"Nobility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and every evening she may name. Miss Hamilton's party will wear its best clothes, polish its mental jewels, and endeavour in every possible way not to injure the gifted Miss Hamilton's reputation among the Scottish nobility." ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... poor Prior, in confusion, confined himself to urging on the work in the garden, and left Leonardo in peace, who finished only the head of Judas, which seems the very embodiment of treachery and inhumanity; but that of Christ, as has been said, remained unfinished. The nobility of this picture, both because of its design, and from its having been wrought with an incomparable diligence, awoke a desire in the King of France to transport it into his kingdom; wherefore he tried by all possible means to discover ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... that day, Ivan Andreievitch. We sat together all alone in the flat, and she had her hand in mine, just as we used to do in the old days when I pretended to myself that she loved me. Now I know that she did not, but the warmer and more marvellous was her kindness to me, her goodness, and nobility. Do you not think, Ivan Andreievitch, that if you go deep enough in every human heart, there is this kernel of goodness, this fidelity to some ideal. Do you know we have a proverb: "In each man's heart there is a secret town at whose altars the ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... going and coming: they had to keep guard on themselves. In vain did Christophe try to catch Anna's eye. She did not look at him or at anything. There was no indication of inward ferment: and always in her smallest movement there was the unaccustomed assurance and nobility. After lunch he hoped they would have an opportunity of speaking: but the servant dallied over clearing away; and when they went into the next room she contrived to follow them: she always had something to fetch or to bring: she stayed bustling in the passage near the half-open door ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... good samples has caused the lazulite to be much sought after, both as a gem for adorning the person, and for inlaid works in ornamental decoration. In China the stone is highly esteemed, being worn by mandarins as badges of nobility conferred only by the Emperor; and in the apartments of a summer palace near St. Petersburg, the walls are covered with amber, interspersed with plates of this costly lapis. Besides the colouring principle of the lazulite, there are always more or less mica and iron pyrites, the ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... high personages being promoters of the enterprise, which Maximilian took to readily. He saw in it the possibilities of a staunch support to his throne, and therefore not only sanctioned the project, but encouraged it with large grants of land, inspirited the promoters with titles of nobility, and, in addition, instituted a system of peonage, expecting that the silver hook thus baited would be largely swallowed by the ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... so exaggerated his merits and natural graces to himself that he believed no woman was able to resist him; the list of his conquests of every kind had been interminable. In spite of the most amazing falsehoods, which cost him little, it cannot be denied that he possessed true courage and a certain nobility of character. This natural valor, joined to his blind confidence in himself, sometimes precipitated him into almost inextricable situations, into which he threw himself headlong, and from which he never emerged without hard blows—for if he was as adventurous and boastful as a Gascon, he was as obstinate ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... such pitiful adventurers. 'Never choose a wife as if you were going to Virginia,' says Middleton in one of his comedies. The mule is apt to forget all but the equine side of his pedigree. How early the counterfeit nobility of the Old Dominion became a topick of ridicule in the Mother Country may be learned from a play of Mrs. Behn's, founded on the Rebellion of Bacon: for even these kennels of literature may yield a fact or two to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... had been proclaimed, and to that purpose Scaffolds erected around the Spacious Court, before the Church Di Santa Croce, where were usually seen all Cavalcades and Shews, performed by Assemblies of the Young Nobility: That all Mechanicks and Tradesmen were forbidden to work or expose any Goods to Sale for the space of three days; during which time all Persons should be entertain'd at the Great Duke's Cost; and publick Provision was to be made for the setting forth and furnishing a multitude of ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... upon the downfall of Napoleon and found its cruel instrument of oppression in the Holy Alliance aroused the bitter opposition of Tegnr. His vision was not obscured, a fate that befell so many in that day, but he saw clearly the nobility and necessity of tolerance, freedom and democracy. It is to the great glory of Tegnr that he consistently used his brilliant powers in battling against the advancing forces of obscurantism and tyranny. His enlightened and humanitarian ideas find a beautiful utterance in the poem ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner
... the privileges of birth, decreased in the exact proportion in which new paths were struck out to advancement. In the eleventh century nobility was beyond all price; in the thirteenth it might be purchased; it was conferred for the first time in 1270; and equality was thus introduced into the government by ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... a sufficient fortune, he cut something of a figure, as the saying is. He had an attractive form, enough readiness of speech to make some attempt at wit, a certain natural grace of manner, an air of nobility and pride, and a mustache which was both formidable and pleasant to the eye—a ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... the eighties. And this charm, as well as this provincialism, appeared to her to be so inalienable a part of the old order, with its intrepid faith in itself, with its militant enthusiasm, with its courageous battle against industrial evolution, with its strength, its narrowness, its nobility, its blindness, that, looking ahead, she could discern only the arid stretch of a civilization from which the last remnant of beauty was banished forever. Already she felt the breaking of those bonds of sympathy which had held the twenty-one thousand inhabitants of Dinwiddie, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... the nobility, called Saint-Marc, after the name of one of its parish churches, is a sort of miniature Versailles, with straight streets overgrown with grass, and large square houses which conceal extensive gardens. It extends to the south along the edge of the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... woman can fail of honor and usefulness. She who looks on her race with a maternal interest, who feels that God hath made of one blood all the children of the earth, and who lives not for herself but her neighbor, she is of the genuine female nobility. There is in her character a grandeur,—let her dwell in "Alpine solitude,"—before which the admired of all admirers, the gay butterfly, whose wings open and close with the sun of adulation, shrinks into an object ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... perhaps, as Gaul seems to have a considerable voting power, as soon as business at Rome has come to a standstill I shall obtain a libera legatio and make an excursion in the course of September to visit Piso, but so as not to be back later than January. When I have ascertained the feelings of the nobility I will write you word. Everything else I hope will go smoothly, at any rate while my competitors are such as are now in town. You must undertake to secure for me the entourage of our friend Pompey, since you are nearer than I. Tell him I shall ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... in economics, in politics, or in any other of the departments of thought and study to which, with such depth and breadth of mind, he applied himself; but it is impossible for us to lay down the pen without some slight reference, however inadequate it may be, to the nobility of his character, and the peculiar grace with which he exhibited it in all his dealings with his friends and with the whole community among whom he lived, and for whom he worked with the self-sacrificing zeal of an apostle. If to labor fearlessly ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... capable of holding the Iroquois Indians to their allegiance to the English and of extending the beaver trade in the Mohawk Valley. But at this juncture reports kept coming in of renewed incursions of the French, led by the Canadian nobility, into the regions south of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and of new forts on territory that the English claimed as their own. There was increasing danger that the French would embroil the Indians of the Five Nations and, by drawing them into a French alliance, ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... Anglo-saxon emphasis on the o's, and accompanied with large gestures. His mere appearance always sufficed to put landlords and waiters into their most urbane mood; they never failed to take him for one of the English nobility—a belief confirmed by the handsomeness of his gratuities. Mrs. Bradshaw was not, perhaps, the ideal lady of rank, but the fine self-satisfaction on her matronly visage, the good-natured disdain with which she allowed ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... coaches until late in the reign of James I. Taylor, the water-poet, in his invective against coaches, 1623, dedicated to all grieved "with the world running on wheels," writes: "Within our memories our nobility and gentry could ride well mounted, and sometimes walk on foot, gallantly attended with fourscore brave fellows in blue coats, which was a glory to our nation, far greater than forty of these leathern tumbrels! Then, the name of coach was heathen Greek. Who ever saw, but upon extraordinary occasions, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... life—scientist, scholar, artist, man of letters, man of affairs; all come under the same law, that unless there is something before them which has dominated their hearts, and draws their whole being towards it, their lives want salt, want nobility, want freshness, and a green scum comes over the pool. We all know that. To live is to aspire; to cease to aspire ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... author of 'Passages in the Life of a Radical'— a man who illustrates his order, and shows what nobility ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... spite of this experience and my now settled convictions, my purpose required whetting. The indescribable charm, the extreme refinement and nobility of manner observable in both Mr. Grey and his daughter were producing their effect. I felt guilty; constrained. whatever my convictions, the impetus to act was leaving me. How could I recover it? By thinking of Anson Durand and ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... stands fifth, the Mandya, Manska, Debabon, and Banuon leading, while below him stand without any question the Maggugan and the Mamnua. He has not the height, the proportions, the fairness, nor the gentility of the first three. He lacks the nobility, courage, and intelligence of the fourth,[4] but he maintains his superiority over the Maggugan, whose repellent features, sparse hair, scanty clothing, and low intelligence put him only a little above the Mamnuas. These latter are ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... had made several. Epigrams sometimes outlive policies. He never delivered a great passionate speech. He had opportunities but could not meet them. Fine speeches enough, to be sure; many of them instinct with a sort of ethical nobility; but ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... Antiquarians and to Sir John Rodney's and a lot of other functions on the outer rim, but she's never been able to break through the crust and taste the real sweets of London society. My dear Roxbury, the Odell-Carneys entertain the nobility without compunction, and they've been known to hobnob with royalty. Mrs. Odell-Carney was a Lady Somebody-or-other before she married the second time. ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... II. The curious discovery of the first six books of the Annals. III. The blunders it has in common with all forged documents. IV. The Twelve Tables. V. The Speech of Claudius in the Eleventh Book of the Annals. VI. Brutus creating the second class of nobility. VII. Camillus and his grandson. VIII. The Marching of Germanicus. IX. Description of London in the time of Nero. X. Labeo Antistius and Capito Ateius; the number of people executed for their attachment ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... enough for thee," said Don Quixote; "and even wert thou not, it would make no difference, because I being the king can easily give thee nobility without purchase or service rendered by thee, for when I make thee a count, then thou art at once a gentleman; and they may say what they will, but by my faith they will have to call thee 'your lordship,' whether they like ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Ere I'm done, You'll curse as heartily, you limping beast! Ha! so we go—Lord Lanciotto, look! [Walks about, mimicking him.] Here is a leg and camel-back, forsooth, To match your honour and nobility! You miscreated scarecrow, dare you shake, Or strike in jest, a natural man like me?— You cursed lump, you chaos of a man, To buffet one whom Heaven pronounces good! [Bells ring.] There go the bells rejoicing over you: I'll change them ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... made by the widow and children of the deceased to compound for the confiscation of his property by payment of a certain sum, eighty florins or a similar trifle, according to an ancient privilege of the order of nobility—the question was raised whether he had been guilty of high-treason, as he had not been sentenced for such a crime, and as it was only in case of sentence for lese-majesty that this composition was disallowed. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... conquering forces of the king. The Lady of Guadalupe became suspected of insurrectionary propensities, while all honors were lavished upon the Lady of Remedies by those who wished to make protestations of their loyalty. Pearls, money, and jewels were bestowed upon her by the nobility and the Spanish merchants; and as one insurrectionary leader after another was totally defeated, the conquering generals returned to lay their trophies at the feet of the Lady of Remedies, to whose interposition the victory ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... event of vast family interest, especially if it is the first visit of the bird to the domicile. In America it is not customary to announce a birth in the newspapers, as is often done in England, especially among the nobility. The personal friends of the parents receive the visiting card of both, or of the mother only, to which is attached a small card bearing the baby's full name and the date of his arrival. These are enclosed in an envelope, this again in an outer one, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... he meets with the same kind acceptance, for I believe in the Nobility of the Almanac; and it is certain that every man should believe in the Nobility of his work whatever it is—then he is sure of one ardent Admirer. It is sad to think that some carping critic had been riling the sweet soul of Nathan in the year 1732. It is all over ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... many miraculous cures. A church was built on the spot to commemorate the miracle. At this time it was considered, in an assembly of the principal clergy, whether the threads, worn by the bramins across their shoulders, were a heathenish superstition or only a mark of their nobility, and, after a long debate, it was determined to be merely an honourable distinction. The reason of examining this matter was, that many of the bramins refused to embrace the Christian faith, because obliged to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... next few days share the fate of Portsmouth and Gosport. He was instantly confirmed in this resolution when Mrs O'Connor and her niece came into the room. Never had he seen a more perfect specimen of the Irishwoman, who is a lady by Nature's own patent of nobility, than Mrs O'Connor, and, with of course one exception, never had he seen such a beautiful girl ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... nor made in a day, but when placed there with care and intelligence come forth with surprising rapidity and beauty and not only add manifold value to the home and farm, but bespeak for some one a standard of intelligence and nobility that is better than great riches; for he who plants and cares for a tree is of the true, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... than this most memorable, most successful pilgrimage. The unique, but magnetic, marvelous eloquence of this regenerated son of the forest, as he passed from town to town, and city to city, over England and Scotland, engaged the attention and opened the hearts of all classes—the clergy, the nobility, and the peasantry. The names of the men and women and children, who gave of their abundance or their poverty, primarily and apparently to civilize and evangelize their wild and savage brethren across the sea, but ultimately and really to found ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... Where huge green seas beneath, in billows upthrust, Scatter snow-amethysts to the bright sapphire sky,— Or music on which fusillade the hoof-beats by Of screaming valkyr-steeds, to exalted strife! You are love's seal and love's nobility, And the burning flame, ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... but he says that he will not be master of a moment of his own Time in London. He will be so much taken up with the King and the Duke of York, that he is afraid he will Disoblige a great Number of the Nobility by it, besides injuring his own health by such Constant application to business. He is to make a very fine Speech in Parliament, but it is not yet Fixed what his First Motion is to be upon. He himself wishes to move for a New Subsidy to the Emperor of Germany; but Lady Maclaughlan ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... wounded, and saving others for the worst of tortures. Nor were their white allies one whit behind them. They bore a full part in the merciless war upon the conquered. Timmendiquas, the great Wyandot, was the only one to show nobility. Several of the wounded he saved from immediate death, and he tried to hold back the frenzied swarm of old squaws who rushed forward and began to practice cruelties at which even the most veteran warrior might shudder. But Queen Esther urged them ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... already observed that a considerable degree of familiarity had begun to establish itself between them. The elder Countess treated him (being once well assured of the nobility of his birth) like a favoured equal, and though her niece showed her regard to their protector less freely, yet, under every disadvantage of bashfulness and timidity, Quentin thought he could plainly perceive that ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... compositions of the rhapsodes, they are only recited in order to be believed, and not with any view to criticism or instruction; and who thinks that even the best of writings are but a reminiscence of what we know, and that only in principles of justice and goodness and nobility taught and communicated orally for the sake of instruction and graven in the soul, which is the true way of writing, is there clearness and perfection and seriousness, and that such principles are a man's own and ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... effectively with the pale and striking features. It was not a beautiful face, for the mouth was too large, and the nose was not as straight as it might have been, but there was a power about the broad brow, and a force and solid nobility stamped upon the features which had impressed him strangely. Just as she came opposite to where he was standing, a gust of wind, for there was a stiff breeze, blew the lady's hat off, taking it over the hedge, and he, as in duty bound, ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... imagination a true part of our self-knowledge, in such fashion that the soul is purged of envy for what is distinguished, and we feel ourselves fellows with the preserving, rather than the destroying, forces of time, is to be raised into the nobility of the intellect. To hold this knowledge in a mind trained to fine efficiency and confirmed by faithful comradeship, is to take one's place with the rightful governors of the people. Nor is there any narrow or invidious exclusiveness in such an aristocracy, ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... Palestine, I am sure some of the present Newcomes would pay the Heralds' Office handsomely, living, as they do, amongst the noblest of the land, and giving entertainments to none but the very highest nobility and elite of the fashionable and diplomatic world, as you may read any day in the newspapers. For though these Newcomes have got a pedigree from the College, which is printed in Budge's Landed Aristocracy of Great Britain, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... paid; the latter repair to Leipsic and Gottingen. We have every reason to suppose the present monarch, though no studious man himself, will encourage the academies of the literati, that men learned in jurisprudence and the sciences may not be wanting: which want is the more to be apprehended as the nobility must, without exception, serve in the army, so that learning has but few adherents, and these are deprived of the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... him in the hour of peril, it is to be concluded that he has deserved little at the hands of those whom he has ruled. The latter is the case of Giovanni Sforza—this prince whom, Yriarte tells us, "rendered sweet the lives of his subjects." The nobility and the proletariate of Pesaro abhorred him; the trader classes stood neutral, anxious to avoid the consequences of partisanship, since it was the class most exposed to ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... be a remarkable fellow—such nobility! It'll be hard for him in prison. Men like him feel unhappy there." Stepping in front of the mother he exclaimed in a ringing voice: "Of course, all the commissioners and sergeants are nothings. They are sticks in the hands of a clever villain, a trainer of animals. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... be judicial, which insists that as a cold scheme for existence in this universe nothing compares with that of life followed by eternal redemption through personal effort interpreted by a mediator. The bare Christian tenets have a nobility that it kills me to see belittled by the bored, half-hearted observances of most of its protestants, who in turn are not to be blamed for being half-hearted and bored by the dogmas and restrictions and littleness ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... "I acknowledge your nobility of spirit. The words you uttered when you were not yourself are henceforth utterly forgotten." I embraced him, and he ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... of both may be said to have been republican, but the Gallic tribes were aristocracies, in which the influence of clanship was a predominant feature; while the German system, although nominally regal, was in reality democratic. In Gaul were two orders, the nobility and the priesthood, while the people, says Caesar, were all slaves. The knights or nobles were all trained to arms. Each went forth to battle, followed by his dependents, while a chief of all the clans was appointed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... economic disturbance and political corruption a tariff involves. Imperialism without noble imaginations, it seemed to him, was simply nationalism with megalomania. It was swaggering, it was greed, it was German; its enthusiasm was forced, its nobility a vulgar lie. No. And when he turned to the opposite party he found little that was more attractive. They were prepared, it seemed, if they came into office, to pull the legislature of the British Isles to pieces in obedience to the Irish demand for Home Rule, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... when it is known that in the original the scene lay among traders in London—and those traders of the lowest and most detestable manners, it will be conceived at once, that in removing it to Portugal and fixing the characters among the nobility, it was hardly possible to carry with me more than the idea"—the traders whom Mrs. Cowley mentions, are both Knights, the one an Alderman, the other a Banker.' Genest then compares various scenes and expressions from The Lucky Chance with Mrs. Cowley and concludes ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... personal bondage. Inhabitants of cities, before without privileges, placed in the consideration which belongs to that improved and connecting situation of social life. One of the most proud, numerous, and fierce bodies of nobility and gentry ever known in the world, arranged only in the foremost rank of free and generous citizens. Not one man incurred loss, or suffered degradation. All, from the King to the day-labourer, were improved in their condition. Everything was kept in its ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... plant used for blue dye, and thereupon prohibited its cultivation. She was displeased with long swords and high ruffs, and commissioned her officers to break the swords and abate the ruffs. None of the nobility dared marry without her consent; no one could travel without her permission. Foreign commerce was subject to her capricious will. The star chamber, the court of high commission, the court martial, the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... helper at Roehampton, he informed Doggie by letter, was busily engaged on the invention of a boxing-glove which would enable him to carry on his pugilistic career. "So, in future times," said he, "if any of your friends among the nobility and gentry want lessons in the noble art, don't forget your old friend Ballinghall." Whereat—incidentally—Doggie wondered. Never, for a fraction of a second, during their common military association, had Ballinghall ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... a whole, and perhaps the expediency of the publication of Mrs. Stowe's first article is doubtful, even to her most ardent admirers. The most that can be hoped for, through the mention of the subject in this biography, is the vindication of Mrs. Stowe's purity of motive and nobility of intention in bringing this painful ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... nobility and the town dignitaries. Among the former class may be reckoned Stiftsamtmann von H—- and his lady; a privy councillor, Herr von B—-, who had been sent from Copenhagen to attend the "Allthing" (political assembly); and a Danish baron, who had accompanied the councillor. I noticed among the ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... had shouldered society; though not much then, enough to make me less proud of love's purity—enough to render me slightly sceptical of its sincerity. But through her I had now escaped from that scepticism. I had become a faithful believer in the nobility of the passion. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... instrument of lawless power. Judging by their own experience, they thought it impossible that such an army should exist without danger to the rights both of the Crown and of the people. One class of politicians was never weary of repeating that an Apostolic Church, a loyal gentry, an ancient nobility, a sainted King, had been foully outraged by the Joyces and the Prides; another class recounted the atrocities committed by the Lambs of Kirke, and by the Beelzebubs and Lucifers of Dundee; and both classes, agreeing in scarcely any thing else, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fortune of which she, of all present, perhaps, stood in the greatest need; but there was no lingering in her step, and to me, who understood her fault only through the faint sound of infantile wailing which accompanied her departure, there was a nobility in her action which raised her in an instant to an almost ideal height ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... "Does his nobility ask me? It is two hours since every Goth quitted the place, except the dead man in the house of the widow Dubhina, and we are breathing freely for once in our lives. Up they went towards the AEmilian villa with clamour and threats enough to make one's blood run cold, and they must be far ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sorrow. This assurance the prompt action of the American Red Cross gave. It restored in the affirmative with mercy, precisely the quality which Hun fury and propaganda had destroyed with lies. It restored to them their belief in the nobility of mankind, out of which belief grows ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... that he was at his command in every way. Upon this the vizier sent for his chief domestics, ordered them to adorn the great hall of his palace, and prepare a splendid feast. He afterwards sent to invite the nobility of the court and city, to honour him with their company; and when they were all met (Noor ad Deen having made known his quality), he said to the noblemen present, for he thought it proper to speak thus on purpose ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... was told that the wives of their nobility were sometimes Americans," said the Altrurian. "The English think that you regard such marriages as a great honor, and that they are very gratifying to ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... embroidery on its seams, cuffs, pocket-flaps, and buttonholes, but lamentably worn and faded, patched at the elbows, tattered at the skirts, and threadbare all over. On the left breast was a round hole whence either a star of nobility had been rent away or else the hot heart of some former wearer had scorched it through and through. The neighbors said that this rich garment belonged to the Black Man's wardrobe, and that he kept it at Mother Rigby's cottage for the convenience of ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... would often make marches in shoes without stockings, hardening his feet for the part he played afterwards on many a long tramp in the Highlands. Instead of enjoying the ordinary effeminate pleasures of the Roman nobility, he shot and hunted; and in the Borghese Gardens practised that royal game of golf, which his ancestors had played long before on the links at St. Andrews and the North Inch of Perth. His more serious studies were, perhaps, less ardently ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... sent by the Princess to be a witness of his superstition; that your Highness was a witness of his descent into the pit after hidden gold, and of his promise to make the baker's daughter his mistress, and also to make her one of the nobility immediately after his marriage with the Princess. 'Do not hope to gain the Princess. It is useless for you to try,' were the last words of the Marshal's ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... every one understood and every one had taken up an attitude. There were in England and America, and indeed throughout the world, two great informal divisions of human beings—the Secure and the Insecure. There was not and never had been in either country a nobility—it was and remains a common error that the British peers were noble—neither in law nor custom were there noble families, and we altogether lacked the edification one found in Russia, for example, of a poor nobility. A peerage was an hereditary ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... dupe himself as well as others, and do it with generous enthusiasm and self-trust. It was the face of a man who might have bitter awakenings, as well as his dupes, but who might take the same fatuous, happy leaps to disaster again. And yet there was a certain strength, even nobility, in the face, and it was distinctly lovable, and in no weak sense. He looked very like Eddy as he sat there, and, curiously enough, he spoke ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... have not been made to any extent to domesticate some of the noble and useful creatures of Africa in England. The eland, which is the most magnificent of all antelopes, would grace the parks of our nobility more than deer. This animal, from the excellence of its flesh, would be appropriate to our own country; and as there is also a splendid esculent frog nearly as large as a chicken, it would no doubt tend to perpetuate the present ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... judgment) with any other classes as to their moral and law-abiding character, should at least merit justice in the courts, and we ask for him consideration and fair settlement for labor. For where could superiority and nobility of character be better displayed than by generous treatment to the former bondsmen. That the better element of the Democratic party do not favor this lawlessness we are continually assured. But the ugly fact stands out in ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... ago that, on certain lines, it paid in London to be American, and she had manufactured for herself a personality independent of geographical or social demarcations, and presenting that remarkable blend of plantation dialect, Bowery slang and hyperbolic statement, which is the British nobility's favorite idea of an unadulterated Americanism. Mrs. Newell, for all her talents, was not naturally either humorous or hyperbolic, and there were times when it would doubtless have been a relief to her to be as monumentally stolid as some of the persons whose dulness it was her fate to enliven. ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... office; but moaned as though in pain, and found fault with their fate, their fortune and their companions; insensible to what had fallen to their lot, insensible to the powers they had received for a very different purpose—the powers of Magnanimity, Nobility of Heart, of Fortitude, ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... individuals: and therefore, in dealing with institutions, he acknowledged no check at all, but gave full swing to the license of his wrath. Amongst our own institutions, that one which he seems most profoundly to have hated was our nobility; or, speaking more generally, our aristocracy. Some deadly aboriginal schism he seems to have imagined between this order and the democratic orders; some predestined feud as between the head of the serpent and the ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... making daily progress. At a single gathering for prayer and preaching, but a few days before, twenty-five thousand persons, it was computed, had been in attendance, representing all ranks of the population, among whom were many of the nobility.[25] In the city of Troyes, a few weeks later, eight or nine thousand persons assembled from the neighboring country to celebrate the Lord's Supper, and the number of communicants was so great that they could not all partake on a single day; so the services were repeated on the morrow.[26] ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... such phrases as "highly esteemed citizen," "nobility of character," "loss to the community," "soul of integrity" and other stock expressions. At the end he begged to inform his friends that flowers might be deposited at the Banner office or at his room in Mrs. Camp's boarding-house, ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... that Victory was Queen of England he showed little surprise, telling me that in their recent explorations in ancient Russia they had found many descendants of the old nobility and royalty. ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... certain type, yes." Devant came closer and leaned over his companion's shoulder. "The coloring, of course, is lacking. I never saw such glorious hair and eyes. The eyes gave promise of a nobility the woman-nature utterly lacked. That girl, Dick, ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... to flatter himself that during the period of his stay in Vienna he has gained some favor and approbation from the highest nobility, as well as from the public at large, his works having met with an honorable reception both in this and other countries. Nevertheless he has had difficulties of every kind to contend against, and ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... honorable, gives this as a probable reason: "That as they all descended from Ham, their common father, the memory of their still recent origin, occurring to the minds of all in those first ages, established among them a kind of equality, and stamped in their opinion a nobility on every person descended ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... probable that he may find you out at Freeman's nursery grounds, for, in the fine weather, he has crowds of quality go to look at his flowers and eat his fruit; and then, in the flower season, he has exhibitions of prize-tulips and prize carnations, when the nobility will go to see them, and there's such a number of carriages and curricles, and horses and gigs, and I don't know what besides, that the road is choked up like St. James's Street on a Court day; and who knows but your father may go among these great people? What do you ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... are recognized and welcomed. There the old feudal traditions were still in full force, and diplomatic representatives admitted to the court society by right of official position found it to consist exclusively of an aristocracy of birth, sixteen quarterings of nobility being necessary to a right of presentation to the Emperor and Empress. The society thus constituted was distinguished by great charm and grace of manner, the exclusion of all outer elements not only limiting the numbers, but giving the ease of ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... human body into words; I can only say that he was of symmetrical build, with a deep chest and well-developed limbs, but without the great muscles that would have given him the coarse aspect of an athlete. His greatest charm was in the grace of his movements and the natural nobility of his attitudes and his walk; for he moved as lightly and daintily as a deer, and it was a constant pleasure, while walking behind him during our marches through the forest, to admire his elastic gait, the play of his muscles and the elegant ease with which he threaded the ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... men, as consistency. Monsieur the Preceptor's lifelong counsel and example would have done less for his pupil than was effected by the knowledge of his consistent career, now that it was past. It was not the nobility of the priest's principles that awoke in Monsieur the Viscount a desire to imitate his religious example, but the fact that he had applied them to his own life, not only in the time of wealth, but in the time of tribulation and in the hour of death. All that high-strung piety—that ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... never been in England, but had done business with many of the nobility and gentlemen there, of whom several he named belonged to our own county of Chester. He had heard that the bullocks he sold to them, after feeding on the rich, pastures of England for a short time, grew to a considerable size, which we thought ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... framing the scheme of reform, though he was consulted at every turn and clearly recognised the necessity to which he bowed, and though he was spared the resort to a coup d'etat which he abhorred, he could not but feel humiliated by the ill-disguised subjection of the crown and the nobility to a single chamber of the people. It is greatly to his honour that, with limited intelligence, and strong prejudices, he should have played a straightforward and strictly constitutional part in so ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... is a question whether their rank was personal or hereditary. The Abbe de Mably (tom. i. p. 334-347) is not displeased to mortify the pride of birth (Esprit, l. xxx. c. 25) by dating the origin of the French nobility from the reign Clotaire II. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... studies necessary for the artillery service; and in 1787 I went for three months to Metz, in order to unite practice with theory. A strange Ordinance, which I believe was issued in 1778 by M. de Segur, required that a man should possess four quarterings of nobility before he could be qualified to serve his king and country as a military officer. My mother went to Paris, taking with her the letters patent of her husband, who died six weeks after my birth. She proved that in the year 1640 Louis ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of long ago, remodeled in a stronger cast, with more nobility in his brow, more promise in his long, bony jaw. Here was no boy at all, but a man, full-founded and rugged, and as honest as ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... fidelity to God. It was true that his path was strewn with the broken weapons and defaced armour of many who had gone forth amidst acclamations as loud and promises as bright, but the groundworks of hope in his case were the nobility of his father's character, the prayers of his mother, the strong domestic affections which belong to pure and single- minded youths, great powers of observation, great vigour of will, and the daily and habitual influence ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... Norway, it may be well to explain that the masters were peasants or "bonders", but not by any means similar to peasants in other lands; on the contrary, they were the udal-born proprietors of the soil—the peasant-nobility, so to speak, the Udallers, or freeholders, without any superior lord, and were entitled to attend and have a voice in the "Things" or assemblies where the laws were enacted and public affairs regulated. The next class was that of the ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... WAS HUNTED BY THE HAWK, and the sport of hawking is usually placed at the head of those amusements that can only be practised in the country. This precedency it probably obtained from its being a pastime to generally followed by the nobility, not in Great Britain only, but likewise on the continent. In former times, persons of high rank rarely appeared in public without their dogs and their hawks: the latter they carried with them when they journeyed from one country ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... his nobility, not always his opinions. He was once the apostle of a doctrine of disunion; he fervently believes in enforcing "total abstinence" by statute; he is the strenuous advocate of woman-suffrage. We have stood by the Union always; we have some faith in pure wine, notwithstanding the Maine Law; and believing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... bent, not gnarled by the rack of blind-groping, undirected toil, for such of the chosen out of nature's nobility are never old. Hair once dark as woodland shadows was shot with the sunlight of many years; hair once bright as the mica tossed by joyous waves upon a sunny beach was whitened now by the unmelting snows of winters numbered swiftly in the brief calendar of man. But shoulders were unbent ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... with his pick - and yet how impressed you are with his sincerity. In him is asserted the dignity, the usefulness, the nobility of all labor. He helps to turn the wheels of trade, to further the interests of the world. He works patiently day by day, notwithstanding the fact that those above him reap the benefits. Mr. Stackpole has been ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... an one) cannot be treated familiarly or distantly; he is beyond all consideration of profit or injury; of nobility or meanness:—he is the noblest man ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... aunt's remorseless words, but said in a sort of blind desperation: "Her parents! Is this Hindostan, that parents can treat their daughters as merchandise? A girl of Miss Marsden's force and nobility of character—" ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... easily have been taken to be members of a distinct race, the men being much fairer of complexion, of greater stature, and more finely proportioned, as well as much more intellectual in appearance than their humbler brethren; while the women of the higher classes and nobility were in many cases as fair and as lovely as, say, Spanish or ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... heroic men who gave early California its best bias none was knightlier than this handsome Virginian; none won stronger friends, or had brighter hopes. He was the first State Senator from San Francisco. He had the magnetism that won and the nobility that retained the love of men. Some men push themselves forward by force of intellect or of will—this man was pushed upward by his friends because he had their hearts. He married a beautiful woman, whom he loved literally unto death. I shall not recite the whole ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... the three great portrait painters, it is necessary, in the first instance, to refer to the several characters of their models, or sitters. The nobility of Venice were, at the time of Titian, men of long descent, dignified, and holding high rank in a city at that time the emporium of the merchandize of the East, and distributors of rich manufactures to the whole of civilized Europe; hence that "senatorial dignity" ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... and great archiepiscopal see and most important railway station in all Belgium. Magnificent old houses in carved stone with wrought-iron balconies were to be had for rents that were almost nominal. From the tall windows of some of these a frugal, sleepy, priest-ridden old nobility looked down on broad and splendid streets hardly ever trodden by any feet but their own, or those of some stealthy Jesuit priest, or ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... why Malipieri was asked to dinner. Finding that he was not perceptibly flattered by what she said, she began to talk about the Venetian aristocracy, for she knew that his name was historical, and she recognized in him at once the characteristics of the nobility she worshipped. Malipieri smiled politely, and in answer to a direct question admitted that his ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... take the largest share of the conversation. "Why did he not come to me for a salve? I've the best salve that ever was invented—Flattery salve, warranted to heal all manner of bruises and sores; yes, headaches, and heartaches, and all kinds of aches. It's patronized by all the heads of the nobility and gentry. I've tried it myself many a time, and always find it a perfect cure! When I've the high-strikes (I'm very subject to the high-strikes), I just rub a little on the tip of my ear, and it calms down my nerves like a charm. I wish you would try ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... which consists of the development of associations backward. E. g.—do what I will, I can not remember the name of a certain man, but I know that he has a title to nobility, which is identical with the name of a small town in Obertfalz. Finally, the name of the town Hirschau occurs to me, and now I easily associate backwards, "Schaller von Hirschau.'' It is, of course, natural that words should unroll themselves forwards with habitual ease, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... why the hearty old man's face had grown so grave. Sir Charles might well experience shame for this retrogression of one of his own class, the broken obligations of nobility; the traditions shattered. But he thanked John Steele in an old-fashioned, courtly way for what he had once done for his niece whose life he had saved. Perhaps it was the reaction in himself; perhaps ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... could blame her?) in hope to mollify the sullen bridegroom. She takes her topics from the benefits of poverty, the advantages of old age and ugliness, the vanity of youth, and the silly pride of ancestry and titles without inherent virtue, which is the true nobility. When I had closed Chaucer I returned to Ovid, and translated some more of his fables; and by this time had so far forgotten the Wife of Bath's tale that, when I took up Boccace unawares, I fell on the same argument of preferring virtue to nobility of ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... Luther, my book was presented to the German nobility, which Dr. Wick showed unto me. Then the Gospel began to go on well, but the Pope's power, together with the Antinomians, gave it a great blow, and yet, notwithstanding, through God's Providence, it ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... the nobility and gentry, some ardent and some doubtful, in the king's service; and (very luckily for him) two letters concerning Colonel Francis Esmond; one from Father Holt, which said, "I have been to see this ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... President Wilson delivered his Message to Congress last April. I have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Wilson's utterance will become immortal. It is a new declaration of the Rights of Man, but a finer, broader one, based on the sure principles of Christian ethics. Yet, mark how this same nobility of thought and purpose runs like a vein of gold through the rock of valiant little Belgium's defiance of the Hun, of President Poincare's firm stand, and of Mr. Lloyd George's unflinching labors in the Sisyphean task of stemming the Teutonic avalanche. Prussia's challenge ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... lack of harmony. John Hecker was for attaining the object by stricter discipline, treating the men rather as servants; while "we," says Isaac, speaking of himself and George, "took the side of treating them with kindness, and, as far as possible, as brethren." In truth, it was evidence of nobility of character in these three brothers that they could so much as dream of actualizing so radical a social reform in but one establishment amidst so many in ardent business competition with each other. It may be said in passing that the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... is of frequent mention among the nobility of Scotland. About the year 1735 John Alexander married Margaret Gleason, a "bonnie lassie" of Glasgow, and shortly afterward emigrated to the town of Armagh, in Ireland. About 1740, wishing to improve more rapidly his worldly condition, he emigrated with his rising family, two nephews, James and ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... patriotic. But the speeches given here are associated with facts which give them peculiar value and significance, and were spoken under circumstances which lend to them a solemn interest and impressiveness which could not otherwise be obtained. They reach us—these dock speeches, in which nobility of purpose and chivalrous spirit is expressed—like voices from the tomb, like messages from beyond the grave, brimful of lessons of dignity and patriotism. We can see the men who spoke them standing ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... how the morally great stands forth in its own dignity, bright, glorious, and everlasting. St. Evremond sets forth the firmness and constancy of Petronius Arbiter in his last moments, and imagines he discovers in them a softer nobility of mind and resolution, than in the deaths of Seneca, Cato, or Socrates himself; but Addison says, and we can not but think truly, "that if he was so well pleased with gayety of humor in a dying man, he might have found a much more noble instance of it in Sir Thomas More, who died upon ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... of grilles or barrs, to distinguish the different degrees. But however ingenious these inventions are, it is certain that they are useless (as gold and silver helmets would be) because every rank of nobility is distinguished by the coronet proper to his degree. Whatever honour may be attributed to the helmet, the use of it with the arms is but modern; and upon the coins of kings and sovereign princes, where they are chiefly to be met with, the helmets are barred, and either ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... minister's house in Pleasant Valley, there was the calm poise and grace which we associate in our speech and thoughts with the highest advantages of social relations. So extremes sometimes meet. In Diana it was due to her inborn nobility of nature and the sharp discipline of sorrow; in aid of which practically came also her perfection of physical health and form. It must be remembered, too, that she had been now for a good while in the ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... a foreigner, but having the very best recommendations he was soon at home in the capital. His name was Fernando de Velletri, and he was by birth an Italian of the old nobility; he was received in all the palaces of the Faubourg St. Germain, and was acquainted with everything that went on ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... When, in their mother's womb, they life receive, God, as his sole-borne Daughter, loved thee: To match thee like thy birth's nobility, He thee his Spirit for thy Spouse did leave, Of whom thou didst his only Son conceive; And so was linked to all the Trinity. Cease, then, O queens, who earthly crowns do wear, To glory in the pomp of worldly, ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... mathematicians in abstract numbers, because they see in the crystals beauty and movement without the corrupting appetites of fleshly vitality. In such Materialism as that of Lucretius and Tyndall there is a nobility which produces poetry: John Davidson found his highest inspiration in it. Even its pessimism as it faces the cooling of the sun and the return of the ice-caps does not degrade the pessimist: for example, the Quincy ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... old, married to a merchant well to do in the world, and that she has great black oriental eyes, and all the qualities which her eyes promise. Whether being in love with her has steeled me or not, I do not know; but I have not seen many other women who seem pretty. The nobility, in particular, are a sad-looking race—the gentry rather better. And now, what ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... and without waiting for an answer Robinson hastened to encumber himself with the tea-tray, and flung the loaf and curling-irons into it, and bustled about and showed a sudden zeal lest this bachelor's room should appear in disorder; and as Jenny mounted the front stairs followed by the sprig of nobility, he plunged heavily laden down the back stairs into the kitchen and off with his coat and cleaned knives like ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... bring high nobility and plain gentry into one class. They are divided by the game-park. We are only visitors there, kindly invited, kindly received, but visitors still, and we can never repay the compliment. Therefore I consider we should always think twice before ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... other representatives, nine times out of ten he is a silent member. Ah, Pauline! not to the past, but to the future, looks true nobility, and ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... building was never finished, and still presents to the eye, a naked pile of lofty walls and columns. Alas! the gloomy auguries which followed this fatal spectacle, were too truly realized. On that spot perished the monarch and his queen, and the flower of the french nobility, and many of the virtuous and enlightened men of France, and in this cemetery, their unhonoured remains were thrown, amidst heaps of headless victims, into promiscuous graves ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr |
