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More "Well-bred" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... still pondering. As she entered the room the stranger rose and bowed. Nothing could have been simpler than the stranger's bow, yet there came with it to Mrs. Pennycherry a rush of old sensations long forgotten. For one brief moment Mrs. Pennycherry saw herself an amiable well-bred lady, widow of a solicitor: a visitor had called to see her. It was but a momentary fancy. The next instant Reality reasserted itself. Mrs. Pennycherry, a lodging-house keeper, existing precariously upon a daily round of petty meannesses, was prepared ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome
... slender and decidedly pretty: such was Garth's first impression. She came in without hesitation, and took the place opposite Garth with that serenely oblivious air so characteristic of the highly civilized young lady. Very trimly and quietly dressed, sufficiently well-bred to accept the situation as a matter of course. Thus Garth's further impressions. "What a girl to be meeting up in this corner of the world, and how I should like to know her!" he added in his mind. The maiden's bland aloofness was discouraging to this hope; ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... during this tirade, had fallen back upon the attitude of a well-bred man who has dropped in upon a painful family quarrel and cannot well escape. He had taken his hat and stood with his gaze for the most part fastened on the carpet, but lifted now and then when directly challenged by the apothecary's ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and both preserving perfect good humour, the plot succeeded admirably. After a little time, I took occasion to fortify one of my arguments by a slight allusion to the peculiar virtues of the American people. She was too well-bred to controvert this sort of reasoning at first, until, pushing the point, little by little, she was so far provoked as to exclaim, "You lay great stress on the exclusive virtues of your countrymen, Monsieur, but I have yet to learn ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... existence." Such sacrifices, we presume, as abstaining from Latin quotations, of extremely moderate interest and applicability, which the wise and noble minority of the other sex would be quite as willing to dispense with as the foolish and ignoble majority. It is as little the custom of well-bred men as of well-bred women to quote Latin in mixed parties; they can contain their familiarity with "the humane Cicero" without allowing it to boil over in ordinary conversation, and even references to "the ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... the remainder tried to be bold and help. They 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
... a degree of hesitation exquisitely refined as it shadowed through her fine countenance, and which she presently conquered as she replied to his question with that shade of frankness which, in the well-bred, can never be mistaken for anything else: "It requires about a year's residence in this bedlam to replace the genuine with the artificial; I see no evidence of such ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... officers he had served with, and in his alertness, his well-trained movements, his upright carriage, and his personal cleanliness, he came so near to looking like a gentleman that he escaped it only by a certain swagger, which proved an ill-chosen substitute for well-bred ease. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Horatio Gates, two of the four major-generals appointed to serve under Washington, were residents of Virginia. Both were English army officers who had left the British army, settled in Berkeley County, and become ardent advocates of the colonials' cause. Lee, the well-bred son of English gentry had served under Braddock in the ill-fated Fort Duquesne expedition of 1756, was later wounded, left the army after the war, and became interested in western land schemes. He came to Virginia in 1775 after a stint as a general in the Polish army. Lee was courageous, ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... back with the doctor, and soon after the boys were intently examining the drove of nearly fifty beautiful, sleek, well-bred oxen in their kraal, where they were in charge of their drivers, one a big, bluff, manly-looking fellow, well bronzed by the sun, and with Englishman stamped upon every feature, forming a striking contrast to ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... society, cut a figure in society; keep one's carriage. Adj. fashionable; in fashion &c. n.; a la mode, comme il faut[Fr]; admitted in society, admissible in society &c. n.; presentable; conventional &c. (customary) 613; genteel; well-bred, well mannered, well behaved, well spoken; gentlemanlike[obs3], gentlemanly; ladylike; civil, polite &c. (courteous) 894. polished, refined, thoroughbred, courtly; distingue[Fr]; unembarrassed, degage[Fr]; janty[obs3], jaunty; dashing, fast. modish, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... pleased with an unsuspicious testimony furnished by Dampier (vol. ii. part 2, page 89): "I have particularly observed," writes this famous old navigator, "there and in other places, that such as had been well-bred were generally most careful to improve their time, and would be very industrious and frugal where there was any probability of considerable gain; but on the contrary, such as had been bred up in ignorance and hard labour, when they came to ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... opposite to each other, two excellent examples of the well-born, well-bred young Englishman, admirably dressed, with that indifference to and ease in their well-fitting garments, that easy and careful simplicity, which only the Anglo-Saxon seems able to attain to in such apparel; Warrender, indeed, with something of that dreamy look about the eyes ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... and 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
... young man. He was a good athlete, he was unassuming and well-bred, he clearly knew the difference between Good and Bad Form. Geoffrey's chief misgiving with regard to Japan had been a doubt as to the wisdom of making the acquaintance of his wife's kindred. How dreadful if they turned ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... this morning. Go, answer the bell!" Glad to escape, May stepped the hall to open the door, and ushered in a tall, fine-looking man, who said he had business with Mr. Stillinghast. He bowed with a well-bred air to May and Helen, then to Mr. Stillinghast, who invited him to ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... declaration amusing, for there was another well-bred ripple; then once more that murmur of trailing skirts, going toward the window-seat; going the opposite way also, as if one of the two was making a circuit of ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... Patty. There was that in her charming voice, in her vivid personality which set her apart from other middle-aged and well-bred women of ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... brilliance, the same thrill in the air, as pertained to the gatherings in Bruton Street. But there was a more solid social comfort, such as befits people untroubled by the certainty that the world is looking on. The guests of Bruton Street laughed, as well-bred people should, at the estimation in which Lady Henry's salon was held, by those especially who did not belong to it. Still, the mere knowledge of this outside estimate kept up a certain tension. At Lady Hubert's there was no tension, and the agreeable nobodies who found their way ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I propose to have love too," was the gay response. "I assure you it will not be a difficult matter to love such a man as this, and I assure you also that he is fathoms deep in love with me already. He is manly, handsome, healthy, well-bred, and altogether charming. As to my ever loving any created being as I love you, mother darling, that, I have always told you, is out of the question; but I can imagine myself caring a good deal for this young heir of ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... discretion. When they arrived at the hall, Lady Mary Vivian showed much affectionate joy at the sight of her son, and received Mr. Russell with such easy politeness that he was prepossessed at first in her favour. To this charm of well-bred manners was united the appearance of sincerity and warmth of feeling. In her conversation there was a mixture of excellent sense and general literature with the frivolities of the fashionable world, and the anecdotes of the day in certain high circles, of which she seemed to talk more from habit ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... negroes' heads by so many other graces that society felt itself sufficiently compensated. He really took such immense trouble to conceal his age and give pleasure to his friends. In the first place, we must call attention to the extreme care he gave to his linen, the only distinction that well-bred men can nowadays exhibit in their clothes. The linen of the chevalier was invariably of a fineness and whiteness that were truly aristocratic. As for his coat, though remarkable for its cleanliness, it ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... Tetterby in the 'Haunted Man,' at one of the school festivals; and during the rehearsals I discovered that my Dolphus was—permit the expression, oh, well-bred readers!—a trump. What fun we had to be sure, acting the droll and pathetic scenes together, with a swarm of little Tetterbys skirmishing about us! From that time he has been my Dolphus and I his Sophy, and my yellow-haired laddie don't forget me, though he has ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... not wait for the conclusion of elaborate explanations, for that cry and the unrestraint of the girl's attitude not only roused, but shocked her. It was not fitting that any man, however kindly or even devoted, should behold this well-bred, modest and gentle, young maiden in her present extremity. So she swept past Mr. Decies and bent over Lady Constance Quayle, raised her, strove to soothe her agitation, speaking in tones of somewhat ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... to myself and thought that I must be getting on well with the old General—first the offer of his library and now of his gun—and I thanked him for the interest which he had shown in me, a mere stranger. "A well-bred Southerner is never a stranger in the South," said he. "We are held together by an affection stronger than any tie that runs from heart to heart in any other branch of the human family. But," he added, sadly shaking his head, "I fear that this affection is weakening. ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... arising from it. For my own part, I really think that, next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the epithet which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would be that of well-bred. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... assiduously cultivated by young ladies in the matrimonial market, that suggestion of untrammelled nature, so humbly deprecated by Anne. Moreover, concluded Mrs. Nunn, ruffling herself, she was a Percy and could not but look well-bred, no matter how ill she managed her hoop or curled ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... thorough 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. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits as other do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laugh easily." He is in fact an old beau, a regular man about town, "a well-bred, fine gentleman," yet no great scholar, "he spelt like a gentleman and not ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the smooth, kind, gentle manner that belongs to well-bred Osmanlees; then he lightly clapped his hands, and instantly the sound filled all the lower end of the room with slaves; a syllable dropped from his lips which bowed all heads, and conjured away the attendants ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... lady visitors were not obtuse. They saw they had roused the susceptibilities—prejudices, they called them—of the Lady de Tilly. They rose, and smothering their disappointment under well-bred phrases, took most polite leave of the dignified old lady, who was heartily glad to be ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... great many things to see, such as dandelions, and ants, and traction engines, and bolting horses, and furniture being removed, besides being kept busy raising his hat, and passing the time of day with people on the road, for he was a very well-bred young fellow, polite in his manners, graceful in his attitudes, and able to converse on a great variety of subjects, having read all the ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... Villefort would be dejected; he found him as he had found him six weeks before, calm, firm, and full of that glacial politeness, that most insurmountable barrier which separates the well-bred ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... bitter my words may make you at first. Now look here. Lots of white men are in love with you. Even Billy Porter went off his head. But I guess DeWitt is a pretty fair sample of the type of men you drew, well educated, strong, well-bred and Eastern to the backbone. And they love you as you are, delicate, helpless, appealing, ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... They had an independent bearing, resolute eyes, a restrained manner; and we seem yet to hear their soft voices speaking of battles, travels, and escapes; boasting with composure, joking quietly; sometimes in well-bred murmurs extolling their own valour, our generosity; or celebrating with loyal enthusiasm the virtues of their ruler. We remember the faces, the eyes, the voices, we see again the gleam of silk and metal; the ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... countenance; although, to be sure, that had relaxed somewhat these last weeks under the blandishments of Paris. Nevertheless...quite apart from the military, there was the curious unanalyzable difference between the extremely well-bred American face and the extremely well-bred English face. It might be that the older civilization did not take ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... the acceptance of a hackneyed commonplace; the proffer of a friendly message through the medium of a cliche which, however false in its general application, offered a short cut to the interpretation of feeling. Racquet who had maintained a well-bred silence from the first moment of his mistress's reproof, had honoured me with his approval while we sat in the farm-house sitting-room, and sealed the agreement by a friendly thrust of his nose as ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... native of North-Britain, who had been an officer in the army of king James II. and is said to have turned monk of this mendicant order, by way of voluntary penance, for having killed his friend in a duel. Be that as it may, he was a well-bred, sensible man, of a very exemplary life and conversation; and his memory is much revered in this place. Being superior of the convent, he caused the British arms to be put up in the church, as a mark of ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... certain air of being a handsome man—which he was not; and a certain air of being a well-bred man—which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... with variety of fools his play; And that there may be something gay and new, Two ladies-errant has exposed to view: The first a damsel, travelled in romance; The t'other more refined; she comes from France: Rescue, like courteous knights, the nymph from danger; And kindly treat, like well-bred men, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... saying that we shared in the breakfast, and the grandparents, well-bred people that they were, did not show so very plainly that, on the whole, the visit, with its to-be-expected business negotiations, was for them in reality a disturbance. True, there was all day long not a sign of tenderness toward me, so that I was heartily glad when we started back home in ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... had seen both 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 armor of hardness and distrust, a protection ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... conversation than ever I knew in a German of either sex. She loved reading, and had a taste of all polite learning. Her humour was easy and sociable. Her constitution inclined her to gallantry. She was well-bred and amusing in company. She knew both how to please and be pleased, and had experience enough to know it was hard to do either without money. Her unlimited expenses had left her with very little ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... Neither is particularly good-looking, but I've learnt from experience that soundness and strength in a horse are more to be desired than good looks, especially when campaigning. It is seldom that you can combine all the qualities. Breed and blood tell in horses. A well-bred horse will outlast a common one, because it tries harder. What you want is a judicious mixture of breed and strength. My two horses are pretty well-bred and have great strength, and always try hard; so I'm pretty well off, ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... most obedient." The vulgar little purse-proud citizen made an impudent sort of distant bow, and looked for all the world like a coated Caliban sarcastically cringing to a well-bred Ferdinand. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... 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 her, the Devil's in 'em both ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... 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
... world, of the better class, a clubman, a lover of horses, a theatergoer and an 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 a respect ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... You're slow this morning." Mary Ballard drove a steady, well-bred, chestnut mare with whom she was on most friendly terms. Usually her carryall was filled with children, for she kept no help, and when she went abroad, she must perforce take the children with her or spend an unquiet hour or two while ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... English knight looked well in the dress of his station, which he wore for the first time; for he was very tall and broad of shoulder, and a lean man, well-bred; his face was clear and pale, and his fair hair fell thick and long ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... sure that the thunderbolt of Knowledge did not exist in the original, but was introduced by some Buddhist Mr. Barlow, who, like Alice's Duchess, ended all his tales with: "And the moral of that is——" For no well-bred demon would have been taken in by so simple a "sell" as that indulged in by Prince Five-Weapons in our Jataka, and it is probable, therefore, that Uncle Remus preserves a reminiscence of the original Indian reading of the tale. On the other hand, it is probable that Carlyle's Indian god with the ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... beautiful, and there was no princess to be found worthy of him. Whether the prince was so near perfection that he had a right to demand perfection itself, I cannot pretend to say. All I know is that he was a fine, handsome, brave, generous, well-bred and well- behaved youth, as all ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... addressed their English antagonists, "No, gentlemen, fire yourselves." Being the slaves of good-breeding they are not free in their movements. Numerous acts, and those the most important, those of a sudden, vigorous and rude stamp, are opposed to the respect a well-bred man entertains for others, or at least to the respect which he owes to himself. They do not consider these allowable among themselves; they do not dream of their being allowed, and, the higher their position the more their rank fetters them. When the royal family sets out for Varennes the accumulated ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... well-bred man, however, will show his manliness by giving any woman his seat and standing himself, as she is less fitted for such hardships and annoyances. A man should always give his seat to an elderly woman, one accompanied with children, or one apparently weak and sickly. In giving his seat to a woman, ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... her father, mildly patient, "you are quite wrong. Our people at home, your uncle Arthur, I mean, and your cousins, and all well-bred folk, do not allow class distinctions to limit friendship. Friends are chosen on purely personal grounds ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... and genial smile. He is somewhat over the medium stature, possessed of a compact and well-knit frame, carries his head erect, and moves about with a buoyancy and animation perfectly marvelous in one of his years and experience. His address is that of the well-bred, well-educated French gentleman that he is. His manner is winning, his voice clear and under most excellent control, as all those who have listened to his admirable lectures on the Canal at the late ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... sense of grievance at their arrival, individually pleasant, and after dinner I discovered them to be socially well assorted. For the first hour or two, indeed, after their arrival, each glared at the other across those triple lines of moral fortification behind which every well-bred Briton takes refuge on appearing at a friend's country-house. But flags of truce were interchanged over the soup, an armistice was agreed upon during the roast, and the terms of a treaty of peace and amity were finally ratified under the sympathetic influence of George's best champagne. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... but had come up in a day when the very book of the Christian's law was to her a sealed volume; but if she had not been educated through the aid of school books and blackboards, she had obtained that culture of manners and behavior which comes through contact with well-bred people, close observation and a sense of self-respect and self-reliance, and when deprived of her husband's help by an untimely death, she took up the burden of life bravely and always tried to keep up what she called "a stiff upper lip." Feeling the cramping of Southern life, she became ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... credit. Let us trust that the evicted quadruped carried off the blue ribbon of Kildare. For under the Lansdowne "Rack-rents" the struggling farmer could barely keep one racehorse, which, like the fabled ewe-lamb of ancient story, was his little all. Perhaps Mr. Dunne's colt was related to that well-bred travelling horse, of which the picture adorned the walls of Limerick and its vicinity, and which gloried in the name of Justice to Ireland. There were no evicted Protestants on the Lansdowne estate. Every Protestant farmer paid his rent and steadfastly refused to join the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... 'Lina's death. From Dr. Richards, whom he had accidentally met on Broadway, he had heard of her sudden illness, and apparently accepted that as the reason why the marriage was not consummated. Intuitively, however, he felt that there must be something behind, but he was far too well-bred to ask any idle questions, and in his letter he merely inquired after 'Lina, as after any sick friend, playfully hoping that for the sake of the doctor, who looked very blue, she would soon recover and make him the happiest man alive. Then followed some allusions to the relationship existing between ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... are full of trouble," began Madam Wetherill in her well-bred tones. What with education on the one side, and equable temperament on the other, perhaps too, the softness of the climate and the easier modes of life, voices and manners both had a refinement for which ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... side; it may be through sickness, through loss of work, or for other guiltless and inevitable reasons; but the fact remains that they are industrially ailing, and must be bolstered and helped into industrial health. The charity visitor, let us assume, is a young college woman, well-bred and open-minded; when she visits the family assigned to her, she is often embarrassed to find herself obliged to lay all the stress of her teaching and advice upon the industrial virtues, and to treat the members of the family almost exclusively as factors in the industrial ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... time Michael became learned in the points of well-bred gazelles. He saw some native dancers, both male and female, who charmed him with their beauty and their art. And he listened so many times to celebrated A'laleeyeh (professional musicians) that, with the help of the Omdeh, be became familiar with the remarkable peculiarity in the Arab system ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... gentlemen lifted me to pass their hands over my snowy back to make the sparks fly from my hair, the old woman remarked with pride, "You can hold her without having any fear for your dress; she is admirably well-bred!" Everybody said I was an angel; I was loaded with delicacies, but I assure you that I was profoundly bored. I was well aware of the fact that a young female Cat of the neighbourhood had run away with a Tom. This word, Tom, caused my soul ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... an ordinary street child's voice and her manner was so like the manner of a well-bred little person that Veronica Eustacia (whose real name was Janet) and Rosalind Gladys (who was really called ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... clearness and steadfastness of the eye—the beautiful, true, untamed expression, which, though so rare, is, when seen infinitely more bewitching than all the bright arrows of coquetry and sparkling invitation that flash from the glances of well-bred society dames, who have taken care to educate their eyes if not their hearts. This girl was evidently not trained properly; had she been so, she would have dropped a curtain over those wide, bright windows of her soul; she would have remembered that ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... the making of the state. In his light tweed suit and black English derby, he did not look the strange, impossible hero of romance I had painted him; but there was something in his quiet, clear, well-bred English accent, and the strong, deep lines about his eyes and mouth, that impressed one with a consciousness of tremendous reserve force. He spoke always slowly, as though wearied by early years of fighting and exposure in the searching heat ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... upper regions with her mistress's message for him, he ran out to meet her; saw the good news in her smiling face; and, for the first and last time in his life kissed one of his brother's female servants. Susan—a well-bred young person, thoroughly capable in ordinary cases of saying "For shame, sir!" and looking as if she expected to feel an arm round her waist next—trembled with terror under that astounding salute. Her master's brother, a pattern of propriety up to that time, a man declared by her to be incapable ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... men; then it was said that she did not care for women—and that was a crime. Not a thing could she do, not her most trifling action, could escape criticism and misrepresentation. After making every sacrifice that a well-bred woman can make, and placing herself entirely in the right, Madame de la Baudraye was so rash as to say to a false friend who condoled with her ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... of the exhibition Loring peered through the hole in the curtain, and then, although all the people he had expected had not arrived, he felt it would not do for him to wait any longer. The audience was composed of well-bred and courteous men and women, but despite their polite self-restraint Loring could see that some of them were getting tired of waiting. So, very reluctantly, and feeling that further delay was impossible, he raised the curtain and ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... medium of the other class of out-and-out young gentlemen, who will sometimes carry them home, and who usually pay their tavern bills. As they are equally gentlemanly, clever, witty, intelligent, wise, and well-bred, we need scarcely have recommended them to the peculiar consideration of the young ladies, if it were not that some of the gentle creatures whom we hold in such high respect, are perhaps a little too apt ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... must avoid a kind of joking and badinage that should never be heard among well-bred young people in society—that about courtship and marriage. Much harm, much blunting of fine sensibilities, much destruction of that delicate modesty which is the priceless dower of young girlhood, comes of such jesting and joking ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... "You have learned to dance and fence; you can speak with clearness, and think with precision; your hands are small, your senses acute, and your features well-shaped. Yes: I see all this in you, and will do it justice. You shall stand as none but a well-bred man could stand; and your fingers shall fall on the sword-hilt as no fingers could but those that knew the grasp of it. But for the rest, this grisly fisherman, with rusty cheek and rope-frayed hand, is a man as well as you, and might ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... with the beauty of health, and a certain dignity of carriage which is the outcome of a head and hands and body that are at unity with each other, and with a mind absolutely unconscious of self. She had not the long nose which so frequently usurps more than its share of the faces of the well-bred, nor had she, alas! the short upper lip which redeems everything. Her features were as insignificant as her coloring. People rarely noticed that Rachel's hair was brown, and that her deep-set eyes were gray. But upon her grave face the word "Helper" was ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... two people can live upon nothing?" His voice is cold, even hostile, and he speaks apparently to the panes, but the tones are well-bred and pleasing; and again the girl wonders dimly which is the predominating ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... extremely handsome, of the higher Irish type; with dark hair and whiskers and complexion, and very light greyish-blue eyes; but the expression of his face was habitually sad, even when he smiled. In dress, bearing, manner, and aspect, he was the very type of the well-bred English gentleman and man of the world and good society; I never met any one to beat him in that peculiar distinction of form, which, I think, has reached its highest European development in this country. I am told the Orientals are still our superiors in deportment. But the natural ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... 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
... 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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... let a grin hover in a well-bred way about his lips as he recommenced, the sentence ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... round. It was really funny to see his velvet coat whirling like a merry-go-round, with the skirts opening every now and then and showing his little stumpy tail, which was all the more expressive as it had to express itself very briefly. For I need hardly tell you that Tylo, like every well-bred bull-dog, had had his tail and his ears ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... on Miss Gordon's quiet, well-bred voice continued, every word falling like a whip upon Elizabeth's sensitive heart. She writhed in agony under a sense of her own sinfulness, coupled with a keen sense of injustice. She had been bad—oh, frightfully wicked—but Aunt Margaret never ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... 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 ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... take her up—sat with her basket on the foot-board behind. His coachman sat beside him; he never took the reins when his master was there. Mr. Bevis drove like a gentleman, in an easy, informal, yet thoroughly business-like way. His horses were black—large, well-bred, and well-fed, but neither young nor showy, and the harness was just the least bit shabby. Indeed, the entire turnout, including his own hat and the coachman's, offered the beholder that aspect of indifference to show, which, by the suggestion of a ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... rose with well-bred gravity to receive us, George advanced with such a heightened color, and such a blending of tenderness and respect in his manner, that I was touched to the heart by so much devotion in the careless youth. In fact, my eyes were still dazzled by the effect of the outer sunshine, and at ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... eat," remarked Edna. "Of course Sylvia is too well-bred to love anything to eat. I don't know the fate she designs for those treasures of hers, but I suspect she intends to have them set in a necklace with ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... her 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 to understand and do in later years her full duty ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... who kept a little school in the basement of her dwelling, the family fortune having dwindled until this home was about the only property left to the Juferouw. In this school my sister Althea and I were taught the three R's and not much else. The ancient Dutch spinster was a lady, well-bred, dignified and courteous, who held a high place in the elect circle or Old Colonie society, and was not the less esteemed because of her straitened circumstances. Her walk and conversation were no doubt edifying, but the curriculum of her scholastic ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... pipe, as an excuse for saying nothing more, because he was somewhat moved. He guessed that Featherstone had not found it easy to take him into his confidence, and felt that he had atoned for his errors in the past. Still, there was a point he was doubtful about. His comrade had a well-bred air, and Foster imagined that his people were rich ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... Pimpernell. "The mother is extremely well-bred and ladylike, and the daughter Minnie—such a pretty name, Frank—is quite a little darling. I'm positively in love with her, and I'm sure you will like her. They are very nice people indeed, my boy, and thorough acquisitions to our ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... he recognised all the torrs on the drive home, and very proud of his height, his beauty, and his cordial, well-bred gentlemanlike manners, which gave the ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... in the realms of Death; When mortals dead and decently inurned Were heard no more; no traveler returned, Who once had crossed the dark Plutonian strand, To whisper secrets of the spirit-land,— Save when perchance some sad, unquiet soul— Among the tombs might wander on parole,— A well-bred ghost, at night's bewitching noon, Returned to catch some glimpses of the moon, Wrapt in a mantle of unearthly white, (The only rapping of an ancient sprite!) Stalked round in silence till the break of day, Then from the Earth passed unperceived away. Now all is ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Quartilla, whose rites you interrupted in the shrine. She has come to the inn, in person, and begs permission to speak with you. Don't be alarmed! She neither blames your mistake nor does she demand punishment; on the contrary, she wonders what god has brought such well-bred ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Mrs Bridget greatly surprised Mrs Deborah; for this well-bred woman seldom opened her lips, either to her master or his sister, till she had first sounded their inclinations, with which her sentiments were always consonant. Here, however, she thought she might have launched forth with safety; and the sagacious reader will not perhaps ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... endeavoured to maintain the ideal of a Christian gentleman where, as a matter of fact, Christianity was understood rather as a good manner than a faith, and ideals were prejudices of race rather than aspirations of the soul. Well-born, well-bred, and moderately learned, he was not, and could never be, more than dull or less than dignified. The second son of his father, he had spent the customary years of idleness at Eton and Oxford, he had journeyed through France, Italy, and Spain, contested unsuccessfully ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... finest sciences. He understood Greek excellently, spoke French, and wrote Latin and Italian wonderfully. He composed Tragedies, and excelled also in lyrical Canzoni, in which he praised heroes and discountenanced all vice, particularly in one set of seven made against the seven capital sins. He was well-bred, courteous, a favourite with our Princes, or uncorrupted manners, and most religious. He died young, without having published his works: a splendid obituary ceremonial is being prepared for him by his friends, faulty only in the fact that the charge of the funeral ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... catechism, and was confirmed just before she went to boarding-school, as was the custom with Ashurst young women, and sung in the choir, while Mr. Denner drew wonderful chords from the organ, and she was a very well-bred and modest young woman, taking her belief for granted, and giving no more thought to the problems of theology than girls ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... to come by, and silver knee-buckles and well-knit hose on his still shapely calves, and a peruke carefully powdered and tended. He had a keen, wrinkled, bloodless face, discerning, clever, gray eyes, heavy, overhanging, grizzled eyebrows, and a gentlemanly mouth of a diplomatic, well-bred, conservative expression. ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... brown face and a merry smile. Pamela was a year older and tall and straight and pale, and her ash-brown hair swept smoothly back from a broad white forehead. Her grey eyes regarded the world shrewdly and pleasantly through pince-nez. Pamela was distinguished-looking, and so well-bred that you never got through her guard; she never hurt the feelings of others or betrayed her own. Competent she was, too, and the best organizer in Hoxton, which is to say a great deal, Hoxton needing and getting, one way and another, a good deal of organisation. Some people complained that ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... conversation amused him, and whose dark, velvety eyes, fringed with long lashes, and mouth with full, red lips, stirred his jaded senses in a more pleasant and more decided way than did the eyes and lips of the demure, well-bred young Countesses and Baronesses who ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... much less 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
... a genius. I did. In the funniest, pokiest, queerest little house that you can possibly imagine; I discovered three charming, well-bred girls. The two youngest made friends with me in their shabby little garden. They greeted me, I assure you, with the most delightful frankness and ease. I told them who I was, and they were not the least impressed; on the contrary, the one they called Jasmine—oh! she is a pretty creature—fancied ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... herself, with some success, that the propriety of Lydia's manners was at least questionable. That morning Miss Carew had not scrupled to ask a man what his profession was; and this, at least, Alice congratulated herself on being too well-bred to do. She had quite lost her awe of the servants, and had begun to address them with an unconscious haughtiness and a conscious politeness that were making the word "upstart" common in the servants' hall. Bashville, the footman, had ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... the well-known artist, called this evening at 6.30. Tall, well-bred, good appearance, very handsome; very much embarrassed. Questioned by Mr. Keen he turned pink, and looked timidly at the stenographer (Miss Colt). Asked if he might not see Mr. Keen alone, Miss Colt retired. Mr. Keen set the recording phonograph ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... of Cyprus and more cakes. Then a glass of curacoa and more cakes. Finally, a glass of noyau and still more cakes. It was only a little after seven in the morning. Yet politeness compelled us to consume these delicacies. I tried to shirk my duty; but this discretion was taken by my hosts for well-bred modesty; and instead of being let off, I had the richest piece of pastry and the largest macaroon available pressed so kindly on me, that, had they been poisoned, I would not have refused to eat them. The conversation grew ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... also signifies courteous, complaisant, gentle and obliging, well-bred, affable, kind. From this it will be seen that civil government depends upon the intelligence and righteousness of the people. The absence of all legal demands and all legal restraints would be the absence of all government. It would be libertinism or lawlessness. The ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... Before the well-bred fire sat a lady whose tears had long since dried that she had shed when she had bid good-bye to thirty. She was—begging the lady's pardon—a trifle spare, and a trifle pale, and though in a manner well enough dressed her clothes ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... kept his raptures and his processes severely to himself. He never seems to have given the smallest hint as to how he conceived a poem or worked it out. He was as reticent about his occupation as a well-bred stockbroker, and did his best in society to give the impression of a perfectly decorous and conventional gentleman, telling strings of not very interesting anecdotes, and making a great point of being ordinary. Indeed, ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Yet Cato, they say, was very obedient to his preceptor, and would do whatever he was commanded; but he would also ask the reason, and inquire the cause of everything. And, indeed, his teacher was a very well-bred man, more ready to instruct, than to beat his scholars. His name ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... a certain air and polish about her strain, however, like that in the vivacious conversation of a well-bred lady of the world, that commands respect. Her maternal instinct, also, is very strong, and that simple structure of dead twigs and dry grass is the center of much anxious solicitude. Not long since, while strolling ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Fortescue turned the conversation. She had long remarked to herself, there was a mystery about Mr. Barclay which she could not understand. There was, at times, a reserve she attributed to pride. If not well born, he was quite au fait in all the usages of well-bred society. He never spoke of his family, but Mrs. Fortescue once asked him if he had any sisters, when he replied, "Two, such as any brother might be proud of;" but, while he spoke, the blood mantled in his forehead, and fearing it might result from pride, she dropped the subject, and, ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... slightly made, fairish hair, pink colour, small, grey, round, intelligent, smiling eyes, very pleasing countenance, remarkably soft voice, strong, but well-bred Scotch accent; timid, not disqualifying timid, but naturally modest, yet with a degree of self-possession through it which prevents her being in the least awkward, and gives her all the advantage of her understanding, at the ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... the 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
... feet were well under him; his chest was broad and full, back straight, color a warm dark brindle, nose and lips very black, while he had a broad, full forehead and a wonderful pair of large, round, soft, dark-brown eyes. Add to this description an air of supreme, well-bred dignity, and you have an idea of one of the noblest ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... was cast, and his mind should, therefore, have been made up, he was almost insupportable. The low bows, and the still humbler expressions of the Prussian Ambassador, the Marquis da Lucchesini, were hardly noticed; and the Saxon Ambassador, Count von Buneau, was addressed in a language that no well-bred master ever uses in speaking to a menial servant. He did not cast a look, or utter a word, that was not an insult to the audience and a disgrace to his rank. I never before saw him vent his rage and disappointment so indiscriminately. We were, indeed ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... talked music, of course—the commonplaces of it—such as any well-bred, smart, educated woman of the world knows how to talk nowadays, with perhaps just one good, big, absurd mistake thrown in,—thus, by the grace of humor keeping banality from becoming absolutely fatal. Madame Romedek was rather amusing. She ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... He stared in well-bred surprise, and presently talked of a new dance which had lately come into vogue. And from that he passed on to gossip of the theatres. Once between courses of the dinner he asked Carley to dance, and she complied. ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... 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
... all. No book is fit for a gentleman's reading which is not void of facts and of doctrines, that he may not grow a pedant in his morals or conversation. I look upon history (I mean real history) to be one of the worst kinds of study. Whatever has happened may happen again, and a well-bred man may unwarily mention a parallel instance he had met with in history and be betrayed into the awkwardness of introducing into his discourse a Greek, a Roman, or even a Gothic name; but when a gentleman has spent his time in reading adventures that never occurred, exploits that ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... inn, and early next morning we both set forth; and as we had grown into good fellowship together, I got into his coach with him as he offered me, so as to talk by the way, and my Claus drove behind us. I soon found that he was a well-bred, honest, and learned gentleman, seeing that he despised the wild student life, and was glad that he had now done with their scandalous drinking-bouts: moreover, he talked his Latin readily. I had therefore much pleasure with him in ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... "You have very well-bred ears, Monsieur Gouache. I fear that if I had attended some of the meetings in your studio while Donna Tullia was having her portrait painted, I should have heard strange things. ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... affronted; so let him; for no gentleman ever does that without an easy or natural introduction; and then, if they are men of a certain age, their acquaintance is agreeable and useful. An under-bred Frenchman is the most offensive civil thing in the world: a well-bred Frenchman, quite the reverse.—Having dined at the table of a person of fashion at Aix, a pert priest, one the company, asked me many questions relative to the customs and manners of the English nation; and among other things, I explained ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... amicable intelligence of the losses on both sides! I think there was Only wanting for Mr. Thompson to notify to them in form our victory over them, and for Bussy(843) to have civil letters of congratulation-'tis so well-bred an age! ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... tranquillized, almost happy mood, which was a surprise to himself, Casanova sat at table with the others, and paid court to Marcolina in the sportive manner which might seem appropriate from a distinguished elderly gentleman towards a well-bred young woman of the burgher class. She accepted his attentions gracefully, in the spirit in which they appeared to be offered. He found it difficult to believe that his demure neighbor was the same Marcolina from whose bedroom window ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... acquired by Reading; that which he had above his original Stock by Nature, was from Company, in which he was very capable to observe. He could not so properly be said to have a Wit very much raised, as a plain, gaining, well-bred, recommending kind ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... having dressed his customer's hair. Miss Costello describes his manner as well-bred and lively, and his language as free and unembarrassed. He said, however, that he was ill, and too hoarse to read. He spoke in a broad Gascon accent, very rapidly and even eloquently. He told the story of his difficulties ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... on the floor of the House, but was not so much as heir-presumptive to a title. So many American maidens had placidly stood by while their mammas "arranged" a marriage between their gold-banked selves and the impecunious scion of an historical house, that the English, when forced to admit them well-bred, found solace in the belief that these disgustingly rich and handsome girls were ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... scarfs, the pillars were variously ornamented. The Rajah was seated on an elevated place in the corner, and appeared a good-looking well-bred man. He received the Governor General's letter from P. with much respect, getting up from his chair: the visit was a short one, and entirely of ceremony. The presents were deposited on a raised bench in his front. Communications were kept up by the Deewan and the Zimpay, formerly Joongar Zoompoor ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... buried? Where is the violence concealed? Under what gay custom and decent habit? You may see, it is true, an earth-worm in a robin's beak, and may hear a thrush breaking a snail's shell; but these little things are, as it were, passed by with a kind of twinkle for apology, as by a well-bred man who does openly some little solecism which is too slight for direct mention, and which a meaner man might hide or avoid. Unless you are very modern indeed, you twinkle back at ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... to deliver, 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. His ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... Dashuranti, and our young lady said pretty much the same sort of thing to him as to the 'Creeper,' falling violently in love with him at first sight. It struck H. R. H. as a little peculiar—rather extraordinary in a well-bred miss; but as it was leap year, and learning that she was the only child, and would inherit all of papa's immense fortune, he married her 'off-hand;'—well, that very afternoon at four o'clock—by the sundial. You see it didn't take so long 'in those days,' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Oscar, for in replying to his mother, of late, he had usually omitted the "ma'am" (madam) which no well-bred boy will fail to place after the yes or no addressed to a mother; "yes, it was a lie, for I need n't have stood there five minutes, if I ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... before inclined to the English side, joined in the common indignation. "Some extreme process" was instantly looked for, and the English agents, in their daily interviews with the pope, were forced to listen to language which it was hard to bear with equanimity. Bennet's well-bred courtesy carried him successfully through the difficulty; his companion Bonner was not so fortunate. Bonner's tongue was insolent, and under bad control. He replied to menace by impertinence; and on one occasion ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... observer of human nature. Elaine was too clever to confound his dandyism with foppishness or self- advertisement. He admired his own toilet effect in a mirror from a genuine sense of pleasure in a thing good to look upon, just as he would feel a sensuous appreciation of the sight of a well-bred, well-matched, well-turned-out pair of horses. Behind his careful political flippancy and cynicism one might also detect a certain careless sincerity, which would probably in the long run save him from moderate success, and turn him into one ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... moment of silence, in which I seemed to live a year. I was conscious of everything, the well-bred surprise of the young nobleman, the half-amused vexation of the priest, my own clumsy, boyish rage and confusion. In reality it was only a few seconds before I felt my friend's hand on my shoulder, ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... them over into grievances, and joined with them whatever the 'captatores verborum,' not extinct since Daniel Webster's time, could add to their number. This was the letter which was rendered so peculiarly offensive by a most undignified comparison which startled every well-bred reader. No answer was possible to such a letter, and the matter rested until the death of Mr. Motley caused it to be brought up once more ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... 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 ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... moreover, in every country of the globe, and their system of intercommunication is so perfect that even birds and flying things can learn from it. They prove their breeding by their perfect taste in dress, the well-bred ever being inconspicuous; and their simplicity conceals enormous, undecipherable wonder. One daisy out of doors is worth a hundred shelves of text- books in the house. Their mischief, moreover, is not revenge, though some might think it so—but a ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... while the master is making his morning inspection, I go up to Muhamed, speak to him and pat him, looking straight into his eyes meanwhile in order to catch a sign of his genius. The handsome creature, well-bred and in hard condition, is as calm and trusting as a dog; he shows himself excessively gracious and friendly and tries to give me some huge licks and mighty kisses which I do my best to avoid because they are a little unexpected and overdemonstrative. The ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... I thought. The difference between taste and vulgar ostentation was coming slowly, but surely, I hope. I remember the passionate efforts I made to learn to tie a four-in-hand cravat, then a recent invention. I was forever watching and striving to imitate the dress and the ways of the well-bred American merchants with whom I was, or trying to be, thrown. All this, I felt, was an essential element in achieving business success; but the ambition to act and look like a gentleman grew in me quite apart from ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... rocks. Here, at the entrance of a commodious 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 stone at a ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... pure Caucasian descent, for the immigration from Portugal for many years has been almost exclusively of the male sex. "It is generally considered bad taste in Brazil to boast purity of descent" (Bates, i, 241). Brazilians are stiff and formal, yet courteous and lively, communicative and hospitable, well-bred and intelligent. They are not ambitious, but content to live and enjoy what nature spontaneously offers. The most a Brazilian wants is farina and coffee, a hammock and cigar. Brazilian ladies have led a dreary life of constraint and silence, without education ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... 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
... we may fancy that it created no small excitement in the little circle round Madam Esmond's fireside. So he was in love, and wished to marry! It was but natural, and would keep him out of harm's way. If he proposed to unite himself with a well-bred Christian young woman, Madam ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one exception. According to Mrs. Thrale, he went even further. Dr. Barnard, he said, was the only man who had ever done justice to his good breeding; "and you may observe," he added, "that I am well-bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity." He proceeded, according to Mrs. Thrale, but the report a little taxes our faith, to claim the virtues not only of respecting ceremony, but of never contradicting or interrupting his hearers. ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... called the Countess, a wonderful setter, with a first-rate scent—she took everything. Sometimes I'd go to a marsh and call "Seek." If she refused, you might go with a dozen dogs, and you'd find nothing. But when she was after anything, it was a sight to see her. And in the house so well-bred. If you gave her bread with your left hand and said, "A Jew's tasted it," she wouldn't touch it; but give it with your right and say, "The young lady's had some," and she'd take it and eat it at once. I had a pup of hers—capital pup he was, and I meant to bring him with ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... which belongs to well-bred puppydom, and is not unknown even in children, the dogs had caught the graver note which changed her voice. By common consent they ceased their restless play and, seated on their haunches, their sleek heads aslant, watched her with wistful eyes; here was something ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... knocked him down, tore off his clothes and put them on himself. Then he wandered around and visited all famous spots, went into the market-places, the densely populated cities, learned how to conduct himself properly, and how to speak and act like a well-bred human being. Yet his heart was set on learning the teaching of the Buddhas, the blessed spirits and the holy gods. But the people of the country in which he was were only concerned with honors and wealth. Not one ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... will so far forget them as to permit them to attempt to govern us. Now they hate us, but they do not know for how many years the cheerful brutality of their political talk has shocked and disgusted us. I remember meeting, in one of the French Mediterranean dependencies, with a Prussian nobleman, a well-bred and pleasant man, who was fond of expounding the Prussian creed. He was said to be a political agent of sorts, but he certainly learned nothing in conversation. He talked all the time, and propounded the most monstrous paradoxes with an air of mathematical ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... take the children and go. Mrs. 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
... time that the girl is seven years old, her first thought, when she rises in the morning, is to eat her breakfast and be off to her school. There really is no more time than enough to allow her to make that complete toilet which every well-bred female ought to make, and to take her morning meal before her school begins. She returns at noon with just time to eat her dinner, and the afternoon session begins. She comes home at night with books, slate, and lessons enough to occupy her evening. What time ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... concealed? Under what gay custom and decent habit? You may see, it is true, an earth-worm in a robin's beak, and may hear a thrush breaking a snail's shell; but these little things are, as it were, passed by with a kind of twinkle for apology, as by a well-bred man who does openly some little solecism which is too slight for direct mention, and which a meaner man might hide or avoid. Unless you are very modern indeed, you twinkle back ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... can show. But the war has turned out not to be a gentlemen's war. It has on the contrary been a war of technological exploits, reenforced with all the beastly devices of the heathen. It is a war in which all the specific traits of the well-bred and gently-minded man are a handicap; in which veracity, gallantry, humanity, liberality are conducive to nothing but defeat and humiliation. The death-rate among the British gentlemen-officers in the early months, and for many months, ran extravagantly high, for the most part because they ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... Miss Gordon's quiet, well-bred voice continued, every word falling like a whip upon Elizabeth's sensitive heart. She writhed in agony under a sense of her own sinfulness, coupled with a keen sense of injustice. She had been bad—oh, frightfully wicked—but Aunt Margaret never arraigned a culprit ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... relative if a gentleman, or with an older lady. It is true that American girls are forgiven some liberties which no German girl would think of taking, on the ground of American customs; and a careful, well-bred young lady, from our side the water will seldom fall into serious trouble if she observes the rule of not going out unattended. But young ladies from America in Europe hold largely the honor of their country in their hands, and they ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... had familiarized them with extremes of joy and anguish in such a sort that, amid the perils of life, they preserved their dignity and coolness, a capacity for sincere but undemonstrative affection which never disturbed their well-bred self-possession, and a dignity of demeanor which a younger generation has done very ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... then? The earth he turn round, and then come el temblor, the earthquake, and there you are! Bah! eet is not of the board that I have asked you to come; it is something else I would tell you. Go and wash yourself of thees journey, my leetle brother, as I have"—looking at his narrow, brown, well-bred hands—"wash myself of the board. Be very careful of the leetle old woman, Pancho; do not wink to her of the eye! Consider, my leetle brother, for one hundred and one year he haf been as a nun, a saint! ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... to enter into an examination of what you've been feeling and doing—I should not like to be obliged to punish you—but I hope you will get over all your foolishness, and begin to conduct yourself once more in a manner befitting a well-bred boy. However, we are soon going back to Moscow, and I shall get you a tutor—as I see you need a man's hand to manage ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... halls, the reading and sitting-rooms are filled with well-dressed men, guests and citizens, who have sauntered here from all parts of the city. Four-fifths are smoking, and the air is hazy with the "vapor of the weed." The hum of conversation is incessant, but the general tone is well-bred and courteous. In the farther end of the great hall a group of stock brokers may be seen comparing notes, and making bargains for the sale and purchase of their fickle wares. The clink of glasses makes music in the bar-room, and beyond this you may see the barbers at work on their customers ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... representing the seven virtues, theological and cardinal. These are so fine, that taken in conjunction with the whole work they prove their author to have been an excellent sculptor as well as a distinguished painter and architect. Besides this he was in all his deeds a pleasant, well-bred and amiable man so that his fellow was never seen. And since he never abandoned the study of one of his three professions when he took up another, he painted a picture in tempera with many small figures while the loggia was building, and a predella of small ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... Pig' page 61.) that "the period averages from 17 to 20 weeks," but I think there must be some error in this statement: in M. Tessier's observations on 25 sows it varied from 109 to 123 days. The Rev. W.D. Fox has given me ten carefully recorded cases with well-bred pigs, in which the period varied from 101 to 116 days. According to Nathusius the period is shortest in the races which come early to maturity; but the course of their development does not appear to be actually shortened, for the young animal is born, judging from ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... my 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
... tried it in modern times say that to be a gentleman is no sinecure, and the well-bred author falls in with this sentiment, though still regarding ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... though Stuyvesant had angrily striven to silence the woman and had left her in disgust, her words had not failed of certain weight. Again he recalled with jealous pain the obvious indifference with which his approaches had been received. True, no well-bred girl would be more than conventionally civil to a stranger even under the exceptional circumstances of their meeting on the train. True, she was cordial, bright, winsome, and all that when at last he was formally ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... brought his wife, a well-bred woman, neither pretty nor plain, timid, very gentle, and deeply conscious of her false position. Madame Vinet was fair-complexioned, faded by the cares of her poor household, and very simply dressed. No woman could have pleased Sylvie more. Madame Vinet endured her airs, and bent before them like ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... Suspiciosa's triumph, the enemy was laying his train against her. The little man made his report to the secretary of the Protestant Detectoral Association. This gentleman was well-born and well-bred; moved to work in this "cause" by an honest hatred of superstition, priestcraft, and lies; now giving all his energies to the ambitious design of pulling down the strongholds of Satan. In any other matter ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... want Mr. Hart's assistance. His name was Walker, and though he was not exactly one of that class in which it delighted Captain Hotspur to move, nevertheless he was not altogether disdained by that well-born and well-bred gentleman. On the third of October, the day before he left London to join his distinguished friends in Norfolk, George Hotspur changed a cheque for nearly three hundred pounds at Mr. Walker's banker's. Poor Mr. Walker! But Cousin George went down to Norfolk altogether in high feather. ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... 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 of satisfying a base curiosity, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... "well-bred people are the same the world over. I only see them in a business way, of course, but one can judge. Their voices are better than ours, but as to looks—no! It's queer, but American women—the wives and daughters of saddlers ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... the door of the supper- room, where the clatter of dishes, the popping of champagne corks, and the rattle of silver were added to the babble of conversation which filled the whole house. About the tables was going on a struggle which, however well-bred, was at least ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... refuse a valiant and wealthy protector, a lover as honest as ever God made; a pious, conforming Christian, of unsullied name; a young man after my own pattern; a fine horseman and a good farmer; one who loves a pack of hounds and a well-bred horse, a flight of hawks and a match at bowls, better than to give chase to a she-rake in the Mall, or to drink himself stark mad at a tavern in Covent Garden ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... voice of thunder, It seemed to give me infinite relief. I wept. Strange eyes looked on in well-bred wonder. I dried my tears: their gaze profaned my grief. Wrapt in the costly furs, and silks and laces Beat alien hearts, that had no part with me. I could not read, in all those proud cold faces, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... When well-bred people flatter strangers, they seldom direct their flattery to the object they mean to compliment, but to one of their own country:—As, what a bonne grace the English have, says one to the other, in a whisper loud enough to be heard by the whole ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... was no shock to Mrs. Wrandall to find that the girl, who 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 Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Nay, they are very civil, well-bred men, that is the truth on't; but won't they bring ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... find that the "best society" is much the same all over the civilized world. Accomplished, cultured, well-bred men and women are found in every town and city in California. And distance from metropolitan privileges makes people more independent, better able to entertain themselves and their guests, more eagerly appreciative of the ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... deportment, and propriety of language will be strictly attended to in this institution. The most correct standards of pronunciation will be inculcated by precept and example. It will be the special aim of the teachers to educate their pupils out of all provincialisms, so that they may be recognized as well-bred English scholars wherever the language is spoken in its purity."—Extract from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... his gloves, there passed through Trysdale's mind a swift, scarifying retrospect of the last few hours. It seemed that in his nostrils was still the scent of the flowers that had been banked in odorous masses about the church, and in his ears the lowpitched hum of a thousand well-bred voices, the rustle of crisp garments, and, most insistently recurring, the drawling words of the minister irrevocably binding ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... Lady Barbara had said, they were all exceedingly well-bred children. Even the little fellow in his father's arms, though but eighteen months old, made no objection to hold out his fat hand graciously, and showed no shyness when Lady Barbara kissed him! and the others all waited quietly over their several occupations, neither shrinking foolishly from notice, ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Whitehall. With the fall of the Puritan regime moral earnestness and high emotional tension, regarded as contrary to nature and reason, gave way to a rationalizing habit of mind, to seriousness tempered with well-bred common sense or spiced with a pinch of cynical indifference. Religion fell to be a conventional conformity. Theologians, wanting vital faith in God, were content to balance the probabilities of his existence. Amusement became the avocation of a leisure class, and the average ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... her nest, she said, "Now, children, look at me: A well-bred duck should waddle so, From ...
— Dame Duck's Lecture - Dame Duck's First Lecture on Education • Unknown
... says Sir Hastings, following Hardinge's retreating figure with a delightfully lenient smile. "Good-looking too; but earnest. Have you noticed it? Entirely well-bred, but just a little earnest! ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... attention. Most of the remainder tried to be bold and help. They 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 ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... running up from the torrid Base through all the climates of the globe, with belts of the herbage of every latitude on its high and mottled sides; but this genius is the landscape-garden of a modern house, adorned with fountains and statues, with well-bred men and women standing and sitting in the walks and terraces. We hear, through all the varied music, the ground-tone of conventional life. Our poets are men of talents who sing, and not the children of music. The argument is secondary, the finish ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... habit, acquired after years of practice and a sedulous study of the best models, to conceal beneath a mask of well-bred indifference any emotion which she might chance to feel. Her dealings with the aristocracy of England had shown her that, while the men occasionally permitted themselves an outburst, the women never did, and she had schooled herself so rigorously that nowadays ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... likely it was no such person, for it was not well-bred to sit staring at us; and if it were he, you were ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... conversation took such a turn that it was impossible to raise the question. Paklin had already taken up his hat, when suddenly, without the slightest warning, a wonderfully pleasant, manly baritone was heard from the passage. The very sound of this voice suggested something gentle, fresh, and well-bred. ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... had the same wandering habit as his eyes; they were constantly changing from one position to another, constantly twisting and turning any little stray thing they could pick up. He was undeniably handsome, graceful, well-bred—but no close observer could look at him without suspecting that the stout old family stock had begun to wear out in the later generations, and that Mr. Francis Clare had more in him of the shadow of his ancestors ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... not refer to the young man who had taken her away in the cab. Mrs. Braddock noted this and was not slow to divine the well-bred restraint that ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the children had greatly improved; the famous air had agreed with them, and the discovery of new playfellows had agreed with them. They had made acquaintance with Lady Myrie's well-bred boys, and with Mrs. Norman's charming little Kitty. The most cordial good-feeling had established itself among the mothers. Owing a return for hospitalities received from Lady Myrie and Mrs. Norman, Mrs. Romsey had invited the two ladies to drink tea with her in honor ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... said Phronsie; "this eye won't stay in just like the other. It doesn't look the same way, don't you see?" pointing to the currant that certainly showed no inclination to do its duty, as any well-bred eye should. "Wait just a moment, please; I'll pull it out and stick it ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... Lit. "A dog who on the one hand ignores the form track, and on the other tears swiftly over a running track, is not a well-bred dog." Al. {ta eunaia}, "traces of the form"; {ta dromaia}, "tracks of a running hare." ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... in the hands of a good driver, and with well-bred cattle, is there, more as a precaution than a "tool" for frequent use; if he uses it, it is to encourage, by stroking the flanks; except, indeed, he has to punish some waywardness of temper, and then he does it effectually, taking care, however, that it is done on the flank, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... speculation what would have been the issue if Carlyle had come to Concord and taken up his abode under Emerson's most hospitable roof. "You shall not come nearer a man by getting into his house." How could they have got on together? Emerson was well-bred, and Carlyle was wanting in the social graces. "Come rest in this bosom" is a sweet air, heard in the distance, too apt to be followed, after a protracted season of close proximity, by ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... I don't quite understand. One doesn't expect to find any embarrassment in the manner of a well-bred woman. And yet she seemed to be embarrassed when she spoke to me. Perhaps I produced ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... of which Zog could boast were his arms and hands, the latter being as well formed, as delicate and white as those of a well-bred woman. When he spoke, his voice sounded sweet and clear, and its tones were very gentle. He had given them a few moments to stare at him, for he was examining them in turn with considerable curiosity. "Well," said he, "do you ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... to the beautiful Tbubui and repeated the words of Prince Satni. When she had listened to him politely, she answered as became a well-bred young lady, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... horse. It relieved me from a burden which had sunk my spirits lower than I recollect them to have been by any calamity I have met with during the war. My imagination had crowded my mind with a thousand melancholy reflections from the moment I got your letter by Dr. Cutting, who, like a modern well-bred gentleman, left it at my lodgings only three days ago. Some evil genius certainly interrupts our correspondence. I write letters without number, and yet you seldom hear from me, and when you do, the letter is as old as if it had come from the other side ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... lifted by the wind; tricks of language, cleverly disguised audacities; sentences which reveal nude images in covered phrases, which cause the vision of all that may not be said to flit rapidly before the eyes of the mind, and allow well-bred people the enjoyment of a kind of subtle and mysterious love, a species of impure mental contact, due to the simultaneous evocations of secret, shameful ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the Town Hall has, no doubt, a tolerable importance; but is it really possible for a well-bred person to regard this importance seriously? I have been through it; I have undergone like every one else this painful formality, and I can not look back on it without feeling a kind of humiliation. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... other respects, do you not think they are a very superior class to the ordinary run of peasantry in Scotland?-They are careful and intelligent, and they are [Page 371] pretty well-bred. They have a good deal of the , more so than the most of peasants but there is that want of proper independence amongst them which I have mentioned, and they are of a very conservative disposition. I mean by that, that there is a ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... the sense of a certain bigness in the man passed through him. He had been prepared for his quiet, well-bred dignity. All the priests he had known were thoroughbreds in their manner and bearing; their self-imposed restraint, self-effacement, absence of all unnecessary gesture, and modulated voices had made them so; but the warmth of this one's underlying nature was as unexpected ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... made, he took toll upon it; and his heirs still take toll, and the sons of the navvies who dug it and of the engineer who designed it pay the toll when they have occasion to travel by it, or to purchase goods which have been conveyed along it. I remember my grandfather well. He was a well-bred man, and a perfect gentleman in his manners; but, on the whole, I think he was wickeder than my father, who, after all, was caught in the wheels of a vicious system, and had either to spoil others or be spoiled by them. But my grandfather—the old rascal!—was ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... thought there were, as he said, some gentlemen and ladies here in Vermont; but he could never see one of either species, properly so called, where he lately lived. The truth was, Mr. Clarke, his present employer, was a well-bred, full-blooded Yankee; and though his notions of Catholicity were such as he gleaned from the rabid discourses of half-educated preachers, and a few anti-Popery tracts which he read, his gentle and ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... 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 ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... not disdain the fellowship of honest artichokes and laughing cauliflowers—no bad illustration of the republican union of comfort with elegance which reigns through the whole establishment. The master of the mansion, perhaps an old and valued schoolfellow:—his wife, a well-bred, accomplished, and still beautiful woman—cordial, without vulgarity—refined, without pretension—and informed, without a shade of blue! Their children!... But my reader will complete the picture, and imagine, better than I can describe, how one of my temperament must suffer at quitting such ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... to see Mrs. Cameron," was the reply, and at the sound of that musical, well-bred voice, the servant half opened the parlor door, but closed it again as he went for his mistress, who expressed her surprise that Marian Hazelton should presume to ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... Grampound Bowser's son-in-law. The infatuated young man went on cutting his jokes at the Admiral's expense, fancying that all the world was laughing with him, and I leave you to imagine Lady Hobanob's feelings—Hobanob's!—those of every well-bred man, as the wretched intru was so exposing himself. He will never dine again in South Street. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and when he saw Gunnhillda, he told her how his errand had ended, and that they would come, and Gunnhillda said, "It is only what was to be looked for; for Hrut is said to be a wise and well-bred man; and now do thou keep a sharp look out, and tell me as soon as ever they come ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... deeply. For he could not be blind to the fact that she treated him like a mere boy, and in dispelling the illusions of his instincts and beliefs seemed as if intent upon dispelling his illusions of HER; and in her half-smiling abstraction he read only the well-bred toleration of one who is beginning to be bored. He made his excuses early and went home. Nevertheless, although regretting he had not left her the letter and photograph, he deposited them in the bank safe the next day, and tried to feel that he had vindicated his character ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... age; it means a final departure from the simplicity of nature and breeds the luxury which kills by enervation. Brown has no passion, and his book reads rather like Mr. Galsworthy's Island Pharisees sufficiently expurgated to be declaimed by a well-bred clergyman in search of preferment on the ground of attention to the evils of his time. It describes undoubted facts, and it shows that the era of content has gone. But its careful periods and strangely far-off air lack the eagerness for truth which Rousseau put into his questions. Brown can neither ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... page 57.) It depicts with beautiful naivete and much realism the discomfiture of Pharaoh and his army floundering in the Red Sea, while the serene and elegant children of Israel contemplate their distress with well-bred calm from the flowery banks of ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... contrary, he walked deliberately from the hut to the bit of sward over which the Ariel hung motionless, and, seeing two ladies leaning on the rail that ran round the deck, he doffed his goatskin cap with a well-bred gesture, and said, in a voice that betrayed not the ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... a depth of scoundrelism far beyond anything of which he had as yet deemed himself capable. When a man of good position, of whom much is expected, takes to evil courses, his progress is apt to resemble that of a well-bred woman who has started on the downward path,—the pace is all the swifter because of the distance which must be traversed to reach the bottom. Delamere had made rapid headway; having hitherto played with ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... deerlike-looking animal, a Zulu cow, bred from a bull which was originally the property of Dabulamanzi, Cetewayo's brother. Cetewayo, curiously enough, when paying a visit to the Shaw Farm, saw his brother's cattle, but did not appear to admire them much when compared with the English. A well-bred English cow has four times the substance and ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... They turn up their little noses. Pray observe this lesson vital - When a man of rank and title His position first discloses, Always cock your little noses. When at home, let all the class Try this in the looking-glass. (English girls of well-bred notions Shun all unrehearsed emotions, English girls of highest class ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... then there was a notion in the minds of many that there must be something dashing and 'fast' in his appearance, whereas his costume was perfectly plain; the expression of his face grave and earnest; his address perfectly unaffected, and such as we might expect to meet with, in a well-bred man somewhat advanced in years. His elocution also surprised those who had derived their impressions from the English journals. His voice is a superb tenor, and possesses that pathetic tremble which is so effective in what is called ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... his library by the foot, had gold mangers and silver stalls for his horses, and adorned himself with diamonds like an Indian Rajah, were no incentives to the Cavendishes to do likewise. They pursued the even tenor of the well-bred way. ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... Vandeleur gave Cecil. Very good for mediocre people, I dare say; but it wouldn't suit me. There are some people, you know, that won't iron down for the hardest rollers. M'effacer? No! I'd rather any day be an ill-bred originality than a well-bred nonentity." ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... fellow of middle size, with dark hair, and a merry brown eye, with a twinkle in it, which spoke well for his sense of humor; otherwise, his large features were rather plain, but he had the look and manners of a thoroughly well-bred gentleman. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the well-bred bays, slightly snorting, set off, their shoes clattering on the pavement, and the carriage rolled quickly and smoothly on its new rubber tyres, giving a jump only now and then over some ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... herself and him. Where had her careless society manner and well-bred composure gone? She felt weak and hysterical. What if she should burst into tears before the whole crowd—before those coldly critical grey eyes? She almost ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... coal-black woman, who was lame of one leg, not only taking part in the ceremony, filling a place next in importance to that of the contracting pair and the maid of honour, but apparently in active and undisputed charge of the principal details. However, being well-bred persons, they did not betray their astonishment by word, look or deed. Perhaps they figured it as one of the customs of the country that an old shrill-voiced negress, smelling of snuff and black silk, ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... of course—the commonplaces of it—such as any well-bred, smart, educated woman of the world knows how to talk nowadays, with perhaps just one good, big, absurd mistake thrown in,—thus, by the grace of humor keeping banality from becoming absolutely fatal. Madame Romedek was rather amusing. She tried to ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... younger than his twenty-eight years would have led one to expect. His close-cropped brown hair added to the impression of youth, and the well-tailored suit on his slim, muscular body added to the effect. At any top-flight university, he could have passes for a well-bred, sophisticated, intelligent student who had money enough to indulge himself and sense enough not to ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... doubtless retort by asking you in her bland and thoroughly well-bred style, whether you intend to give your consent to Edna's marriage with my ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... my conscience and sense of honour were free from reproach. It became clearly my duty, if Zee's preference continued manifest, to intimate it to my host, with, of course, all the delicacy which is ever to be preserved by a well-bred man in confiding to another any degree of favour by which one of the fair sex may condescend to distinguish him. Thus, at all events, I should be freed from responsibility or suspicion of voluntary participation in the sentiments of Zee; and the superior wisdom of my host might probably suggest ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... took her arm firmly in his and turned her across towards the church street. Well-bred people do not have scenes on the Schweizerhof Quai, so Rosina went where she was steered by the iron grip ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... silver, and the night-breezes murmuring in low, musical voices among the dark green leaves, sat a man of commanding aspect and handsome features. Light auburn hair, closely trimmed, lay in short, thick masses of wavy curls around his high, pale brow. His mien and manner indicated the well-bred gentleman. A small, dark figure crouched beside him. It ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... with eight sons and one daughter. Primitive laundering, but generous patrons. The bloomer costume appropriate for overland journey. Dances in barroom. Unwilling female partners. Some illiterate immigrants. Many intelligent and well-bred women. The journey back to Indian Bar. The tame frog in the rancho barroom. The dining-table a bed at night. Elation of the author on arriving at her ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... not yet won their bet in Berlin that they would make us look ridiculous and hateful. Those very wise and well-bred people, who have been advising us to revise our national education, so as to welcome the Kaiser in 1900, have had but meagre success. As to the golden stream, which brought us the 8000 marks of the King of Prussia,[8] thank Heaven, it has not been able to drown our patriotism. Brother Frenchmen, ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... die Leute; but as I'm 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 the ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... mother-in-law? Was it she? She was such a well-bred, quiet woman. Are you sure you are not mistaken? One or two ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... (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
... natural; that is, were they to allow all the passions of the soul to display themselves without restraint in their manners, social intercourse would become insupportable. Among the merely worldly, the difference between an ill-bred and a well-bred person is that the former displays his discomfort, ill-humor, or selfishness in his Manners, while the latter conceals them all under a veil of suavity and kindness. Selfishness prompts the one to be rude, and the other to be hypocritical, ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... shown,[590] closely approach each other in character, in their shortened legs and muzzles, their almost hairless, large, rounded bodies, and small tusks. We see some degree of convergence in the similar outline of the body in well-bred cattle belonging to distinct races.[591] I know of no ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... one have a more satisfactory husband? Of course he was a man and had silly mannish prejudices, but then without them he would not be so lovable. Her children—two boys and two girls—could you find greater darlings if you spent a week among the well-bred childern playing round the Round Pond? Such natural children with really original remarks and untrained ideas; not artificial Peter Pans who wistfully didn't want to grow up; not slavish little mimics of the Children's stories in vogue, pretending to play at Red Indians—when every ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... of about twenty-six or twenty-eight, of pleasant appearance, and rather good manners, which show that he is a well-bred man. A certain quite natural unrestraint in his speech, a passionate vehemence with which he talks about himself, occasionally a bitter, even ironical laughter, followed by painful pensiveness, from which it is difficult to arouse him even by a touch of the hand—these complete ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... which they 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
... a garden, for he would eat till he made himself sick, or tear down the branches of the trees to get at the fruit. Nor can he be allowed to pay any visits, for the manners of a glutton give great offence to all well-bred people. He has a sallow, ugly look, and is always peeping and prying about, like a beast watching for ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... endure many climates. Once, some say, this race explored the globe. Their bones are found everywhere, in South America even; so the elephants' Columbus may have found some road here before ours. They are cosmopolitans, these suave and well-bred beings. They have rich emotional natures, long memories, loyalty; they are steady and sure; and not narrow, not self-absorbed, for they seem interested in everything. What was it then, that put them ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... sir!" I said, dropping a little courtesy, as well-bred children still did in that part of ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... Fortunately the conversation did not turn upon home politics. It wandered lightly through all the pleasanter topics of the day; slight ventilations of public character, dexterous allusions to anecdotes which none but the initiated could understand; and the general easy intercourse of well-bred men who met under the roof of another well-bred man to spend a few hours as agreeably as they could. The prince took his full share in the gaiety of the evening; and I was surprised to find at once so remarkable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... things to see, such as dandelions, and ants, and traction engines, and bolting horses, and furniture being removed, besides being kept busy raising his hat, and passing the time of day with people on the road, for he was a very well-bred young fellow, polite in his manners, graceful in his attitudes, and able to converse on a great variety of subjects, having read all ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... their little rivals for a time, calumny was crushed and scoffers blighted that wonderful March morning when, before the whole assembled school, there suddenly appeared that paragon of plainsmen, that idol of all well-bred young Westerners, he whom only on flaring posters or in the glare of the footlights had they been permitted to see, and smiling, superbly handsome, king of scouts and Indian-fighters, Buffalo Bill himself stepped into their midst and clasped the little Cranstons, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... in the Jataka, though 2000 years older. For we may be sure that the thunderbolt of Knowledge did not exist in the original, but was introduced by some Buddhist Mr. Barlow, who, like Alice's Duchess, ended all his tales with: "And the moral of that is——" For no well-bred demon would have been taken in by so simple a "sell" as that indulged in by Prince Five-Weapons in our Jataka, and it is probable, therefore, that Uncle Remus preserves a reminiscence of the original Indian reading of the tale. On the other ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... carefulness not to expose himself to any humiliation or mortification, and to maintain himself independent of any human caprice; the constant protection of his honor and of his self-respect. Such a condition of sovereignty, insomuch as it is only easy to the man who is well-born, well-bred, and rich, was naturally long identified with birth, rank, and above all with property. The idea "gentleman" is, then, derived from feudality; it is, as it were, a milder version of ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... considered "well-bred." He listened to the arguments of the older people, and did not seem hot about politics—a remarkable thing for a young man. Then he had some accomplishments; he painted in water-colours, could read the key of G, and readily talked literature after dinner when he did ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... she could not help acknowledging to herself that she had no reason to complain of him. Captain Gerardin was good-natured and hearty, and laughed and talked with her and her father and mother with well-bred ease ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... the least, thank you," was the answer. The voice was clear, musical, well-bred, and decidedly chilling. The two concluding words really meant "no thanks to you," The lady was, however, quite self- possessed, ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... there were some, like Giroudeau, who were unable to revenge themselves; but it happened that he had wounded Bixiou, who, thanks to his brilliant qualities, was everywhere received, and who never forgave an insult. One day at the Rocher de Cancale, before a number of well-bred persons who were supping there, Philippe had replied to Bixiou, who spoke of visiting him at the hotel de Brambourg: "You can come and see me when you are made ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... include the "Conciones ad Populum" in my remarks on your poems. They are not unfrequently sublime, and I think you could not do better than to turn 'em into verse,—if you have nothing else to do. Austin, I am sorry to say, is a confirmed atheist. Stoddart, a cold-hearted, well-bred, conceited disciple of Godwin, does him no good. His wife has several daughters (one of 'em as old as himself). Surely there is something ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... the only offer of marriage I ever made in England. There was a certain very wealthy heiress whose uncle was extremely kind to me, and he pushed his kindness so far as to wish me to marry her. She was well-bred, her manners were quite equal to her fortune, and she had a good appearance, but the idea of marriage did not occur to either of us. Some time afterwards, her uncle said to a friend of mine: "I cannot understand Hamerton; I wanted him to marry my niece, and he has gone and ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... indignation by an oath. It is vulgar, altogether too low for a decent man. It is cowardly, implying a fear either of not being believed or obeyed. It is ungentlemanly, A gentleman, according to Webster, is a genteel man—well-bred, refined. It is indecent, offensive to delicacy, and extremely unfit for human ears. It is foolish. "Want of decency is want of sense." It is abusive—to the mind which conceives the oath, to the tongue ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... with his flat-hatted sailors in zealous attendance, where he held a day-long levee. The gun is a remarkable object among the rest of our artillery. Its barrel, immensely long but very slender, has a well-bred, aristocratic look compared with the thick noses of our field-guns. It drives its forty-five pound shell about seven miles, and shoots, I am told, with perfect accuracy. It is an enlarged edition of the beautiful little twelve-pounders which we have hitherto ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... his age. In the argument between Roxana and her Dutch merchant about a woman's independence, Roxana talks like a character in a "problem" play or novel of our own day. This, perhaps, is not to Defoe's credit, but it is to his credit that he has said elsewhere:[2] "A woman well-bred and well-taught, furnished with the ... accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison; her society is the emblem of sublime enjoyments; ... and the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful." After ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... 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
... come nearer the fire?" says Mrs. Huntley, in her slow sugared tones, with a well-bred ignoring of our squabble. "I am sure that you must be perished ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
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