"Well-bred" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... averred, at the end of the ends. "Of course you can't bank much on that. He might have said to a perfect stranger, 'After you,' or whatever it was that he did say; and she would acknowledge the courtesy with the nod and the smile—any well-bred woman would. But you can take it for what it is worth; my thought at the moment was that they had met before; casually, perhaps, as people meet on trains or in hotels; that there was at ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... indecent haste to make way with the dishes that were set before them without number, and heaped up without measure, on Mr. Chamberlin's ample board. On the contrary, they partook of the good things of the table with a well-bred slowness, that would have been beyond his endurance to bear, had Mars been thundering with his iron fist at the gates of his fortress. But as it was Cupid, only tapping with his rosy knuckles at the casement of his heart, that ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... flattering artist." It is a fact—to the cook; and another fact, which only shows that the Hebrew baron is a Jew d'esprit, is that after coffee, the cook actually came up, and was presented to her. "He," says her ladyship, "was a well-bred gentleman, perfectly free from pedantry, and when we had mutually complimented each other on our respective works, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... Cowslip and Tom Clarke, set out immediately for the house of Dr. Kawdle, who happened to be abroad, but his wife received them with great courtesy. She was a well-bred, sensible, genteel woman, and strongly attached to Aurelia by the ties of affection, as well as of consanguinity. She no sooner learned the situation of her cousin than she expressed the most impatient concern for her being set at liberty, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... the drollery could be, of a man choaked with swallowing too hastily, was more than I could comprehend. The appellation of droll dog however was repeated, till the two gentlemen could appease their titillation. I own I thought it a little rude; but they seemed neither of them so well-bred as the lady, and I concluded they could be nothing more than travelling acquaintance. I even supposed I saw them wink at each other, as if there had been something strange or ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... himself, he, like a well-bred gentleman, did not further press the delicate subject. After a further conversation on other subjects, I begged that he would excuse me, as I wished to go back to my white friends who were waiting for me round their camp-fire, and having once more carefully dressed ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... man west of the Missouri River ever could do that it would be you, Clarenden. By the holy Jerusalem, the military lost one grand commander when you chose a college instead of West Point, and the East lost one well-bred gentleman from its circles of commerce and culture when you elected to do business on the old Santa Fe Trail instead of Broadway. But I reckon the West will need just such men as you long after the frontier fort has become ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... bishopricke at present there is no house), he did intend to dwell here. By and by to dinner, and in comes Mr. Creed; I saluted his lady and the young ladies, and his sister, the Bishop's widow; who was, it seems, Sir W. Russel's daughter, the Treasurer of the Navy; who I find to be very well-bred, and a woman of excellent discourse. Towards the evening we bade them adieu! and took horse; being resolved that, instead of the race which fails us, we would go to Epsom. When we come there we could hear of no lodging the town so full; but which was better, I went ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... but not until Hamilton, ascending the staircase, was nearly abreast of them. He raised his hat to her with well-bred composure, nodded familiarly to Oakhurst, and passed on. When he had gone, Mrs. Decker lifted her eyes to Mr. Oakhurst. "Some day I shall ask ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... words so polite and in so well-bred a tone, coming from a boy of Reginald's poor appearance, for he ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... the lot of true followers of Christ in all ages. Often at their prayer meetings was the passage of St Paul referred to in which he bids his Corinthian converts note concerning themselves that they were for the most part neither well-bred nor intellectual people. They reflected with pride that they too had nothing to be proud of in these respects, and like St Paul, gloried in the fact that in the flesh they had not ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... reached out the hand of assistance toward the halter rope; the astonished animal promptly snorted, tried to turn around, cannoned against the next in line. Then there was a mix-up. Two tall clean-cut well-bred looking girls of our slim patrician type offered us material assistance. They seemed to understand horses, and got out of the way in the proper manner, did just the right thing, and made sensible suggestions. I offer ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... the Squire listened smiling and Leila sat dumb with astonishment as the dinner went on. He ate little and kept in mind the endless lessons in regard to what he should or should not eat. Meanwhile, he silently approved of the old silver and these well-bred kinsfolk, with a reserve of doubt ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... a rude sailor, smelling of pitch and tar, and Antony will be a well-bred, point-device scholar, who will know how to give a lady his ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Burrell was thirty-eight years old. The rector wrote poetry, and understood Browning, and recited from Arnold and Morris. Burrell's tastes were for social science and statistics. He was thoughtful, intelligent, well-bred, and reticent; small in figure, with a large head and very fine eyes. The rector, on the contrary, was tall and fair, and so exceedingly handsome that women especially never perceived that the portal to all his ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... I felt my heart bleed, Sore wounded with horror and pity; So I flew, with all possible speed, To our Protestant champion's committee. True gentlemen, kind and well-bred! No fleering! no distance! no scorn! They asked after my wife who is dead, And my children who ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bright-faced girl with wind-tossed hair and rustic hat heaped with moss and many-tinted shells; they only saw that her gown was wet, her gloves forgotten, and her scarf trailing at her waist in a manner no well-bred lady could approve. The sunshine faded out of Debby's face, and there was a touch of bitterness in her tone, as she glanced at the circle of fashion-plates, saying, with an earnestness which caused Miss West to open her pale eyes to their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... confidence in her views upon the laugh cure for human woes. Yet in all civilized countries it is a fundamental principle of refined manners not to be ill-timed and unreasonably noisy and boisterous in mirth. One who is wise will never violate the proprieties of well-bred people. ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... from him unawares; and then, when badgered for his authority, when driven to give an instance from the London newspapers, he had sent the objectionable periodical. He had, in point of fact, made a mistake;—a stupid, foolish mistake, into which a really well-bred man would hardly have fallen. "Ought I to take advantage of it?" said the Doctor to himself when he had wandered for an hour or more alone through the wood. He certainly did not wish to be crushed himself. Ought he to be anxious to crush the Bishop ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... firecracker and penny-trumpet and cannon (there was but one), to say nothing of many an inebriated human voice, hailed in a roaring diapason the birth of a new year. At Mr. Beirne's the outer tumult was echoed in the manner of the well-bred. The doors were shut, with the infant inside; the lights flew up; glasses clinked, merry healths were pledged, new fealties sworn by look alone. Gaiety overcame silence. All talked ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... that did her mother no harm but pastime to read. As for other things, her father's house was a perfect model of the very best morals and the very best manners. Alonso de Cepeda was a well-born and a well-bred Spanish gentleman. He came of an ancient and an illustrious Castilian stock; and, though not a rich man, his household enjoyed all the nobility of breeding and all the culture of mind and all the refinement of taste for which Spain was so famous in that great age. All her days, and in ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... described as a sweet-tempered, arch, modest, sensible, and well-bred girl, that had received a far better education than her father's means would have permitted him to bestow, through the liberality and affection of a widowed sister of her mother's, who was affluent, and had caused her to attend the same school as that ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... fools as ever! Between asleep and awake, I pondered on the quantity and quality of Australian-novel lore which had found utterance there. The outlawed bushrangers; the lurking blackfellows; the squatter's lovely Diana-daughter, awaiting the well-bred greenhorn (for even she had cropped-up in conversation)—how these things recalled my reading! And yet they were quite as reasonable as the discovery of the rich reef by the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... was no more than twenty-two or three, possessed unusual beauty. Her great eyes were blue,—the lovely Irish blue,—her skin was fair and smooth, her features regular and of the delicate mould that defines the well-bred gentlewoman at a glance. Her hair, now in order, was dark and thick and lay softly about her small ears and neck. She was not surprised, I repeat, for she had never known Challis Wrandall to show interest in any but the most attractive of ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... were repeatedly launched against the practices of these well-bred offenders, but the ready covert of the forest made the evasion of the King's justice an easy matter. Moreover, the Church, while it suffered much from such children, did not venture to reprove too strongly their flagrant excesses, lest they should thenceforth dispense altogether with her sacraments; ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... curly than woolly, the features are frequently aquiline, and the lips are not unpleasantly thick, as is the case among most African races. But what struck us most was their exceedingly quiet and dignified air. They were as well-bred in their way as the habituees of a fashionable drawing-room, and in this respect they differ from Zulu women and their cousins the Masai who inhabit the district beyond Zanzibar. Their curiosity had brought them out to see us, but they allowed no rude expressions of astonishment or savage criticism ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... Lady Gwendolen appeared, point-device for breakfast as to dress, but looking dazed and preoccupied, she found this lady and gentleman being well-bred, as shown by scanty, feelingless remarks about the absence of morning papers as well as morning people. Her advent opened a new era for them, in which they could cultivate ignorance of one another on the bosom of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... were the means of conveying the principal mails throughout the country, must ever seem to us a period of romantic interest. There is something stirring even in the picture of a mail-coach bounding along at the heels of four well-bred horses; and we know by experience how exhilarating it is to be carried along the highway at a rapid ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... ago operating on a cat, seemed to have recognized his selfishness in keeping his amusements to himself. He had found a poor lost puppy, a little creature with bright pitiful eyes, almost human in their fond, friendly gaze. It was not a well-bred little dog; it was certainly not that famous puppy "by Vick out of Wasp"; it had rough hair and a foolish long tail which it wagged beseechingly, at once deprecating severity and asking kindness. The poor animal ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... from many of those little bitternesses and restraints and disappointments which all well-bred city children must suffer in the course of their training for the more or less factitious life of society:—obligations to remain very still with every nimble nerve quivering in dumb revolt;—the injustice of being found troublesome and being sent to bed early for the comfort of her elders;—the ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... "the spirit of Christianity is fled from among them." When the Prince of Wales died, George the Second appointed governors and preceptors for the prince's children. Horace Walpole's description[96] of one of these is significant. "The other Preceptor was Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, a sensible well-bred man, natural son of Blackbourn, the jolly old Archbishop of York, who had all the manners of a man of quality, though he had been a Buccaneer and was a Clergyman; but he retained nothing of his ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... sinn'd in paring down a name, All civil well-bred authors do the same. Survey the columns of our daily writers— You'll find that some Initials are great fighters. How fierce the shock, how fatal is the jar, When Ensign W. meets Lieutenant R. With two stout seconds, just of their ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... extending to the high ceiling, and flanked on either side by sconces. The carpet was a golden brown, the hangings in the tall windows yellow. And in the morning the sun came in, not boisterously, but as a well-bred and cheerful guest. An amiable proprietor had permitted her also to add a wrought-iron balcony as an adjunct to this room, and sometimes she sat there on the warmer days reading under the seclusion of an awning, or gazing at the mysterious facades of the houses opposite, or ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that, Hypatia, I saw an expression on his face which made me wish for the moment that I had bitten out this impudent tongue of mine, before I so rashly touched some deep old wound.... That man has wept bitter tears ere now, be sure of it.... But he turned the conversation instantly, like a well-bred gentleman as he is, by saying, with the sweetest smile, that though he had made it a solemn rule never to be a party to making up any marriage, yet in our case Heaven had so plainly pointed us out for each other, etc. etc., that he could not refuse ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... conferring the franchise upon the women. What would be the next effect of such an extension of the suffrage? It was described by my friend from Missouri [Mr. Vest] and by other senators who have spoken upon this subject. The effect would be to drive the ladies of the land, as they are termed, the well-bred and well-educated women, the women of nice sensibilities, within their home circle, there to remain, while the ruder of that sex would thrust themselves out on the hustings and at the ballot-box, and fight their way to the polls through negroes and others who are not the best of company ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and one most prized, is the specimen represented here—the short-faced Tumbler. Its beak, you see, is reduced to a mere nothing. Just compare the beak of this one and that of the first one, the Carrier—I believe the orthodox comparison of the head and beak of a thoroughly well-bred Tumbler is to stick an oat into a cherry, and that will give you the proper relative proportions of the beak and head. The feet and legs are exceedingly small, and the bird appears to be quite a dwarf when placed side by side with ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... think," continued Bertha, without heeding the remark, "that you were at bottom kind-hearted, but too hopelessly well-bred ever to commit an act of any decided complexion, either good or bad. Now I see that I have misjudged you, and that you are capable of outraging the most sacred feelings of a woman's heart in mere wantonness, or for the sake ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... profession may be, he is not fit to be trusted; and when once discover'd, he will never be trusted by any but fools and children. To complement a great man to the injury of truth and liberty, may be in the opinion of a very degenerate age, the part of a polite and well-bred gentleman - Wise men however will denominate him a Traitor or a Fool. But how much more aggravated must be the folly and madness of those, who instead of worshipping GOD in the solemn assembly, "in spirit and ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... cave, he beheld an elderly hermit seated upon a stone, calmly surveying the sunset sky. The hermit looked up with a pleasant smile, for it had been long since a traveller had passed that way; and, perceiving that the stranger was not only well-bred but tired, invited him to take a seat upon a stone near by his own, at the same time motioning the Adherent to a smaller ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... witness the marriage of John Hutchinson, eldest son of Sir Thomas Hutchinson, with Lucy Apsley, the daughter of Sir Allen Apsley. The bride, who was only eighteen years of age, was, according to her contemporaries, exceedingly beautiful and very accomplished; her future husband was learned, well-bred and handsome. Both had a host of friends, and thus it was that a large crowd had gathered at the church to witness ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... anticipated rivalry, and was clearly jealous of every word that Morton did not address to her. Mildred looked at him again. He was better dressed than the others, and an air of success in his face made him seem younger than he was. He leaned across the table, and Mildred liked his brusque, but withal well-bred manner. She wondered what his pictures were like. At Daveau's only the names of the principal exhibitors at the Salon were known, and he had told her that he had not sent there for the last three years. He didn't care to send to the vulgar place ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... minutes, of Mrs. Norman's look of disapprobation; but he persuaded himself that there was nothing meant by it, and soon became very lively. There was something he did not like about Norman, who, though perfectly well-bred and attentive, showed a degree of indifference and disregard to any thing he said or did, that did not altogether suit Louis' present state of mind. If Louis addressed him, he listened very politely, but ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... was fading off the prairie when a party of three sat in a first-class car as the local train went jolting westward. Henry Colston leaned back in his seat with a Winnipeg paper on his knee; and his appearance stamped him as a well-bred Englishman traveling for pleasure. He was thirty-four; his dress, though dusty, was fastidiously neat; his expression was pleasant, but there was an air of formality about him. One would not have expected him to do anything startling ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... engagement, and the necessity of reviving the flirtatious game of croquet. Black coats, coloured dresses, flashing jewels, many-hued flowers,—the restless crowd resembled a bed of gaudy tulips tossed by the wind. And all this chattering, laughing, clattering, glittering mass of well-bred, well-groomed humanity moved, and swayed, and gyrated under the white glare of the electric lamps. Urbs in Rus; Belgravia in the Provinces; Vanity Fair amid the cornfields; no wonder this entertainment of Bishop and Mrs Pendle was the event of ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... If the offender can, after a short space, continue to make his usual personal appearances, he is safe, because the great bulk of his old friends would rather continue to recognise him, than come to a positive rupture—an event always felt as inconvenient. Of course, they will be too well-bred to allude before him to any unpleasant fact in his history. He will never recall it to their minds. By being thus thrown out of all common reference, it will become obscured to a wonderful degree, insomuch that many will at length think of it only as a kind of domestic myth, to which no importance ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... mention that the table-cloth is not the place to put your salt. Bread is the only comestible which the custom of well-bred people permits to be laid off ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... was an awkwardness about them that convinced me they were not of the bon ton of Philadelphia. The answers to all my questions were quick, pert, and given with an air of assumed consequence; at the same time I observed a mode of expression which, though English, was not well-bred English. ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... all things," said Mrs. Reverdy with her unfailing laugh; a little, well-bred, low murmur of a laugh. "It must be so delightful to have your biscuits always light and never tasting of soda; and your butter always as if it was made of cowslips; and your eggs always fresh. We never have fresh eggs," continued Mrs. Reverdy, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... nodding to people, as if they felt entirely at home, and would not be embarrassed in the least, if they met the Governor, or even the President of the United States, face to face. Some of these great folks are really well-bred, some of them are only purse-proud and assuming,—but they form a class, and are named as above in ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... something untoward turning up, and it is, perhaps, as well to be prepared for emergencies. Personally I must confess that I am favourably disposed towards the much vilified agents. They are in many respects the most manly men in Ireland. Nearly always well-bred, they excite sympathy by the position they hold between the upper and nether millstone of landlord and tenant. Perhaps they have made a good thing of it, but if so they have earned it, for their ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... chatter, and low-voiced, well-bred laughter drifted back to the girl's ears between pauses in the louder comments of her immediate neighbors and the intermittent din of the ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... that she had gone among strangers to conceal disgrace. She died without telling her story. In 1788 she arrived at the Bell Tavern, Danvers, in company with a man, who, after seeing her properly bestowed, drove away and never returned. A graceful, beautiful, well-bred woman, with face overcast by a tender melancholy, she kept indoors with her books, her sewing, and a guitar, avoiding the gossip of the idle. She said that her husband was absent on a journey, and a letter addressed to "Mrs. ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... the seamy side of life and, in the drawing rooms where Vance and she exhibited their mind reading tricks, had been made much of by great ladies and, for an hour as brief as Cinderella's, had looked upon a world of kind and well-bred people. Since she was fourteen, for seven years, this had been her life—a life as open to the public as the life of an actress, as easy of access as that of the stenographer in the hotel lobby. As a result, the girl had encased herself in a defensive ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... best purveyors of information was a bright, blue-eyed, fair-haired little drummer boy, as handsome as a girl, well-bred as a lady, and evidently the darling of some refined loving mother. He belonged, I think, to some loyal Virginia regiment, was captured in one of the actions in the Shenandoa Valley, and had been with us in ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... grief through their familiarity with the social evil. One of these, a delicate boy of seventeen, had been put into the messenger service by his parents when their family doctor had recommended out-of-door work. Because he was well-bred and good-looking, he became especially popular with the inmates of disreputable houses. They gave him tips of a dollar and more when he returned from the errands which he had executed for them, such as buying candy, cocaine or morphine. He was inevitably ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... of the chapel he maintains, at a large expense, a pious and portly family chaplain. He is a most learned and decorous personage and a truly well-bred Christian, who always backs the old gentleman in his opinions, winks discreetly at his little peccadilloes, rebukes the children when refractory, and is of great use in exhorting the tenants to read their Bibles, say their prayers, and, above all, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... broken whisper, so cold it stabbed me like steel; and she put out her hand in the mechanical way of the well-bred ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... cause. But besides the crimes of violence committed during a drunken fit, the prolonged abuse of alcohol, opium, morphia, coca, and other nervines may give rise to chronic perturbation of the mind, and without other causes, congenital or educative, will transform an honest, well-bred, and industrious man into an idle, violent, and apathetic fellow,—into an ignoble being, capable of any depraved action, even when he is not directly under the influence of ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... glowing fires. She was a type of the ancient repression of woman, which finds its exceptions in the Aspasias and Helens and Cleopatras of legend and history. In features she looked exactly what she was, well-bred and well-born. Beauty she also had, but it was the cold beauty of northern winter nights. It compelled admiration rather than invited it. Spiritually, Elsa was asleep. The fire was there, the gift of loving greatly, only it smoldered, without radiating even ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... anything that savoured of what she considered bad form, according to her lights. It was only vulgar with the underlying vulgarity of mere tasteless fashionable uniformity. There was nothing in it that any well-bred footman could object to; nothing that anybody with one grain of genuine originality could possibly tolerate. The little occasional chairs and tables set casually about the room were of the strictest neglige Belgravian type, a sort of studied protest against the formal stiffness of the ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... against the Bishop's orders. For the beautiful chapel in the piny glade was, somehow, false: or, at any rate, false for him. The architect had made it a dainty poem in stone and polished wood, but somehow God had evaded the neat little trap. Moreover, the God his well-bred congregation worshipped, the old traditionally imagined snow-white St. Bernard with radiant jowls of tenderness, shining dewlaps of love; paternal, omnipotent, calm—this deity, though sublime in its way, was too plainly an extension of their own desires. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... her relations' follies acting in concert, though unknown to themselves, with thy wicked, scheming head: considering how destitute of protection she is: considering the house she is to be in, where she will be surrounded with thy implements; specious, well-bred and genteel creatures, not easily to be detected when they are disposed to preserve appearances, especially by the young inexperienced lady wholly unacquainted with the town: considering all these things, I say, what ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... expert swordsman; he was known, talked about, appreciated everywhere, having very courteous manners, a very mediocre intellect, an absence of education and of the real culture needed in order to think like all well-bred people, and finally ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... omission of of a gives the right number of syllables to the verse, and makes room for the interpretation which a dash between generous and chief renders clearer: 'Are most select and generous—chief in that,'—'are most choice and well-bred—chief, indeed—at the head or top, in the matter of dress.' But without necessity or authority—one of the two, I would not throw away a word; and suggest therefore that Shakspere had here the French idiom de son chef in his mind, and qualifies the noun in it with adjectives ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... into the little chapel to pray it is all too tender, the divine Mother and the Child and the holy atmosphere. I begin to feel rather sorry for myself, I don't know why; then I go and move beds and feel better; but I have found that just to behave like a well-bred woman is what keeps me up best. I had thought that the Flag or Religion would have been stronger incentives ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... stayed here some time viewing this town and coast, we had opportunity to observe the pleasant way of conversation as it is managed among the gentlemen of this county and their families, which are, without reflection, some of the most polite and well-bred people in the isle of Britain. As their hospitality is very great, and their bounty to the poor remarkable, so their generous friendly way of living with, visiting, and associating one with another is as hard to be described ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... You do not know why I talk like this, Cleanthis: I had been eating garlic, and, like a well-bred man, just turned ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... neither surprise nor fear, but laughed and uttered a "Really!" that was just such a "really" as any well-bred girl might use at a tea, or anywhere else that reputable folk congregate, to express faint surprise. Her way of laughing was altogether charming. A girl who donned a clown's garb for night prowling and manufactured moons for her own amusement could not ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... has come into your head? Frau Rupius' conduct is irreproachable! She is one of the most well-bred ladies ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... the forces of nature and thus shorten time and ignore space? Whence comes the improvement of live-stock in this country? Compare the cattle of early New England with those on modern farms. Was the little scrubby stock of our forefathers replaced by large, sleek, well-bred cattle through accident? No, it was by the discovery of investigators and its practical adaptation by breeders. Compare the vineyards and the orchards of the early history of the nation, the grains and the grasses, or the fruits and the flowers ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... and promises; he decides on one course, and the next day takes another. He himself says he is nervous, susceptible and passionate, and he may be right. He is no play actor, and does not disguise himself; he is, I think, too sensible and well-bred, indeed, too ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... the Donna Inez led For some time an unhappy sort of life, Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead;[d] They lived respectably as man and wife, Their conduct was exceedingly well-bred, And gave no outward signs of inward strife, Until at length the smothered fire broke out, And put the business past all kind ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... truly the patriarchal life; this is what we came to find.' They heard from home and had letters. At Kingsburgh they were welcomed by the lady of the house, 'the celebrated Miss Flora Macdonald, a little woman of genteel appearance; and uncommonly mild and well-bred.' 'I was in a cordial humour, and promoted a cheerful glass. Honest Mr M'Queen observed that I was in high glee, "my governor being gone to bed." ... The room where we lay was a celebrated one. Dr ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... result of physical causes; breeding tells as surely as it does in dogs or cows, and the probability of defects in the offspring of poverty and of lust is necessarily greater than in well-bred, well-fed, well-environed children. The proportion of mentally and morally deficient children that come to us absolutely demonstrates this fact; and the love needed to see such children through to the end is more comprehensive than the mere sentiment of having a child in the home, and ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... question of race into a question of unequal cultures. You would not like your daughter to marry the sort of negro who steals hens, but then you would also not like your daughter to marry a pure English hunchback with a squint, or a drunken cab tout of Norman blood. As a matter of fact, very few well-bred English girls do commit that sort of indiscretion. But you don't think it necessary to generalise against men of your own race because there are drunken cab touts, and why should you generalise against negroes? Because the proportion of undesirables is higher among negroes, ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... at my costume and the pistols on my belt in well-bred concealment of surprise. "I'm your military attache, Stonehenge; ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... (reappearing with a small plated bowl, champagne bottle and glass of lager.) I regred fery moch to haf to dell you zat zere is only shust enough Bisque for von berson. [He bows with well-bred concern. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... Allan, who was a very shrewd man, was perfectly aware of this. He was a sybarite of refined taste, with an exquisite appreciation of the finer and more artistic pleasures of life; and the society of educated and well-bred women was one of the chief of them. Rather than run any risk of deterioration in its quality he preferred to let things remain as they were, and that he might enjoy it the more thoroughly without the restraint placed upon other ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... YOUNG MEN.—Many of our "fast young men" have been thus corrupted, even as the children of the intemperate are proved to have been. Certainly no one can deny that many of our "well-bred" young men are little better than "high-class dogs" so lawless are they, and ready for the ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... naturally interested in the horses they were to ride. Sax had a grey mare named Fair Steel to ride in the mornings, and Ginger, a gelding, for the afternoons. Vaughan's two were both geldings: Boxer, a brown, and Don Juan, a tall black. All four horses were well-bred and thoroughly suitable for the month's hard work which ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... flouted her. She roat the notes, she kep the bills, she made the tea, she whipped the chocklate, she cleaned the canary birds, and gev out the linning for the wash. She was my lady's walking pocket, or rettycule; and fetched and carried her handkercher, or her smell-bottle, like a well-bred spaniel. All night, at her ladyship's swarries, she thumped kidrills (nobody ever thought of asking HER to dance!); when Miss Griffing sung, she played the piano, and was scolded because the singer ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... going to marry a German of the Junker class I suppose I must appease his relations,—at any rate till I've got them, by gentle and devious methods, a little more used to me. So I gave in sullenly. Don't be afraid,—only sullenly inside, not outside. Outside I was so well-bred and pleased, you can't think. It really is very kind of the Grafin, and her want of enthusiasm, which was marked, only makes it all the kinder. On that principle, too, my gratefulness, owing to an equal want of enthusiasm, is all ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... had just to moot the question And say you felt the closing hour had come And we should simply jump at your suggestion And all the Hague with overtures would hum; You'd but to call her up, And Peace would follow like a well-bred pup. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... you to begin before you go down to breakfast. There is a mountain called Dod, which has felt me upon its summit. It is not one of the highest in that range. Remember me to Grisedale Pike; a very well-bred mountain. If you paint—put him not only in a good light, but to leeward of you in a strong current of air. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... long way, in a big sack that grew on the side of his captor; and of the taste of peppermint candy, which he ate in his prettiest style, sitting on his haunches and clutching the morsel in both forepaws like any well-bred baby woodchuck. And then those delicious sugar cookies that Mrs. Spiker had just baked! How could he make his ignorant brother chuckies appreciate those cookies! Poor little Johnny is a marked woodchuck. He ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... gentleman, through and through, courteous, well-bred, and with an entirely sufficient sense of his own dignity. But he had little respect for any false notions of gentility, and had a habit of going straight at any difficulty himself. To this habit he owed much of his success in life. A very amusing story was told by Mrs. Washburn ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... aristocratic spareness, and utter fastidiousness did not, however, preclude a certain nervous intensity which occasionally lit up her weary eyes with a dangerous phosphorescence, under their brown fringes. Equally acceptable was Miss Chubb, her friend and traveling companion; a tall, well-bred girl, with faint salmon-pink hair and complexion, that darkened to a fiery ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... ignorance of the world's ways and usages attracted the world-hardened man more than her face. He had not spent a rou life in a great city for nothing; he had lived enough with gentlemen, broken-down and lost, it is true, but well-bred, to be able to ape their manners; and the devil's instinct that such people possess warned him of Hitty Hyde's weakest points. So, too, he contrived to make that first errand lead to another, and still another,—to make the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... her to a group of sister graces standing near the sofas of mammas and chaperons—not each a different grace, but similar each, indeed upon the very same identical pattern air of young-lady fashion—well-bred, and apparently well-natured. No sooner was Miss Stanley made known to them by Lady Cecilia, than, smiling just enough, not a muscle too much, they moved; the ranks opened softly, but sufficiently, and Helen was in the group; amongst them, but not of them—and ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... he made me, poverty had never approached me. I dined with him at Parkgate, and I hope virtue will be rewarded; for though I had but five guineas in the world to carry me to London, I yet possessed chastity enough to refuse fifty for a night's lodging, and that too from a handsome well-bred man. I shall scarcely ever forget his words to me, as they seemed almost prophetic. "Well, madam, said he, you do not know London; you will be undone there." "Why, sir, said I, I hope you don't imagine I will ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... down the large sunny room, casting a glance over the handsome old pieces of furniture and the family portraits on the wall. It was evidently the home of generations of well-to-do, well-bred people, the narrow circle of whose life was made rich by congenial duties and a comfortable feeling of their standing ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... in these enlightened days are piously shocked at the amount of drinking described by Dickens. Well-bred and garrulous ladies have shuddered at the scenes described, and have declared that Dickens was at least fond of the Bacchanalian element. So he was, but the reason was not that he loved hard drinking, but that, as our critic ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... ago (for the season as yet Was but young) in this selfsame Pavilion of Chance. The idler from England, the idler from France, Shook hands, each, of course, with much cordial pleasure: An acquaintance at Ems is to most men a treasure, And they both were too well-bred in aught to betray One discourteous remembrance of things pass'd away. 'Twas a sight that was pleasant, indeed, to be seen, These friends exchange greetings;—the men who had been Foes so nearly in days that were past. This, ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... napkin. Under the circumstances, however, they behaved very well; for, though Roy took rather large mouthfuls, and Sammy licked his fingers when he thought no one was looking, these were small delinquencies, and you will be glad to know that the girls were too well-bred to appear to notice. Mollie, now fully restored to favor, was allowed to pass the finger-bowl, while Susie collected the plates, distributed the work, and made every thing snug and tidy in the room. Then Miss ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... The drivers on this particular stage were more stupid than usual, or Fred Temple was not so bright. Be that as it may, about midnight they arrived at a gloomy, savage place, lying deep among the hills, with two or three wooden huts, so poor-looking and so dirty that a well-bred dog would have objected to go into them. Fred pulled up when he came to this place, and Grant's pony pulled up when his nose touched the back of Fred's cart. Grant himself and his man were sound asleep. In a ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... America. Your shadow in London was rather a dim and wavery gentleman who caught up with you as you turned out of the shaded by-street; who went with you a distance and then shyly vanished, but was good company while he stayed, being restful, as your well-bred Englishman nearly always is, and ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Like a well-bred rabbit, Bumper stuck his nose up and sniffed at the dainty proffered him; but when he got some of the jam on his nose he hopped away and sneezed. It was gooseberry jam, and Bumper hated gooseberries, although he had never ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... flag on the top of a pole. Trontheim's face beamed with joy as our eyes fell on it. It was, he said, under the same flag as our expedition that his had been undertaken. There stood the dogs tied up, making a deafening clamor. Many of them appeared to be well-bred animals—long-haired, snow-white, with up-standing ears and pointed muzzles. With their gentle, good-natured looking faces they at once ingratiated themselves in our affections. Some of them more resembled ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... to anti-slavery ideas, the country would indeed have been turned "the seamy side without." That we were spared, in the severer crises of the war, the last uglinesses of tergiversation, is owing mainly to people of this class, the cheapest subjects for well-bred sneers and intellectual ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... of his fences he had imported well-bred cattle and set them grazing within his confines. He set men to riding by night and day a patrol of his long lines of wire, rifles under their thighs, with orders to shoot anybody found cutting the fences in accordance with the many threats to ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... Companion Wanted, immediately, by young married woman; servant kept, and there are no children: applicant must be well educated, well read, well-bred, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... for jewellers were well-bred and flattering men, even at that day. 'But when these ear-rings glitter in the ears of the noble Ione, then, by Bacchus! you will see whether my ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... conforms. The nature of things is always and everywhere the same; but the modes of them vary more or less in every country, and an easy and genteel conformity to them, or rather the assuming of them at proper times and proper places, is what particularly constitutes a man of the world, and a well-bred man!" All true enough, but how shallow, and how ineffably conceited! Here is another absurd fragment—"My dear boy, let us resume our reflections upon men, their character, their manners—in a word, our reflections upon the World." It is quite like Mr. Pecksniff's finest vein. There is not ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... throughout the whole of that vast abode, the stillness and cautious tread of those within, answering to the quiet town without; but a young man, in whose countenance and air were to be seen most of the usual signs of a well-bred profligacy, sauntering along the suite of chambers, at length caught the eye of the senator, who beckoned him ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... she was; I told him 'twas the daughter of a reverend friend of mine in the west country. He returned, there was something very striking, to his idea, in her appearance. On my desiring to know what it was, he was pleased to say, "She has a great deal of the elegance of a well-bred lady about her, with all the sweet simplicity of a ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... If he had any doubts, they were soon dissipated by Sassacus, whose attention, with that of the other Indian, had been attracted by marks upon the ground which had escaped the notice of Sir Christopher. These plainly revealed to them by the light of the fire, the two, like well-bred hounds, had been examining in every direction, until, gathering together the various tracks into one trail, they had followed it into the wood. Returning to the Knight, and pointing out the traces, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... I sat by Lady Wickham. Her expression was one of patrician calm and well-bred repose, but it seemed to me she was not looking quite comfortable. I was not feeling quite comfortable myself. The atmosphere seemed a trifle oppressive: perhaps we had done wrong in having a fire after all. Lady Wickham appeared ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... almost all their knowledge is confined to their own country, especially in geography, which I soon discovered. It was hard to beat them on American ground, but as soon as you got them off that they were defeated. I wish the reader to understand particularly, that I am not speaking now of the well-bred Americans, but of that portion which would with us be considered as on a par with the middle class of shop-keepers; for I had a very extensive acquaintance. My amusement was, to make some comparison between the two countries, which I knew would immediately bring on the conflict I desired; ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the remark with stolidity, imagining it to be a joke. Accepting the vein of humour, he said, with a well-bred indifference— ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... the Opera, the old coxcomb related the incident as follows: "A woman who did not want to tell a man she would be his,—an acknowledgment a well-bred woman never allows herself to make,—changed the words into 'You are mine.' Don't ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... himself calmly, with great politeness and in a remarkably well-bred voice; and he did not for a moment seem to suspect that his revelations, on the contrary, were justifying the measures ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... prepared for the supposed child were taken by Amy in very good part, but with the tact of a well-bred girl who would not spoil a jest, rather than with the undisguised ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... "had not been used as hard as many others were." At this period, Clarissa was about twenty-two years of age, of a bright brown complexion, with handsome features, exceedingly respectful and modest, and possessed all the characteristics of a well-bred young lady. For one so little acquainted with books as she was, the correctness of her speech was ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... spaniel bitch, which, being well-bred gave him much anxiety. The fear of mesalliances was ever in his mind, and furiously would he drive away the village pariahs when they came slinking round the house, with lolling tongues. One brown and white dog, larger than the others ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Reputation, Madam, you're a civil well-bred Person, you have all the Agreemony of your Sex, la belle Taille, la bonne Mine, & Reparteee bien, and are tout oure toore, as I'm a Gentleman, fort agreeable.—If this do not please your Lady, and nauseate ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... good understanding, and very capable to be in the ministry; a well-bred gentleman, and an agreeable companion.—Swift. A very moderate ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... man would make love to me? It is ridiculous. You seem to forget I have only been married five months. Even in a well-bred world, where they have gone back to nature, they don't begin as soon as ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... will yer,' he began. The rest of his remarks were lost in the hum of the conversation, and by well-bred transitions observations were made on the dancing and hunting prospects of the season. Mr. Adair took no interest in such subjects, and to everyone's relief he remained silent. May and Fred Scully had withdrawn to a corner of the room where they could talk more ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... of form is a very different thing from literary excellence. Irving wrote like a well-bred Englishman, brought up in the sound traditions of the days of good Queen Anne. Whatever local merit his work may have, belongs to theme rather than to treatment. Its delicate humor is as far as possible from what has come to be known as American ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... mother uttered a little cry of glad surprise, and rose to welcome me. Madame Bernard instantly assumed the air with which a well-bred woman prepares to condole with a person of her acquaintance upon a bereavement. All these little details I perceived in a moment, and also the shrug of M. Termonde's shoulders, the quick flutter of his eyelids, the rapidly-dismissed expression of disagreeable surprise ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... the provinces and fools are always ready to take offence, and to suppose that you are laughing at them: we should never risk a pleasantry, except with well-bred people, ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... with a zest of enjoyment that seemed foreign to one who had devoted her life to a serious profession from the highest motives. Alice liked society well enough, she thought, but there was nothing exciting in that of Fallkill, nor anything novel in the attentions of the well-bred young gentlemen one met in it. It must have worn a different aspect to Ruth, for she entered into its pleasures at first with curiosity, and then with interest and finally with a kind of staid abandon that no one would have deemed possible for her. Parties, picnics, rowing-matches, moonlight ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... van Cannan delayed them for a moment, giving some directions for the afternoon. If Christine could have seen herself with the children clinging to her, she would have been surprised that she could appear so beautiful. Her grace of carriage and well-bred face had always been remarkable, but gone were disdain and weariness from her. She passed out of the room without looking again at Dick Saltire, though he rose, as always, to open ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... what strange motive, Goddess! could compel A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle? O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd, Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord? 10 In tasks so bold, can little men engage, And in soft ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... reading German folk lore with ease. She was familiar with the best things in literature, was intensely interested in art and revealed unusual knowledge without any evidence of precociousness. She was just a normal, healthy, natural girl, well-born, well-bred, a girl with every advantage. When I said good-night to her in her lovely room and thought of her protected, sheltered life, I wondered how she might be helped to know into what pleasant places her lot had fallen and how she might come ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... to modesty and propriety of behaviour, the extreme freedom of manner and conversation in which young English females indulge, are both severely reprobated; their imprudence in walking about and sitting apart with young men held up as an example to be sedulously avoided by well-bred French girls; their so frequently taking complimens d'usage for real admiration, and either fancying the poor man, innocently repeating mere words of course, to be a lover, or else blushing and looking offended, as if he meant to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various |
