"Well-bred" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said that the head was dead, For its owner dead was he, It stood on its neck with a smile well-bred, And bowed three times to me. It was none of your ...
— Suite Mentale • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the Mother Superior calmly pronounced her decree, she was taking the measure of this stout foreigner who appeared in behalf of Jacqueline, a woman overdressed, yet at the same time shabby, who had a far from well-bred or aristocratic air. "Out of consideration for Madame de Talbrun," she said, "the convent consents to keep Mademoiselle de Nailles a few days longer—a few weeks perhaps, until she can find some other place to go. That is all we can do ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Meigg's Wharf there was a house of entertainment that no doubt had a history and a mystery even in those young days. We never quite comprehended it: we were too young for that, and too shy and too well-bred to make curious or impertinent inquiry. We sometimes stood at the wide doorway—it was forever invitingly open, —and looked with awe and amazement at paintings richly framed and hung so close together ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... it may be L100. So made myself ready and to church, where Sir W. Pen showed me the young lady which young Dawes, that sits in the new corner-pew in the church, hath stole away from Sir Andrew Rickard, her guardian, worth L1000 per annum present, good land, and some money, and a very well-bred and handsome lady: he, I doubt, but a simple fellow. However, he got this good luck to get her, which methinks I could envy him with all my heart. Home to dinner with my wife, who not being very well did not dress ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... authority in the town, so much so that in all disputes between Moors and Christians they alone are the judges, and their decision is law; they are a very respectable body, being without one exception exceedingly well-bred gentlemanly individuals, and several of them, particularly Mr Hay, the British consul-general, possessed of high literary attainments. They enjoy very large salaries from their respective governments, varying from ten to sixteen thousand dollars ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... handsome man or woman, who was not as vain and shallow as a peacock. I recently met a magnificent woman of middle age at a railroad station. She was surrounded by all those indescribable somethings and nothings which mark the rich and well-bred traveller, and her face was queenly—not sweet and pretty like a doll's face—but handsome and stylish, and strikingly impressive, so that no man could look at her once without turning to look again; yet I had not been in her ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... now, with his eyes so lit up, that as Rodd watched his thin delicate face, he thought how handsome and well-bred ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... investigating the physiognomy, while it commiserated the situation of the person brought thus before him. His air had something foreign in it, from the vivacity that accompanied his politeness ; I should have taken him for a well-bred man of fashion of France. Good breeding, in England, amongst the men, is ordinarily stiff, reserved, or cold. Among the exceptions to this stricture, how high stood Mr. Windham! and how high in gaiety with vivacity stood my ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... persons one really cared for, I am afraid Miss Sydney would soon have been quite forgotten. Her character would puzzle many people. She put no visible hinderance in your way; for I do not think she was consciously reserved and cold. She was thoroughly well-bred, rich, and in her way charitable; that is, she gave liberally to public subscriptions which came under her notice, and to church contributions. But she got on, somehow, without having friends; and, though the loss of one had always been a real grief, she learned ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... is the name of a boarding school which takes in boys aged from eight to perhaps thirteen. Such a school is known in the UK as a Prep School, and it is normal for well-bred boys to attend such a school, as I and my brothers ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... laugh immoderately. Poor Mirabell! His constancy to me has quite destroyed his complaisance for all the world beside. I swear I never enjoined it him to be so coy. If I had the vanity to think he would obey me, I would command him to show more gallantry: 'tis hardly well-bred to be so particular on one hand and so insensible on the other. But I despair to prevail, and so let him follow his own way. Ha, ha, ha! Pardon me, dear creature, I must laugh; ha, ha, ha! Though I grant you 'tis a little barbarous; ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... from her nest, she said, "Now, children, look at me: A well-bred duck should waddle so, From ...
— Dame Duck's Lecture - Dame Duck's First Lecture on Education • Unknown
... saw them go From Kiley's Run. The well-bred cattle marching slow; His stockmen, mates for many a day, They wrung his hand and went away. Too old to make another start, Old Kiley died — of broken ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... had plenty of napkins, as had all well-to-do and well-bred Englishmen at that date. Napkins appear in all the early inventories. In 1668 the opulent Jane Humphreys, of Dorchester, left "two wrought Napkins with no lace around it," "half a duzzen of napkins," and "napkins wrought about and laced." In 1680 Robert ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... ladies and some of Nicholas' Moscow acquaintances, but there were no men who could at all vie with the cavalier of St. George, the hussar remount officer, the good-natured and well-bred Count Rostov. Among the men was an Italian prisoner, an officer of the French army; and Nicholas felt that the presence of that prisoner enhanced his own importance as a Russian hero. The Italian was, as it were, a war trophy. Nicholas felt this, it seemed to him that everyone ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... made me wish for the moment that I had bitten out this impudent tongue of mine, before I so rashly touched some deep old wound.... That man has wept bitter tears ere now, be sure of it.... But he turned the conversation instantly, like a well-bred gentleman as he is, by saying, with the sweetest smile, that though he had made it a solemn rule never to be a party to making up any marriage, yet in our case Heaven had so plainly pointed us out for each other, etc. etc., that he could not refuse himself the pleasure.... and ended by a blessing ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... only an occasion to vent his discontent. And for the chronicler of social life a scene is so much easier to deal with, an outburst of temper and sharp language, of accusation and recrimination, than the well-bred commonplace of an ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... refuse his esteem to the man who has tasted the cup of luxury, and, in the flower of youth and in the height of his career, can dash it from his lips, and say, "I will not drink it; I prefer the charms of a tranquil life to all the noise and well-bred hate of a court? I am too irritable to rule my fellow-citizens, notwithstanding I wish to ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... a rude sailor, smelling of pitch and tar, and Antony will be a well-bred, point-device scholar, who will know how to give a lady his hand," said the ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... delivered himself, he, like a well-bred gentleman, did not further press the delicate subject. After a further conversation on other subjects, I begged that he would excuse me, as I wished to go back to my white friends who were waiting for me round their ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... playing on a strange table with a crooked cue he did very well. The next morning we breakfasted with the Bursar of Trinity and had luncheon with the Viscount St. Cyres to meet Lord and Lady Coleridge. St. Cyres is very shy and well-bred, and we would have had a good time had not the M. P.'s present been filled with awe of the Lord Chief Justice and failed to draw him out. As it was he told some very funny stories; then we went to tea with Hubert Howard, in whose rooms I live and am now writing, ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... fine looking young man with the appearance of being exceptionally well-bred and well-kept. Indeed the most casual of observers would not have hesitated to pronounce him a thoroughbred and a good individual of the best type that ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... the war to build up a practice, and his wife had aided him by her energy and graciousness to make friends. Unlike some Southerners, she was not indolent, and yet she possessed all the ingratiating, spontaneous charm of well-bred women from that section of the country. Her tastes were aesthetic and ethical rather than intellectual, and her special interest at the moment was the welfare of the church. She thought it desirable that all the elements of which the congregation ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... perhaps, owing to a precaution of the natives, who might be apprehensive of exposing themselves to the anger of the strangers, by conferring such a desperate gift upon them. M. de Bougainville, with the politeness of a well-bred man, doubts whether the disease existed at Otaheite previous to his arrival or not; the English seaman asserts his opinion as facts in positive terms. We heard, however, of another disease of a different nature, whilst we stayed upon the island; and which they called ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... become known for some eccentricity that would arouse legitimate curiosity. Your Britisher, the women included, are always interested in a man of travel, a hunter, a desultory globe-trotter; and nothing attracts the English mind so quickly as a well-bred eccentricity in manner or habit. The broad lines of my plan determined upon, I left the precise setting of the stage until the ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... borderland of wit, and even of wisdom; his wandering wits come often upon undiscovered truths. The stupid fool is as consistent and as homogeneous as wood; he is as invincible as the ancestral darkness. Cousin Feenix is a good sketch of the sort of well-bred old ass who is so fundamentally genuine that he is always saying very true things by accident. His whole tone also, though exaggerated like everything in Dickens, is very true to the bewildered ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... chamber. It was on this account that we were deprived of the pleasure of her society, for her accustomed seat was at the head of her father's table. I was pleased with the pupils. They were affable and well-bred. They treated the incumbent with marked respect, and behaved towards their new teacher with the generous kindness and freedom of true young gentlemen. The two eldest boys might be fifteen years of age. The remaining four could not have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... it is all over. Carriage after carriage rolls away—Sir Victor and Lady Helena shake hands with this pretty, well-bred Miss Darrell, and go too. She sees Charley linger to the last moment, by fascinating Mrs. Featherbrain, whispering the usual inanity, in her pretty pink ear. He leads her to her carriage, when it stops the way, ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... do not know why I talk like this, Cleanthis: I had been eating garlic, and, like a well-bred man, just turned my breath ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... housewifely virtues, and her half-French education had given her much that was lacking in the stodgy damsels of Mrs. Rainham's acquaintance. She was quick and courteous and willing; responding, moreover, to the lash of the tongue—after her first wide-eyed stare of utter amazement—exactly as a well-bred colt responds to a deftly-used whip. "I'll keep her," was Mrs. Rainham's inward resolve. "And she'll earn her ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... unlucky drinkers, who whenever they exceed a little, show it immediately in their faces, which look as if they were painted with vermilion or red ochre. In short, the world beheld in Carriazo a virtuous, honourable, well-bred, rogue, of more than common ability. He passed through all the degrees of roguery till he graduated as a master in the tunny fisheries of Zahara, the chief school of the art. O kitchen-walloping rogues, fat and shining ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... sprawl with children on the floor, or stand on their head, or what else soever, in a new and aboriginal way; and that strong will is always in fashion, let who will be unfashionable. All that fashion demands is composure and self-content. A circle of men perfectly well-bred would be a company of sensible persons in which every man's native manners and character appeared. If the fashionist have not this quality, he is nothing. We are such lovers of self-reliance that we excuse in a man many sins if he will show us a complete satisfaction in his position, ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... as was endurable, as shy as a child, and altogether endowed with a full appreciation, to say the least, of his own charms and merits: but he was sincere, and loyal, and tender; well cultivated, yet not priggish or pedantic; brave, well-bred, and high-principled; handsome besides. I knew him thoroughly; I had held him on my lap, fed him with sugar-plums, soothed his child-sorrows, and scolded his naughtiness, many a time; I had stood with him by his mother's dying bed and consoled him by my own tears, for his mother I loved dearly; so, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... vulgar uneducated fellow that beats me. The Melanesians, laugh as you may at it, are naturally gentlemanly and courteous and well-bred. I never saw a "gent" in Melanesia, though not a few downright savages. I ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of silence, in which I seemed to live a year. I was conscious of everything, the well-bred surprise of the young nobleman, the half-amused vexation of the priest, my own clumsy, boyish rage and confusion. In reality it was only a few seconds before I felt my friend's hand on my shoulder, ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... ill illustrated by the image of a gaming table. There, every man is intent only on his own profit; the good success of one is the ill success of another, and therefore the general state of mind of the parties engaged may be pretty well conjectured. All this, however, does not prevent, in well-bred societies, an exterior of perfect gentleness and good humour. But let the same employment be carried on among the lower orders, who are not so well schooled in the art of disguising their feelings; or in places ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... her, in spite of her own heart; all her relations' follies acting in concert, though unknown to themselves, with thy wicked, scheming head: considering how destitute of protection she is: considering the house she is to be in, where she will be surrounded with thy implements; specious, well-bred and genteel creatures, not easily to be detected when they are disposed to preserve appearances, especially by the young inexperienced lady wholly unacquainted with the town: considering all these things, I say, what glory, what cause of triumph wilt thou have, if she should be overcome?—Thou, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... ring, ring, ring!" Surprised at the sight of a gentleman, and a young gentleman, she repented having been so loud in her anger. However, upon the second reconnoitring glance at Mr. Mountague, she felt much in doubt how to behave towards him. Mademoiselle boasted often of the well-bred instinct, by which she could immediately distinguish "un homme comme il faut" from any other; yet sometimes, like Falstaff's, her instinct was fallacious. Recollecting that Lady S—— had sent for an apothecary, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... the young girl's voice made the little diva more good-humouredly insistent than before, and Goneril was too well-bred to make a fuss. She stood by the piano wondering which to choose, the Handels that she always drawled or the Pinsuti that she always galloped. Suddenly ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... love with a beautiful, sweet, well-bred young girl, who is fairly rich and sings very well, whose parents are very honest people, and because I flatter myself I am loved by her, and very ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... touch of surprise at these words, though he was too well-bred a policeman to express his feelings by word or look. In fact, although not pre-eminently noted for piety, he had been led by training, and afterwards by personal experience, to view this matter from a very ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... thinking it apparently a good occasion to let me know once for all since I was beginning, it would seem, to be quite "thick" with my host—that there was no fitness in my appealing to her for sympathy in such a case; before we separated, I say, she remarked to me with her quick fine well-bred inveterate curtness: "I daresay you attribute to me ideas I haven't got. I don't take that sort of interest in my husband's proof-sheets. I consider ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... end of the room I noticed, for the first time, a pair of heavy oaken folding-doors communicating with the adjoining apartment, and as I sat there I fancied I heard a woman's shrill but refined voice—the voice of a well-bred young woman, followed by a peal of light, almost hysterical, laughter, in which ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... 1909, look round and survey her happiness: could any one have a more satisfactory husband? Of course he was a man and had silly mannish prejudices, but then without them he would not be so lovable. Her children—two boys and two girls—could you find greater darlings if you spent a week among the well-bred childern playing round the Round Pond? Such natural children with really original remarks and untrained ideas; not artificial Peter Pans who wistfully didn't want to grow up; not slavish little mimics of the Children's ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... civilization renders insistent. Again, the adequate adjustment of the claims of the individual and the claims of the community, each carried to its farthest point, can but prove an exquisite test of the quality of any well-bred and well-trained race. It is exactly in that balancing of apparent opposites, the necessity of pushing to extremes both opposites, and the consequent need of cultivating that quality of temperance the Greeks estimated so highly, that the supreme ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... catechist!" seeming to shake off an uncomfortable incubus, as he laughed down at her serious face. "They vaunted themselves upon the antiquity of their line, and were more liberal in allusions to departed grandeur than was quite well-bred. When I knew them they were not wealthy, or in what they would have called 'society.' Indeed, the mother kept a private boarding-house near the law-school I attended. There were several sons—very decent, enterprising fellows. But one lived at home, and ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... tall and middle-aged, with a refined face set in a short, pointed beard, received him with exquisite cordiality. How seldom does a man realise the positive idolatry he can inspire by treating a well-bred youth on equal terms, instead of assuming airs of patronage and condescension! The boy accepts such an attitude as natural, perhaps, but he resents it nevertheless, and never gives the man his confidence. The perfect manners ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... not counsel you to molest me, young man. The mistake you have committed in regard to myself may be pardoned in one of your evident inexperience; who, fresh from the boorish society of the country, finds himself, for the first time, amongst well-bred gentlemen. Of all here present you are probably the sole person ignorant that I am Sir Giles Mompesson. But it is scarcely likely that they should be aware, as I chance to be, that the clownish ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... critically as he sat facing me, and the mere fact of his desire to send thanks to the authorities convinced me that he was a well-bred gentleman. He was about forty-five, with a merry round, good-natured face, red with the southern sun, blue eyes, and a short fair beard. His countenance was essentially that of a man devoted to open-air sport, for it was slightly furrowed and weather-beaten as a true yachtsman's should ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... "What do you take me for, Master Twenty-per-cent?" he rudely asked. "That is one of those things no well-bred gentleman will do himself. But in Paris people can be found to do any kind of dirty work, if you are willing to pay them ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... ruling of fashions. Steele, for example, tells us the shocking story of an English gentleman who would persist in wearing a broad belt with a hanger, instead of the light sword then carried by men of rank, although in other respects he was a "perfectly well-bred person." Steele naturally regarded this acquaintance with deep suspicion, which was justified when, twenty-two years afterwards, the innovator married his cook-maid. "Others were amazed at this," writes the essayist, "but I must confess that I was not. I had always known ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... pondering. As she entered the room the stranger rose and bowed. Nothing could have been simpler than the stranger's bow, yet there came with it to Mrs. Pennycherry a rush of old sensations long forgotten. For one brief moment Mrs. Pennycherry saw herself an amiable well-bred lady, widow of a solicitor: a visitor had called to see her. It was but a momentary fancy. The next instant Reality reasserted itself. Mrs. Pennycherry, a lodging-house keeper, existing precariously upon a daily round of petty meannesses, was prepared for contest with ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome
... end of the room; and never had he found greater difficulty in keeping his countenance. His father's looks of solemnity and amazement on this his first appearance on any stage, and the gradual metamorphosis of the impassioned Baron Wildenheim into the well-bred and easy Mr. Yates, making his bow and apology to Sir Thomas Bertram, was such an exhibition, such a piece of true acting, as he would not have lost upon any account. It would be the last—in all probability—the last scene on that stage; but he was sure there could ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Nea waved to him from the balcony; he had looked up at her and smiled, but as he turned away his thoughts were very busy. Yes, Lord Bertie was a fool, he knew that—perhaps he would not own as much to any one else, certainly not if Lord Bertie became his son-in-law—but he was well-bred and had plenty of good nature, and—Well, young men were all alike, they would have their fling, and he was hardly the man to cast a stone at them. Then he was a good-looking fellow, and girls liked him; and if Nea laughed at him, and said that he was stupid, he could soon convince ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... and showed a marked liberality of soul. A courtly eighteenth century divine, though probably nobody would in reality have had less in common with my father, might have described him as "a thoroughly well-bred man in matters of religion." In spite of the fact that he was brought up amongst the Evangelicals and understood them and shared their better side, nothing, I feel sure, disgusted him more than their way of living in ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... spontaneously and let her pass through as if she was an angel? It is asked sometimes, "Would you like to have your wife or daughter go to the polls and vote?" Yes—on my arm; yes. I venture to say that there is not a precinct in the city where well-bred ladies will not only be allowed to vote themselves, but would carry peace in the exercise of the right to others. "Would you have a woman participate in the scenes preliminary to an election?" I will tell you that the moment that women begin to vote there will be no scenes ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... antagonists, "No, gentlemen, fire yourselves." Being the slaves of good-breeding they are not free in their movements. Numerous acts, and those the most important, those of a sudden, vigorous and rude stamp, are opposed to the respect a well-bred man entertains for others, or at least to the respect which he owes to himself. They do not consider these allowable among themselves; they do not dream of their being allowed, and, the higher their position the more their rank fetters them. When the royal family sets out for Varennes ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the Monday, the day of the nomination, and though she did answer it at once, Ontario did not get her reply till the contest was over, and that great day had done its best and its worst for him. But Polly's letter shall be given here. To a well-bred young lady, living in good society, the mixture of politics and love which had filled Ontario's epistle might perhaps have been unacceptable. But Polly thought that the letter was a good letter; and was proud of ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... Deer Mouse, he was always tastefully dressed in fawn color and white. And except sometimes in the spring, when he needed a new coat, he was a real joy to see. For he both looked and acted like a well-bred little person. ...
— The Tale of Dickie Deer Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... rascal? Why could she not fall in love with some decent, clean, patriotic young American, with some man like Thomas Dean? Chauffeur though he was now pretending to be, she knew that he was a college man, well-bred, and traveled. She knew, too, that Dean was in love with her. For him she had a sincere liking, great admiration even, and toward him now she was experiencing that feeling of sympathy a woman always has for the man she cannot love. ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... marry the sort of negro who steals hens, but then you would also not like your daughter to marry a pure English hunchback with a squint, or a drunken cab tout of Norman blood. As a matter of fact, very few well-bred English girls do commit that sort of indiscretion. But you don't think it necessary to generalise against men of your own race because there are drunken cab touts, and why should you generalise against negroes? ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... where discern a verse so neat, So well-bred and so witty— So finished in its least conceit, So mixed of mirth ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... lady, gowned with elaborate simplicity, yet somehow suggesting well-bred untidiness, rolled toward them, propelled in a wheeled-chair by a ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... of deferential fear. These girls are simply living pictures walking about the earth, deriding everything they are incapable of understanding. And who could be charmed with such women? with such 'Grecian Bends,' Grecian noses? The genuine well-bred woman will shine out from beneath the plainest garb; and shoddy vulgarity, even should it be incased in rubies and diamonds, will only be rendered the more obvious and conspicuous to those who at a glance can discover the difference—to those who cannot be deceived, ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... suspected. No one will trust him in a garden, for he would eat till he made himself sick, or tear down the branches of the trees to get at the fruit. Nor can he be allowed to pay any visits, for the manners of a glutton give great offence to all well-bred people. He has a sallow, ugly look, and is always peeping and prying about, like a beast ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... or amongst his father's clerical friends, or in the professional society he now frequented, I cannot tell, but it had been manufactured somewhere—after a large, scrolly kind of pattern, sounding well-bred and dignified. I wonder how many speak with the voices that really belong ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... for many months—it had become a part of his personality, and he felt that he had betrayed himself in delivering it into the hands of strangers who could not understand it. He had the reticence of the well-bred Englishman, and though he told himself reassuringly that his novel in no way reflected his private life, he could not quite overcome the sentiment that it was a little vulgar to allow alien eyes to read the product of his most intimate thoughts. He had really been shocked at the ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... something vulgar, because it is the proof of a lack of generosity. But there is, moreover, a base vengeance, when the man, to satisfy it, employs means exposed to contempt. The base always implies something gross, or reminds one of the mob, while the common can be found in a well-born and well-bred man, who may think and act in a common manner if he has only mediocre faculties. A man acts in a common manner when he is only taken up with his own interest, and it is in this that he is in opposition ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... aunt; moreover, it was a great relief to find the unknown niece well-bred and companionable, and not overburdened with shyness. Already Mrs. Fane-Smith loved her, and felt that the invitation, which she had given really from a strong sense of duty, was likely to give her pleasure instead of discomfort. All the way home, while Erica admired the Greyshot streets, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... thought that you had just to moot the question And say you felt the closing hour had come And we should simply jump at your suggestion And all the Hague with overtures would hum; You'd but to call her up, And Peace would follow like a well-bred pup. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... and steadfastness of the eye—the beautiful, true, untamed expression, which, though so rare, is, when seen infinitely more bewitching than all the bright arrows of coquetry and sparkling invitation that flash from the glances of well-bred society dames, who have taken care to educate their eyes if not their hearts. This girl was evidently not trained properly; had she been so, she would have dropped a curtain over those wide, bright windows of her soul; she would have remembered that she was alone with a strange man at midnight—at ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... child I was cruel by nature, by instinct. I was a handsome, well-bred, gentlemanlike, gentle-looking little brute. My parents adored me, and I was good to them. They were so kind to me that I was almost fond of them. Why not? It seemed to me as politic to be fond of them as of anyone else. I did what I pleased, but I did not always let them know it; ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... were gathered in a room a dozen or so of well-bred persons, talking such small talk as will pass the time and hurt no susceptibilities. It may be that the Englishman in his small talk is unduly dogmatic, but in the main he complies with the usages of the circle and helps ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... soon learn. Now look up, Fan, and let me see those wonderful eyes of yours; yes, they are very pretty. You don't mind my teaching you a little, do you, Fan, so that you will know how to behave when you are with well-bred people?" ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... increase with the familiarity of frequent intercourse. "I have had very great pleasure in making your acquaintance, my dear Diana," he said one day, in the course of a tete-a-tete with his daughter; "and I am charmed to find you everything that a well-born and well-bred young woman ought to be. I am sure you have excellent reason to be grateful to your cousin, Priscilla Paget, for the excellent education you received in her abode; and you have some cause to thank me ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... send her, then, to the famous New York school of Mrs. Destructive? This is recently noticed as follows in the "Household Journal":—"Of this most admirable school, for faithful and well-bred system of education, we have long intended to speak approvingly; but in the following extract from the circular the truth is more expressively given:—'From September to April the time of rising is a quarter before seven o'clock, and from April to July half an hour earlier; then breakfast; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... thought no one could cheat him; yet, on purpose to undeceive him, a soldier drew his pay three several times by as many names. He was of middle stature, and lame of one foot, but not so in disposition and manners, being a good Christian and well-bred gentleman.—Astley, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... made the tea, she whipped the chocklate, she cleaned the canary birds, and gev out the linning for the wash. She was my lady's walking pocket, or rettycule; and fetched and carried her handkercher, or her smell-bottle, like a well-bred spaniel. All night, at her ladyship's swarries, she thumped kidrills (nobody ever thought of asking HER to dance!); when Miss Griffing sung, she played the piano, and was scolded because the singer was out of tune; abommanating dogs, she never drove out without her ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stature, possessed of a compact and well-knit frame, carries his head erect, and moves about with a buoyancy and animation perfectly marvelous in one of his years and experience. His address is that of the well-bred, well-educated French gentleman that he is. His manner is winning, his voice clear and under most excellent control, as all those who have listened to his admirable lectures on the Canal at the late Paris Exposition ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... keenly, but again they were well-bred, expressionless. It was Polly Beale who answered: "Naturally there was not absolute silence, but I am afraid we were not listening. We were rather engrossed in our conversation. We were seated—near no windows—and I for one saw nothing, as well as heard ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... between the well-bred, polite man who knows how to choose and use his words correctly and the underbred, vulgar boor, whose language grates upon the ear and jars the sensitiveness of the finer feelings. The blunders of the latter, ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... Vandeleur gave Cecil. Very good for mediocre people, I dare say; but it wouldn't suit me. There are some people, you know, that won't iron down for the hardest rollers. M'effacer? No! I'd rather any day be an ill-bred originality than a well-bred nonentity." ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... young man," says Sir Hastings, following Hardinge's retreating figure with a delightfully lenient smile. "Good-looking too; but earnest. Have you noticed it? Entirely well-bred, but just a ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... splendid dignity. He had the ease of the man to whom the world is home, and seemed not one whit abashed by the exclusive grandeur of the great chamber. With a watchful eye on the door, he glanced at the rows and rows of volumes: well-bred authors whom time had elevated to a place among literary "old families." Also he examined some old Chinese ivory carvings with a critical, valuating, meditative eye. Also in passing—and this he did absently, as one might do from habit—he ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... door at the end of the room was thrown open and the immaculate Savage, who was acting as a kind of master of the ceremonies, announced in well-bred but penetrating tones, "Lady Longden and the Honourable Miss Holmes." I stared, like everybody else, but for a while her ladyship filled my eye. She was an ample and, to my mind, rather awful-looking person, clad in black satin—she was a widow—and very large diamonds. Her hair was white, ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... not disturb Lily as it might once have done. She had passed beyond the phase of well-bred reciprocity, in which every demonstration must be scrupulously proportioned to the emotion it elicits, and generosity of feeling is the only ostentation condemned. But the sense of loneliness returned with redoubled force as ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... doctrine that a natural curiosity about the universe is the beginning of infidelity. The chief object of her upbringing, which differed in no essential particular from that of every other well-born and well-bred Southern woman of her day, was to paralyze her reasoning faculties so completely that all danger of mental "unsettling" or even movement was eliminated from her future. To solidify the forces of mind into the inherited mould of fixed beliefs was, in the opinion of the age, to achieve the definite ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... brought them up the river; and then they were dumped into the water, and swum ashore. The whole lot cost us about a hundred pounds, freight and other charges included, the cows being four or five pounds apiece, and the bull forty, he being a well-bred ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... you. From Alpha to Omega, calm, assured rest at any page that your choice or accident may light on. No lifting of a rebellious leaf like an upstart servant that does not know his place and can never be taught manners, but tranquil, well-bred repose. A book may be a perfect gentleman in its aspect and demeanor, and this book would be good company for personages like Roger Ascham and his pupils the Lady Elizabeth and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... country would indeed have been turned "the seamy side without." That we were spared, in the severer crises of the war, the last uglinesses of tergiversation, is owing mainly to people of this class, the cheapest subjects for well-bred sneers and intellectual superiority in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... letter which he had received from Ste on his mother's death, and some trifling things which had belonged to Lord H(olland). Lord Ilchester was extremely pleased with this mark of his affection, and indeed the letter was a very kind and well-bred letter as any ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... Englishman—the cast-off son of some noble house, I believe. And he is a cruel, treacherous, brave, and cunning beast! No other words fit him. Add to that a really beautiful body, a brazen gall, and a well-bred and suave carriage, and you have Wild Bob. He ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... a dance to the inhabitants of the town of Donna Maria, which was attended by the Governor, who was a well-bred, gentlemanly old Frenchman, his wife and sister-in-law (whom I had seen dressed as men when we first arrived). The quarter-deck was filled with mustiphenas, mustees, mulattos, Sambos, and delicate, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... a very determined man," he said; "he will carry out any scheme in which he is interested. Had he consulted me about this, I would have been glad to have aided him with money or advice. My son-in-law is an extremely well-read, refined, well-bred man. He does not court publicity. While he was staying in my house he spent nearly all the time in the library translating an Indian book on Buddhism. My daughter has no ambition to be a queen or anything else than what she is—an American ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... steersman's reply might seem, the skipper at once understood its meaning. He turned towards the youth—gravely, but gracefully, for he was an exceedingly well-bred man. ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... guiltless and inevitable reasons; but the fact remains that they are industrially ailing, and must be bolstered and helped into industrial health. The charity visitor, let us assume, is a young college woman, well-bred and open-minded; when she visits the family assigned to her, she is often embarrassed to find herself obliged to lay all the stress of her teaching and advice upon the industrial virtues, and to treat the members ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... her companions, and desired them to eat, and enjoy themselves; and now they were so changed, that each helped her next neighbour before she would touch any for herself; and the moment they were grown thus good natured and friendly, they were as well-bred, and as polite, as ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... about them with well-bred curiosity—-Mrs. Bentley, too—-at the other guests of the evening, who were arriving rapidly. The scene was one of animated life. It would have been hard to say whether the handsome gowns of the young ladies, or the cadet dress uniforms, ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... was a little child. "Be a good girl, my dear," Dr. Howe would say. So she learned her catechism, and was confirmed just before she went to boarding-school, as was the custom with Ashurst young women, and sung in the choir, while Mr. Denner drew wonderful chords from the organ, and she was a very well-bred and modest young woman, taking her belief for granted, and giving no more thought to the problems of theology than girls ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... is the part of the well-bred husband—if so ill-bred as to remain at all to sit impassive and quiescent while the cavalier watches over the wife with tender care, prepares her food, offers what agrees with her, and forbids what harms. ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... family were duly excited over the case. Nothing so dramatic had ever before happened to them. Merritt was also wrought up to a pretty high pitch, for Tony had hired him very generously. The young Italian had shown himself to be a courteous, well-bred gentleman and had commanded respect. The manner of his disappearance, and the possible tragedy lurking behind it, had earned the ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... instructed in the catechism. It was also approved to abolish as far as possible the custom of saying the individual lines of the hymns in public worship (die Lieder zeilenweise vorzusprechen). The address added to the minutes says, in part: "If children are to grow up well-bred and be reared to the honor of God, then the teachers in the churches, the schoolteachers in the school-houses, and the parents in their dwellings must perform their various duties toward the young plants in the vineyard of the Lord." "Generally men care for the bodily welfare ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... languid interest which they devote to a new animal at the Zoological. The greater number are "going on" to another party. But the next morning brings balm for every mortification. Her ball is blazoned in the fashionable journals, and the well-bred reporter, while elaborately complimentary to the exotics, is discreetly silent as to the supercilious stares. She does not exactly awake to find herself famous, but at least she is no longer outside the Pale. At a considerable outlay, she has got ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... their feeling of dislike for him, they were forced to acknowledge that he seemed well-bred, was a young man of apparently good habits and that Oakdale people were rapidly taking him up. Grace privately thought Marian entirely too young to receive the attentions of a man so much older ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... there be one thing more than another that the English working-class might afford to copy with advantage from their Continental neighbours, it is their politeness. The French and Germans, of even the humblest classes, are gracious in manner, complaisant, cordial, and well-bred. The foreign workman lifts his cap and respectfully salutes his fellow-workman in passing. There is no sacrifice of manliness in this, but grace and dignity. Even the lowest poverty of the foreign workpeople is not misery, simply ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... of study of 'well-bred youths' in the early years of Elizabeth's reign we have an interesting account by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, father of the great Bacon, in a Paper by MrJ. Payne Collier in the Archologia, vol. 36, Part 2, p. 339, Article xxxi.[33] "Before he became Lord Keeper, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... brought together in a little mountain village spent a summer vacation, full of good times, but with some unexpected and rather mysterious occurrences. In the end, more than one head was required to find out exactly what was going on. The story is a wholesome one with a pleasant, well-bred atmosphere, and though it holds the interest, it never approaches the sensational nor passes the bounds ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... forces of Irish democracy against his own class. Butt had been a polite parliamentarian, reverencing the courtesy of debate and at heart loving the British Constitution. Parnell felt that his mission lay in breaking rather than interpreting the law. The well-bred House stared and protested when he defied their chosen six hundred. Parnell faced them with their own marble callousness. He outdid them in political cynicism and out-bowed them in frigid courtesy, while maintaining a policy before ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... best of times he disliked Miss Layard. Now he began to detest her, and to long for the presence of Mary, who understood how to deal with that not too well-bred young person. ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... from the other side of the door. "Yasha! It's the last time I'll speak to you, curse you! ... Do you hear?" The heavy door opened wide. The gentleman in the sandy suit entered. In his hands he held Isaac Abramovich's hat; on his face was a well-bred smile. ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... trente et quarante, and Zoe commenced her observations. Instead of the wild excitement she had heard of, there was a subdued air, a forced quiet, especially among the seated players. A stern etiquette presided, and the gamblers shrouded themselves in well-bred stoicism—losing without open distress or ire, winning without open exultation. The old hands, especially, began play with a padlock on the tongue and a mask upon the face. There are masks, however, that do not hide the eye; and Miss ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the Town Hall has, no doubt, a tolerable importance; but is it really possible for a well-bred person to regard this importance seriously? I have been through it; I have undergone like every one else this painful formality, and I can not look back on it without feeling a kind of humiliation. On alighting from the carriage I descried a muddy staircase; walls placarded ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... intelligent face, and spoke volubly in patois, having very little command of French. It was, indeed, necessary for me to converse by the medium of an interpreter. On approaching the village we were overtaken by a slight, handsome youth conducting a muck-wagon. This was her younger son, and his easy, well-bred greeting, and correct French, prepared me for the piece of intelligence to follow. The wearer of peasant's garb, carting manure, had passed his examination of Bachelor of Arts and Science, had, in fact, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... to the Deity, to man, and to yourself." Borrow accepted the correction, and Norwich laughed at him in his new suit. At the end of July he sailed, and as at this time he had no objection to gentility he regretted the end of his passage with so many "genteel, well-bred and intelligent passengers," though he had suffered from ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... you're a civil well-bred Person, you have all the Agreemony of your Sex, la belle Taille, la bonne Mine, & Reparteee bien, and are tout oure toore, as I'm a Gentleman, fort agreeable.—If this do not please your Lady, and nauseate ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... river swept sleekly through the valley below, among the bland green fields which were as far away for all practical purposes as the plains of Paradise. No one who has not ridden a stern chase over rough ground on a well-bred horse with his temper a bit out of hand will be able at all fitly to sympathise with the trials of Mrs. Naylor. The hunt and all that appertained to it had sunk out of sight over a rugged hillside, and she had nothing by which to steer her course save the hoof-marks in ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... of carriage which is the outcome of a head and hands and body that are at unity with each other, and with a mind absolutely unconscious of self. She had not the long nose which so frequently usurps more than its share of the faces of the well-bred, nor had she, alas! the short upper lip which redeems everything. Her features were as insignificant as her coloring. People rarely noticed that Rachel's hair was brown, and that her deep-set eyes were gray. But upon her grave face the word "Helper" was plainly written—and ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... beating and the fright—is what would occur to any one. You have not an ounce of brains, Remedios; to solve a serious question you can think of nothing better than a piece of folly like that. I have thought of a means more worthy of noble-minded and well-bred persons. A beating! What stupidity! Besides, I would not on any account have my nephew receive even so much as a scratch by an order of mine. God will send him his punishment through some one of the wonderful ways which he knows how to choose. All we have ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... countrywomen are also much improved when they have acquired the same degree of taste in the arrangement of their costume for which the Parisian females have so well merited a reputation. Of course in this comparison I am speaking of the most well-bred females of both countries. Although I do not find the French ladies possessing those high intellectual qualities, which are in a great degree engendered and fostered by certain habits and early associations, I do not ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... limited number. Admitting much of this, I still claim that there is a lesson to every struggling farmer in this narrative. It should teach the value of brain work on the farm, and the importance of intelligent cultivation; also the advantages of good seed, good tilth, good specimens of well-bred stock, good food, and good care. Feed the land liberally, and it will return you much. Permit no waste in space, product, time, tools, or strength. Do in a small way, if need be, what I have done on a large scale, and you will quickly commence to get good dividends. ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... such another—a tall, lithe figure, rather bent, and very white-headed for his age, with a wistful eye; but otherwise a most composed, intelligent, courteous gentleman of a laird's degree. Take any old friend aside, and he will tell, with respectful sympathy, that the quiet, sensible, well-bred Laird, has suffered agonies in the course of his life, though too wise and modest a man to hold up his heart for daws to peck at, and you will believe him. Look narrowly at the well-preserved, well-veiled exterior, and you will be able ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... about seventeen years of age, a pretty, well-bred, modest, and sensible youth; greatly dejected with the loss of his mother, and, as it happened had lost his father bit a few months before at Barbados. He begged of the surgeon to speak to me, to take ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... the large sunny room, casting a glance over the handsome old pieces of furniture and the family portraits on the wall. It was evidently the home of generations of well-to-do, well-bred people, the narrow circle of whose life was made rich by congenial duties and a comfortable feeling of their ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... less than partners—so it seemed to him—in a great game, to be played always in good heart and with the spirit of true sportsmanship. Both moved according to law, the only difference between the two being that Men held the power of the Veto—and exercised it too often, he would add in his perfect, well-bred manner, in a way that declared their ignorance. Men, he averred, would always insist on assuming that their laws were right at all times, and, furthermore, were always applicable to dogs, forgetting that, more often even than themselves, dogs ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... this friendly advice, and went to the Rue du Croissant, where the office of "Le Charivari" moulders. As the place is anything but attractive to well-bred persons, allow me to get there by the longest road, and to go through the Faubourg Saint Honore. A month before the conversation above reported took place in front of a cafe-door, I had the pleasure of meeting the Count de ——, an intellectual gentleman who occupies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... school in the basement of her dwelling, the family fortune having dwindled until this home was about the only property left to the Juferouw. In this school my sister Althea and I were taught the three R's and not much else. The ancient Dutch spinster was a lady, well-bred, dignified and courteous, who held a high place in the elect circle or Old Colonie society, and was not the less esteemed because of her straitened circumstances. Her walk and conversation were no doubt edifying, but the curriculum ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... a safe refuge. They had always understood one another, he and his father. But his mother! He was not at all sure. He visualised the scene: the drawing-room at Chester Terrace. His mother's soft, rustling entrance. Her affectionate but well-bred greeting. And then the disconcerting silence with which she would await his explanation of Malvina. The fact that she was a fairy he would probably omit to mention. Faced by his mother's gold-rimmed pince-nez, he did not see himself insisting upon that detail: "A young ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... Schinner one of those side-looks full of shrewdness and cunning, diplomatic looks, whose expression betrays the discreet uneasiness, the polite curiosity of well-bred people, and seems to ask, when they see a stranger, "Is he one ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... woolly, the features are frequently aquiline, and the lips are not unpleasantly thick, as is the case among most African races. But what struck us most was their exceedingly quiet and dignified air. They were as well-bred in their way as the habituees of a fashionable drawing-room, and in this respect they differ from Zulu women and their cousins the Masai who inhabit the district beyond Zanzibar. Their curiosity had brought them ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... horses were fresh and the air was exciting; so we turned from the hard road into the first suitable field, and had a gallop to begin with. Constance was a good horse-woman, for she had been used to the saddle longer than she could remember. She was now riding a tall well-bred pony, with plenty of life—rather too much, I sometimes thought, when I was out with Wynnie; but I never thought so when I was with Constance. Another field or two sufficiently quieted both animals—I did not want to have ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... consists in the driver's dismounting from his box and walking gravely alongside the carriage, holding in his hands the colored silken reins to guide the well-bred horses. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... familiarized them with extremes of joy and anguish in such a sort that, amid the perils of life, they preserved their dignity and coolness, a capacity for sincere but undemonstrative affection which never disturbed their well-bred self-possession, and a dignity of demeanor which a younger generation has done very ill ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac |
