"Gentlefolk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ready and two graves are being dug; whence it was to be inferred that the number of deaths would exceed the supply of coffins and graves. The hieroglyphic of the fire represents several persons, gentlefolk on one side and commonfolk on the other, emptying water vessels on a furious fire into which two children are falling headlong. The occurrence of the plague in 1665 attracted no special notice to Lilly's supposed prediction of that event, though probably many talked of ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... there ain't no such a place for thretty mile round," said Betty, proudly, "But do'ee come in, tho', and sit'ee down a bit," she added, bustling inside her door, and beginning to rub down a chair with her apron; "'tis a smart step for gentlefolk to walk afore church." Betty's notions of the walking powers of ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... of her father, an old nobleman of Le Rouergue—it is most extraordinary how many old noblemen Le Rouergue has produced!—and of an unfaithful steward who had carried off their whole fortune. She instantly aroused the sympathies of M. Chebe, for whom decayed gentlefolk had an irresistible charm, and he went away overjoyed, promising his daughter to call for her at seven o'clock at night in accordance with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... reef we lay upon our breasts, My brother and I, and half the village lads, For an old fisherman had called to us With "Sirs, the syle be come." "And what are they?" My brother said. "Good lack!" the old man cried, And shook his head; "To think you gentlefolk Should ask what syle be! Look you; I can't say What syle be called in your fine dictionaries, Nor what name God Almighty calls them by When their food's ready and He sends them south: But our folk call them syle, and nought but syle, And when they're grown, why then we call them ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... he greatly admired, to this effect: that he always got drunk like a gentleman. Therefore we should do everything as gentle-folk should do things, and when we make love we should make love like gentlefolk, and not ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... know them; but now I've other thoughts, Tom. I don't think your mother so bad, after all; to be sure, she looks down upon me 'cause I'm not genteel; but I suppose I aren't, and she has been used to the company of gentlefolk; besides she works hard, and now that I don't annoy her by getting tipsy, as I used to do, at all events she's civil; and then I never knew what it was to have children until I came here, and found Virginia and you; and I'm proud of you both, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... that I am brown; The earth is brown, yet gives good corn; The clove-pink, too, although 'tis brown, In hands of gentlefolk is borne." ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... We have been gentlefolk in spite of all, we have been true even in our iniquities to the traditions of our race. No, I cannot assert that these traditions always square with ethics or even with the Decalogue, for we have added a very complex Eleventh Commandment concerning honor. And for the rest, we have defiantly embroidered ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... I explained. "I want to work among gentlefolk, Bridget—poor gentlefolk, who suffer most of all, because they are too proud to ask for help. But they will probably be short of time, and service, and probably of strength, too, and when I get to know them, they will let me help them in ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... O'Brien. I love a man who lives up to his profession, and is not above his business. A retired tradesman who tries to forget he was ever behind the counter, and who goes through life aping the manners of gentlefolk, is a poor sort of body in my eyes; he is neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. Now Mr. O'Brien is as proud of being a corn-chandler as'—he paused for a simile—'as our drummer-boy was of belonging to the ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the simple old edifice, which has the pavement of lettered tombstones, the sturdy pillars and low arches and other ordinary characteristics of an English country church. One or two pews, probably those of the gentlefolk of the neighborhood, were better furnished than the rest, but all in a modest style. Near the high altar, in the holiest place, there is an oblong, angular, ponderous tomb of blue marble, built against the wall, and surmounted by a carved ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the weather-beaten rainspouts, stained bricks, sagging roof, and blistered window-sashes were no longer in evidence. Indeed, their very shabbiness so enhanced the brilliancy of Todd's handiwork that the most casual passers-by were convinced at a glance that gentlefolk lived within. ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... among those who beheld the scene but they sheepishly stood in their tracks and were afraid to punish the insolent pirate with his dirk and pistols. He was much taller and heavier than Jack Cockrell, the lad of seventeen, who came of gentlefolk and was unused to brawls with weapons. But the youngster hesitated no more than an instant, although his own pistol lacked a flint ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... were the people to be satisfied," cried Dora. "Just confess, Edmund, that the old gentleman did not think the place worth attending to, till educated gentlefolk came to ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and stubbornness and the incalculable counted for much; it was half the battle not to know you were beaten, and it is so still. Even to-day, a great nation, it seems, may still make its army the plaything of its gentlefolk, abandon important military appointments to feminine intrigue, and trust cheerfully to the homesickness and essential modesty of its influential people, and the simpler patriotism of its colonial dependencies when it comes ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... guilty. The old ladies of Kings Port, like American gentlefolk everywhere, keep family matters sacredly inside the family circle. But you see, had they not told Augustus, how in the world could I have ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... country, which they well knew would henceforth be utterly untenable for Englishmen or English sympathisers. In a few weeks they came pouring down through Newcastle by hundreds; it was the most melancholy exodus that can be imagined. There were people of all classes, officials, gentlefolk, work-people, and loyal Boers, but they had a connecting link; they had all been loyal, and ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... full of tragedy. "The Dog" is very good, the language is wonderful in it. Please read it if you have forgotten it. "Acia" is charming, "A Quiet Backwater" is too compressed and not satisfactory. I don't like "Smoke" at all. "The House of Gentlefolk" is weaker than "Fathers and Children," but the end is like a miracle, too. Except for the old woman in "Fathers and Children"—that is, Bazarov's mother—and the mothers as a rule, especially the society ladies, who are, however, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... your mother's whom we have met here, Mr. Andrew Blake's family, for instance, have treated us most kindly. They are, themselves, all well-to-do, and gentlefolk as well. The disposal by Old Hughie Blake, as he was known hereabout, of his estate makes no difference to the other Blakes living near Emberon," ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... tellin' o' tales like mine; an' the folk for whose pleasure I've spun this yarn have thought the fate o' wee Sammy worth their notice an' sighs, an' have thrilled me with wonder an' praise. I'm well warned that gentlefolk t' the s'uth'ard must have love in their tales an' be charmed with great deeds in its satisfaction; but I'm a skillful teller o' tales, as I've been told in high quarters, an' as I've good reason t' believe, indeed, with my own common sense and discretion t' clap me on the back, ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... It is the gentlefolk who have teased him into doing it; they would be taken in. If a poor boy like him tells a lie about money, or anything else in which they are 'up,' they are ready enough to thrash it out of him; but when it is something out of their way, like saying: he has had a vision—he has seen a ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... uncommonly small neat suburban villas which the irrigating influence of the Grand National Trunk Railway had caused to spring up like mushrooms around the noisy, smoky, bustling town of Clatterby—to the unspeakable advantage of that class of gentlefolk who possess extremely limited incomes, but who, nevertheless, ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... The gentlefolk of the city resorted to the City tavern after the Revolution as they had to Bradford's coffee house before. However, before reaching this high estate, it once was near destruction at the hands of the Tories, who threatened to tear it down. That was when it was proposed to ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... course, be represented as an immediate and complete triumph for evolutionary doctrine. This was precluded by the character and temper of the audience, most of whom were less capable of being convinced by the arguments than shocked by the boldness of the retort, although, being gentlefolk, as Professor Farrar remarks, they were disposed to admit on reflection that the Bishop had erred on the score of taste and good manners. Nevertheless, it was a noticeable feature of the occasion, Sir M. Foster tells me, that when Huxley rose he was received coldly, just a cheer of encouragement ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... it might be that," Marthe said quietly; "for anyone who knows the ways of gentlefolk, as I do, could see with half an eye that you are not one of us. But they say, mademoiselle, that your brother is a friend of Robespierre, and that he is one of ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... to school, much less persuaded, and that she was playing in the brook, or scampering over the pastures when she should be doing other things. Mrs. Thacher, perhaps unconsciously, had looked for some trace of the father's good breeding and gentlefolk fashions, but this was not a child who took kindly to needlework and pretty clothes. She was fearlessly friendly with every one; she did not seem confused even when the minister came to make his yearly parochial visitation, ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett |
