"Refined" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... appointment as a master in chancery was criticised by some Illinois newspapers, the Mormons defended him earnestly, Sidney Rigdon (then attorney-at-law and postmaster at Nauvoo), in a letter dated April 23, 1842, said, "He is a physician of great celebrity, of great versatility of talent, of refined education and accomplished manners; discharges the duties of his respective offices with honor to himself and credit to the people." All this becomes of interest in the light of the abuse which the Mormons soon after poured out upon this man ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... as if a load had fallen off his chest. And the man noticed something in his face, that was now commencing to grow coarser, to lose the soft contours of childhood and get the sharp ones of youth, that made it refined and beautiful. ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... by the fire, smoking a cigar. He was a plain-featured but graceful and refined-looking man of thirty, with wavy chestnut hair and a trimmed beard which became him well. At present he wore a dressing-gown and was ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... the two shepherds interested me. He was sulky. He seldom uttered a word, and when he did, he never spoke pleasantly. He looked painfully ill. Motionless, he would sometimes stare at a fixed point as if in a trance. His features were peculiarly refined and regular, but his skin had the ghastly, shiny, whitish tinge peculiar to lepers. I paid no special attention to him at first, as I was busy with other matters; but one day while on the march I examined him carefully, and discovered that ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... to flee, or cringe and grovel for mercy; if his soul is stayed upon the immortal and everlasting truths, he will face what Fate may hold with the resigned fortitude which was the martyrs'; but, if he is merely a man, strong with the courage of the beast, refined and strengthened in the fires of intellect, he will be more likely to stand his ground unflinchingly and cast his defiance in the teeth of the danger which threatens, wrathful, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... one who is at all concerned with his own genius to be asked to act as foster-mother to another's. Then three hundred francs meant a great deal, plainly it meant deprivation of those superfluities which are so intensely necessary to the delicate and refined. Julien watched me. This large crafty Southerner knew what was passing in me; he knew I was realising all the manifold inconveniences—the duty of looking after Marshall's wants for two years, and to make the pill easier ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... ornaments and pictures appear quite as indispensable. Out-of-doors the impulse to beautify is even stronger; and usually the purchaser's first effort is to make his place attractive by means of trees and shrubs that are more than useful—they are essential; because the refined tastes of men and ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... governing by debts, was the most refined system of tyranny. It seemed to be a contrivance devised by politicians to succeed the old system of feudal tenures. Both were tyrannical, but the objects of their tyranny were different. The one operated on the person, the other operates on the pockets of the individual. The feudal lord ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... father to that refined wit which since hath acted a disastrous part on the public stage, and of late sat in his father's room as Lord Chancellor; those that lived in his age, and from whence I have taken this little model ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... brother not only takes his images as visible representations of his unseen God or gods, but the refined idolater, in worshipping, considers that the idol contains in its substance a portion of the ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott
... to put on airs. She had been well reared, was refined, lovable by nature, plucky enough for a man, for she had the heart and will to do and dare anything where duty called, and yet she was as simple as a child ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... he looked again at his friend. How white he looked as he lay there! And how thin the face appeared against the white sheet! Klitzing had indeed refined, distinguished-looking features, and one could easily take him for a real gentleman lying in that magnificent bed, if the shabby dust-covered uniform were not hanging over the back of the chair close by. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... the family; the more refined neighbors rather dreaded them, and even the villagers spoke of most of them as "wondrous rampageous!" But Mrs. Maybright always smiled when unfriendly comments ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... all—their prince, their ruler, their king. It was he alone who governed the world, he alone kept it in good order, he alone had created it. Not that he had evoked it out of nothing; there was as yet no concept of nothingness, and even to the most subtle and refined of primitive theologians creation was only a bringing of pre-existent elements ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and Kate Lee. Kathleen Barrington was a beautiful Irish girl, well educated, and from a home of wealth. She was full of enthusiasm, dash, and courage, and possessed a deep spiritual experience. Kate was not brilliant, and had merely an elementary education, but she was gentle and calm and refined by the grace of God, which seemed to permeate her whole nature. These two girls were kindred spirits. They were one in purpose, in outlook, and consecration. They delighted in each other's company; ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... unnecessary, when the presence of any clergyman anywhere, while the parties plighted their troth before witnesses, was sufficient to legalise the union; nor did any shame or sense of wrong necessarily attach to such marriages. Indeed they were often the resource of persons too bashful or too refined to endure the display and boisterous merriment by which a public wedding was sure to be attended. Every one knew of excellent and respectable couples who had not been known to be married till the knot had been tied for several days or weeks—so that there was ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was amply accounted for by the explanations offered by Cranley before her engagement. Already Mrs. St. John Deloraine was conceiving a project of perpetual friendship, and had made up her mind to adopt Margaret as a daughter, or, let us say, niece and companion. The girl was too refined to cope with the rough-and-ready young ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... whatever cause it arose, Aristophanes stands before us as one of the first to introduce this base ornamentation. The most remarkable circumstance connected with it is that he assigns a large part of his coarse language to women. His object was to amuse a not very refined audience, and one that relished ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the Many, the other that of the Few. Perikles now courted the people in every way, constantly arranging public spectacles, festivals, and processions in the city, by which he educated the Athenians to take pleasure in refined amusements; and also he sent out sixty triremes to cruise every year, in which many of the people served for hire for eight months, learning and practising seamanship. Besides this he sent a thousand ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... would be necessary was a good chance at him, and he would never look at Susan again. He had been in the East, where the admired type was her own—refined, ladylike, the woman of the dainty appearance and manners and tastes. A brief undisturbed exposure to her charms and Susan would seem coarse and countrified to him. There was no denying that Susan had style, but it was fully effective only when applied to a sunny fairy-like ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... in these ways, and the lower are his desires. For instance, those who form what is called the underworld of our cities, seek happiness in vice and debauchery. Those who are more evolved seek pleasure in more refined things, hoping to find happiness in intellectual pursuits, friendships, and in pure human loves. These more evolved types get much more pleasure through the senses than do those who are more elemental, ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... call him the English Bayard, and the Frenchman need not be displeasured by the comparison. But when you come to read his poetry you find that our Bayard had in him a strong dash of the pedant and a powerful leaven of the euphuist. Subtle, delicate, refined, with a keen and curious wit, a rare faculty of verse, a singular capacity of expression, an active but not always a true sense of form, he wrote for the few, and (it may be) the few will always love him. But his intellectual life, intense though it were, was lived among shadows ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... however, might have had their motives for setting this wonderful people in the fairest point of view. The more powerful and magnificent, the more learned and refined they represented this nation to be, the greater would be their triumph in the event of their effecting a change of the national faith. It may also have occurred to them, that common prudence required they should speak favourably, at least, of a nation under whose power ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... And on the shield was a harbour with a safe haven from the irresistible sea, made of refined tin wrought in a circle, and it seemed to heave with waves. In the middle of it were many dolphins rushing this way and that, fishing: and they seemed to be swimming. Two dolphins of silver were spouting and devouring the mute fishes. And beneath them ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... constantly obliged to have recourse to the kingly authority and to that almost absolute monarchy which was far from satisfying her even when she could not do without it, and when she worshipped it with an enthusiasm rather literary than political, as was the case under Louis XIV. It was through the refined rather than profound development of her civilization, and through the zeal of her intellectual movement, that France was at length impelled not only towards the political system to which she had so long ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of these men was confirmed by Mrs. St. George,[71] a lady in London society, who viewed her possibly with something of the repugnant prejudice of a refined and cultivated woman, yet evidently measured her words calmly, even in her private journal. "I think her bold, daring, vain even to folly, and stamped with the manners of her first situation much more strongly than one would suppose, after having represented Majesty, and lived in ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... depend on the motor doing its work properly, the result of this was that the projected cruise was cut short, and after a lapse of three weeks our course was set for Bergen, where we changed the oil for refined paraffin, and at the same time had the ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... raw sugar from Cuba pay a duty on this sugar when it enters the United States, but receive this duty back when a corresponding amount of refined sugar is ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... him a heavy-set, dark-eyed young man with a low, sinister brow. An unpleasant leer curled his thin lips, which a black mustache partially shaded, and he wore a profusion of jewels which was disgusting to one of his refined temperament. ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... smallest details. He must tell her about every day, every hour of his existence; she made the acquaintance of his entire circle of friends; she loathed Loulou, she adored Schrotter, she went into raptures over gentle, refined Bhani, she smiled at Paul Haber and his well-dressed Malvine, and her inventive grandmamma; she determined to send good Frau Muller (who had looked after Wilhelm for ten years like a mother) a beautiful Christmas present. She could make personal remarks ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... was the peach. I presume you're acquainted with the average run of British generals, but this was my first. I sat on his left hand, and he talked like—like the Ladies' Home Journal. J'ever read that paper? It's refined, Sir—and innocuous, and full of nickel-plated sentiments guaranteed to improve the mind. He was it. He began by a Lydia Pinkham heart-to-heart talk about my health, and hoped the boys had done me well, and that I was enjoying my stay in their midst. Then he thanked me for the interesting ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... with his air-built image of himself as a worthy astronomer, received by all the world, and the envied husband of Viviette, the present imputation was humiliating. The glorious light of this tender and refined passion seemed to have become debased to burlesque hues by pure accident, and his aesthetic no less than his ethic taste was offended by such an anti-climax. He who had soared amid the remotest grandeurs of nature had been taken to task on a rudimentary question of morals, ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... humoredly. Capitola, being of a brave, hard, firm nature, had not the sensitive perceptions, fine intuitions and true insight into character that distinguished the more refined nature of Clara Day—or, at least, she had not these delicate faculties in the same perfection. Thus, her undefined suspicions of Craven's sincerity were overborne by a sort of noble benevolence which determined her to think the best of him ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... have been invaluable specimens of dialectics for the use of students. I heard the late William Maxwell say, that it was vain and even fatal to attempt before a jury to find the defective links in the chain of Mr. Tazewell's arguments, for the process would become too refined for their comprehension; and that his own mode of argument in such cases was to let the reasoning of Tazewell pass, and press with all his force some plain views of the case. Some lawyers are successful in ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... that "anything white" was acceptable. This passion for matrimony (for with her it had so become, if not a disease) occupied her whole thoughts; but she attempted to veil them by always pretending to be extremely sensitive and refined; to be shocked at anything which had the slightest allusion to the "increase and multiply;" and constantly lamented the extreme fragility of her constitution; to which her athletic bony frame gave so determined a lie, that her hearers were struck dumb ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... unfitness to enter into the presence of the pure of mind in an attitude more erect and confident. Well, these fancies of mine only went to prove how erroneous and false are the conclusions of one whose capacity has not been amplified and concatenated by the ingenuities of a very refined civilization. His grace the most gracious father in God, wore a mantle of extraordinary fineness and beauty, the material of which was composed of every tenth hair taken from all the citizens of Leaphigh, who most cheerfully submitted to be shaved, in ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... is employed as the macerating agent, the fat used is a properly adjusted mixture of lard and suet, both of which have been purified and refined during the winter months, and kept stored ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... sometimes more likely to imitate some predecessor at a critical moment, or to adopt some bold yet inefficient suggestion from another, than to originate an adequate one themselves. He is a scholar, an invalid, refined and ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... have thought of money,' I owned, 'I have thought of it lately a great deal. When I look at Angus I long to get him every luxury, and I want my little Harold to grow up surrounded by those things which help to develop a fine and refined character. ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... arguing. The sound of their voices arose, together with a scent as of neglected wells, which, mingling with the odour of the galleries, combined to form the savour, like nothing but the emanation of a refined cheese, so indissolubly connected with the administration ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Davidson had been a plump elderly matron with gray hair, a rather rasping voice and a somewhat aggressive manner. Mrs. Armstrong was young and slim, her hair and eyes were dark, her manner refined and her voice low and gentle. And, if Jed had been in the habit of noticing such things, he might have noticed that she was pleasant to look at. Perhaps he was conscious of this fact, but, if so, it was only in a ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rapidly. Society had flung its doors open to him, and what was more, he had found some warm friends, in whose houses he could come and go at pleasure. He enjoyed keenly the privilege of daily association with high-minded and refined women; their eager activity of intellect stimulated him, their exquisite ethereal grace and their delicately chiseled beauty satisfied his aesthetic cravings, and the responsive vivacity of their nature prepared him ever new surprises. He felt a strange fascination in the presence ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... complaints, displayed more than ordinary tenderness, and heroically and ostentatiously concluded there was no place like Belles Demoiselles. But the new mood touched him more than the old, and only refined his discontent. Here was a man, rich without the care of riches, free from any real trouble, happiness as native to his house as perfume to his garden, deliberately, as it were with premeditated malice, ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... furnished; an old-fashioned crimson couch stood in one corner; some stained book-shelves contained a few well-bound books; and one or two simple engravings in cheap frames adorned the wall. In spite of the simplicity of the whole there were evidences of refined taste—there were growing ferns in tall baskets; some red leaves and autumn berries arranged in old china vases; a beautiful head of Clytie, though it was only in plaster of Paris, on the mantel-piece. The pretty tea service on the round table was only white china, hand-painted; ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... nations with more intelligence and refined feelings will make a beginning, and then by force of example induce the Germans to do the same.[8] Meanwhile, hear what Thomas Hood says of them (Up the Rhine): "For a musical people they are the most noisy ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... may so express it) some acquired Passions which the lower sort are ignorant of. Thus indeed it seems at first Sight; but on a nearer View they are found to be, as I said, the same Passions augmented or refined, and turned upon other Objects. The different Manner in which one of Corneille's or Racine's Pieces would be received by an Audience of Turks or Russians, and an Audience of Frenchmen, (supposing the former to understand the Language, and the latter to be free from ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... A book of refined short pieces with descriptive titles for elementary work. Arranged in progressive order. Sure to ...
— Twelve Preludes for the Pianoforte Op. 25 - I. Prelude in F Major • N. Louise Wright
... and Johnson's:—'There may be firmness and constancy of courage from tradition as well as of belief: nor, methinks, should any man know how to be a coward, that is brought up with the opinion, that all of his nation or city have ever been valiant.' Temple's Works, i. 167. 'This is a disease too refined for this country and people, who are well, when they are not ill, and pleased, when they are not troubled; are content, because they think little of it; and seek their happiness in the common eases and commodities of life, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Trethgarten Square." Mrs. Lessing had managed to let him know during the day that her guest had been reared within the sacred pale of those first families in whom the choice stock of humanness is refined by being maintained at precisely the same level for at ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... Gratitude had set the crown upon the glory of her array. No one had ever seen her look so beautiful. Out of the furnace the fine gold had come refined, dazzling. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... don't think the word can be used in that way, Peggy; I do not, indeed. You speak of an elegant dress, or an elegant woman, but not of an elegant drive or an elegant sunset. The word implies something refined, something—" ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... little craft solidly to the metal surface of the landing field. The traffic around Pallas was fairly heavy this time of year, since the planetoid was on the same side of the sun as Earth, and the big cargo haulers were moving in and out, loading refined metals and raw materials, unloading manufactured goods from Earth. He'd had to wait several minutes in the traffic pattern before being ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... exquisite studies, which, between seven and eight A. M. passed through Eleventh Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. So exceptionally fine was her carriage, so chaste and virginal her presence, and so refined and even spiritual her features, that, as a literary man, I would have been justified in taking her for the heroine of a society novel. Indeed, I had already woven a little romance about her, when one morning she overtook me, accompanied by another girl—pretty, but of a different ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... have the demigod on our hands. Something might be safelier done by writing, as with the present company, and inquiring into "the present condition of polite learning." This would keep the sacred flame alive, and give us the comfort of refined association in an exquisite moment of joy from the sense of our superiority to other people. That, after all, was ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... And Winston wondered likewise at her, his earlier admiration for the bright attractiveness of face and manner broadening as her mind gave quick response to his leadership. Here was certainly no commonplace girl of the stage, but an educated, refined, ambitious woman, matured beyond her years by experience, her conversation exhibiting a wide range of reading, interwoven, with a deep knowledge of life. They spoke of ideals, of art, of literature, of secret aspirations, ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... manner.] My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way ...
— The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People • Oscar Wilde
... synonym for production at large, has refined and subtilized—even spiritualized itself to a degree almost inconceivable, nor is there any doubt but that the future has far greater surprises in store. But if metal has come to wellnigh its utmost power of service, the worker's capacity has had no equality of development, and the ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... gold, refined from all allay, Immortal is, and never can decay: 'Tis in all times and languages the same, Nor can an ill translation quench the flame: For, though the form and fashion don't remain, The intrinsic value still it will retain. Then let each studied scene be writ with art, And judgment ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... but a few years since Abner Kneeland had been sent to jail for expressing an opinion about the great First Cause; but we had had nothing like this man, with his seraphic voice and countenance, his choice vocabulary, his refined utterance, his gentle courage, which, with a different manner, might have been called audacity, his temperate statement of opinions which threatened to shake the existing order of thought ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... her veins, but her heart grew stronger, and she determined to know the worst. She was not a refined or clever woman; but the depth of her trouble sharpened her wits, and she instinctively made use of her woman's wiles to extort the truth from the man who she knew was under the spell of her beauty, whatever ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... those only who had, in her opinion, a right to the same honor. And she was far stricter on that point than the Lord Chamberlain, who had, she held, betrayed his trust by practically turning Leveller. She was well educated, refined in her manners and habits, skilled in etiquette to an extent irritating to the ignorant, and gifted with a delicate complexion, pearly teeth, and a face that would have been Grecian but for a slight ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... account of these ladies. There was a large party of savants, agreeable and gentlemanly; but Majendie himself had the coarsest manners; his conversation was horridly professional; many things were said and subjects discussed not fit for women to hear. What a contrast the refined and amiable Sir Charles Bell formed with Majendie! Majendie and the French school of anatomy made themselves odious by their cruelty, and failed to prove the true anatomy of the brain and nerves, ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... rehabilitation of the state; and, then, as a vast fighting-machine perfect in every detail, resistless and awe-inspiring in its very integrity. He noted the faces as they passed—stern, intelligent faces, young, for the most part, and curiously refined, intent upon correct performance of the present duty, and touched, almost without exception, with an enthusiasm born of the martial music and the rhythmic tramp of advancing feet. He saw the quick, reciprocal glance of the pivot and flank men, as the fours, in perfect alignment, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... should venture to kiss her dress when they are alone. When I consider the folly of worldly maxims, whereby real purity is continually sacrificed to a show of propriety, I understand why speech becomes more refined while the heart becomes more corrupt, and why etiquette is stricter while those who conform to it are ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... tongue which she spoke so perfectly, although it was not her own. That language of hers I never learned, but I know she thought in it and only translated into Orofenan, because of the great difficulty which she had in rendering her high and refined ideas into its simpler metaphor, and the strange words which often she introduced. "Oh! you have been very ill, friend of my heart. At times I thought that you were going to die, and wept and wept. Bickley thinks that ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... eyes, were but fools, for they had used their powers of mind in the cause of error, their reasonings even led them to be irreligious and immoral; and they despised the doctrine of a resurrection which they neither loved nor believed. And again, all the more refined arts of life have been disgraced by the vicious tastes of those who excelled in them; often they have been consecrated to the service of idolatry; often they have been made the instruments of sensuality ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... STIRLING, of Keir, Perthshire, a man of refined scholarship; travelled in Italy and Spain; wrote on subjects connected with the history and the artists of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... back to the number necessary for all purposes of conversation correspondence and writing, 2,000, we find that a great many people who pass in society as being polished, refined and educated use less, for they know less. The greatest scholar alive hasn't more than four thousand different words at his command, and he never has occasion to ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... for the occasion; and it appeared that sarongs were not being sported by the more refined class of male diners, who affected as a mass the sombre black of dinner jackets. At all Hong Kong hotels the custom is evening dress for dinner, and Peter felt shabby and shoddy in his silk suit, his low ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... victim of his fun, even when it outraged common sensibilities, must enjoy it as much as he. Who but Eugene, after being the welcome guest, at a European capital, of one of our most ambitious and refined ambassadors, would have written a lyric, sounding the praises of a German "onion pie," ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... a close inspection, that she rather liked his looks, though he did not strike her as a very amiable young man. Perhaps she was a bit tired of amiable young men. His face was thin, and refined, and strong—the strength of level brows, straight nose and square chin, with a pair of paradoxical lips, which were curved and womanish in their sensitiveness; the refinement was an intangible expression which belonged to no particular feature but pervaded the whole face. As to his ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... so came to the wide-scattered settlement—almost a colony—which, hidden behind high, barb-wire-topped fences, carried on the many and complex activities of the partners' experiment station. Here were the several laboratories where new products were evolved and old ones refined, for Flint's and Waldron's greater profit. Here stood a complete electric power plant, for lighting and heating the works, as well as for current to use in the retorts and many powerful machines of ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... searchingly. His eyes were not large, but they were bright, and held none of the languor so often seen in the eyes of his countrymen. His face was expressive through its mobility rather than through its contours. The features were small and refined, not noble, but unmistakably aristocratic. The nose was sensitive, with wide nostrils. A long and straight moustache, turning slightly grey, did not hide the mouth, which had unusually pale lips. The ears were set very flat against the head, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... poetical works. His growing popularity calls for the present publication. We would fain number ourselves among the admirers of the husband of Elizabeth Barrett; the man loved by this truly great poetess, to whom she addressed the refined and imaginative tenderness of the 'Portuguese Sonnets?' of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... had been told that Hist was on the opposite shore, and nature so far triumphed over all distinctions of habit, and tribes and people, as to reduce this young savage warrior to the level of a feeling which would have been found in the most refined inhabitant of a town, under similar circumstances. There was a mild satisfaction in believing that she he loved could see him, and as he walked out on the platform in his scanty, native attire, an Apollo of the wilderness, a hundred of the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... direction. They had splendid gardens and their fruit and vegetables were famous all over the country. Mme. de Thury was a compatriot—the daughter of an American general; the young Comte de Melun from Brumetz—very delicate looking, with a refined student's face. His father was a great friend of the Marechal MacMahon and one of the leaders of the Catholic clerical party, and the young man was very religious. Their woods touched ours and once or twice when we were riding late, we saw him kneeling at a little old shrine, "the ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... stone, with a Doric order to the ground storey supporting an Ionic order to the first floor. The cornice is of wood, and above this is a steep-pitched tile roof with dormers, surmounted by a balustrade inclosing a flat, from which rises a most picturesque wooden cupola. The details are extremely refined, and the technical knowledge and delicate sense of scale and proportion shown in this building are surprising in a designer who was under thirty, and is not known to ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... Adams never lost the entire simplicity of his own habits and character. Under an exterior of, at times, almost repulsive coldness, dwelt a heart as warm, sympathies as quick, and affections as overflowing, as ever animated any bosom. His tastes, too, were all refined. Literature and art were familiar and dear to him, and hence it was that his society was at once so agreeable and so improving. At his hospitable board, I have listened to disquisitions from his lips on poetry, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... so much mother-love that it overflows and benefits outsiders. Not so old Vixen it would seem. Her pleasure in the cubs led to most refined cruelty. For she often brought home to them mice and birds alive, and with diabolical gentleness would avoid doing them serious hurt so that the cubs might have larger scope ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... and at the foote thereof, which is towards the great Riuer is all along a goodly Myne of the best yron in the world, and it reacheth euen hard vnto our Fort, and the sand which we tread on is perfect refined Myne, ready to be put into the fornace. And on the waters side we found certaine leaues of fine gold as thicke as a mans nayle. And Westward of the said Riuer there are, as hath bene sayd, many faire trees: and toward the water a goodly Medow full of as faire and goodly grasse as euer I sawe ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... of refined sensibility can contemplate the fate of the aborigines of this country, without shuddering at the consequences of colonization; and if they melted away at the presence of the pilgrims and their descendants, like frost before the meridian blaze of the sun,—if they ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... Unfortunately the number of such women is not very large, and, because of our confined, unnatural, often exhausting way of living, is becoming smaller and smaller. There is no question that the civilized, refined woman has a harder ordeal in pregnancy and childbirth than has her primitive sister. We confidently hope that this will not be so in the future; we expect the time to come when true hygiene will be an integral part of the education ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... Hunter was earnest, persuasive and often eloquent. He possessed, in a remarkable degree, a talent for refined sarcasm, and knew how to use most effectively its piercing shafts against the idle objections, or disingenuous cavils of all triflers with the great truths of religion. In his advanced years the infirmities of old age greatly contracted ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... of the most prominent of that little group which from the "headquarters of good principles" in Boston so long controlled the politics of Massachusetts. He was a scholar, gentleman, and man of the world, and his portrait shows us a refined, high-bred face, suggesting a French marquis of the eighteenth century rather than the son of a New England sea-captain. A few years later, Mr. Gore was chosen governor of Massachusetts, and defeated when a candidate for reelection, largely, it is supposed, because he rode in a coach ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... explore its secrets and mingle warmly in its interests. Thus poetry in Schiller was not one but many gifts. It was, what true poetry is always, the quintessence of general mental riches, the purified result of strong thought and conception, and of refined as well ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... wedding tour amid the congratulations and good wishes of many true friends. After their departure Mrs. Carlton remarked to several of her 'dear friends' "that she had long since discovered that Dr. Winthrop was not possessed of refined tastes; and for her part she thought Miss Ashton much better suited to be his wife than many others which she could name." Had the doctor been present to express his sentiments regarding this matter, they would in ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... cried the little doctor, as they walked down the Bridges. "And this is my dream of refined quiet ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... all—father, mother, and child—with the adoring gratitude of one physically and morally orphaned, to whom a new home and family has been temporarily given. For Ella and her husband had taken a warm affection to the refined and modest fellow, and could not do enough for him. His fellowship, and some small savings, gave him all the money he wanted, but he was starved of everything else that Man's kindred can generally provide—sympathy, and understanding without words, and ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... rare in the colonies, the painter became an object of general curiosity. If few or none could appreciate the technical merit of his productions, yet there were points in regard to which the opinion of the crowd was as valuable as the refined judgment of the amateur. He watched the effect that each picture produced on such untutored beholders, and derived profit from their remarks, while they would as soon have thought of instructing Nature herself as him who seemed to rival her. Their admiration, it must be owned, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ebonised table three feet six, by two feet five inches, the afternoon lounge couch (as advertised), the gent's easy shake-down chair, ladies ditto, and half dozen occasional chairs, all upholstered in rich material in Messrs. MULGRAVE & Co. of 170, Walbrook, City, E.C.'s best style, that a refined taste inspired by a wholesome economy had been exercised in the furnishing of the apartment, and she turned to the old Duke with a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... selfishness, he lost almost everything which was personally dear to him; and at last came to set little value upon the individual, while the need of living for the whole grew stronger and stronger in him. With the most refined selfishness he had desired the greatest things for himself, and unselfishly at last he gave himself for the common good and the happiness of the humble people. He had entered upon life as an idealist, and even the most terrible experiences had not destroyed these ideals but ennobled and ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... poet except Shakspere, was born in London in 1608. His father was a scrivener, an educated man, and a musical composer of some merit. At his home Milton was surrounded with all the influences of a refined and well ordered Puritan household of the better class. He inherited his father's musical tastes, and during the latter part of his life, he spent a part of every afternoon in playing the organ. No poet has written more ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... closed gates. The priest drew the long wooden bolt and pushed one gate creakingly back. We went by a paved pathway into the deeper shadow of the temple. Then a light glowed from the side of the building, and we were in the priest's house. It was like a farmer's house only more refined ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... celebrated and sung the Exploits of their Kings and Leaders: No Wonder then this Kingdom should have been revered at Home, and admired Abroad; when Religion formed, Erudition nurtured, Philosophy strengthened, History preserved, Rhetorick adorned, Musick softened, and Poesy refined, the National Wisdom and Accomplishments; to all which was added, a thorough Knowledge of Tactics, and great Skill and Agility in all the athletick ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... Scotch, or even English. She was so obliging as to add that she would have taken her for an American, anywhere: which she (Kate) was no doubt aware was a very great compliment, as the Americans were admitted on all hands to have greatly refined upon the English language! I need not tell you that out of Boston and New York a nasal drawl is universal, but I may as well hint that the prevailing grammar is also more than doubtful; that the oddest vulgarisms are received ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the casual eye, it was the home of decayed gentility. Here would be refined eating of a dinner of herbs, solaced by talk of prideful yesterdays. You saw it in the few things that still kept their grip on the past: on the wall an old, black painting of a knight in ruff and quilted doubtlet; a pounce-box and a hawking-glove on the chimney-piece, and above ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... and my friend on the exchange laughed and congratulated me and said it was only the beginning. So we put up the stop-loss, almost as far as it would go, and began to look about for a place that was quite suitable for people with refined taste, some very good things in the way of rugs and furniture, and ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and finally essayed a conversation with the helmsman. The man proved at first to be exceedingly surly, suspicious, and taciturn, but Lance Evelin was a man of consummate tact, and his manner was at once so refined and so genial that there were very few who could for any length of time withstand its fascinating influence. In less than half an hour he had so won upon the man, who was by no means all bad, that everything ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... in cliff caverns is supposed to have been that of the Pueblo Indians of the Mesa Verde in Colorado, whose descendants, though not cave-dwellers, are still found in New Mexico. From the proofs of partial civilisation found in their deserted homes, we may believe them to have been more refined and gentler than the savage Apaches and similar fighting tribes who overcame them, and drove them out ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... dock, with kerchief to her eyes, stood the mother, weeping to think that her boy was going far, far away from his home and friends in dear, cultured, refined Albany, away, away, to that remote and barbarous inaccessible region almost to the shore ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... well-preserved, no one was in a position to asseverate. As a matter of fact, observers would have been justified in wondering whether she was black or white. She was never abroad without the thick, voluminous veil, and her hands were never ungloved. Mrs. Nixon and Angie described her voice as refined and elegant, and she spoke English as well as anybody, not excepting Professor Rank of the ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... just estimate of it could not be formed if these two facts were overlooked. A century ago men and women were much more straightforward in their speech than we are to-day. They were not squeamish. In real life Amelias listened to raillery from Squire Westerns not a whit more refined than Fielding's good country gentlemen. Therefore, when it came to serious discussions for moral purposes, there was little reason for writers to be timid. It was impossible for Mary to avoid certain subjects not usually spoken of in polite conversation. Had she done so, she would but have half ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... the intimacy of refined people, he began to modify his sentiments with regard to the female sex. His first prize-day at Whitelaw was the first occasion on which he sat in an assembly where ladies (as he understood the title) ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... not true that men would be morally better or happier, if their style of living were reduced to the greatest plainness consistent with bare comfort. Our taste in this respect, as for the fine arts, as it becomes more refined, becomes more susceptible of high enjoyment. When large fortunes are suddenly made by gambling, or what is equivalent thereto, then it is that baleful luxury is introduced—a style of living beyond the means of those who adopt it, and spreading through all classes. Taste, cultivated ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... them! ran away and took me with them. Now you tell me, on your conscience, good man, what reason have I to disclose my name? They will send me back to penal servitude, you know! And I am not fit for penal servitude! I am a refined man in delicate health. I like to sleep and eat in cleanliness. When I pray to God I like to light a little lamp or a candle, and not to have a noise around me. When I bow down to the ground I like the floor not to be dirty or spat upon. And I bow down forty times ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... life." And again we read in the diary of Evelyn,—another writer who reflects with wonderful accuracy the life and spirit of the Restoration,—"I saw Hamlet played; but now the old plays begin to disgust this refined age, since his Majesty's being so long abroad." Since Shakespeare and the Elizabethans were no longer interesting, literary men began to imitate the French writers, with whose works they had just grown familiar; and here begins the so-called period of French influence, which ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... not turn away from that palace with the contemptuous thought— Civilized? Refined? These people's civilization is but skin-deep. Their refinement is but an outside show. Look into the first back room, and you find that ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... future grand master of Malta might chance to take his seat on the rowing bench beside commonest scoundrel of Naples. No one seemed to observe the horrible brutality of the service, where each man, let him be never so refined, was compelled to endure the filth and vermin of his neighbour who might be half a savage and was bound to become wholly one; and when Madame de Grignan wrote an account of a visit to a galley, her friend Madame ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... offered more, indeed, than I would accept. All repeated that I was Saladin the Lucky. This compliment I disclaimed, feeling more ambitious of being called Saladin the Prudent. It is thus that what we call modesty is often only a more refined species of pride. But to proceed with ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... said Alice, "at all risks. I thought your mother was a lady, from the honourable notions she had given you; and, from your ready obedience to her, which was evidently the obedience of love, I judged she had been a good mother in the true sense of the term. I thought she must be a refined and cultivated person, from the manner of your speech and behaviour; and I was sure she was a Christian, because she had taught you the truth, and evidently had tried ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... permitted herself to say rude things. Her idea of angels and souls in bliss was the good orthodox notion of men and women with exactly the same features and identity as they had when in the flesh, but infinitely more beautiful; retaining the Ego, but the Ego refined and purified out of all trace of human weakness, all characteristic passions, tempers and proclivities; and the pear-shaped bag was as far removed from the truth, as she held it, on the one side as Leam's materialistic ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... consequences, and the good arising from it is, at most, uncertain. It is, no doubt, very desirable to enlarge young people's minds and improve their taste as well as their persons; but such is the state of things in this world, that to attain this to the degree wished for by every person of refined taste, some things must be sacrificed of much greater value: for example, a girl cannot acquire the smart, polished air of a person of fashion, without imbibing too much of the spirit of the world. Vanity and emulation must be awakened and cultivated in ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... first weighing and the second gives the weight of the displaced water; hence the specific gravity is found at once by dividing the weight of the stone by this difference. For very small stones, where the weights concerned are slight, it is necessary to use a refined chemical balance. But for ordinary stones a well made ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... Demonstrate the correctness of its Principles and Phenomena, or a System of Religion which emasculates mankind of its diviner and more spiritual aspirations, and dwarfs him to the dimensions of a refined Materialism. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... a very refined nation, have notions of matrimonial arrangements that would not disgrace the most refined sticklers for settlements and pin-money. The suitor repairs not to the bower of his mistress, but to her father's lodge, and throws down a present at his feet. His wishes are then disclosed ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... tenderly tell him what slang phrases will lead to. Do not speak harshly, but explain in the most loving manner possible. In this way you will cultivate in him a distaste for impure language. A pure, refined nature will be the result. Moreover, as that child realizes through your faithful instruction, the true meaning of sin, he will make you his confidant and will come to you rather than seek the counsel of younger companions. Thus you will be able to control ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... favor and, truth to say, was beginning to be both coarse and careless. People were growing restive under ministrations which were at times little less than impositions upon their forbearance. They wanted something if possible as strong, but more refined, and in the person of the leading comedy man of Laura Keene's company, a young actor by the name of Jefferson, ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... account of those amongst the very poorest of the Irish who do not use tea, should within one hundred years have found themselves able so absolutely to revolutionise their diet, as to substitute for the gross stimulation of ale and wine the most refined, elegant, and intellectual mode of stimulation that human research has succeeded in discovering.[6] But the material basis of this stimulation unhappily we draw from the soil of one sole nation—and that nation (are we ever allowed to forget?) capricious and ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... much to distinguish it from the Chinese. At first purely theurgic, the practice was later characterized by acupuncture and a refined study of the pulse. It has an extensive literature, largely based upon the Chinese, and extending as far back as the beginning of the Christian era. European medicine was introduced by the Portuguese ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... evil demon Fire for a third time, "three days before the Christmas of 1136," partially destroyed, or at least seriously injured, St. Paul's, during a conflagration which reached from London Bridge to beyond the Fleet. In rebuilding, the then method was to throw a coating of the more refined Romanesque of the day over the older work;[8] and this is how I explain an obscure passage in Pepys—"It is pretty here to see how the late church was but a case wrought over the old church; for you may see the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... in the sphere of Dr. Harrison than of his father and sister. People who had rubbed off every particle of native simplicity that ever belonged to them, and who, if they were simple at all—as some of them were—had a different kind of simplicity, made after a most exquisite and refined worldly fashion. How it was made or worn, Faith could not tell; she had an instinctive feeling of the difference. If she had set on foot a comparison, she would soon have come to the conclusion that "Mr. Linden's wife" was of another pattern altogether. But Faith never thought of doing that. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... as one of the choice stories of the season, bright, refined, graceful, thoughtful, and interesting from the first to the final page."—Boston ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... which few scientific students have ever equalled. I had everything to learn relative to the delicate study upon which I had embarked,—a study involving the most earnest patience, the most rigid analytic powers, the steadiest hand, the most untiring eye, the most refined ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... hear the charges against him, nor be within the sound of scandal's tongue, but he would see it outlined in faces that once smiled at his seeming prosperity. He would feel it in the cold hand that had welcomed him,—that had warmly embraced him; his name would no longer be respected. The circle of refined society that had kindly received him, had made him one of its attractions, would now shun him as if he were contagion. Beyond this he saw the fate that hovered over his father's and his uncle's estates;-all the filial affection they had bestowed upon him, blasted; the caresses of ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... from absolute necessity or charity, people of refined habits do not call on those whose surroundings shock their sense of decency; but when they go to pay the calls of Nature, they are often compelled to visit her in the meanest and most offensive of abodes; built for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... news was Makaraig, the young man at the head of the movement. This student occupied in that house, by himself, two rooms, luxuriously furnished, and had his servant and a cochero to look after his carriage and horses. He was of robust carriage, of refined manners, fastidiously dressed, and very rich. Although studying law only that he might have an academic degree, he enjoyed a reputation for diligence, and as a logician in the scholastic way had no cause to envy the most frenzied quibblers of the University faculty. Nevertheless he was not very ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal |
