"Gentlefolk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conscious of feeling a certain sense of security. It had been a queer enough thing, this he had done—bundling the infected hoppers out of their leaking huts and carrying them up to the Mount itself for shelter and care. At the most, gentlefolk generally gave soup or blankets or hospital tickets, and left the rest to luck, but, "gentry-way" or not, a man who did a thing like that would be likely to do other things, if they were needed, and gave folk a feeling of being safer than ordinary ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in less troublous times, but the duties here draw so hardly on Mr. Stowe's strength that I thought it better to live on less and be in a place of our own, and with no responsibilities except those of common gentlefolk." ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... guilty. The old ladies of Kings Port, like American gentlefolk everywhere, keep family matters sacredly inside the family circle. But you see, had they not told Augustus, how in the world could I ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... peruke-makers had been thrown out of employment, and distress prevailed amongst them. The sufferers thought that help might be obtained from George III., and a petition was accordingly drawn up for the enforcement of gentlefolk to wear wigs for the benefit of the wig-makers. A procession was formed, and waited upon the king at St James's Palace. His Majesty, it is said, returned a gracious answer, but it must have cost him considerable effort to ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... significance that was discussed in secret council by my rulers. I shall best depict this mingled habit of the Polynesian mind by two connected instances. I once lived in a village, the name of which I do not mean to tell. The chief and his sister were persons perfectly intelligent: gentlefolk, apt of speech. The sister was very religious, a great church-goer, one that used to reprove me if I stayed away; I found afterwards that she privately worshipped a shark. The chief himself was somewhat of a freethinker; at the least a latitudinarian: ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was as yet wholly unsuspicious. "And I've no doubt this young lady as is coming down isn't used to great things. You can see as Mrs. Rose hasn't lived with anyone partikler—but she's a real little lady in her ways, for all that," concluded this authority on the ways of gentlefolk. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... in a note, on the last page, that "the Author does not intend by this any of the English Gentlemen resident there;" still, excepting even all these select personages, he doubtless found un-gentlefolk enough among the rough farmers and fishermen of obscure "Piscato-way" and the adjacent country, to justify his discontent. At all events, we may, I imagine, very reasonably suppose "Eben: Cook" to have been a London ...
— The Sot-weed Factor: or, A Voyage to Maryland • Ebenezer Cook
... my ears are weel accustomed to the clatter of the camp, and it's no a coarse word here or there would offend Jock Grimond. But the men I mean are of the other kind; they speak like gentlefolk, and micht, for the manner o' them, sit wi' her ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... been to Carpineto have seen the dark old pile in which the Pope was born, with its tower which tops the town, as the dwellings of the small nobles always did in every hamlet and village throughout the south of Europe. For the Pecci were good gentlefolk long ago, and the portraits of Pope Leo's father and mother, in their dress of the last century, still hang in their places in the mansion. His Holiness strongly resembles both, for he has his father's brow and eyes, and his mother's ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... of two worlds" inherited something more than military spirit. The ancestors from which he descended formed a line of true gentlefolk. For hundreds of years they had been renowned throughout the region of their Auvergne estates for lofty character and a kindly attitude toward their humble peasant neighbors. It was only natural that this most famous representative ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... to pay preposterous rents for the privilege of huddling together in a single wretched room. But many of their wealthy neighbours spent hundreds, and even thousands of pounds a year over securing comfort and happiness for such domestic animals as horses, dogs, cats, and the like. Amiable, kindly gentlefolk they were, with tender hearts and ready sympathies. Most of them were interested in some form of charity. Many of them specialized, and these would devote much energy to opposing the work of other charitable specialists. Lady So-and-so, who advocated this panacea, found herself bitterly ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... to be asked inside the doors of the great house where Lancelot's days were passed, and I did not feel any injustice in the matter. I was only a mercer's son, while Lancelot derived of gentlefolk, and it never entered into my mind to question the existing order of things, or to wish to force my way into places where I was not wanted. Excellent gentlemen on the other side of the Atlantic have made very different opinions popular from the opinions that prevailed ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... little disparity in numbers between itself and its neighbour. Luck and stubbornness and the incalculable counted for much; it was half the battle not to know you were beaten, and it is so still. Even to-day, a great nation, it seems, may still make its army the plaything of its gentlefolk, abandon important military appointments to feminine intrigue, and trust cheerfully to the homesickness and essential modesty of its influential people, and the simpler patriotism of its colonial dependencies when it comes at last to the bloody and wearisome ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... stepping on them. Thus it was that the weather-beaten rainspouts, stained bricks, sagging roof, and blistered window-sashes were no longer in evidence. Indeed, their very shabbiness so enhanced the brilliancy of Todd's handiwork that the most casual passers-by were convinced at a glance that gentlefolk ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... up the knoll holding up his whip and the gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off on the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the gentlefolk, also moved away. All ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... new Lady Durwent had the temperament neither of a poet nor of a lady of the aristocracy. She failed to hear the tongues in trees, and her dramatic sense was not satisfied with the little stage of curtsying tenantry and of gentlefolk who abhorred the very thought of anything ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... seen finer company than now, and I have never known better days than this," responded courtier Thomas. Dorothy thought he was presuming on her condescension, and was about to tell him so when he continued: "The servants at Haddon Hall are gentlefolk compared with servants at other places where I have worked, and I desire nothing more than to find favor in Sir George's eyes. I would do anything to ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... looking from the little casement. He turned and showed a face working with agitation. "And you, if you wore no sword, nor dared wear one? If you walked in Tralee a clown among gentlefolk, if you lived a pariah in a corner of pariahs, if your land were the handmaid of nations, and the vampire crouched upon her breast, ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... have been famous for hundreds of years in one way or another; but we are so used, after all those centuries, to being sure of ourselves, that we just take our position for granted, and don't think much more about it. If people who haven't got quite the same position are gentlefolk, and amusing, or clever, or beautiful, or anything like that which really matters, why, we're ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... for the borough than I did o' my ain prospects in life, fule that I was; until I found the bairns comin', an' the loom going to the wall a'thegither before machinery and politics wouldna mak' the pot boil, nor gie salt to our parritch. So I came oot here, an' left politics to gentlefolk.' ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... in your pipe and smoke it"? The cheap fun that she got out of a girl-friend who had made it a rule to pray for her was the kind of thing you would be sorry to find in a common boarding-school. And are gentlefolk in the habit of asking a man, as Constance did, how it was that he ever came to get engaged to such a woman as the one of his choice? In Bayswater ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... that very evening. Even taking into account the signal service Duchemin had rendered, this wasn't easy to believe when one remembered the tradition of social conservatism among French gentlefolk. Still, it was true: Duchemin of the open road was bidden to dine en famille at the Chateau de Montalais. In his pocket lay the invitation, penned in the crabbed antique hand of Madame de Sevenie and fetched to the hotel by a servitor quite as crabbed and antique: Monsieur ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... cheerful, fond of going out (I never was), a good housekeeper, played the piano fairly well, and, as the daughter of a retired major in the Army, had a certain air and manner which distinguished her from the wives and daughters of our set and would secure for me an acquaintance with the country gentlefolk, from which, without her, I should probably be debarred. She had also told me when I mentioned my project to her, but saying nothing about marriage, that she doted on fowls—they had such pretty ways. As it was obviously prudent not to engage myself until I knew more of her, I instigated ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... hundred roubles. And she? What has she done? Had she but listened to me she might have lived all right. I must say the truth, though she is my niece: that girl's no good. What a good place I found her! She would not submit, but abused her master. Is it for the likes of us to scold gentlefolk? Well, she was sent away. And then at the forester's. She might have lived there; ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... abide me to be out o' his sight. I niv-ver wur so happy i' my life as I wur then. Aye! I did na think then, as th' toime ud come when he'd cast me out i' th' road. He had no reet to do it," her voice rising hysterically. "He had no reet to do it, if he wur a gentleman; but it seems gentlefolk can do owt they please. If he did na mean to stick to me, why could na ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the barrister was droning on. I did not listen because I had heard all that before—in the room of the Judge of the First Instance at Havana. Suddenly appearing behind the backs of the row of gentlefolk on the bench was the pale, thin face of my father. I wondered which of his great friends had got him his seat. He was nodding to me and smiling faintly. I nodded, too, and smiled back. I was going to show them that I was not cowed. The voice of the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... I've got somebody in the best room," said Eilert. "They're gentlefolk from the city. They came down here through Stordalen, and they had to walk because the cars have stopped for the season. They've been in my house for quite some days, and I think they'll be staying on a while yet. I think they're out now, but of course it means I can't let you ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... those who beheld the scene but they sheepishly stood in their tracks and were afraid to punish the insolent pirate with his dirk and pistols. He was much taller and heavier than Jack Cockrell, the lad of seventeen, who came of gentlefolk and was unused to brawls with weapons. But the youngster hesitated no more than an instant, although his own pistol lacked a flint and was ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... night, which is the most favorable hour, I've found out, for the tellin' o' tales like mine; an' the folk for whose pleasure I've spun this yarn have thought the fate o' wee Sammy worth their notice an' sighs, an' have thrilled me with wonder an' praise. I'm well warned that gentlefolk t' the s'uth'ard must have love in their tales an' be charmed with great deeds in its satisfaction; but I'm a skillful teller o' tales, as I've been told in high quarters, an' as I've good reason t' believe, indeed, with my own common sense and discretion ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... are, in short, peasants, plain homely people, without any taint of disreputable blood, and, as the saying is, old rusty Christians, but so rich that by their wealth and free-handed way of life they are coming by degrees to be considered gentlefolk by birth, and even by position; though the wealth and nobility they thought most of was having me for their daughter; and as they have no other child to make their heir, and are affectionate parents, I was one of the most indulged ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... with a mocking smile; "I was only rejoicing that they were not exposed to such trials as we. Job's Chaldeans were gentlefolk in comparison with ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... being impossible to "overtake"—I must, in this connection, continue to quote its mistress—there was an attractiveness about the dwelling of the Murchisons the attractiveness of the large ideas upon which it had been built and designed, no doubt by one of those gentlefolk of reduced income who wander out to the colonies with a nebulous view to economy and occupation, to perish of the readjustment. The case of such persons, when they arrive, is at once felt to be pathetic; there is a tacit local understanding ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... He, Sawyer, came as a pioneer. Once they grasped that fact they would rally to him. The good Miss Minetts were rallying hard, so to speak, already. Oh! there was excellent material in Deadham among the gentlefolk. It merely ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Carpenters are gentlefolk, if not a county family like ours," said Standish simply. Bradford stared ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... of talking, they divide the world into folk and gentlefolk. "Who gie'd thee thic ha'penny?" Mrs Widger ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... at their ease, with food and a flagon of wine before them and silver cups, for all the world like gentlefolk on a picnic, only happier. But I knew them for beggars by the boldness of their asking eyes and ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... with shame at having to scrub this dirty deck. I, who, only yesterday, had lorded it over Ephraim, as though I were a superior being. You boys who go to good schools try to learn a little humbleness. You may think your parents very fine gentlefolk; but in the world, outside a narrow class, the having gentle parents will not help one much. It may be that you, for all your birth, have neither the instincts nor the intellect to preserve the gentility your parents ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... apply to you; for we were talking over likely men, and when I instanced you, he said he had had his eye upon you from the first. It is worth while, perhaps, to get in tow with the Scribners; they are such thorough gentlefolk in all ways that it is always a pleasure to deal with them. I am like to be a millionaire if this goes on, and be publicly hanged at the social revolution: well, I would prefer that to dying in my bed; and it would be a godsend to my biographer, if ever I have one. What are you about? I hope you ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for evolutionary doctrine. This was precluded by the character and temper of the audience, most of whom were less capable of being convinced by the arguments than shocked by the boldness of the retort, although, being gentlefolk, as Professor Farrar remarks, they were disposed to admit on reflection that the Bishop had erred on the score of taste and good manners. Nevertheless, it was a noticeable feature of the occasion, Sir M. Foster tells me, that when Huxley rose ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... got it broken in saving the life of my little Maltese, who had strayed out and had got in the way of the tram. I always said that those trams should not be allowed. The tracks are so very unpleasant—dangerous even, for the carriages of gentlefolk. There is far too much traffic allowed on the public highways nowadays, far too much. People ought to walk if they ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... astronomer Riccioli, who were busy bestowing names upon the "seas" and mountains of our patient satellite, may have pleased their imagination by picturing this arm of the "Serene Sea" as a peculiarly romantic sheet of water, amid whose magical influences the lunar gentlefolk, drifting softly in their silver galleons and barges, and enjoying the splendors of "full earth" poured upon their delightful little world, were accustomed to fall into charming reveries, as even we hard-headed sons of Adam occasionally do when the waters under the keel are calm and ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... legendary past; and that additional one of his, on his side, having, so far as this went, cultivated blankness, cultivated positive prudence, as to her own personal background—the vagueness, at the best, with which all honest gentlefolk, the New Yorkers of his approved stock and conservative generation, were content, as for the most part they were indubitably wise, to surround the origins and antecedents and queer unimaginable early influences ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James |
