"Well-intentioned" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... well-intentioned decision on the part of the Prince Regent was attended with a dire result. "The condescension of the Prince," relate the papers, "in extending the permission to view, for three days longer, the arrangements for the late fete at Carlton House, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... (c. 1650, d. 1729).—Poet, one of the Court Physicians to William III. and Anne, wrote several very long and well-intentioned, but dull and tedious, poems, which, though praised by Addison and Johnson, are now utterly forgotten. They include Prince Arthur, Creation, Redemption, Alfred. As may be imagined, they were the subject of derision by the profaner ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... her that well-intentioned people should receive the same kindly tolerance we extend to the mentally defective. The writing of the letter in itself half way contented her—it was such a splendid expression of her emotions. Poor old girl," he added musingly, "she was feeling ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... dear Mrs. Dennison!" Kate protested. "You and your kind are the true social workers. If only women—all women—understood how to make true homes, there wouldn't be any need for people like us. We're only well-intentioned fools who go around putting plasters over the sores. We don't even reach down as far as the disease—though I suppose we think we do when we get a lot of statistics together. But the men and women who go about their business, doing their work well all of the time, are the preventers of social ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... either the time or the emphasis. We find a few directions for expression, as in the first measures of Palestrina's Stabat Mater but such directions are extremely rare. They are simply the first signs of the dawn of the far-off day of music with expression. Certain learned and well-intentioned persons endeavor to compare this music with ours, and we surprise in some of the modern editions instances of molto expressivo which seem to be good guesses. This exclusively consonant music, in which the intervals ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... several times since the day of her seizure, but never alone. There was an idea that Steadman must necessarily talk to her of business matters, or cause her mind to trouble itself about business matters; so there had been a well-intentioned conspiracy in the house to keep him out of her way; but now she was much better, and her desire to see Steadman need ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and Paris better than New York, and might be anything from a milliner to a mondaine; a keen-looking youngster with tortoise-shell spectacles; finally, Ruth's elder brother, Mason J. Winslow, Jr., a tall, thin, solemn, intensely well-intentioned man of thirty-seven, with a long, clean-shaven face, and a long, narrow head whose growing baldness was always spoken of as a result of his hard work. Mason J. Winslow, Jr., spoke hesitatingly, worried over everything, and stood for morality and good ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... not with wine, though he had drunk wine. A group of well-intentioned philanthropists, organised into a powerful society for combating the fearful evils of alcoholism, had seized Edwin at the age of twelve and made him bind himself with solemn childish signature and ceremonies never to taste alcohol save by doctor's orders. He thought of this pledge in the garden ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... in session the news of its proceedings reached the eastern cities, and a great outcry was raised, that Minnesota was contemplating a dreadful massacre of Indians. Many influential bodies of well-intentioned but ill-informed people beseeched President Lincoln to put a stop to the proposed executions. The president sent for the records of the trials, and turned them over to his legal and military advisors to decide which were the more flagrant cases. On the sixth day of December, 1862, the president ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... but for her husband; and, now that he had determined on withdrawing the soldiers from the capital, she earnestly entreated him to accompany them, taking the not unreasonable view that the violence of the Parisian mob would be to some extent quelled, and the well-intentioned portion of the Assembly would have greater boldness to support their opinions, if the king were thus placed out of the reach of danger from any fresh outbreak; and it was generally understood that an attack on Versailles itself was anticipated.[3] She felt so certain of the wisdom ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... everyone is familiar, of which everyone acknowledges the value, and which only the most sagacious put into practice. I don't know why. I am entirely convinced that what is more than anything else lacking in the life of the average well-intentioned man of to-day is the ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... cultivated the taste of the duchess by writing her epigrams, and making her presents of little dogs. The Duke of York, though not much gifted with the faculty of making jests, greatly enjoyed them in others. He was a good-humoured, easy-mannered man, wholly without affectation of any kind; well-intentioned, with some sagacity—mingled, however, with a good deal of that abruptness which belonged to all the Brunswicks; and though unfortunate in his domestic conduct, a matter on which it would do no service to the reader to enlarge, yet a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... common here that none in authority will gainsay it, but rather believe and confirm it, that everybody believes it. If I had known how to examine with authority, I would have done it."[1] Here is a little glimpse at the practical troubles of a well-intentioned bishop of the sixteenth century that ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... rumour that the seed of Irish peace had been planted in Downing Street, Mr. HOGGE promptly essayed to root it up in order to observe its progress towards fruition. The PRIME MINISTER, however, gave no encouragement to his well-intentioned efforts. Nor did he satisfy Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY'S curiosity as to whether Father O'FLANAGAN was "a Sinn Feiner on the bridge," beyond saying "that is what we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... triumphed not a little in the success of her well-intentioned scheme, and in the address with which she had brought it to bear: whereof she made a full disclosure to Spitfire when she was once more safely entrenched upstairs. Miss Nipper received that proof of her confidence, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... In a great town, in our present state of society, perhaps such schools may be a justifiable expedient—a choice of the lesser evil; but as for driving these establishments into the country villages, and breaking up the cottage home education, I think it one of the most miserable mistakes which the well-intentioned people of the day have yet made; and they have made, and are making, a ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... however, is known by others better than by myself; and the events that followed. His Majesty shewed himself as he had always been—courageous, obstinate, well-intentioned and entirely without understanding. He was profuse in his promises of religious equality; but slow to observe them. He shewed ruthlessness where he should have shewn tenderness, and tenderness where he should have shewn ruthlessness. So, once more, all our labours went for ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... authority for thinking and doing whatever is humane. Speaking of humanity, it now occurs to me, I have heard a report that some well-intentioned men of your religion so interpret the words or wishes of its Founder, they would abolish slavery throughout ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Normandy, d'Amboise became his lieutenant-general. In 1498 the duke of Orleans mounted the throne as Louis XII., and d'Amboise was suddenly raised to the high position of cardinal and prime minister. His administration was, in many respects, well-intentioned and useful. Having the good fortune to serve a king who was both economical and just, he was able to diminish the imposts, to introduce order among the soldiery, and above all, by the ordinances of 1499, to improve the organization of justice. He was also zealous for the reform ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... rather it were not printed," he replied. "I never liked the idea of my name being used in the title of the paper and don't want well-intentioned but embarrassing personalities. Of course, if it were highly satirical, insulting and otherwise unflattering I'd gladly have it on ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... presidency, in obedience to a vote of the Assembly, when the Assembly was still the ruler of France; and Louis Napoleon's celebrated letter to Ney was an attempt, not, perhaps constitutional or prudent, but well-intentioned, to obtain for the Roman people liberal and secular ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... between the angry snorting of a buffalo and the puffing of a railroad engine going up a steep grade. It was the wolfish welcome of three canine brigands, the bloodthirsty watch-dogs that surrounded and guarded this lonely and poverty-stricken little farm-house from the approach of any one evil- or well-intentioned. ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... and his sister of about twelve, who set off with their father, a south-sea whaling captain, on what is intended to be his last voyage, their mother having died during his previous three-year voyage. Unfortunately some of the crew, especially the bo'sun, are not very well-intentioned, and after a chapter or two about the voyage out to the Pacific, and some whale hunts of varying success, there is a mutiny. The ship ends up on fire and is abandoned with various rafts and ship's boats ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... of these universities to that great body of this country, who unfortunately dissent from the doctrines of the church of England. I would not do so, however, rashly, nor with any violence to honest prejudices, or to those well-intentioned feelings which some ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... that weakness is more disastrous to the world than absolute wickedness, for nothing in the whole of my life's experience has taken more out of me, and given me so much heartbreaking disappointment as my continued efforts on behalf of really well-intentioned individuals, who could not stand alone owing to their lack of grit and moral backbone. For redemptive purposes I would rather, a hundred times rather, have to deal with a big sinner than with a human jellyfish, a flabby man who does no ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... while he wounds, he presents the antidote and the balm, and tells, where promises will be realized, and hopes will no more be disappointed. We have ventured to detain our readers thus long from Rasselas itself, because, from its similar view of life with the sceptical school, many well-intentioned men have apprehended, its effects might be the same. We have, therefore, attempted briefly to distinguish the sources whence these different writings have issued, and, we trust, we have pointed out their remoteness from each other. ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... supposed to be ignorant of the hazard I run in writing of America at all. I know perfectly well that there is, in that country, a numerous class of well-intentioned persons prone to be dissatisfied with all accounts of the Republic whose citizens they are, which are not couched in terms of exalted and extravagant praise. I know perfectly well that there is in America, as in most other places laid ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... On the other hand, the men in real authority, and notably the officers of the better regiments, sought to conciliate by politeness and a careful retention of themselves in the background. But these well-intentioned efforts were of small avail; for racial things are stronger than human endeavor or the careful foresight of statesmen. Here in Warsaw the Muscovite, the Pole, the Jew—herding together in the same streets, ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... on our Old Public Functionary, assuring him that he will thereby not only escape tar and feathers, but acquire popularity. The Carolinians called the then President double-faced and treacherous, hardly allowing him the poor credit of being a well-intentioned imbecile. Why should they not consider him false? Up to the garrisoning of Fort Sumter he favored the project of secession full as decidedly as he afterwards crossed it. Did he think that he was laying a train to blow the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... tact all his own, Atlee narrated Brumsey's blunder in a tone so simple and almost deferential, that Lord Danesbury could show the letter to any of his colleagues. The whole spirit of the document was regret that a very well-intentioned gentleman of good connections and irreproachable morals should be an ass! Not that ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... then?" yelled he, in wrath. "Does sedition blaze so wildly in my land, that we have no longer the power to subdue it? Here a fanatical heretic on the public street has warned the people not to read that holy book which I myself, like a well-intentioned and provident father and guardian, wrote for my people, and gave it them that they might be edified and exalted thereby. And this book that felon has shown to the people, and said to them: 'You call that the king's book; and you are right; for it is a wicked book, a work of ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... was more severely felt, because there was a want of union in the members of this cabinet from the first, and where there is no union there can be no real strength. Moreover, the Earl of Rockingham, though one of the most honest, honourable, and well-intentioned men in existence at that period, lacked the ability for collecting the scattered energies of party, and forming them into a system, whence it was soon found that his cabinet was unpopular; and, at no distant period of time, it was compelled to give place to another. In the whole ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Nero's attack on the Christians was in a sense an accident, the blind rush of a half-crazed beast, the later persecutions were often directed by serious and well-intentioned emperors and magistrates. The Romans were far from being intolerant. They had interfered very little with the religions of their subject races, and had, indeed, adopted more than one foreign god into their own temples. They were quite willing that the Christ ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... object, the holiness stored inside it like so much electricity, his death was a misfortune, an interesting accident, and no more.[68:1] But when it is made into the deliberate act of an anthropomorphic god, who strikes a well-intentioned man dead in explosive rage for a very pardonable mistake, a dangerous element has been introduced into the ethics of that religion. A being who is the moral equal of man must not behave like a ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... like a stone-thrower, as a matter of fact; but he—and other seals—can throw stones nevertheless. If you chase a seal over a shingly beach, he will scuffle away at a surprising pace, flinging up the stones into your face with his hind feet. This assault, directed toward a well-intentioned person who only wants to bang him on the head with a club, is a piece of grievous ill-humour, particularly on the part of the crested seal, who can blow up a sort of bladder on the top of his head which protects him from assault; and which also gives ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... associations whose members understand the purposes of the organization and are loyal to them. The history of all cooperative movements shows that those which have been permanently successful have arisen through the federation of strong local associations, and numerous failures of well-intentioned efforts at large-scale cooperative marketing have been due to the fact that numerous local associations cannot be organized by the parent association with any assurance that they ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... wagon-drivers had disappeared soon after reaching the city. They endeavoured to cheer her, however, by assuring her that he was, no doubt, not far away, and would soon return to her. But she, remembering what they had said when they believed her to be unconscious, was not calmed by their well-intentioned words. ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... grows weak in its assertion of its supremacy, the plea of necessity fails, and the ecclesiastical law must be enforced. Those who know Ireland are well aware that this is exactly what would happen under Home Rule. Here is the crowning proof of the truth that, above all the well-intentioned persons who give assurances of the peace and goodwill that would flourish under Home Rule, there is a power which would bring all their good intentions ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... with cloth of gold. In order that those three perfectly commonplace, valueless human lives might be added to the world's wretched population, a nature as rare as a jewel was being slowly ground away. What were the treasures to whom she was being sacrificed? Paul, the greasy, well-intentioned, priggish burgher he would make; Elly, almost half-witted, a child who stared at you like an imbecile when asked a question, and who evidently scarcely knew that her mother existed, save as cook and care-taker. And Mark, the passionate, gross, greedy baby. There were the three walls ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... accordance with chemical law. The orchestra in the gallery leaped suddenly into the rag-time without whose accompaniment it was impossible, anywhere in the civilized world, to dine correctly. That rag-time, committed, I suppose, originally by some well-intentioned if banal composer in the privacy of his study one night, had spread over the whole universe of restaurants like a pest, to the exasperation of the sensitive, but evidently to the joy of correct diners. Joy shone in the elated eyes of the four hundred persons correctly dining ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... there was the despicable Lacroix. There was the Pere Duchesne, he, too, a conspirator and agent of the foreigner, the vile demagogue who degraded liberty, and whose filthy calumnies stirred sympathy for Antoinette herself. There was Chaumette, who yet was a mild man, popular, moderate, well-intentioned, and virtuous in the administration of the Commune; but he was an atheist! Conspirators, agents of the foreigner,—such were all those sansculottes in red cap and carmagnole and sabots who recklessly outbid the Jacobins in patriotism. Conspirator and agent of the foreigner was Anacharsis ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... son Louis, a well-intentioned but feeble prince, in whose reign the fabric reared by Charles began rapidly to crumble. Louis was followed successively by two Charleses, incapable princes, whose weak and often tyrannical conduct is no doubt the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... example, giving as his reason that he did not like the manner in which Mr. Burke spoke to Mr. Landells, and that he did not consider that the party was safe without Mr. Landells to manage the camels. Now there is no mistake, Dr. Beckler is an honest little fellow, and well-intentioned enough, but he is nothing of a bushman, although he has had so much travelling. Landells has taken advantage of his diffidence for his own purposes; and at the same time that he hates him, he has put on such a ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... Duane's work, from somewhere deep within, there radiated outward something of that internal glow which never entirely fades from the canvases of the old masters—which survives mould and age, the opacity of varnish, and the well-intentioned maltreatment ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... they were the fires of Louhi Brewing beer in Sariola, On Pohyola's promontory; Long and oft looked Lemminkainen, Strained in eagerness his vision, Stared, and peered, and thought, and wondered, Looked abashed and envy-swollen, "O beloved, second mother, Northland's well-intentioned hostess, Brew thy beer of honey-flavor, Make thy liquors foam and sparkle, For thy many friends invited, Brew it well for Lemminkainen, For his marriage in Pohyola With the Maiden of the Rainbow." Finally the beer was ready, Beverage ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... who try to help realise this, their well-intentioned efforts will be futile, and they will present a spectacle fit only to set Olympus laughing. I have gone through an exhibition of Japanese art, got up for the poor of Whitechapel with the idea of elevating them, of begetting in them yearnings for the Beautiful and True and Good. ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... seventy years of chrysalis. Is it not too long? Enthusiasm must struggle fiercely to burn clear amid these fogs. In what little, low, dark cells of care and prejudice, without one soaring thought or melodious fancy, do poor mortals—well-intentioned enough, and with religious aspiration too—forever creep. And yet the sun sets to-day as gloriously bright as ever it did on the temples of Athens, and the evening star rises as heavenly pure as it rose on the eye of Dante. O, Father! help me to free my fellows ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... temperate than it can make them cleanly or courteous. If Parliament could work miracles of this sort, it would make one really in love with constitutional government. But what a crotchety thing all this amateur lawmaking is! Why did it not occur to this well-intentioned gentleman to inquire how it is that drunkenness is unknown, or nearly unknown, in what are called the better classes? How is it that the orgies our grandfathers liked so well, and deemed the great essence of hospitality, are no longer heard of? The three-bottle man now ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... last well-intentioned effort with its disastrous consequences became clear to the Goat, that spotless gentleman leaned back in his chair, threw hick his shoulders, shot out his cuffs, readjusted his scarfpin and ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... added a careless offer to relieve them of their guard for the rest of the night; but this offer provoked such an expression of unqualified suspicion from both the guards that he at once saw he was treading on very dangerous ground, and was accordingly fain to abandon his well-intentioned effort to communicate with those inside the ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... no means a foregone conclusion; in the latter case a victory is probable which would be worse than a defeat for the Democrats. We may not presume to give any advice in this matter; and yet it would seem that some well-intentioned and honest advice is needed. If there is to-day a true-blue, a frank and out-spoken Democratic newspaper in the city of Boston, we do not know its name. Our esteemed contemporaries of so-called Democratic persuasion, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... different virtues from those claimed by the not unvirtuous Laupepa. He is not designed to ride the whirlwind or direct the storm, rather to be the ornament of private life. He is kind, gentle, patient as Job, conspicuously well-intentioned, of charming manners; and when he pleases, he has one accomplishment in which he now begins to be alone—I mean that he can pronounce correctly his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... possible mistook these lamentable depredations for works of piety. The ancient fragment of the 91st book of Livy, discovered by Mr. Bruns, in the Vatican, in 1772, was much defaced by the pious labours of some well-intentioned divine. The Monks made war on books as the Goths had done before them. Great numbers of manuscripts have also been destroyed in this kingdom (Great Britain) by its invaders, the Pagan Danes, and the Normans, by the civil commotions raised by the barons, by the ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... hangings and monastic furnishing in black oak—would be to invite mischief. To sit there, with her eloquent eyes fixed upon his, her haunting voice wrapping itself about his senses, would be a genuine cruelty toward a harmless, well-intentioned youth whose heroism in abjuring the world, the flesh, and the devil had not yet been great enough to combat his superb and dignified egotism. At best, he would be won by Rachael's revelation of her soul ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... Belden did not know that Cliff and Berrie had quarreled, for she treated the girl with maternal familiarity. She was a good-natured, well-intentioned old sloven, but a most renowned tattler, and the girl feared her more than she feared any other woman in the valley. She had always avoided her, but she showed nothing of ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... or than anybody but himself, and that whatever goes wrong here is the consequence of Julius's faith in Dr. Easterby. So, when poor Cecil, uneasy in her mind, began asking about the illness at Wil'sbro', he enlivened her with a prose about misjudging, through well-intentioned efforts of clerical philanthropy to interfere with the sanitary condition of the town— so that wells grew tainted, &c., all from ignorant interference. Poor man he heard a little sob, and looked round, and there was Cecil in a dead faint. ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in silence. Never by a word would she betray to him the pain his well-intentioned action cost her. Not even to her mother and Flossie would she permit herself to utter the least complaint, lest they should insist ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... his father, at Dinan in the north of France, and promptly got imbued with the war fever. He enlisted in a battalion, in the Second Army of the Loire, commanded by General Chanzy. This army, like other well-intentioned but poorly organized troops of the French, was driven steadily back by the superior German forces, until the enemy bombarded ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... lived upon words, and believed in phantoms. But now, I swear to you, I could speak out before all men every desire I feel. I have absolutely nothing to hide; I am absolutely, in the fullest meaning of the word, a well-intentioned man. I am humble, I am ready to adapt myself to circumstances; I want little; I want to do the good that lies nearest, to be even a little use. But no! I never succeed. What does it mean? What hinders me from living and working like others?... I am only dreaming of it now. But ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... birds to snare. The next day only three daily papers mentioned the concert at all. In fact, Otto expected press notices but once a week. All three papers praised the matchless Lopez in her Shadow Song. One referred to Clarice as talented; another called her well-intentioned; the third merely said that she had played. The short dream of artistic ascendancy lay in fragments around her. She was a sensible girl, and stamped those ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... not deem it an insult to myself: I am as thankful as Count Damoreau can desire me to be; but I decline his well-intentioned offer." ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... pompously, set down a foot heavily upon your private corn, and then ask what in the world there is to cry out about? If, by accident, they come to know the full extent of the enormity, "Upon my word," cry they, "I hadn't a notion!" This was a well-intentioned ass, in short, who could see nothing in life but ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... sadder and duller as the autumn drew on. She lost her appetite, her brown complexion became sallow and colourless, her dark eyes looked hollow and wild. The first of November was near at hand. Lois, in her instinctive, well-intentioned efforts to bring some life and cheerfulness into the monotonous household, had been telling Faith of many English customs, silly enough, no doubt, and which scarcely lighted up a flicker of interest in the American girl's mind. The cousins were lying awake in their bed in the great unplastered room, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... very little of household management, and never did an excellent and well-intentioned individual put, to use a well-known phrase, his foot more completely into it than Dr. Maybright when he allowed Polly to learn experience by taking the reins of household ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... known, dismissed the rebels with great ill-humour, refusing to hear any explanation. "I have suppressed your address," he began abruptly: "it was incendiary. I called you round me to do good—you have done ill. Eleven-twelfths of you are well-intentioned, the others, and above all M. Laine, are factious intriguers, devoted to England, to all my enemies, and corresponding through the channel of the advocate Deseze with the Bourbons. Return to your Departments, and feel that my eye will follow you; you have ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... early morning, but asked for coffee. Eating seemed superfluous—and a man might die more gaily on an empty stomach. He assured the chaplain that he had come to terms with his conscience and was now about to perform the last act of a well-intentioned life. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... did not feel it had. Both at the regimental base, and now in this hospital—an intermediate stage—waiting for the draft with which he would be going into Palestine, all had been very nice to him, friendly, and as it were indulgent; so might schoolboys have treated some well-intentioned dreamy master, or business men a harmless idealistic inventor who came visiting their offices. He had even the feeling that they were glad to have him about, just as they were glad to have their ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Judge a man who seemingly was but a few years younger than the Judge himself—a man who looked to be somewhere between sixty-five and seventy. There is a look that you may have seen in the eyes of ownerless but well-intentioned dogs—dogs that, expecting kicks as their daily portion, are humbly grateful for kind words and stray bones; dogs that are fairly yearning to be adopted by somebody—by anybody—being prepared to give to such a benefactor a most faithful doglike ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... satirise affection and to make the happy home ridiculous: a truly deplorable work, which the incriminated dramatists were discreet enough for the most part to avoid. The remark brings us to the first of the half-truths, which cause the complexity of the subject. The dramatists whose withers the well-intentioned and disastrous Collier wrung seem to have thought their best answer was to pose as people with a mission—certainly Congreve so posed—to reform the world with an exhibition of its follies. An amusing answer, no doubt, of which the absurdity is obvious! ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve |
