any evidence of precociousness. She was just a normal, healthy, natural girl, well-born, well-bred, a girl with every advantage. When I said good-night to her in her lovely room and thought of her protected, sheltered life, I wondered how she might be helped to know into what pleasant places her lot had fallen and how she might come ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... to modesty and propriety of behaviour, the extreme freedom of manner and conversation in which young English females indulge, are both severely reprobated; their imprudence in walking about and sitting apart with young men held up as an example to be sedulously avoided by well-bred French girls; their so frequently taking complimens d'usage for real admiration, and either fancying the poor man, innocently repeating mere words of course, to be a lover, or else blushing and looking offended, as if he meant to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
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