"Genteelly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... every white Undine that rises along the beaches of a moonlight night, to whom it calls in that mournful and magic undertone heard only by those who love and listen. These do not often run away to go to sea; they prefer to voyage genteelly in yachts or packet-ships, and, if the impulse be very strong, will get a commission in the navy. However, if circumstances compel a Tapleyan "coming out strong," they will sometimes face their work, and that right nobly; for there is nowhere that gentle blood so tells as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... a young woman, a milliner, who, I think, had a shop in the Cloisters. She had been genteelly bred, was sensible and lively, and of most pleasing conversation. Ralph read plays to her in the evenings, they grew intimate, she took another lodging, and he followed her. They liv'd together some time; but, he being still out of business, and her income not sufficient to maintain ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... school was not its most commendable side; and in the following year an enterprising lady-educationist announced that she was opening in Black Town a 'Female Boarding School,' in which her young ladies would be 'genteelly boarded, tenderly treated, carefully Educated, and the most strict attention paid to their Morals,' and the school was to be conducted as far as possible 'in the manner most approv'd of in England.' The enterprising lady-educationist was a Mrs. Murray, ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... sons, one a year older, and the other some months younger that I was. The eldest was deformed, and his brother squinted abominably. Curiosity had brought them and the whole family into the parlour, to be spectators of the interview. My grandfather entered; I was dressed as genteelly as every effort of the village taylor could contrive; an appearance so different from that of the beaten, bruised, and wounded poor elf he first had seen, with clouted shoes, torn stockings, and coarse coating, dripping with water, and clotted ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... he come? He's seen the tower often enough: it's no attraction to him. [Genteelly] An what do you think of Ireland, Mr Broadbent? Have you ever been ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... a little billet, genteelly folded, with a pretty seal in green wax on which was impressed a dove bearing ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fly into one cover, and here they sing all our poets' ditties. They can sing anything, most tunably, sir, but psalms. What they may do hereafter, under a triple tree, is much expected; but they live very civilly and genteelly among us. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... house to escape the bitter wind, and here I lost the precentor, who, as an Auld Licht elder, joined the chief mourners inside. The post of distinction at a funeral is near the coffin; but it is not given to every one to be a relative of the deceased, and there is always much competition and genteelly concealed disappointment over the few open vacancies. The window of the room was decently veiled, but the mourners outside knew what was happening within, and that it was not all prayer, neither mourning. A few ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... till his indignation became a painful burden to himself and his readers. Speaking bluntly, indeed, we admit that lying is a vice, and that Pope was in a small way one of the most consummate liars that ever lived. He speaks himself of 'equivocating pretty genteelly' in regard to one of his peccadilloes. Pope's equivocation is to the equivocation of ordinary men what a tropical fern is to the stunted representatives of the same species in England. It grows until the fowls of the air can ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... schools were admitted at a penny a head in the interests of education. They marched along the road two and two, she beside her class with her simple cotton sunshade, her little thumb cocked up against its stem; and Phillotson behind in his long dangling coat, handling his walking-stick genteelly, in the musing mood which had come over him since her arrival. The afternoon was one of sun and dust, and when they entered the exhibition room few people were present but themselves. The model of the ancient city stood in the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... having any thing to say in the matter,—by a mother who is a superfine Mrs. Falcon:—and wretched mischief comes of it. Brainard, the fortune hunter, is a heartless and cynical illustration that a Broadway hunter can be as unblushingly mercenary, and as genteelly dishonorable as the veriest old Bond Street hack, bred up in the traditions of the Regency, who ever began life on nothing and a showy person—continued it on nothing and the reputation of fashion—and ended no one cares how or where. There are character, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... who died about the year '22, a lieutenant in the navy, in a provincial town in which the writer was brought up. The ringleaders in the mutiny were two scoundrels, Christian and Young, who had great influence with the crew, because they were genteelly connected. Bligh, after leaving the Bounty, had considerable difficulty in managing the men who had shared his fate, because they considered themselves 'as good men as he,' notwithstanding that to his conduct and seamanship they had alone to look, under heaven, for salvation ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... scarcely filled glasses, when a rap sounded at the hall door: a servant hastened to announce a carriage; and in another minute was ushered into the room the graceful figure of a young lady whose sweet and joyous countenance bespoke the absence of care. She was followed by a genteelly-dressed young man of straight person ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... himself was now dead, and the Earl of Perth had passed the zenith of his power. No doubt in the seventeenth century the protection of poor relations was carried on more systematically than it is to-day, and certainly Mrs. Trotter contrived to live and to bring up her two daughters genteelly. The first years were the worst; the accession of William III. brought back to England and to favour Gilbert Burnet, who became Bishop of Salisbury in 1688, when Catharine was nine years old. Mrs. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... wounded in the late dire struggle, which had caused those appearances. But to my subject. 'Twas at the close of a very hot July day that the diligence drew up to the door of the before-mentioned auberge. "A diner," as the postilion (nearly smothered in his tremendous "bottes fortes," genteelly taking from his head a hat almost as small as the boots were in comparison large) was politely pleased to term it. No pressing invitation was requisite to incline our English travellers to take their seats around ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... your dress straight, Polenka, it's slipped down on your shoulders," she observed, panting from coughing. "Now it's particularly necessary to behave nicely and genteelly, that all may see that you are well-born children. I said at the time that the bodice should be cut longer, and made of two widths. It was your fault, Sonia, with your advice to make it shorter, and now you see the child is quite deformed ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... favorable. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar appendages. I determined to ask Joe why he had ever taught me to call those picture-cards Jacks, which ought to be called knaves. I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... he. "I arrive in Berlin a perfect stranger. Without work and without friends, I find living at an hotel too expensive: Bon!—I look about me for some quiet little chambre garni, and finding one to my liking, up a great many stairs, genteelly furnished, and not too dear, I move myself and my little baggage into it without further inquiry. Bon! Imagine me on the first night of residence, snugly coiled up between my two feather beds in true German fashion, dreaming of la belle France, and of the grapes at Argenteuil, when rap, rap, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... and flatly contradict, I never yet saw any one who did not take it patiently excepting Dr. Burney, from whose habitual softness of manners I little expected such an exertion of spirit; the event was as little to be expected. Mr. Johnson asked his pardon generously and genteelly, and when he left the room, rose up to shake hands with him, that they might part in peace. On another occasion, when he had violently provoked Mr. Pepys, in a different but perhaps not a less offensive manner, till something much too like a quarrel was grown up between them, the ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... inseparable.' BOSWELL. 'By no means, Sir. The genteelest characters are often the most immoral. Does not Lord Chesterfield give precepts for uniting wickedness and the graces? A man, indeed, is not genteel when he gets drunk; but most vices may be committed very genteelly: a man may debauch his friend's wife genteely: he may cheat at cards genteelly.' HICKY. 'I do not think that is genteel.' BOSWELL. 'Sir, it may not be like a gentleman, but it may be genteel.' JOHNSON. 'You are meaning two different things. One means ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... without ceremony, we spent anything but an agreeable night. At three A.M. we reached the "Hingus Nuddee," or river; and changing our solitary horse for two fat bullocks, we crossed its sandy bed, and over a bridge of boats — not so genteelly, perhaps, but much more securely, than we could have otherwise done. There were the remains here of a handsome suspension bridge; but the chains had been cut by the rebel Sepoys, and nothing ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... John Clayford inform the company, that Mary Gibbons was thoroughly in their interest, and that the whole would be safe. I learnt from enquiry that Mary Gibbons was a girl from New Jersey, of whom General Washington was very fond, that he maintained her genteelly at a house near Mr. Skinner's,—at the North River; that he came there very often late at night in disguise; he learnt also that this woman was very intimate with Clayford, and made him presents, and told him of ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... with. He is not often so ingenuous, even in appearance, as the man who drove close to the sidewalk and entreated our custom by warbling, sweetly: "We must have work or we can't have bread." He is only to be dreaded, however, if one be genteelly ignorant, after Mrs. Booby's plan. I cannot say that I ever had any difficulty in finding any place I wanted, either with the aid (or hindrance) of an izvostchik, or on foot, in Moscow or other Russian towns. But for this and other similar reasons I acquired a nickname ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... and his wife, in conjunction with Coleman and his wife, being all dressed genteelly, passed for gipseys of extraordinary knowledge and reputation: many a poor credulous unsuspecting person became their prey, and many a good booty they got in almost every town of the counties of Cornwall and Devon. Once in particular, himself and Coleman, with both their ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... Devout persons refused to taste food, before throwing part of it behind them for the dogs or devils to eat; for they imagined that every dog was possessed with evil spirits, if the animal was not Satan himself. It sometimes happened that a man left his house, swept clean and genteelly furnished, for the devil to take possession of ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... faithfully over the old gentleman's bed. Lady Mirabel wrote much better than Miss Fotheringay had been able to do. Her ladyship had labored assiduously to acquire the art of penmanship since her marriage; and, in a common note of invitation or acceptance, acquitted herself very genteelly. Bows loved the old handwriting best, though; the fair artist's earlier manner. He had but one specimen of the new style, a note in reply to a song composed and dedicated to Lady Mirabel, by her most humble servant Robert Bows; and which document was treasured in his desk among his other state ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rode to the stream. Having nothing to do, and Marables as well as Fleming appearing to avoid me, I brought the Dominie's Latin Testament, and amused myself with reading it. About a quarter of an hour before dusk, Fleming made his appearance to go on shore. He was genteelly, I may say fashionably, dressed in a suit of black, with a white neckcloth. At first I did not recognise him, so surprised was I at his alteration; and my thoughts, as soon as my surprise was over, naturally turned upon the singularity of ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... come to stay, was sitting up, as if he never under any circumstances passed his time in another way. His rough, pumpkin-coloured front feet hung genteelly limp, and his tail slowly described a half circle on the highly ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... or some of those isms. To tell you the truth, I hate all those Constantinopolitan jargons, that set people together by the ears about pedantic terms. When you apply scholastic phrases as happily and genteelly as you do in your Bas Bleu, they are delightful; but don't muddify your charming simplicity with controversial distinctions, that will sour your sweet piety. Sects are the bane of charity, and have deluged the world ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... it's from some young woman or other, I dare say." "Thank you," said I, "but I can read." "All the better for you," said the old woman; "your being able to read will frequently save you a penny, for that's the charge I generally make for reading letters; though, as you behaved so genteelly to me, I should have charged you nothing. Well, if you can read, why don't you open the letter, instead of keeping it hanging between your finger and thumb?" "I am in no hurry to open it," said I, with a sigh. The old woman looked ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... and beating up quarters was the news of every day. Now it is frequent to have armies of fifty thousand men of a side stand at bay within view of one another, and spend a whole campaign in dodging (or, as it is genteelly called, observing) one another, and then march off into winter quarters. The difference is in the maxims of war, which now differ as much from what they were formerly as long perukes do from piqued beards, or as the habits of the people do now from ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... thus, so little lack I, So easy am I, I'll never heed him Who anything seeketh beyond the Leaf: For, what with mumbling pipe-ends freely, And snuffing the ashes now and then, I give it as my firm belief One might go living on genteelly To the age of ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... to the house appointed for me, which was that of a plain tradesman, who, on the score of interest, was entirely at Mr. H...'s devotion, and who let him the first floor, very genteelly furnished, for two guineas a week, of which I was instated mistress, with a maid ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... between Dick and his companion, one of the boys, a rather supercilious-looking young gentleman, genteelly dressed, and evidently having a very high opinion of his dress and himself turned suddenly to Dick, ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... the envy and admiration which a handsome woman behind a fast cob is bound to excite, her shamed fancy pictured the day when Prince should belong to another and she should walk perforce on the pavement in attire genteelly preserved from past affluence. Only women know the keenest pang of these secret misgivings, at once ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... an expense, but as a help and a comfort,' says Miss Spence. 'Girls did not look for establishments; parents did not press for settlements . . . There was only one carriage in the colony for many years, which though belonging to a private person, was hired for such as wanted to do the thing genteelly . . . .' Social position depended on ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... her infinite astonishment, she perceived, employed in washing some china, a very lovely young woman, [genteelly] dressed, and appearing hardly seventeen years ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... of the Acropolis, a fashionable promenade of Athens. He was regarded as a confirmed bachelor. If, therefore, two or three dark-eyed flute girls in Phaleron had helped him to part with a good many minae, no one scolded too loudly; the thing had been done genteelly and without scandal. Democrates affected to be a collector of fine arms and armour. The ceiling of his living room was hung with white-plumed helmets, on the walls glittered brass greaves, handsomely embossed shields, inlaid Chalcidian scimitars, and bows tipped with gold. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis |
