"Noblesse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... accepted cordially, and giving Stephen a glance of despair, which said: "Noblesse oblige," he thrust his fingers into the honey, where there were fewest flies, and took out a sweetmeat. Stephen did the same. All three ate, and drank sweet black cafe maure. Once the Caid turned to glance at something outside the door, and his secretive, light grey ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... him, and witte; I passe foorth hastily What had this king of his magnificence, Of great courage of wisedome, and prudence? Prouision, forewitte, audacitee, Of fortitude, iustice, and agilitee, Discretion, subtile auisednesse, Attemperance, Noblesse, and worthinesse: Science, prowesse, deuotion, equitie, Of most estate, with his magnanimitie Liche to Edgar, and the saide Edward, As much of both liche hem as in regard. Where was on liue a man more victorious, And in so ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... a free agent, and of an age to know her own mind. Moreover, the secret of the door was one which she couldn't help finding out in any case. She, Miss Walbrook, could dismiss these scruples; and yet there was that uncomfortable sing-song humming through her brain: "Noblesse oblige! Noblesse oblige!" ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... knights and the squires whom Perizadah had brought to life by sprinkling the Water the Princess turned to them and said, "Why delay we our departure and how is it that none offereth to lead us?" Bur as all hesitated she gave command, "Now let him amongst you number whose noblesse and high degree entitle him to such distinction fare before us and show us the way." Then all with one accord replied, "O Princes of fair ones, there be none amongst us worthy of such honour, nor may any wight dare to ride before thee." So ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... his brother amicably, from the head of the table, "we must care for a man when he's wounded at our door, friend or foe, Federalist or damned Republican. Noblesse oblige. I was glad enough the night my mare Nelly threw me, coming home from Maria Erskine's wedding, to hear Bob Carter's voice behind me! And if Gideon Rand was a surly old heathen, he broke colts well, and he rolled tobacco ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... composure that should match the other's cold self-command,—a command which taunted and stung now at this point, now at that. "I am a Frenchman!" he cried, in a voice that broke with passion. "I am of the noblesse of the land of France, which is a country that is much grander than Virginia! Old Pierre at Monacan-Town told me these things. My father changed his name when he came across the sea, so I bear not the de which is a sign of a great man. Listen, you Englishman! I trade, I prosper, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... bombardment for days without flinching, and finally, in the early days of October, saw the Saxon Duke and his army march away, Valmy having opened the eyes of Brunswick to the utter futility and fanfaronnade of the French emigrant noblesse and princes, who had drawn up for him and persuaded him against his own better judgment to sign the too famous and fatal proclamation with which he heralded the Austro-Prussian advance into France. Mayor Andre having ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Montesquieu," replied Prince Andrew, "and his idea that le principe des monarchies est l'honneur me parait incontestable. Certains droits et privileges de la noblesse me paraissent etre des moyens de soutenir ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... carriage of the deceased was followed by many other carriages filled with the noblesse of France, each drawn by six horses. The state equipages of the Prince of Wales and of the Dukes of Sussex and York, with postilions in state livery, closed the procession. With such mournful pageants were the mortal remains of ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... a solemnity to which the cloistral arches lent a supreme grandeur, "that you bear the name and title of Baron de Sainte-Hermine, that your father was guillotined on the Place de la Revolution and that your brother was killed in Conde's army. Noblesse oblige! Those are ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... countrymen. In 1780 she finally retired from the stage and began to live a regular and orderly life, though still extravagant and lavish in her indulgence both of freaks of luxury and generosity. During her residence at Rome the noblesse of that city held her in high esteem, and her concerts gathered the most distinguished and wealthy people. Her prodigality had considerably reduced her income, and when she retired from her profession it amounted to little more ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... the time that anything like social life, as we understand the phrase, became known, the power of the Crown was so well established that no necessity for resorting to a policy such as Richelieu's for diminishing the influence of the noblesse existed. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... mentioned, that there are some excellent houses within the city, and they are in great numbers in the immediate vicinity. Tours, in this respect, resembles Canterbury or Salisbury, in England. It is the favourite retreat of such advocates as have made fortunes in their profession. The noblesse of the province have their balls and assemblies almost weekly during the summer months; and even in the winter, Tours is by many preferred to Paris. It would be an unpardonable omission, whilst I am upon this subject, not to notice the uncommon ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... has actual sight of his work—what it is. He has brought with him certain long-cherished designs to finish here in quiet, as he protests he has never finished before. That charming Noblesse—can it be really so distinguished to the minutest point, so naturally aristocratic? Half in masquerade, playing the drawing-room or garden comedy of life, these persons have upon them, not less than the landscape he composes, and among the accidents of which ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... and souerayne goddesse Gyue you true sentence now vpon me As ye be surmountynge in vertue & noblesse Lete me dame Sapyence haue the soueraynte As is accordynge to my royall dygnyte For I am moost profytable vnto man And euer had ...
— The Example of Vertu - The Example of Virtue • Stephen Hawes
... first pony in political tradition, and encouraged by every gamekeeper to follow the footsteps of his ancestors, Lord Runnymede had inevitably taken "Noblesse oblige" as his private motto. But of what service was nobility if its obligations were abolished? He sometimes pictured with a shudder the fate of the surviving French nobility—retaining their titles by courtesy, and compelled to fritter away their lives upon chateaux, travelling, aeroplanes, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... D'Ambois! Cosen Guise, I wonder Your honour'd disposition brooks so ill A man so good that only would uphold 90 Man in his native noblesse, from whose fall All our dissentions rise; that in himselfe (Without the outward patches of our frailty, Riches and honour) knowes he comprehends Worth with the greatest. Kings had never borne 95 Such boundlesse empire over other men, Had ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... Marriage de Figaro, representative of one of the old noblesse of France, recalling all their manners and vices, who is duped by his valet Figaro, a personification of wit, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... at the zenith of his power; he was the arbiter of Europe and the paramount head of a confederation of princes, among whom the members of his own family occupied several thrones. To reward his partisans he at this time created a new noblesse, and lavished upon them the public money. He sent an army under Junot to Portugal, and another to Spain, which, under Murat, took Madrid. Napoleon then procured the abdication of the King of Spain and placed his brother Joseph on the vacant throne. But ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... never have suspected. Few of the tenements could claim to be anything better than mere farm-houses. Yet every second building you came upon was a chateau—yes, a veritable chateau, the actual abode of some seigneur of the old noblesse of France, whose name might be like enough to call up the memory of some illustrious deed done in the old chivalric days of France. The country literally swarmed with chateaux and with nobles. Do you see yon rickety, tumble-down building, ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... at that child, and I thought of the women that I had known—the bold, bedizened beauties of a Court said to be the first in Europe. And then it came to me that this was no demoiselle of Lavedan, no demoiselle at all in fact, for the noblesse of France owned no such faces. Candour and purity were not to be looked for in the high-bred countenances of our great families; they were sometimes found in the faces of the children of their retainers. Yes; I had it now. ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... peeress of the old regime, one who had led far too gay a life and, come now to a dishonoured old age, was yet cynical and unrepentant. Winona also he affected to believe an ornament of the old noblesse, a creature of maddening beauty, but without heart, so that despairing suitors slew themselves for her. His debased fancy would at times further have it that Judge Penniman was Louis XVIII, though at this moment, ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... the time to Lady Vandrift: his discourse was of picture-galleries, which Amelia detests, but in which she thinks it incumbent upon her, as Sir Charles's wife, to affect now and then a cultivated interest. Noblesse oblige; and the walls of Castle Seldon, our place in Ross-shire, are almost covered now with Leaders and with Orchardsons. This result was first arrived at by a singular accident. Sir Charles wanted a leader—for his coach, you understand—and ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... decent to Grannie and the Aunties, and to Uncle Morrie and Uncle Bartie. That was the only burden she had laid on her children. It was a case of noblesse oblige; their youth constrained them. They had received so much, and they had been let off so much; not one of them had inherited the taint that made Maurice and Emmeline Fleming and Bartie Harrison creatures diseased ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... religious element, represented by Geneva, the martyrs, and the devoted fugitives who sang the psalms of Marot among rocks and caverns. Joined to these were numbers on whom the faith sat lightly, whose hope was in commotion and change. Of these, in great part, was the Huguenot noblesse, from Conde, who aspired to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... aise d'en marquer la difference sans parler de celle du stile qui dans Pindare a toujours plus de force, plus d'energie, & plus de noblesse que dans Horace, &c. Mem. ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... their rank, not as coming down to them from the tenure of almost independent counties and dukedoms, but as proprietors of ancestral lands, to which originally subordinate rights and duties had been attached. Mixed with those, we saw the Noblesse of the Robe, as the great law officers were called, who constituted a parallel but not identical nobility with their lay competitors. The third aristocracy was now about to make its appearance, the creation of Court favour, and badge of ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... been saved for France, as the British could not for any length of time have maintained their position on the Plains of Abraham. Returning to France, where he was related to several families of the Noblesse, who held that "war was the only worthy calling, and prized honour more than life," he received so cool a reception at Court that his proud spirit, being unable to brook the humiliation, he applied for a passport allowing him to return to Canada, but subsequently he abandoned ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... delays, and the Indian summer had begun with warm sun and exquisite tints. 'What would not the maple and the liquid amber have been by this time,' thought the sisters, 'if they had been spared.' Some of the PETITE NOBLESSE, however, repented of their condescension when they saw how little it was appreciated. Mrs. Arthuret, indeed, was making herself the best hostess that a lady who had served no apprenticeship could be to all alike, but Arthurine or 'Atty,' as Daisy ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the billiard-room with my companions; we placed ourselves upon some high benches. I then saw M. d'Hervilly with a drawn sword in his hand, ordering the usher to open the door to the French noblesse. Two hundred persons entered the room nearest to that in which the family were; others drew up in two lines in the preceding rooms. I saw a few people belonging to the Court, many others whose features were unknown ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... "Noblesse oblige," said March, with the tone of irony which he reserved for his wife's preoccupations with aristocracies of all sorts. "I think I prefer my Hair Professor, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... studies, while taking a survey of some fortifications, excited alarm, and was carried to the Bastile: where, to deepen the interest of the story, he sketched a variety of comedies, which he must have communicated to the governor, who, whispering it doubtless as an affair of state to several of the noblesse, these admirers of "sketches of comedies"—English ones no doubt—procured the release of this English Moliere. This tale is further confirmed by a very odd circumstance. Sir John built at Greenwich, on a spot still called "Van Brugh's Fields," two whimsical houses; one on the side ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... of the tailors in this city, and I also am thy mother and my folk are exceeding poor; so how wilt thou dare to demand the Sultan's daughter, whom her father would not vouchsafe to marry with kings' sons and Sultans, except they were his peers in puissance and rank and noblesse; nay, were they one degree less than he, he would not give ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... States-General will meet, if not in January, at least in May. But how to form it? On the model of the last States-General in 1614, says the Parlement, which means that the Tiers Etat will be of no account, if the noblesse and the clergy agree. Wherewith terminates the popularity of the Parlement. As for the "thinkers," it is a sheer snowing of pamphlets. And Abbe Sieyes has come to Paris to ask three questions, and answer them: What is ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... on the freedom of the press by the censure; and of the person by lettres de cachet; the cruelty of the criminal code generally; the atrocities of the rack; the venality of Judges, and their partialities to the rich; the monopoly of military honors by the noblesse; the enormous expenses of the Queen, the Princes, and the Court; the prodigalities of pensions; and the riches, luxury, indolence, and immorality of the Clergy. Surely under such a mass of misrule and oppression, a people might justly press for thorough reformation, and might ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... with the state of France, on hearing the clergy and the noblesse were privileged in point of taxation, may be led to imagine, that, previous to the Revolution, these bodies had contributed nothing to the state. This is a great mistake. They certainly did not contribute equally with each other, nor either of them equally with the commons. They both, however, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... beginning to whiten, a sweet and arch face, and eyes of clearest hazel, valanced with jet. She had been perhaps the loveliest and most beloved woman of that proud and select circle which is composed of families descended from the old noblesse, the most exclusive circle of New Orleans society. And, as she said, nothing could change nor alter the fact that no matter what happened to us, we were ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... heaven should be forbidden him, and he forthwith thought of nothing else. If it were allowable to compare such great things with social follies, Castanier's position was not unlike that of a banker who, finding that his all-powerful millions cannot obtain for him an entrance into the society of the noblesse, must set his heart upon entering that circle, and all the social privileges that he has already acquired are as nothing in his eyes from the moment when he discovers that ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... at the scarlet and embroidery, he bestowed on the dying savage the name of Joseph, in honor of the spouse of the Virgin and the patron of New France. [ Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 5 (Cramoisy). "Monsieur le Gouverneur se transporte aux Cabanes de ces pauures barbares, suivy d'une leste Noblesse. Je vous laisse penser quel estonnement ces Peuples de voir tant d'carlate, tant de personnes bien faites sous leurs toits d'corce!" ] Three days after, he was told that a dead proselyte was to be buried; on which, leaving the lines ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... a day when the noblesse of the Rhine assembled at Heidelberg to celebrate the nuptials of Louis and Margaret. For a space the rejoicings went forward merrily, but, as Louis scanned the faces of his guests, he was surprised to find that Frederick was absent. Why was this? he mused; and going in search he soon found ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... much, he would have made him what the folks here call a Latiner. However, last night, it seems that there was a letter of some importance forgotten (I can't tell you what it was about, my dear, though I know perfectly well, but 'service oblige,' as well as 'noblesse,' and you must take my word for it that it was important, and one that I am surprised my master could forget), till too late for the post. (The poor, good, orderly man is not what he was before his wife's death.) Well, it seems that he was sore annoyed ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and to provide for all his poor. The saint expired on his knees, before the altar, on the 8th of March, in 1550, being exactly fifty-five years old. He was buried by the archbishop at the head of all the clergy, both secular and regular, accompanied by all the court, noblesse, and city, with the utmost pomp. He was honored by many miracles, beatified by Urban VIII. in 1630, and canonized by Alexander VIII. in 1690. His relics were translated into the church of his brethren in 1664. His order of charity to serve the sick was approved of by pope ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... such proverbs and aphorisms as "noblesse oblige," "bon sang ne sait mentir," "bon chien chasse de race," etc., and had even invented a little aphorism of his own, to comfort him when he was extra hard up, "bon gentilhomme n'a jamais honte de la misere." All ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... buffet and to observe the proceedings of a family who had entered my railway carriage at Tours and had conversed unreservedly, for my benefit, all the way from that station—a family whom it entertained me to assign to the class of petite noblesse de province. Their noble origin was confirmed by the way they all "made maigre" in the refreshment-room (it happened to be a Friday), as if it had been possible to do anything else. They ate two or three omelets apiece and ever so many little cakes, while the positive, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... all, of course; but, although I have always held, and will continue to believe, that the presence of that "green-eyed monster," as the passion is euphuistically termed, is inseparable from all cases of real, thorough, heart-felt, engrossing love—still, jealousy is no excuse for ill-manners. "Noblesse oblige" always. There is no half-way medium; no middle course ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... strange to say, he was one of the richest and most respected men in France. Further, he had by his second marriage entered one of the greatest families of the ancien rgime, and had actually been accepted as "one of us" by the inner hierarchy of the French noblesse! He had even made his peace with the Church and become, at any rate in all outward forms, perhaps ex animo, a devout Catholic. What is even more astounding is that his second wife was as devoted to him as was his first, and so, apparently, was he to her. Fouch, indeed, may be ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... and Cleves: the Count of Charolois, eldest son of the Duke of Burgundy; the Counts of Angoulesme, St Paul, Dunois, and others; with, as a chronicle of the time relates, "autres comtes, barons, chevaliers, capitaines, et force noblesse, en tres bel ordre et posture." All of these were mounted on horses of price, richly caparisoned, and covered with the finest housings; some were of cloth of gold furred with sable, others were of velvet or damask furred with ermine; all were enriched with precious stones, and to many ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... men had threaded their way close to the baccarat table, and now they formed the centre of a group who were throwing furtive glances at the banker, a pale lean Frenchman of the narrow-jowled, Spanish type so often repeated in members of the old noblesse. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... my mind, I passed through its scrambling streets without imagining that Princes of the Church had once made their abode here. The inhabitants now are peasants, or chiefly such; though, for aught I know, some of the French noblesse may burrow in these palaces that look ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... country, and, instead of buying captives, was bent upon enslaving their Mfumos; but that "Branco" should suffer for his attempt; no "Mukanda" or book (that is, letter) should go down stream; all his goods belonged of right to his guide, and thus he would learn to sit upon the heads of the noblesse, with much of ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... certainly—all English are stupid—and, besides, a dull husband at Paris is always a point in a lady's favour. He was the heir of the rich and spirituelle Miss Crawley, whose house had been open to so many of the French noblesse during the emigration. They received the colonel's wife in their own hotels—"Why," wrote a great lady to Miss Crawley, who had bought her lace and trinkets at the Duchess's own price, and given ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... they stood apart near the window, "you have been a good lad in not persisting to thwart my views, but that French marquis, with his folly and his 'ancienne noblesse,' has overthrown all my plans. Now, I shall not interfere with yours. Introduce me to Miss what's her name; she is a very fine girl, and from what I saw of her during dinner, I ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... question of capacity or achievement. By the accident of birth alone they had been put in a position different from other men. How shall each in his wisdom or his folly interpret that well-worn motto which still has virtue both to quicken and control, "Noblesse oblige"? ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... and Pierre are going to take precedence of all the lay noblesse hereabouts except ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bataille. Ils etaient pour la plupart de la gendarmerie, qu'une valeur malheureuse et une armure pesante arretaient dans un lieu ou l'un et l'autre leur etaient inutiles. Longtemps apres l'on s'apercevait dans toutes les provinces voisines que l'elite de la noblesse avait peri dans cette fatale journee. L'infanterie beaucoup moins engagee dans le defile, vit en tremblant la defaite des chevaliers qui passaient pour invincibles, et dont les escadrons effrayes se renversaient sur elle. Elle s'arreta, voulut se retirer, et dans l'instant cette retraite devint une ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... the plans he had digested, and to endeavor to imitate the head of his family, Henry IV., whose name is so dear to the nation. The speech was affectionate. The Garde des Sceaux spoke about twenty minutes, complimented the clergy, the noblesse, the magistrates and tiers etats. The Comptroller General spoke about an hour. He enumerated the expenses necessary to arrange his department when he came into it; he said his returns had been minutely laid before the King; he took a review of the preceding administrations, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... write about it, improving the occasion as usual by pitching into those that waste their substance abroad instead of doing good to the country. I know their style so well, and it amuses me. There are the usual phrases about a citizen's duties and "noblesse oblige," but it suits my purpose. I gathered the whole packet to ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... with you, M. Marston," said he, "with ease; for you are of the noblesse of your own great country, and I am tired of roturiers already.—The government has committed dangerous faults. The king is an excellent man, but his heart is where his head ought to be, and his head where his heart.—His flight was a terrible affair, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... misjudged you, and I ask your pardon,"—he bowed gravely. "Miss Lingard," he went on, "is an absolutely trustful heart. She has not learned the hard lessons of life. As for you and me, noblesse oblige,"—he watched ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... If Which are you? The Creed to be Inspiration The Wish Three Friends You never can tell Here and now Unconquered All that love asks "Does it pay?" Sestina The Optimist The Pessimist An Inspiration Life's Harmonies Preparation Gethsemane God's Measure Noblesse Oblige Through Tears What we Need Plea to Science Respite Song My Ships Her Love If Love's burial "Love is enough" Life is a Privilege Insight A Woman's ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... while to quote on this subject a passage from Condorcet as historically instructive as it is morally dangerous. 'La necessite de mentir pour desavouer un ouvrage est une extremite qui repugne egalement a la conscience et a la noblesse du caractere; mais le crime est pour les hommes injustes qui rendent ce desaveu necessaire a la surete de celui qu'ils y forcent. Si vous avez erige en crime ce qui n'en est pas un, si vous avez porte atteinte, par des lois absurdes ou par ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... correct information. You can't help it! I assure you the Snake is infinitely obliged to you for a great many well-written and socially exciting paragraphs. Only, you see, I myself should never have thought that so extreme a follower of the exploded old doctrine of noblesse oblige, as Sir Philip Bruce-Errington, would have started on such a new line of action at all. But, of course, we are all mortal!" And he shook his round thick head with leering sagacity. "Well!" he continued after a pause. "This ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... lost "noblesse oblige": we may even be glad it is gone, if we can substitute for it something larger and better. It is not the obligation of nobility, but the obligation of humanity that is the need: to realize that ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... of symbolism are nothing to his purpose: what he requires are subtlety of apprehension and lightness of touch, and these are what he has. So M. Leon Werth meets people who complain that "Bonnard manque de noblesse." ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... the truth, and to clear the character of this great Doge from the accusation, if it proved groundless, I wrote to the Count Carlo Morosini, his descendant, and one of the few remaining representatives of the ancient noblesse of Venice; one, also, by whom his great ancestral name is revered, and in whom it is exalted. His answer appears to me altogether conclusive as to the utter fallacy of the reports of Daru and the English history. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... land, the seventh day Is famous for a grand display Of modes, of finery, and dress, Of cit, west-ender, and noblesse, Who in Hyde Park crowd like a fair To stare, and lounge, and take the air, Or ride or drive, or walk, and chat On fashions, scandal, and all that.— Here, reader, with your leave, will we Commence our London history. 'Twas Sunday, and the park was full With Mistress, John, and Master ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the result was announced. Palo turned round and descended from his pedestal with much dignity, though panting from his exertions, and looking so hot that I feared an apoplexy for the old man. I did not know how tough such an old heathen is, nor that his efforts were by no means at an end. Noblesse oblige and such high caste as Palo's ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... "Nevertheless, noblesse does oblige," went on the Dresden china prophetess of conventionality. "When alliances are arranged for women of our position, we must content ourselves with the hope that love may come after marriage. Or if not, we must go on doing our duty in ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... bourgeoisie finally obtained by the Revolution of 1830. In his heart he hated the aristocrats, and in religion he was indifferent; he was as much or as little of a bigot as Bonaparte was a member of the Mountain; yet his vertebral column bent with a flexibility wonderful to behold before the noblesse and the official hierarchy; for the powers that be, he humbled himself, he was meek and obsequious. One final characteristic will describe him for those who are accustomed to dealings with all kinds of men, and can appreciate its value—Cointet concealed the expression ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... and artillery technical schools, with about two thousand pupils; twenty-five military schools for the noblesse, containing eight thousand seven hundred pupils; corps d'armee schools, with several thousand pupils; regimental schools, with eleven thousand pupils; and brigade-schools, with upwards of one hundred and fifty-six thousand ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... half-bred American society, too ignorant to admit or recognise its own limitations,—she must have almost forgotten the stately traditions of the fine old family she springs from. One must not expect the motto of 'noblesse oblige' to weigh with modern young women—more's the pity! I'm afraid the mistress of Abbot's Manor will be a disturbing element in the village, breeding discontent and trouble where there has been till now comparative peace, and a fortunate simplicity of life. I'm sorry! This ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... o'clock when they ran up the eastern shore of Mount Desert Island and finally dropped anchor in Frenchman's Bay. They ate only a luncheon on board and then clothed themselves in their gladdest raiment and went ashore. They "did" the town that afternoon, mingling, as Wink said, with the "haut noblesse," and had dinner ashore at an expense that left a gaping hole in each purse. But they were both hungry and glad to taste shore food again, and no one begrudged ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... was struck deeply, Melody, by the beauty, and, if I may use the word about a plain man, the majesty of his looks. My companion was struck, too, for he stopped short, and murmured something under his breath; I heard the word "Noblesse," and thought it not amiss. My father's eyes (they were extraordinarily bright and blue) were wide open, and looked through us and beyond us, yet saw nothing, or nothing that other eyes could see; the tender look was in them that meant the thought of ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... old Canadian, named Crimeau, a man of experience, who was perfectly acquainted with that coast, boasted of being able to do it, and succeeded; for which he was the next year honoured with letters of noblesse. Dumont (an officer there at ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... the work. In name, at least, they were all Huguenots; yet again, as before, the staple of the projected colony was unsound: soldiers, paid out of the royal treasury, hired artisans and tradesmen, joined with a swarm of volunteers from the young Huguenot noblesse, whose restless swords had rusted in their scabbards since the peace. The foundation-stone was left out. There were no tillers of the soil. Such, indeed, were rare among the Huguenots; for the dull peasants who guided the plough clung with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... gentility; blue blood of Castile; ancien regime [Fr.]. high life, haute monde [Fr.]; upper classes, upper ten thousand; the four hundred [U.S.]; elite, aristocracy, great folks; fashionable world &c (fashion) 852. peer, peerage; house of lords, house of peers; lords, lords temporal and spiritual; noblesse; noble, nobleman; lord, lordling^; grandee, magnifico [Lat.], hidalgo; daimio [Jap.], daimyo [Jap.], samurai [Jap.], shizoku [Jap.]; don, donship^; aristocrat, swell, three- tailed bashaw^; gentleman, squire, squireen^, patrician, laureate. gentry, gentlefolk; squirarchy [Slang], better ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... an even more striking kind marked the extinction of the feudal character of the noblesse. Gloomy walls and serried battlements disappeared from the dwellings of the gentry. The strength of the mediaeval fortress gave way to the pomp and grace of the Elizabethan Hall. Knole, Longleat, Burleigh and Hatfield, Hardwick and Audley End, are familiar instances of a social ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... invention," offered in their insipid artificialities nothing but "rhetoric, bombast, fleurs de college, and Latin-verse poetry," clothed "borrowed ideas in trumpery imagery," and presented themselves with a "conventional elegance and noblesse than which there was nothing more common." On the other hand, the works of the master-minds of England, Germany, Spain, and Italy, which were more and more translated and read, opened new, undreamt-of vistas. The ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... little chest was discovered, untouched by chance or time, the document entitling my beautiful and high-hearted wife to one of the finest possessions in France. By a singular instance of good fortune, the property had not been alienated, like so many of the estates of the noblesse; and it now lay open to the claims of the original proprietorship. I hastened to Paris. My claim was acknowledged by the returned Bourbon, and Clotilde had the delight of once more sitting under ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... aristocrats of the Long Island sets—a dozen sets for one small island—the Berkshire set, the Back Bay set, the Rhode Island reds, the Plymouth Rock fowl, the old Connecticut connections, the Bar Harbor oligarchy, the Tuxedonians, the Morristown and Germantown noblesse, the pride of Philadelphia, the Baltimorioles, the diplomatic cliques of Washington, the Virginia patricians, the Piedmont Hunt set, the North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and all the other State sets, the Cleveland coteries, the Chicagocracy, the St. Louis ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... was almost deserted in those days. But when the fortifications were pulled down, and the market gardens beyond the line of the boulevards began to fill with houses, then the d'Uzes family left their fine mansion, and in our time it was occupied by a banker. Later still, the noblesse began to find themselves out of their element among shopkeepers, left the Place Royale and the centre of Paris for good, and crossed the river to breathe freely in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where palaces ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... not greasy, they will govern you, when their time comes," said Augustine; "and they will be just such rulers as you make them. The French noblesse chose to have the people 'sans culottes,' and they had 'sans culotte' governors to their hearts' content. The ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... be the lion, I the humble necessary jackal. As our friend so aptly quoted, noblesse oblige. Of course, there can be no doubt about it. You, Baron, must play the part of peer, ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... step in favour of the Bourbons, for that was the thing most difficult to be done. But Bonaparte undertook the task; and, as if by the aid of a magic rod, the ancient order of things was restored in the twinkling of an eye. The distinctions of rank—orders—titles, the noblesse—decorations—all the baubles of vanity—in short, all the burlesque tattooing which the vulgar regard as an indispensable attribute of royalty, reappeared in an instant. The question no longer regarded the form of government, but the individual who should be placed at its head. By restoring ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Alban bluntly. "Intricate sometimes are the obligations imposed on us as gentlemen; 'noblesse oblige' is a motto which involves puzzles for a casuist; but our duties as men are plain—the idea very properly ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... recognize in you a different calibre from that of these rich young idlers in Howard's class. I am going to take you into my confidence, for you understand the need for secrecy, and will surely help in every way—noblesse oblige. This man Cronin, the detective, was ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... Away with thee? No; get thee far away From me, foul Marian, fair though thou be nam'd; For thy bewitching eyes have raised storms, That have my name and noblesse ever sham'd; Prince John, my dear friend once, is now for thee Become an ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... to his table where a book lay open. "Do you see that red book? It's the Annuaire de la Noblesse Francaise. You'll find his name ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... ambition to revive the comedy of character, and by its means to read moral lessons on the stage; unfortunately what he lacked was comic power. In his most celebrated piece, Le Glorieux, he returns to the theme treated by Dancourt of the struggle between the ruined noblesse and the aspiring middle class. Pathos and something of ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... appear in the morning under arms, in order to be reviewed, and to know in what manner the numbers stood from his haveing entered England. It did not at that time amount to 5000 foot in all, with about 400 cavalrie, composed of the noblesse who serv'd as volunteers, part of whom form'd a first troop of guards for the Prince, under the command of My Lord Elchoe, now Comte de Weems, who, being proscribed, is presently in France. Another part formed a second troup of guards under the command of My Lord Balmirino, who was ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... all the Blue Band agreed that he was a finished type of gentleman-hood. Even Raoul's sisters had to confess, with a certain disgust, that, whatever people may say, in our own day the aristocracy of wealth has to lower its flag before the authentic quarterings of the old noblesse. They secretly envied Giselle because she was going to be a grande dame, while all the while they asserted that old-fashioned distinctions had no longer any meaning. Nevertheless, they looked forward to the day when they, too, might take their places ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... arose. Her policy was but infatuation; her system but the perpetual abandonment of herself to every partisan who promised her the king's safety. The Comte D'Artois, a youthful prince, chivalrous in etiquette, had much influence with her. He relied greatly on the noblesse; made frequent references to his sword. He laughed at the crises: he disdained this war of words, caballed against ministers, and treated passing events with levity. The queen, intoxicated with the adulation ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... calmly, "why M. le Comte de Cambray was opposed to our union, was purely a financial one. Our families are of equal distinction and antiquity, but alas! our fortunes are also of equal precariousness: we, Sir, of the old noblesse gave up our all, in order to follow our King into exile. Victor de Marmont was rich. His fortune could have repurchased the ancient Cambray estates and restored to that honoured name all the brilliance which it had ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... were occupied by grands seigneurs, handsome equipages rolled through the streets, and its society prided itself on its exclusiveness and grand manner. It used to be said that to rouler carrosse at Valognes was a titre de noblesse, and the inhabitants considered their town a "petit Paris." In one of the plays of the time, a marquis, very fashionable and a well-known courtier, was made to say: "Il faut trois mois de Valognes pour achever un homme de ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... come quickly, saw her full bosom heave, felt the warm pressure of her hand. He wanted to put his arm around her but he did not follow the impulse. The code of Holiday "noblesse oblige" was operating. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... the proudest heroic, and purest legislative, days of Greece, the symbol had borne for all men skilled in her traditions: to the schools of craftsmen the sign meant further their craft's noblesse, and pure descent from the divinely-terrestrial skill of Daedalus, the labyrinth-builder, and the first sculptor of imagery pathetic[48] with ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... It could not attract me even with you. It is really vulgar—that arrangement. Noblesse oblige, mon ami. There is a depravity in marrying you that makes all ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... who had been so generous and self-forgetful had a right to all that a true man could ask, and that it would be base in her to refuse. The greater the sacrifice the more gladly she would make it, in order that she too might prove that a Southern girl could not be surpassed in noblesse oblige by a Northern man. She was in one of those supreme moods in which men and women are swayed by one dominant impulse, and all other considerations become insignificant. The fact that those she loved were looking on was no restraint upon her feeling, and the sympathizing presence ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the Prince Bishop of Laon and Nouvion, villages and territories a few miles south of that city. See History of New York during the Revolutionary War, by Thomas Jones, edited by Edward Floyd De Lancey, vol i., p. 651, and Dictionnaire de la Noblesse de France, vol. ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... it becomes a case of NOBLESSE OBLIGE," he declared. "If it is worth doing at all it is worth doing well. To-day the Sultan will command that the 'Rise and Fall' be translated into Arabic, and that it be placed in the national library. Moreover, the University ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... Revolution, the term was only applied to Supreme Courts, without administrative powers. M. Ducros was Assistant Judge of the Nyons Tribunal, and the Ducros were rather fond of insisting that they belonged to the old noblesse de robe. ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... looking forward to her fourteenth anniversary, and she, too, was a very pretty pianist, and altogether a young prodigy of learning and goodness, as the nuns told the master of Cotenoir. The demoiselles of Cotenoir stood high in the estimation of pupils and mistress; they were a kind of noblesse; and the simple-minded superioress spoke of these young persons with some pride when she described her establishment to a stranger. It was a very comfortable little colony, a small world enclosed by high walls. The good mothers who taught and cherished the children were for the greater part ladies ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... working at the height of their energy. His characters are stern, rugged, determined men and women, governed by powerful prejudices and iron conventions, types of a military people, in whom the sense of duty has been cultivated until it dominates all other motives, and in whom the principle of 'noblesse oblige' is, so far as the aristocratic class is concerned, the fundamental rule of conduct. What such people may be capable of is startlingly shown."—New ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... 1646, and from that time forward social life at Quebec steadily progressed. The Marquis de Tracy with his suite of nobles and the regiment of Carignan-Salieres brought unwonted lustre to the remote court; and when a native order of noblesse was founded a few years later, the Chateau on the St. Lawrence reflected the elegance ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... Court was in the market; and as it really was one of the most celebrated places of its kind in England, the whisper spread among bankers and brewers and soap-boilers and other rich people—the Medici of the New Noblesse rising up amongst us—till at last it reached the ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... you, and I ask your pardon'—he bowed gravely. 'Miss Lingard,' he went on, 'is an absolutely trustful heart. She has not learned the hard lessons of life. As for you and me, noblesse oblige'—he watched me narrowly. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... be, European; for we shall be little better than apes and parrots till we are forced to measure our muscle with the trained and practised champions of that elder civilization. We have at length established our claim to the noblesse of the sword, the first step still of every nation that would make its entry into the best society of history. To maintain ourselves there, we must achieve an equality in the more exclusive circle of culture, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... de Barberie was scarcely necessary to betray her mixed descent. From her Norman father, a Huguenot of the petite noblesse, she had inherited her raven hair, the large, brilliant coal-black eyes, in which wildness was singularly relieved by sweetness, a classical and faultless profile, and a form which was both taller and more ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... with the leste of hir stature, But alle hir limes so wel answeringe Weren to womanhode, that creature Was neuer lasse mannish in seminge. And eek the pure wyse of here meninge 285 Shewede wel, that men might in hir gesse Honour, estat, and wommanly noblesse. ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... over the third story. Below him was a Russian Prince and a German Grand Duke, and above and all around was a crowd of travelers of all nations. He brought no letters. He desired no acquaintances. Florence, under the new regime, was too much agitated by recent changes for its noblesse to pay any attention to a stranger, however distinguished, unless he was forced upon them; and so Lord Chetwynde had the most complete isolation. If Hilda had ever had any ideas of going with Lord Chetwynde into Florentine society she was soon undeceived, when, as the days passed, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... we have Bibles in our hands,—what could a corrupted Christianity do with it when material pleasures were more prized than they are with us, and when philanthropic institutions were unborn? If the whole power of the Gallican Church was exerted to prop up the feudal privileges of the French noblesse, and there was needed a dreadful and bloody revolution to destroy them, much more was a revolution needed at Rome to destroy the inherited powers of a still prouder and more powerful aristocracy. If the rights of women are so slowly recognized among ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... much glory for the Roman name. In the words of one who has interpreted the sentiment of those times with rare felicity, Rome could bear the pride of him of whom herself was proud. The old French noblesse, again, were not devoid of redeeming qualities. Their galling yoke would not have been borne from reign to reign, and through century after century, even by such seeming reconcilables as constituted the ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... passed by small majorities, and the majorities would have been transformed into minorities, if in the early days of the Revolution these unworthy men had only stood firm at their posts. Selfish oligarchies have scarcely ever been wanting in courage. The emigrant noblesse of France are almost the only instance of a great privileged and territorial caste that had as little bravery as they had patriotism. The explanation is that they had been an oligarchy, not of power or duty, but of self-indulgence. They were crushed ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... said that you were to be poor, but he is very rich. And I am beginning to understand that these titles of yours are something like kings' crowns. The man who has to wear them can't do just as he pleases with them. Noblesse oblige. I can see the meaning of that, even when the obligation itself is trumpery in its nature. If it is a man's duty to marry a Talbot because he's a Howard, I suppose he ought to do his duty." After a pause she went on again. "I do believe that I have ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... they lodged was in the lordly quartier of the Faubourg St. Germain; the neighbouring streets were venerable with the ancient edifices of a fallen noblesse; but their tenement was in a narrow, dingy lane, and the building itself seemed beggarly and ruinous. The apartment was in an attic on the sixth story, and the window, placed at the back of the lane, looked upon ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... married for love," she said slowly. "She belonged to the old noblesse, and her family wished her to make a great marriage. But she loved an artist and married him in spite of all opposition. For six months she was the happiest girl in France—then she found out that her husband was unfaithful. Does it ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... de Juluapa, lately dead, is said to have been also a woman of great talent and extraordinary conversational powers; she is another of the ancient noblesse who has dropped off. The physician who attended her in her last illness, a Frenchman of the name of Plan, in great repute here, has sent in a bill to her executors of ten thousand dollars, which, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... asks me what I think of French society? All I have seen of it I like extremely, but we hear from all sides that we see only the best of Paris,—the men of literature and the ancienne noblesse. Les nouveaux riches are quite a different set. My father has seen something of them at Madame Tallien's (now Cabarus), and was disgusted. Madame Recamier is of quite an opposite sort, though in the first fashion, a graceful and decent beauty of excellent character. ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... poems Aeclogues, from a Greek word meaning Goatherds' Tales, "Though indeed few goatherds have to do herein." He dedicated them to Sir Philip Sidney as "the president of noblesse and of chivalrie." ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... tresnoble, victori, et excellentissime roy Perceforest, Roy de la Grand Bretaigne, fundateur du Francpalais et du temple du souverain Dieu. En laquelle lecture pourra veoir la source et decoration de toute Chevalerie, culture de vraye Noblesse, Prouesses, &c. Avecques plusieurs propheties, Comptes Damans, et leur divers fortunes. Lettres Gothiques, 6 tom. en 3 fol., Paris, chez Galliot du Pre, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... and she cry. She runs and makes a little bundle in the house and comes out ready to walk to Cheboygan. There is nobody can prevent her. Some island people are descend from noblesse of France. But none of them have travel like Mamselle Rosalin with the officer's wife to Indiana, to Chicago, to Detroit. She is like me, French.* The girls use to turn their heads to see me walk in ...
— The Skeleton On Round Island - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... on an excursion into Normandy that they had met Mademoiselle de Maligny, the daughter of an impoverished gentleman of the chetive noblesse of that province. Both had loved her. She had preferred—as women will—the outward handsomeness of Viscount Rotherby to the sounder heart and brain that were Dick Everard's. As bold and dominant as any ruffler of them all where men and perils ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... contribuera a vous faire voir l'isle et ses habitans avec satisfaction. Si vous ne trouvez pas M. Buttafoco, et que vous vouliez aller tout droit a M. Pascal de Paoli general de la nation, vous pouvez egalement lui montrer cette lettre, et je suis sur, connoissant la noblesse de son caractere, que vous serez tres-content de son accueil: vous pourrez lui dire meme que vous etes aime de Mylord Mareschal d'Ecosse, et que Mylord Mareschal est un des plus zeles partizans de la nation Corse. Au reste ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... "Cork-heeled Shoon," too, cannot be early, but ballads are subject, in oral tradition, to such modern interpolations. The verse about the ladies waiting vainly is anticipated in a popular song of the fourteenth century, on a defeat of the noblesse in Flanders— ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... distinct kinds of English Walnuts—hard-shell, soft-shell and paper-shell, the soft-shell being the best. Each of these three is divided into a number of varieties, the names of some of the more popular ones being the Barthere, Chaberte, Cluster, Drew, Ford, Franquette, Gant or Bijou, Grand Noblesse, Lanfray, Mammoth, Mayette, Wiltz Mayette, Mesange, Meylan, Mission, Parisienne, Poorman, Proeparturiens, Santa Barbara, Pomeroy, Serotina, Sexton, Vourey, Concord, Chase ...
— English Walnuts - What You Need to Know about Planting, Cultivating and - Harvesting This Most Delicious of Nuts • Various
... a glance, from words of modern canaille; remembers all their ancestry, their inter-marriages, distant relationships, and the extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held, among the national noblesse of words at any time, and in any country. But an uneducated person may know, by memory, many languages, and talk them all, and yet truly know not a word of any,—not a word even of his own. An ordinarily clever and sensible seaman will be able to make his way ashore at ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... me speak of my cousine de Maisonrouge, that grande belle femme, who, after having married, en secondes noces—there had been, to tell the truth, some irregularity about her first union—a venerable relic of the old noblesse of Poitou, was left, by the death of her husband, complicated by the indulgence of expensive tastes on an income of 17,000 francs, on the pavement of Paris, with two little demons of daughters to bring ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James
... and plain—could only redeem their physical defects by their genius. Tullia, still in the height of her glory, retired before younger and cleverer dancers; she did wisely. She was an aristocrat; she had scarcely stooped below the noblesse in her liaisons; she declined to dip her ankles in the troubled waters of July. Insolent and beautiful as she was, Claudine possessed handsome souvenirs, but very little ready money; still, her jewels were magnificent, ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... he had ranked a double first. Best of all, it filled him with warm gratitude to remember that none of his fellows had grudged him any of his good things. What a decent lot they were! It humbled him to think of their pride in him. He would not disappoint them. Noblesse oblige. ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... English were fewer and choicer then, than at present, when the whole nation has broke loose, and inundated the continent. At any rate, they circulated more readily and currently in foreign society, and my uncle, during his residence in Paris, made many very intimate acquaintances among the French noblesse. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Lord Harrington and Lady Harriet are arrived; but have announced and persisted in a strict invisibility. I know nothing of my ch'ere patrie, but what I learn from the London Chronicle; and that tells me, that the trading towns are suing out lettres de noblesse, that is, entreating the King to put an end to commerce, that they may all be gentlemen. Here agriculture, economy, reformation, philosophy, are the bon-ton even at court. The two nations seem to have crossed over and figured in; but ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... even the ancien regime of the noblesse of France put it in their pockets as if there were a general chaos—self is the only feeling; not but that I have seen occasional traits of good-will towards others. I once witnessed a young lady smelling to a bottle of Eau de Cologne, as if her existence depended upon it, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat) |
