"Genteel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... parlez pas du people!" cried the Countess Zamoiska, with a gesture of disgust. "A set of beastly peasants, no better than their own cattle, or a band of genteel robbers, who have made it unsafe to live anywhere on Polish ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the case, not unfrequently, with the Lombards, who love to make the angel appear on the flowery grass against a background of Alpine peaks, such as you see them, rising blue and fairylike from the green ricefields about Pavia. Crivelli, however, though a Lombard, prefers a genteel residence in town, the magnificent Milan of Galeazzo and Filippo Visconti. He gives us a whole street, where richly dressed and well peruked gentlemen look down from the terraces, duly set with flower-pots, of houses ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... finer dwellings than the peasants' houses which are now the only habitations on the Lido; and I suspect that a genteel villa must formerly have stood near the farm-gate, which we found surmounted by broken statues of Venus and Diana. The poor goddesses were both headless, and some cruel fortune had struck off their hands, and they looked strangely forlorn in the swaggering attitudes ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Spike, after a few genteel sips, threw off his restraint, and finished the rest of his glass ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... me about the sheets and tablecloths she's got out a-bleachin'; and she said that the weddin' dress was to be made over to Mis' Mosely's in Portland, 'cause Moses he's so particular about havin' things genteel." ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to Bob: "Dearie boy: is it a bargain about the squiffer if I make Joe sprint for you?" "Anything you like, darling," says he: "I love you." I put on my best company manners and stepped up to the copper. "If you please, sir," says I, "can you direct me to Carrickmines Square?" I was so genteel, and talked so sweet, that he fell to it like a bird. "I never heard of any such Square in these parts," he says. "Then," says I, "what a very silly little officer you must be!"; and I gave his helmet a chuck behind that knocked it over his eyes, ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... Nightingale, looking about him with an air of great gravity, "I put it to your Honours, is it genteel behaviour to bring a nigger, in this out-of-the-way fashion, to give an opinion in the teeth of a ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... clean and neat, Baith decent and genteel, And then there's something in her gait Gars ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... to any person, of either sex, who would wish to be buried in a genteel manner, by paying one shilling entrance, and twopence per week for the benefit of the stock. Members to be free in six months. The money to be paid at Mr. Middleton's, at the sign of the First and the ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... A somewhat shabby-genteel, youngish man appeared at the head of the stairs; he was wearing a silk hat and a too ample frock-coat. And immediately, from the hidden corridor at the top, she heard the voice of Mr. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... acquitted, at the Old Bailey in September, 1758, the prosecutrix, Mary Walthow, being unable to prove "that the goods charged to have been stolen (a counterpane, a silver spoon, two napkins, etc.) were her property. Bet does not appear to have lived at that time in a very genteel style; for she paid for her ready- furnished room in Meard's-court, Dean-street, Soho, from which these articles were alleged to be stolen, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... began to dance, and tumble about, and then broke to pieces. A china bowl jumped eight feet but was not broken. However it tried again, and succeeded. Candlesticks, tea-kettles, a tumbler of rum and water, two hams, and a flitch of bacon joined in the corroboree. 'Most of the genteel families around were continually sending to inquire after them, and whether all was over or not.' All this while, Ann was 'walking backwards and forwards', nor could they get her to sit down, except for half an hour, at prayers, 'then all was ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... it to the press however, the Cambrian Briton felt his small heart give way within him: "Were I to print it," said he, "I should be ruined; the terrible descriptions of vice and torment, would frighten the genteel part of the English public out of its wits, and I should to a certainty be prosecuted by Sir James Scarlett. I am much obliged to you, for the trouble you have given yourself on my account—but Myn Diawl! I had no idea till I had read him in English, that ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... would find, that the trade was one which would not degrade either him or her. Hitherto, indeed,—in her early days,—she had looked down on trade; but of what benefit had her grand ideas been to her when she had returned to England? She had tried her hand at English genteel society, and no one had seemed to care for her. Therefore, she touched his arm lightly with her fingers that she ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... in literature. Apples were the treasures of Pomona, but so were cherries, too, and if one wished to allude to peaches, they also were the treasures of Pomona. This decline from particular to general language was regarded as a great gain in elegance. It was supposed that to use one of these genteel counters, which passed for coin of poetic language, brought the speaker closer to the grace of Latinity. It was thought that the old direct manner of speaking was crude and futile; that a romantic poet who wished to allude to caterpillars could do so without any exercise of his ingenuity ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... mother, and told her so. A pretty fellow at the corner would suddenly double himself up with beckoning to a knot of chums; these would hasten up; recruits would come in from two or three other directions; as they reached the corner their countenances would quickly assume a genteel severity, and presently, with her mother, 'Tite Poulette would pass—tall, straight, lithe, her great black eyes made tender by their sweeping lashes, the faintest tint of color in her Southern cheek, her form all grace, her carriage ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... Charles was a genteel, accomplished young man of eighteen when he left his father's palace at Vienna, for England, where a British fleet was to convey him to Portugal, and, by the energy of its fleet and army, place him upon the throne of Spain. He was ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... intoxicated, and in that condition led them into the public halls, to show the young men what drunkenness was. They ordered them too to sing mean songs, and to dance ridiculous dances, but not to meddle with any that were genteel and graceful. Thus they tell us, that when the Thebans afterwards invaded Laconia, and took a great number of the Helotes prisoners, they ordered them to sing the odes of Terpander, Aleman, or Spendon the Lacedaemonian, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... heard Mr. Fulmer say he was a son of Marrs; he spoke as if everybody knew his father, so I suppose he must be the son of the poor gentleman who was so barbarously murdered some years ago, near Ratcliff Highway—if he is, he is uncommon genteel. At 12 o'clock we got into a boat and rowed to the packet; it was a very fine and clear day for the season, and Mr. Fulmer said he should not dislike pulling Lavinia about all the morning—this, I believe, was a naughty-call phrase—which I did not rightly comprehend, because Mr. F. ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... death of the mother, deprived the youthful orphan of her remaining parent. Her father was a merchant, just commencing the foundations of what would, in time, have been a large estate; and as both Miss Emmerson and her sister were possessed of genteel independencies, and the aunt had long declared her intention of remaining single, the fortune of Julia, if not brilliant, was thought rather large than otherwise. Miss Emmerson had been educated immediately after the war ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... Natches, a rather good-looking, genteel-appearing man came on board to purchase a servant. This individual introduced himself to Jennings as the Rev. James Wilson. The slave-trader conducted the preacher to the deck-cabin, where he kept his slaves, and the man of God, ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... less experienced than Dr. Cashmore in the secret strangenesses of genteel life in London might have been astonished by this information. But Dr. Cashmore no more blenched now than he had blenched at the ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... the quality, however, and the ill-concealed disgust of the learned, Don Quixote was received with unbounded applause by the common people.[11] Those best critics in every age and country, the honest readers, who were neither bourgeois nor genteel, neither learned nor ignorant, welcomed the book with a joyous enthusiasm, as a wholly new delight and source of entertainment. Nothing like it had ever appeared before. It was an epoch-marking book, if ever there ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... university; where, I think, he had finished his studies, when he came to reside at your house; a finer man, I must say, the sun never shone upon; for, besides the handsomest person I ever saw, he was so genteel, and had so much wit and good breeding." "Poor gentleman," said Allworthy, "he was indeed untimely snatched away; and little did I think he had any sins of this kind to answer for; for I plainly perceive you are going to tell me he was ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... respect, not fear. The ugliness of his eyes prejudices you against him at first; let him, however, turn them upon you in his own benevolent way, you are sure they mean no harm: within a pair of splendid whiskers, of the finest blond, there is such a genteel nose and mouth, such a fine semi-serious forehead, that the whole is the expression of his good sound heart, that loves truth, even from devils. It was Charles Henry Hackett, ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... yields in the turn to the shinjocho [6] '('new-butterfly' style), or the shimada, also called takawage. The shimjocho style is common, is worn by women of various ages, and is not considered very genteel. The shimada, exquisitely elaborate, is; but the more respectable the family, the smaller the form of this coiffure; geisha and joro wear a larger and loftier variety of it, which properly answers to the name takawage, or 'high coiffure.' Between eighteen and twenty years ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... him in the Study of Church-Airs, in which he must lay aside all the theatrical effeminate Manner, and sing in a manly Stile; for which Purpose he will provide him with different natural and easy Motets[50] grand and genteel, mix'd with the Lively and the Pathetick, adapted to the Ability he has discovered in him, and by frequent Lessons make him become perfect in them with Readiness and Spirit. At the same time he must be careful that the Words be well pronounced, and ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... dinner poor Cap had never even smelled before. How immensely she enjoyed it, with all its surroundings—the comfortable room, the glowing fire, the clean table, the rich food, the obsequious attendance, her own genteel and becoming dress, the company of a highly respectable guardian—all, all so different from anything she had ever been accustomed to, ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... dear to an Englishman exactly in comparison as he knows, or does not know, the ways of the place. A Turk, I have no doubt, could live there in a very genteel sort of manner on what you would consider ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... vulgar little laugh at the jokes of the musical comedy; and he remembered the little finger carefully extended when she held her glass to her mouth; her manners like her conversation, were odiously genteel. He remembered her insolence; sometimes he had felt inclined to box her ears; and suddenly, he knew not why, perhaps it was the thought of hitting her or the recollection of her tiny, beautiful ears, he was seized by ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... been taught in an Edinburgh academy, yet these ears, accustomed only to rough men's voices, the song of birds, now and then a harsh fiddle grating for its life about the country-side, or the pipe of the hills, imbued the thin and lonely symphony with associations of life genteel and wide, rich and warm and white-handed. Never seemed Miss Nan so far removed as then from him, the home-staying dreamer. Up rose his startled judgment and ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... Between the long-boat and the fore-hatch is the galley, where the "Doctor" (as the cook is universally called in the merchant service) is busily employed in dishing up a steaming supper, prepared for the cabin mess; the steward, a genteel-looking mulatto, dressed in a white apron, stands waiting at the galley-door, ready to receive the aforementioned supper, whensoever it may be ready, and to convey it to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... ay sae clean and neat, Both decent and genteel: And then there's something in her gait Gars ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... been in Kurt Fawzi's office a few times, always with his father, and he remembered it as a dim, quiet place of genteel conviviality and rambling conversations, with deep, comfortable chairs and many ashtrays. Fawzi's warehouse and brokerage business, and the airline agency, and the government, such as it was, of Litchfield, combined, made few demands on his time and did not prevent ...
— Graveyard of Dreams • Henry Beam Piper
... was that these two young persons were plunged in grief. Oh, glorious grief of thwarted love! When they met now, they did not talk of the landscape. Their conversation, though no doubt as genteel as before, was all of broken hearts. But again Letty's mother found out, and went in wrath to call on Alfred's family. It was decided between them that the young man should be sent away from home. "To save ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... the girl herself this transformation also seemed the wonder of witch-work. Her early life lay so far below in a world remote and detached; a little house in a village of the Canton of Vaud with the genteel poverty that attended the slender salary of a juge d'instruction, and the weight of duties that accumulated on her shoulders. Her father's life was given over to the labors of criminal investigation, but it was a field that returned nothing in the way of material ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... perfect ease and skill of handling. The observation shown throughout is nothing short of wonderful. Things are painted literally as they are, and, whatever the picture, whether of every-day vulgar, shabby-genteel, or downright low, with neither the condescending air which is affectation, nor the too familiar one which is slang. The book altogether is a perfectly unaffected, unpretentious, honest performance. Under its manly, sensible, straightforward vein of talk there is running at the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... whether it was vegetable matter out of a swamp, or weeds out of the river, or an old porter's-knot from England, I don't think any new spectator could have said. Yet, this unfortunate old woman had a notion that it was not only vastly genteel, but that it was the correct thing as to propriety. And she really did carry herself over the other ladies who had no nightcaps, and who were forced to tie up their hair how they could, in a superior manner that ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... board and lodging might be obtained within. There was no look of well-being or wealth anywhere; the few equipages in the streets had seen hard service; the people who walked were either plainly dressed or shabby genteel; about the doors of the principal hotels there were groups of men who wore, most of them, dispirited or anxious faces. Ten years later the whole aspect of the place was changing, but at this time it was passing through a period of natural fatigue and poverty, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... runs on oiled wheels. After the huge clatter of New York, there is something mellow and human about the drowsy hum of Chestnut Street, the genteel reaches of Walnut, and the neat frontage of Spruce Street. Ellenora, so quick to notice her surroundings, was at first bored, then amused, at last lulled by the intimate life of her new home. She had never been abroad, but declared ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... husband's decease, upon a second match. The fertile women to be wedded to those who desire to multiply their issue; and the sterile ones to such other mates, as, misregarding the storing of their own lineage, choose them only for their virtues, learning, genteel behaviour, domestic consolation, management of the house, and matrimonial conveniences and comforts, and such like. The preachers of Varennes, saith Panurge, detest and abhor the second marriages, as ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the excitement of her stealthy trips abroad, undertaken on the rare occasions when she could trump up a pretext for leaving the shop; since, as a rule, it was Evelina who took the bundles to the dyer's, and delivered the purchases of those among their customers who were too genteel to be seen carrying home a bonnet or a bundle of pinking—so that, had it not been for the excuse of having to see Mrs. Hawkins's teething baby, Ann Eliza would hardly have known what motive to allege for deserting her usual seat ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... without exposing my own life: that I have accomplished, and defy the law. Now, for the application of it. I am desperate, and must be provided for. You have it in your power: it is my business to make it your inclination to serve me, which you must determine to comply with, by procuring me a genteel support for my life, or your own will be at a period before this session of parliament is over. I have more motives than one for singling you out upon this occasion; and I give you this fair warning, because the means I shall make use of are ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... carefully considered before they were parted with. She had never known her father to possess so much as five golden sovereigns at his own disposal (unencumbered by debt) in all her experience of him. The atmosphere in which she had lived and breathed was the all-stifling one of genteel poverty. There was something horrible in the greedy eagerness of her eyes as they watched Lady Janet, to see if she was really sufficiently in earnest to give away five hundred pounds sterling with ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... Dressmaker of having a sense of humor. Now I know it. I'm the lucky one who isn't going to have to wade through the slush any more. I'm to go out to southern California and live in a nice little bungalow and be a nurse for five or ten years, and then I'm going to be left alone in genteel poverty, without an interest in the world, and too tired to make any. And I'll ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... meanwhile, that great and practical truths are more essential than the garb in which they appear. We should be more careful of our health of body and purity of morals than of the costume we put on. Many genteel coats wrap up corrupt hearts, and fine hats cover silly heads. What is the chaff to ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... countenance, Sosia, so modest, so charming, that nothing could surpass. As she appeared to me to lament beyond the rest, and as she was of a figure handsome and genteel beyond the other women, I approached the female attendants;[36] I inquired who she was. They said that she was the sister of Chrysis. It instantly struck my mind: "Ay, ay, this is it; hence those tears, hence ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... her daughters in homes of their own. It was the old story, Doctor Blecker,"—with a shivering laugh more pitiful than a cry. "I've noticed it since in a thousand other houses. Young girls like me in these poor-genteel families,—there are none of God's creatures more helpless or goaded, starving at their souls. I couldn't teach. I had no talent; but if I had, a woman's a woman: she wants something else in her life than dog-eared school-books and her wages year ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... good hotels and genteel boarding-houses. All charges included, you do not pay above two dollars a day. Little enough, when you consider the capital accommodations and the ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... had come, young Lucius Mason, and there was of course great joy at Orley Farm. The old father felt that the world had begun again for him, very delightfully, and was more than ever satisfied with his wisdom in regard to that marriage. But the very genteel progeny of his early youth were more than ever dissatisfied, and in their letters among themselves dealt forth harder and still harder words upon poor Sir Joseph. What terrible things might he not ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... the most part women not of the working class, who support with apparent earnestness the purveyors of popular fiction and biography, and even patronise poetry and genteel social philosophy. Amongst them are to be found those to whom the sterner actualities of life are unfamiliar and repugnant, for whom the practice of trifling with books is rather an ornament than an occupation, a mode of killing time rather than using it. They, too, read to be distracted, ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... was called Little Weatherbury Farm, and his person was the nearest approach to aristocracy that this remoter quarter of the parish could boast of. Genteel strangers, whose god was their town, who might happen to be compelled to linger about this nook for a day, heard the sound of light wheels, and prayed to see good society, to the degree of a solitary lord, or squire at the very least, but it was only Mr. Boldwood going out for the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... side was the still more dreadful fall into sentimentality, the tear of conscious tenderness, the redeeming glimpse of "better things" in Alf or Emmy that would at one stroke have converted their reality into a genteel masquerade. The perfection of Alf and Emmy is that at no point does a "nature's gentleman" or a "nature's lady" show through and demand our refined sympathy. It is only by comparison with this supreme conversation that the affair of Keith and Jenny seems to fall short of perfection. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... were especially well content to belong to this noble class; and as we lived from our rents, and had no rank in the state, we called ourselves, not without some self-satisfaction, people of condition. We exhibited a certain genteel indifference towards the haute volee in the citizen society, not only in words but sometimes also in action; yet, nevertheless, in secret we were extremely wounded or flattered by all those who came in contact with us from this circle; ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... I pitched a noble one, sufficient to cover or entertain a numerous company, and so tight everywhere as to keep out the weather. The front of this new apartment I hung with blue cloth, which had a very genteel effect. I had almost forgotten to tell you that I contrived (by hanging one of the smaller sails across, just in the middle, which I could let down or raise up at pleasure) to divide the tent ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... was the rancher's wife who brought fresh eggs and vegetables to us. She wore scant pajamas instead of skirts, because she thought it "more genteel," she explained. When a favorite horse or cow died, she carefully preserved the skull and other portions of the ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... breathing, moving men and women out of his canvas! Sometimes he is ranting and exaggerated, as are all men of great genius who wrestle with Nature so boldly. No doubt his heroines are more expansively endowed than would be thought genteel in our country, where cryptogams are so much in fashion, nevertheless there is always something very tremendous about him, and very often much that is sublime, pathetic, and moving. I defy any one of the average amount of imagination and sentiment to stand long before ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Somebody's stocking feet! Monkey's. Steps that aren't honest. All on my ceiling. Monkey never ought to have rented a room in a respectable house like Mrs. Granady's. Nobody but genteel young fellows holding down genteel jobs ever had that room before. Monkey passing himself off as Mr. James Pollard, or whatever it is he calls himself, just for the cover of a respectable house—or of me, for all I know. You could have knocked me down with a feather the first time I met him in ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... that same night, as if it had been destined for alternate good and bad luck, I was forced, after an unexpectedly fortunate incident, to experience a teasing vexation. We met, in Auerstaedt, a genteel married couple, who had also just arrived, having been delayed by a similar accident; a pleasing, dignified man, in his best years, with a very handsome wife. They politely persuaded us to sup in their company, and I felt very happy when the excellent ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... much over two days old when they had the funeral, I can't add anything more about maw. And the history I could write of dad would make a mighty slim book. Running roller skating rinks was the most genteel business he ever got into, I guess. His regular profession was faro. It's an unhealthy game, especially in those gold camps where they shoot so impetuous. He got over the effects of two .38's dealt him by a halfbreed Sioux; but when a real bad man from Taunton, Massachusetts, ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... mistake, I mean. Fred's white hands there have just the look of a doctor's; of course Roger thought the only use of them could be to feel pulses, and Philip, for want of something better to do, is always trying for a genteel look." ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you han't come from Miss Peter Smith's! Well, she'd oughter do gret things with that 'ere meetin'-'us o' her'n for the chickens; it's kinder genteel-lookin', and I spose they've got means; they've got ability. Gentility without ability I do despise; but where 't'a'n't so, 't'a'n't no matter; but I'xpect it don't ensure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... is known as the Club House are in perhaps the best condition of any in that portion of the town, but it is certainly damaged beyond possibility of repair. On the upper floor five bodies are lying unidentified. One of them, a woman of genteel birth, judging by her dress, is locked in one of the small rooms to prevent a possibility of spoliation by wreckers, who are flocking to the spot from all directions and taking possession of everything ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... said eagerly, 'you'd on'y have to sit in the back parlour and look through the glass partition when I was away sometimes—just to keep an eye on things. The lameness wouldn't hinder that . . . I'd keep you as genteel as ever I could, dear Sophy—if I might think of it!' ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... endeavored to find out these important details. Neither hints nor questions had resulted satisfactorily. Was it possible that this was the reason, this country uncle? If so—well, if so, here was a Heaven-sent opportunity for a little genteel and perfectly safe detective work. Mrs. Dunn creakingly ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that I said nothing against brandy but added that it was often given to children, while Gorgondy was only drunk by men of such depravity that they had abandoned sin because all the usual vices had come to seem genteel. When he asked if Gorgondy was a bad wine to drink I said that it was so bad that if a man sipped it that was the one touch that made damnation certain. Then he asked me what I had in the iron bottle, and I said it was Gorgondy; and then he shouted ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... Sereda, your wonder seems to me another wonder: for I can think of no profession better suited to a retired poet. Why, there is the variety of company! for high and low and even the genteel are pressed sometimes for money: then the plowman slouches into my shop, and the duke sends for me privately. So the people I know, and the bits of their lives I pop into, give me ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... of the old words and phrases formerly in general use in Worcestershire, and is still striving to substitute a more "genteel," but not always more correct, and a much less picturesque, form of speech. When I first went to Aldington I found it difficult to understand the dialect, but I soon got accustomed to it, and used it myself in speaking to the villagers. Farrar ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... old gentleman would feel the change more sharply than I. This was, in all probability, the only hat he had. I turned it over and scrutinized it. It was a genteel old beaver, with an air of respectability that was quite convincing. There was nothing smug about it, either. It suggested amiability in the man who had recently possessed it. It suggested also a mild contempt for public opinion, which is always ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... not going to play then," said Lina primly, "my mother wants me to be genteel, and 'bull' is ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... but an imperfect idea of what she was to endure. The punishment was to take place in the great square, and the troops were out, and a large concourse of people were assembled. She appeared on the raised platform upon which she was to suffer, in a genteel undress, which contributed still more to heighten her extreme beauty. The sweetness of her countenance obtained for her the commiseration of those who were ordered and accustomed to execute the will of the despotic and cruel emperor. Young, lively, and ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was dressed in his new clothes, what a metamorphosis had he made, from the clod-hopping Dutchman to the gay, genteel and courteous citizen! I telegraphed to him that I thought success was almost in his grasp, and to keep ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... with a fine garden and extensive shrubbery, in a genteel neighborhood," were, if I remember rightly, the general terms of an advertisement which once decided my choice of a dwelling. I should add that this occurred at an early stage of my household experience, ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... and pure a being! how regardless of self! how true to duty! how obedient to parental command, is that earthly angel, a well-bred woman of genteel family! Instead of indulging in splenetic refusals or vain regrets for her absent lover, the exemplary Fatima at once signified to her excellent parents her willingness to obey their orders; though ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... achieve success if he were put in some other career. One of their greatest services will probably be to put a lot of boys into skilled trades, for which they are adapted and where they will succeed, and thus prevent them from yielding to the desire for a more genteel clerical occupation, in which they will not do more than earn a bare living. This will assist in bringing about the high correlation between merit and income which is so much ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... completed, he beheld the manager take his leave. As the door closed, the bashful Prosper felt the murky eyes of the widow fixed upon him. A gentle cough, accompanied with the resigned laying of a black mittened hand upon her chest, suggested a genteel prelude to conversation, with possible ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a card, Mr. Joles," he confided to that individual below stairs; "name Barkwick or something, says he has an appointment. Quite genteel, but—" and ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... city, and owing a part of their gusto to town usage, may be narrow enough if compared with general nature, but they are broader than the singularities whom Mr. Dickens copies or invents as representatives of genteel country life, or human nature in general. In the mere style there is frequently an improvement—less effort and greater ease, with occasional touches of the felicity of Goldsmith; but we should have thought the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... had arranged that she was to go to the select young ladies' school that Aunt Mary had attended when she was a girl. Lull secretly hoped that contact with the select young ladies would make Jane a little bit more genteel. Every morning, driving into town on the car with Andy, Jane mourned to Mick for the good days that were gone. Mick annoyed her by liking the change. His ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... good deal astonished when the first applicant presented herself. She was a tall, genteel-looking girl. Up to yesterday she had been head housemaid at Lady Stanton's, and before that she had been under- cook for two years to the ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... young officer. I had the good fortune to be admitted to the Court, and there I had the pleasure of seeing Mdlle. Chitroff dancing, and also Mdlle. Sievers, now Princesss, whom I saw again at Dresden four years ago with her daughter, an extremely genteel young princess. I was enchanted with Mdlle. Sievers, and felt quite in love with her; but as we were never introduced I had no opportunity of declaring my passion. Putini, the castrato, was high in her favour, as indeed he deserved to be, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... about it. I'm not going to stand this, whoever else is. It aint a slight thing, Alison; it aint the sort of thing that a girl can get over. There are you, only seventeen, and so pretty and like a real lady. Yes, you are; you needn't pertend you aint. Me and my people were always genteel, and you take after us. I'll see to it. You shan't be accused of theft, my dear, ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... The mere idea has always put my monkey up, and I rapped my speech out pretty big. Then Case translated it—or made believe to, rather—and the first chief replied, and then a second, and a third, all in the same style, easy and genteel, but solemn underneath. Once a question was put to Case, and he answered it, and all hands (both chiefs and commons) laughed out aloud, and looked at me. Last of all, the puckered old fellow and the big young chief that spoke first started ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her with adoring attention. They looked genteel. They looked ironed-out. They coughed politely, and crossed their legs with quietness, and in expensive linen handkerchiefs they blew their noses with a delicacy altogether ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... enlivens the performance here and there with original reflections on life, which are perfectly dignified, but become humorous from contrast with their surroundings. In spite of its comical effect, the piece has a very genteel air, for its material is taken from that general stock of information that passes current in cultivated families. The young man of fashion who had never heard of Elijah, or of Poe's "Raven," would ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... neglected, drank moderately, and acted in most things as a sound, sensible being. Then, all of a sudden, he went down again, and went down badly. She kept her promise and threw him over. Then he became a hanger-on at the clubs, a genteel loafer. He used to say in his sober moments that at last he was one of the boys that Sadness had spoken of. He did not work, and yet he lived and ate and was proud of his degradation. But he soon tired of being separated from Hattie, and straightened ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... ape gentility,' he said quietly. 'I'm glad the young lady's well again, but genteel formal ain't much in my ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... am imagining had first carried on their search in those genteel regions, which could hardly have looked their best in the last moments of preparation before the season began. The house-cleaning which went on in all of them was no more hurried than the advance of the slow English spring outside, where the buds appeared after weeks of hesitation, and the leaves ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... told Jane herself, no flesh and blood as is in livery could stand—for throw a plate of toast at Mr. Thomas, hisself, he did, not more than two days since, and if it weren't for other things being agreeable and the society below stairs most genteel, warning would have been ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that could hardly have been said to do any good either. Her report of the whole affair made him writhe, but when she had made him writhe enough she began to admit some extenuating circumstances. If Mrs. Maxwell was a country person, she was not foolish. She did not chant, in a vain attempt to be genteel in her speech; she did not expand unduly under Mrs. Hilary's graciousness, and she did not resent it. In fact, the graciousness had been very skilfully managed, and Mrs. Maxwell had not been allowed to feel that there was any condescension to her. She got on ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... listen, for a moment. No, they're gone, Well, this is Cocker's old rule, 'set down one.' I had no notion, while I was genteel, How very small indeed a man may feel. I've made what Capillaire calls a 'diskivery.' I wonder what's my value out of livery! But here comes humble little Cinderella ( R.); I feel I love her—let's see, shall ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... a-year—a rental which seemed wealth to provincial families, still discussing Mr. Peel's late conduct on the Catholic question, innocent of future gold-fields, and of that gorgeous plutocracy which has so nobly exalted the necessities of genteel life. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... bastis to the east and south, to deprive 'em of cover; and you may imagine the scene, Desmond—the blazing sky, the tears and screams of the women, the din of guns. We wrote to the French at Chandernagore begging 'em to lend us some ammunition, for the most of ours was useless; but they sent us a genteel reply saying they'd no more than sufficient for their own needs; yet the wretches made the Nawab a present of two hundred chests of powder, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... businesslike-looking man, short and stoutly built, with close-cropped hair, very little shirt-collar, a shabby black satin stock, and a coat buttoned tightly across the chest. He was a man whose appearance was something between the aspect of a shabby-genteel half-pay captain and an unlucky stockbroker: but Clement liked the steady light of his small grey eyes, and the decided expression of his thin ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... himself as he looked at her; "her world is the world of things immutably decreed. But how she is at home in it, and what a paradise she finds it. She walks about in it as if it were a blooming park, a Garden of Eden; and when she sees 'This is genteel,' or 'This is improper,' written on a mile-stone she stops ecstatically, as if she were listening to a nightingale or smelling a rose." Madame de Bellegarde wore a little black velvet hood tied under her chin, and she was wrapped in an old black ...
— The American • Henry James
... take these, and reviews like 'High Living,' and the 'Ladies' Genteel Guide' went into raptures over: 'Another of Miss Francie Forsyte's spirited ditties, sparkling and pathetic. We ourselves were moved to tears and laughter. Miss ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Stock Exchange is subtle enough for me. His father did not joke. Indeed he was full of useful information, and only too fond of imparting it, and he always made use of the choicest language in doing so; and Mrs. Scatcherd was immensely genteel. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Watteau-like figures,—tall damsels in slim waists and with spread enough of skirt for a modern ballroom, with bowing, reclining, or musical swains of what everybody calls the "conventional" sort,—that is, the swain adapted to genteel society rather than to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... singing, Sara observed that she made the best she could of many words, and skipped several good lines altogether. But after a while the watery blue eyes of the good woman were languidly raised, an insipid smile spread over her red and white porcelain face, and in a voice which she strove to make as genteel as possible, she said to Beautiful Sara, "He sings very well. But I have heard far better singing in Holland. You are a stranger, and perhaps do not know that the choir-leader is from Worms, and that they will keep him here if he will be content with four hundred florins a year. He is a charming ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... it is dangerous, in the persons of its advocates. If there were nothing but metaphysical wickedness in the world, how effective it would be never to allude to a wicked man! If Slavery itself were the pale, thin ghost of an abstraction, how bloodless this war would be! Fine words, genteel deprecation, and magnanimous generality are the tricks of villany. Indignant Mercy works with other tools; she leaps with the directness of lightning, and the same unsparing sincerity, to the spot to which she is attracted. What rogue ever felt the clutch of a stern ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... WILL READ IT IN THE PAPERS,' replied the dear little fashionable rogue of seven years old. She knew already her importance, and how all the world of England, how all the would-be-genteel people, how all the silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all the grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants' ladies, and the people living at Clapham and Brunswick Square,—who ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... comfortable in his new arrangements; but he supposed it was his own fault. He had fallen into rusty, old-fashioned, bachelor ways; and, like other things that are not agreeable to the natural man, he supposed his trim, resplendent, genteel house was good for him, and that he ought to like it, and by grace should attain to liking it, if he only ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... at a first-class stable," concluded Miss Belinda. "I call occasionally and leave my card in the shape of an apple, finding Madam Rosa living like an independent lady, with her large box and private yard on the sunny side of the barn, a kind ostler to wait upon her, and much genteel society from the city when ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... despise one another: if there were the concert among them which there is among foreign mendicants, a man who admitted one to a conference would be plagued to death. I once gave something to a very genteel French applicant, who overtook me in the street, at my own door, saying he had picked up my handkerchief: whether he picked it up in my pocket for an introduction, I know not. {9} But that day week came another Frenchman to my house, and that day fortnight a French lady; both failed, and I ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... good-humour at his own or other people's jokes; understands the point of an equivoque, or an observation immediately; has a taste and knowledge of books, of music, of medals; manages an argument adroitly; is genteel and gallant, and has a set of bye-phrases and quaint allusions always at hand to produce a laugh:—if he has a fault, it is that he does not listen so well as he speaks, is impatient of interruption, and is fond of being looked up to, without considering by whom. I believe, however, he has ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... fatigued, and worn out—full of disgust with things in general, and himself and his own fate in particular—than he had been when he set out from the other end of Carlingford, went sulkily, and at a terrific pace, past the long garden-walls of Grange Lane, and all Dr Marjoribanks's genteel patients. When he had reached home, he found a message waiting him from an urgent invalid whose "case" kept the unhappy doctor up and busy for half the night. Such was the manner in which Edward Rider got through the evening—the one wonderful exceptional ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... in the part which he had so often played, but Spinola laboured under the disadvantage of being a far honester man than Alexander Farnese. Far from equal to that famous chieftain in the management of a great military campaign, it is certain that he was infinitely inferior to him in genteel comedy. Whether Maurice and Lewis William, Barneveld and Brederode, were to do better in the parts formerly assigned to John Rogers, Valentine Dale, Comptroller Croft, and their ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Mr. Roberts was an extreme case. He had been destined to literary pursuits, became consumptive, and was obliged, by unforeseen contingencies, to take up some light employment, which proved in the end to be shaving. If it had been holding notes instead of noses, the employment would have been vastly genteel, I dare say. As it was, we thought about the French emigres and marquises who made cakes and dressed hair for a living, and concluded to admit Mr. Roberts, especially as he married a far-away Elliott, and was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... was one, to expostulate with the king. When they came, he received them in his closet. Mr. James Melvil being first in the commission, told the king his errand, upon which he appeared angry, and charged them with sedition, &c. Mr. James being a man of cool passion and genteel behaviour, began to answer the king with great reverence and respect; but Mr. Andrew, interrupting him, said, "This is not a time to flatter, but to speak plainly, for our commission is from the living ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... Seminary. The Columbians occasionally came down to Muirtown and sniffed through the town. Two or three boys had been taken from the Seminary, because it was vulgar, and sent to St. Columba's, in order to get into genteel society. And those things had gradually filtered into the mind of the Seminary, which was certainly a rough school, but at the same time very proud and patriotic, and there was a latent desire in the mind of the Seminary that the Columbians should come down in snow-time and show ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... people from the window of his committee-room, facing which window I placed myself, to see and to hear all that could be heard or seen. At length, after he had been waited for, for about an hour (which, by-the-bye, is considered genteel), the worthy lawyer arrived, seated in an open barouche, with Mr. Michael Castle on one side, and Alderman Noble on the other! It was but a sorry cavalcade; and although there was some cheering amongst his partizans, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... brookside, ramblers on the brambly common, kite-fliers in the windy and cloud-navigated sky; and then, at another cadence of the hymn, back again to church, and the somnolence of summer Sundays, and the high genteel voice of the parson (which he smiled a little to recall) and the painted Jacobean tombs, and the dim lettering of the Ten ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... born so poor and genteel What could he do but pick and steal? He scorned to work for honest bread— "Better have never been hatched!" he said. So his day was the night, for he dared not roam Till sleep had ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... street, it being far from her desire to attract promiscuous trade. The parlours, indeed, were situated upon one of the "nicest" streets in Coombe and occupied a corner lot, so that a splendid view down two of the most genteel residential streets was obtainable from their windows. The only sign of business anywhere was a board of chaste design over the doorway, bearing the simple legend, "A. MILLIGAN." Even the word "Dressmaker" was considered superfluous. Also there was one window, near the door, which from time to ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... whispered entreaty. The victim of the feather of a quill pen tickling her neck dared not raise her voice. Miss Pinwell, the proprietress of the extremely genteel seminary for young ladies, Queen Square—quite an aristocratic retreat some two hundred years ago—was pacing the school-room. Her cold, sharp eyes roamed over the shapely heads—black, golden, brown, auburn, flaxen—of some thirty girls—eager to detect any sign of levity and prompt ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... walking out as all boys do walk out in decent schools, that is, in a long line, two by two, as the animals entered Noah's Ark, when a sort of shabby-genteel man passed their files. He happened to cast his eyes upon Joey, and stopped. "Master Joseph Rushbrook, I am most happy to see you once more," said he extending his hand. Joey looked up into his face; ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... "that Mary White haven't a perfect right to name her child as she chooses. I'm too fair for that, I hope. What I do say is, that now she's picked up a fancy sort of name like Lilac, she hasn't got any call to be down on other people. And if me and Greenways likes to see our girls genteel and give 'em a bit of finishing eddication, and set 'em off with a few accomplishments, it's our own affair and not Mary White's. And though I say it as shouldn't, you won't find two more elegant gals than Gusta and Bella, ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... correspondence and some interviewing, I selected at last a person who I believed would prove himself a satisfactory listener. He was an elderly man, of genteel appearance, and apparently of a quiet and accommodating disposition. He assured me that he had once been a merchant, engaged in the importation of gunny-bags, and, having failed in business, had ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... there is turned right up to the sky; and my wide mouth, and my little eyes, and my hair just standing straight up as rakish as you please. And look at you, with your elegant features and your—oh, but it's genteel you are!—and I love you, Nora alannah; I love you, and am not a bit jealous ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... but Uncle showed me that it was wiser not make genteel paupers of them, but let them pay a small rent and feel independent. I don't want the money, of course, and shall use it in keeping the houses tidy or helping other women in like case," said Rose, entirely ignoring ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... to Whitman's Leaves of Grass, a book of singular service, a book which tumbled the world upside down for me, blew into space a thousand cobwebs of genteel and ethical illusion, and, having thus shaken my tabernacle of lies, set me back again upon a strong foundation of all the original and manly virtues. But it is, once more, only a book for those who have the gift of reading. I will be very frank—I believe ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cigar-case was open in his hand in a moment, and with such a smile as a genteel perfumer offers his wares with, he presented it toward the gentleman who was built up in ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... passed our window again on their way to their customary walk. They were arm in arm. Jane looked exquisitely proud, happy, and uncomfortable, with new white cotton gloves, and William, in the silk hat, singularly genteel! ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... out the Ohio militia who occupied a post at Perrysburg, 10 M. to the south. No fighting took place in this most genteel of wars, although there were ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... perhaps, standing with unequalled grace upon the longest legs known in this world, is a troop of giant birds as wonderful as the pelican, but how opposite! The beautiful flamingo is a bird of feeble intellect, delicate appetite, and genteel tastes. It cannot eat fish, for its slender throat would scarcely admit a pea. Besides, the idea of catching anything, or even picking up food from the ground, does not occur to its simple mind. Its diet consists of certain small crustaceans, classed by naturalists with water-fleas, which ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... Miss Cotton more and more sorrowfully. She liked to have people talk as they do in genteel novels. Mrs. Brinkley's bold expressions were a series of violent shocks to her nature, and imparted a terrible vibration to the fabric of her whole little rose-coloured ideal world; if they had not been the expressions of a person whom a great ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... vision the roughness of the skin seemed to swell it to a size demanding a boxing glove. He bought her six pairs of tan kid, in a beautiful cardboard box. He could ill afford the gift, and made one of his whimsical grimaces when he got the bill. The young lady who served him looked infinitely more genteel than Mary Ann. He wondered what she would think if she knew for whom he was buying these dainty articles. Perhaps her feelings would be so outraged she would refuse to participate in the transaction. But the young ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... of you," he assured me. "He's got you booked for a quick rise." My poverty was so pressing that I had not the courage to refuse,—the year and a half of ferocious struggle and the longing to marry Betty Crosby had combined to break my spirit. I believe it is Johnson who says the worst feature of genteel poverty is its power to make one ridiculous. I don't think so. No; its worst feature is its ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... soon found a lodging too narrow for his accommodation, and removed to a house of his own, "a pretty garden-house, in Aldersgate, at the end of an entry." Aldersgate was outside the city walls, on the verge of the open country of Islington, and was a genteel though not a fashionable quarter. There were few streets in London, says Phillips, ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... with a small open colonnade, which, though out of harmony, was still not inappropriate. The only thing jarring was a pretentious modern town-hall, in the style of one of our own vestry buildings, 'erected out of the rates,' and which must have cost a huge sum. It was of a genteel Italian aspect, so it is plain that French local administrators are, in matters of taste, pretty much as such folk are with us. One could have lingered long here, looking at this charming and graceful work, which ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... the Rue—say the Rue Millevoye, so that we may not interfere with possible vested interests. Was it respectable? Was it genteel? Did good country families frequent it? Were all the comforts of an English home to be had? Had Mrs. Grundy cast an approving eye into every nook and corner? Of course there were Bibles in the bedrooms; and you were not made to pay a franc for every cake of soap. Mrs. Rowe had ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... that followed, induced Mr Sparks to believe that his tormentors had left him, he therefore dismissed them from his mind, and gave himself entirely to business. Arrived at Conway street, he found that it was one of those semi-genteel streets in the immediate neighbourhood of Kensington Gardens, wherein dwell thriving tradespeople who know themselves to be rising in the world, and unfortunate members of the "upper ten," who know ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... of these spectres of soldiers, these unhappy men broken down with hunger and fatigue, the genteel National Guards, warmly clad and wrapped up for the winter, commenced to utter foolish speeches and big hopes which had been their daily food for several months: "Break the iron circle;" "not one inch, not a stone;" ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... His parents being informed of the disagreeable situation into which he had brought himself, and what a shy reception he met with from all the boys in the neighbourhood, thought it adviseable, after giving him a strict caution to behave in a more peaceable manner for the future, to remove him to a genteel boarding school, at a distance from home. If he had thought proper to follow their advice, and make a diligent use of the excellent instructions he received from his new teachers, he might afterwards have cut a shining figure ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... of youth, recked not of such matters. They were surrounded by the county. On every side the fields and moors of Staffordshire, intersected by roads and lanes, railways, watercourses and telegraph-lines, patterned by hedges, ornamented and made respectable by halls and genteel parks, enlivened by villages at the intersections, and warmly surveyed by the sun, spread out undulating. And trains were rushing round curves in deep cuttings, and carts and waggons trotting and jingling on the yellow ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... purposes of young white men[483] and overseers.[484] Goodell reports a well-authenticated account of a respectable Christian lady at the South who kept a handsome mulatto female for the use of her genteel son, as a method of deterring him, as she said, "from indiscriminate and vulgar indulgences."[485] Harriet Martineau discovered a young white man who on visiting a southern lady became insanely enamored of her intelligent quadroon maid. He sought to purchase her but the owner refused to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... ideas of my own as to a genteel way of gittin' him interested in this honor that we are about to bestow. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... full of gold-fishes, and overhung by a bright-eyed, mellow-throated canary, the whole of that paradise being doubtless under the watch and care of little Laura Birch. This was the ladies' parlor,—the grand reception-room, also, of any genteel male guest, should one for a wonder appear. Little Laura, however, was no longer as little as she had been,—though just as innocent, and ten times as bewitching to most people who knew her. You could not but particularly wish her well, the moment her glad, hopeful, playful, confiding, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... full of the most delicate but veritable humor, as her allusion to the genteel and cheerful poverty of the lady who, in giving a tea-party, "now sat in state, pretending not to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew; and we knew that she knew that we ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... disembodied—so strangely attired yet so careful of elementary hygiene, driven by that fierce typhoon, with that bird of portent in the skies, arriving suddenly with the salt of their Odyssey upon their brows at the beach of the genteel and respectable Sussex town, and visiting a perhaps slightly perturbed Auntie Isabel, and afterwards the fire-escape, I felt that here was the glimpse of the wild exotic adventure for which the hearts of all of us yearn. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... newest fashion, and became his chief care; he went abroad with it all the morning in papers, and drest it out in the afternoon. They could not, however, teach him to game, swear, drink, nor any other genteel vice the town abounded with. He applied most of his leisure hours to music, in which he greatly improved himself; and became so perfect a connoisseur in that art, that he led the opinion of all the other footmen at ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... Everything was done in a genteel and ordinary way, but on the other hand, there was no lingering. Anna found herself next Sydney Courtlaw, with his friend close at hand. Opposite to her was a sallow-visaged young man, whose small tie seemed like a smudge of obtusively shiny black across the front of a high close-drawn collar. ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the people were looking for a man, the hero of many battles, who had won honour for himself and for his country in foreign lands, and who was coming home. Everybody stood up and gazed, Melchior with them. Then the crowd parted, and the hero came on. No one asked whether he were handsome or genteel, whether he kept good company, or wore a tiger-skin rug, or looked through an opera-glass? They knew what he had done, and it ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... we sailed to Portree, in Sky, and then rode in wretched weather to Kingsburgh. There we were received by Mr. Allan Macdonald and his wife, the celebrated Miss Flora Macdonald. She is a little woman of a genteel appearance, and uncommonly mild and well-bred. Dr. Johnson was rather quiescent, and went early to bed. I slept in the same room with him. Each had a neat bed with tartan curtains. Dr. Johnson's bed was the very bed in which the grandson ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... R—— answered aloud, "whether they be vulgar, or whether they be genteel, I take no credit to myself; for an extra allowance was made for my education, that I should be polished brightly like a gentleman, and if you perceive a failure on that score, the fault is not mine, but the preparatory school's. Moreover, if a man has any mental, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... Their manners are remarkably gentle and unassuming. They are observant, and not without curiosity, but they require encouragement to induce them to come forward, being restrained, it would seem, by a genteel self-denial, from gratifying curiosity, lest it might be thought obtrusive. Their dress is singularly graceful; it consists of a loose flowing robe, with very wide sleeves, tied round the middle by a broad rich belt or girdle of wrought silk, a yellow cylindrical ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... PRESS] Blimy! It amooses 'em, all but the genteel ones. Cheer oh! Press! Yer can always myke somefin' out o' nufun'? It's not the fust thing as 'as existed in yer ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... nicely. Perhaps when she sees everything new about her she will feel a stranger there, and think you better looking than you are, and be angelically sweet.—Oh! madame has not her match, and you may boast of having done a very good stroke of business: a good heart, genteel manners, a fine instep—and a skin, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... hand, operas and genteel comedies, which are esteemed only by the higher ranks in England, are a favourite amusement of all ranks in France. The qualities which are most highly prized in the comedies, are, interest and variety of incident and situation, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... was Enid Crofton's ideal of what a lover, even a husband, should be, and she had never liked any man as well, she knew with a painful, practical knowledge the meaning of the words "genteel poverty." Tremaine's regiment would not remain for ever in India, and then would begin the enforced economies, the weary struggle with an inadequate income she had known with Colonel Crofton. No, no—it wasn't good enough!—or at any rate not good ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... don't need that," she thought sadly. "It's possible to live just so. There are others, now, living on maintenance. And, they say, far better than if they had twirled around an altar. What's so bad about that? Peaceful, quiet, genteel ... I'd darn socks for him, wash floors, cook ... the plainer dishes. Of course, he'll be in line to get married to a rich girl some time. Well, now, to be sure, he wouldn't throw me out in the street just so, mother-naked. Although he's a little simpleton, and chatters a lot, still it's easy ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... sparingly—both from its soothing and pleasant effect, it become common, and now it is almost the only beverage used at breakfast by the farmers of Pennsylvania, and indeed, people suppose the morning repast is not genteel, unless the board is decorated with this foreign beverage. If it was used in a moderately strong well clarified state, it would be less injurious, but it is too frequently set down in a non descript state, difficult ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... proper exercise is pure, chaste, virtuous, and even an ingredient in good manners. It is this which renders men always more polite towards women than to one another, and more refined in their society, and which makes women more kind, grateful, genteel and tender towards men than women. It makes mothers love their sons more than their daughters, and fathers more attached to their daughters. Man's endearing recollections of his mother or wife form his most powerful incentives to virtue, study, and good deeds, as well ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... a mincing, apologetic gesture of her head; and then "Dear me!" Having committed the solecism, she found it necessary to draw attention to it. She may have been a Shropshire Norman, but at that relaxed hour of the night, she displayed all the signs of the orthodox genteel attitude. ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... homewards. And the dog barked at Josiah almost every step of the way back, and when we got to our boardin' place, Miss Flamm shook hands with us both, and her relatives never took a mite of notice of us, further than to jump down and open the carriage door for us as we got out. (They are genteel in their manners, and Josiah had to admit that they wuz, much as his feelin's wuz hurt by ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... all right. When we get to Westminster, you skid down Adam Street until yer get to yer diggin's; an' then hup you goes and changes yer dress. Into the very genteel dark-blue costoom you gets, and down you comes to yer 'umble servant wot is waitin' ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... too, and I reckon your friends has had the best of it; and here they are ashore in the old stockade, as was made years and years ago by Flint. Ah, he was the man to have a headpiece, was Flint! Barring rum, his match were never seen. He were afraid of none, not he; on'y Silver—Silver was that genteel." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... write what others might read. From studying the bills which he carried, he soon took to original composition; and it may be said of him, that in fluency of language and richness of imagery few surpassed him. In person Mr. Robinson was a genteel young man, though it cannot be said of him that he possessed manly beauty. He was slight and active, intelligent in his physiognomy, and polite in his demeanour. Perhaps it may be unnecessary to say anything further ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... passing of this "relic of old dacincy," the shabby genteel of the earth from Rome—even if the passing is a temporary social phenomenon, has a curious symbolic timeliness, coming when the working class is rising. It leaves Rome almost as middle class as Kansas City and Los Angeles! For in Rome ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... pleased her eye like a picture. To-day the silver lettering was covered with narrow posters announcing that Jonah's red-letter sale was to begin to-morrow. And as she stared at this huge machine for coining money, she remembered, with a sudden disdain, her home with its atmosphere of decay and genteel poverty. She was conscious of some change in herself. The slight sense of physical repugnance to the hunchback had vanished since his declaration. He and his shop stood for power ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... shouted the porter. "Well, good-bye!" said the genteel man, rising and making a bolt for the door. As the train slowly clanged its way through the old town the remaining passenger settled himself back in the seat ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... comedian was pestered with applications for money for all sorts of institutions. In order to provide Russell with the means to bestow unlimited largess, Field endowed him with the touch of Midas. He would report that the matchless exponent of "Shabby Genteel" bought lead mines, to be disappointed by finding tons of virgin gold in the quartz. Like Bret Harte's hero of Downs Flat, when Russell dug for water his luck was so contrary that he struck diamonds. When ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... of genteel appearance, wearing a cotton gown, was sitting on a chair by the bed on the left. Her face was thin and yellow, and her sunken cheeks betrayed at the first glance that she was ill. But what struck Alyosha most was the expression in the poor woman's eyes—a ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... we won't have dinner till late; that will be real genteel and give us plenty of time," added Tilly, suddenly realizing the novelty of ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... and pilasters. Most of their time is necessarily passed at home, but they undergo all manner of house discomfort resulting from this preference of cheap finery over solid structure, rather than forego their "genteel locality" and stereotyped ornamentation. A family of daughters on the one side, diligent over the "Battle of Prague;" a nursery full of crying babies on the other; more Battles of Prague opposite, diversified by a future Lind practicing her scales unweariedly; ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous |
