"Well-turned" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... expressed by a footman, would set a plain man in London a laughing, and make a fanciful Lady imagine he was a nobleman disguised. Here nobody laughs, nor nobody stares, nor wonders that their valet speaks just as good language, or utters as well-turned sentences as themselves. Their cold answer to my amazement is as comical as the fellow's fine style—e battizzato[Footnote: He has been baptized.], say they, come noi altri[Footnote: As well as we.]. But we are called away to hear the fair Fantastici, a young woman who makes ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... street toward the fair. Poor Ruth! She had neither cows, pigs nor chickens, but she came with such riches as she could glean at the roadside from bountiful Nature, clothed and covered from the top of her invisible head down to her well-turned ankles in a garment as fair ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... glory and the people's right; now he muttered some perilous stuff or other in a sly and doubtful whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience could scarcely catch the secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured accents and a deeply-deferential tone, as if a royal ear were listening to his well-turned periods. Colonel Killigrew all this time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle-song and ringing his glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered toward the buxom figure of the widow Wycherly. On the other ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... one sees in Seville. All at once Carmen turned and struck me in the chest with her fist. I tumbled backward, purposely. With a bound she sprang over me, and ran off, showing us a pair of legs! People talk about a pair of Basque legs! but hers were far better—as fleet as they were well-turned. As for me, I picked myself up at once, but I stuck out my lance* crossways and barred the street, so that my comrades were checked at the very first moment of pursuit. Then I started to run myself, and they after me—but how were we to catch her? There was no fear of that, what with ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... Flanders. I have great confidence in you. I trust you. If you should ever require the support of a strong and willing henchman in time of dire trouble or conflict with merciless— merciless—" He stopped in distress. Once more Melissa's well-turned sentences went back on him. For the life of him, he ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... more than this, he began to be at his ease. Now and then he looked up at Sarah's well-turned shoulders, her white neck, and the throat which swelled ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... about one another in imitation of combat; more donkey boys; Nubians bearing carved Egyptian images, one of which was of the sacred bull done in gold; bayaderes and nautch dancers, not very good looking, but with fine white arms and well-turned ankles and gorgeous in oriental robes and colors—all flocked ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... writer with neither imagination nor fancy, describing a fair lip, does not see it, but thinks about it, and about what is said of it, and calls it well-turned, or rosy, or delicate, or lovely, or afflicts us with some other quenching and chilling epithet. Now ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... fingers—her own eyes meanwhile, in one comprehensive glance, taking in his round head with its closely cropped curls, searching brown eyes, wavering mouth, broad shoulders, and shapely body, down to his small, well-turned feet. The young fellow lacked the polish and well-bred grace of the doctor, just as he lacked his well-cut clothes and distinguished manners, but there was a sort of easy effrontery and familiar air about him ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... but he immediately rose and saluted us by bending the head slightly though gracefully; and this enabled me to see distinctly his person and dress. He was rather above the middle stature, slender, but with well-turned limbs; his countenance was remarkably intelligent, his eye hazel but full and strong, his front was smooth and unwrinkled, and but for some grey hairs, which appeared silvering his brown and curly locks, he might ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... Either naming in full, or in indicating him sufficiently clearly, the newspapers had related the adventure on their front page. Moreover, much attention had been attracted to an article in a journal with which Lucien Granet was intimately connected, wherein, in well-turned but perfidious phrases, a certain Alkibiades—Lissac had guessed that this name was applied to him—had been arrested by the orders of the archon Sulpicios at the instance of a certain Basilea, one of the most charming hetaires of the republic of Perikles. Under ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... basis of society has been the dollar. Only a few years ago all literary men were ostracized because they had no money; neither did they have a reading public. If any man produced a book he had to find a patron—some titled donkey, some lauded lubber, in whose honor he could print a few well-turned lies on the fly-leaf. If you wish to know the degradation of literature, read the dedication written by Lord Bacon to James I., in which he puts him beyond all kings, living and dead—beyond Caesar and Marcus Aurelius. ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... is full of adorable women? Well, so contrary is human nature, that never had I felt such indifference towards the sex as during that tedious quest—never had a pair of brilliant eyes, or a well-turned neck appealed to me so little. After a month, my search seemed hopeless; I had viewed women by the thousand, but not one with whom I could persuade myself that I might ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... in his preface the author contradicts himself in this regard, for he shows us how far from philanthropic were the publisher's motives and how little he thought of posterity in inserting these biographies, by writing the following well-turned and suggestive sentences: "It may be asked, Why have the biographical sketches of comparatively obscure men been inserted? The reasons are obvious to business men and should be to all. None but citizens are represented. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... to be in the list, unless indeed the mastery over well-turned conceits is to be included within the border of humour. But Thackeray had a strong liking for Prior, and in his own humorous way rebukes his audience for not being familiar with The Town and Country Mouse. He says that Prior's epigrams have the genuine sparkle, and compares Prior to Horace. ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... politicians, bustling adventurers who united the superficial accomplishments of the scholar with the manners and arts of the man of the world; and this formidable body resolved to try how far smart repartees, well-turned sentences, confidence, puffing, and intrigue could, on the question whether a Greek book were or were not genuine, supply the place of a little ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... table, his back square to Sally's view, revealing a well-turned head thatched with dark hair, clipped snugly by well-formed ears, and the salient line of one lean, brown cheek. But even so, with his countenance hidden, something conveyed a strong impression to the girl of a perplexed and ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... and eager to give labor to the helping of their brothers amongst whom they live. What is the use of prattling about Universal Brotherhood, if you do not live it? Sometimes, in discussions on Brotherhood, it is spoken of as though it only meant soft words and well-turned phrases, sentimentality and not reality. It means work, constant, steadfast, unwearied work, for those who require service at our hands; not soft words to each other, but work for the world, that is ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant |
