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More "Genteel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that this here Bess of yours would be just the kind of person both for my wife and myself. My wife wants something gorgiko, something genteel. Now Bess is of blood gorgious; if you doubt it, look at her face, all full of pawno ratter, white blood, brother; and as for gentility, nobody can make exceptions to Bess's gentility, seeing she was born in the workhouse of Melford ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... written about me. My unexpected appearance surpriz'd the family; all were, however, very glad to see me, and made me welcome, except my brother. I went to see him at his printing-house. I was better dress'd than ever while in his service, having a genteel new suit from head to foot, a watch, and my pockets lin'd with near five pounds sterling in silver. He receiv'd me not very frankly, look'd me all over, and turn'd to ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... under the disadvantage of being a far honester man than Alexander Farnese. Far from equal to that famous chieftain in the management of a great military campaign, it is certain that he was infinitely inferior to him in genteel comedy. Whether Maurice and Lewis William, Barneveld and Brederode, were to do better in the parts formerly assigned to John Rogers, Valentine Dale, Comptroller Croft, and their colleagues, remained to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of politicians the method works well enough, but to art it would be fatal. The creation of soft artistic jobs is the most unlikely method of encouraging art. Already hundreds take to it, not because they have in them that which must be expressed, but because art seems to offer a pleasant and genteel career. When the income is assured the number of those who fancy art as a profession will not diminish. On the contrary, in the great State of the future the competition will be appalling. I can imagine the squeezing and intriguing between the friends of applicants and their parliamentary ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... two or three of the servants in company, with each a lighted candle in her hand, conducted her to her lodging. They led her to a ground room, with a boarded floor, and two sash windows. The room was grandly furnished, and had a genteel bed in one corner of it. They had made her a good fire, and had placed her a chair and a table before it, and a large lighted candle upon the table. They told her that was her bedroom, and she might go to sleep when she pleased. They then wished ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... ferns and wax-plants and, whenever anyone came to visit her, she always gave the visitor one or two slips from her conservatory. There was one thing she didn't like and that was the tracts on the walks; but the matron was such a nice person to deal with, so genteel. ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... a storm-cloud in the heavens, had overhung with its sable drapery the settlements along the coast, and Pemaquid in particular." Of a certain tavern we are told that the daughters of the landlord were "genteel, sprightly, intelligent young ladies, ambitious of display and of setting a rich and elegant table." This is no doubt true, but surely History should sift her tacts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... admire to travel in many countries," said Miss Lucy, for the first time seeming to intend her words particularly for Fleda's ear. "I think nothing makes people more genteel. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Occident nothing remains of this ancient custom but the puerile and genteel civility that is still taught to children in some small towns, of kissing their right hands when someone has given them ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... dry creature, almost wizened, with bright eyes and a short moustache; unostentatiously dressed; fastidious, reserved, genteel, precise in manner, and living a retired life in a two-roomed cottage ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... swore to the courier that he was blighted, that he was desolated, that he was profoundly afflicted, that he was the most miserable and unfortunate of beasts, that he had the head of a wooden pig. He ought never to have made the concession, he said, but the very genteel lady had so passionately prayed him for the accommodation of that room to dine in, only for a little half-hour, that he had been vanquished. The little half-hour was expired, the lady and gentleman ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... intelligence, it also appears, that Sir George was, in his person, a fair[1], slender, genteel man, but spoiled his countenance with drinking, and other habits of intemperance. In his deportment he was very affable and courteous, of a generous disposition, which, with his free, lively, and natural vein of writing, acquired him the general character of gentle George, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... them. "We can get this charity for nothing. We can get medical assistance for nothing. We can get our children educated for nothing. Why should we work? Why should we save?" Such is the idea which charity, so-called, inculcates. The "Charitable Institution" becomes a genteel poor-house; and the lesson is extensively taught that we can do better by ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... night, as I am a perfect stranger in this great city, and, to tell you the truth, I am afraid of keeping it in my possession longer than I can help." While he stood talking at the door, a well-dressed genteel-looking upper servant maid came up the steps, and was hastily passing them when, turning round to answer some question that her fellow-servant asked her, she fixed her eyes on John, and giving a violent scream, exclaimed "John Telfer, I am sure!" John ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... severely alone for a time, left her to pursue her household duties, to look after her father, to wash and iron the finery of the more genteel inhabitants of Marosfalva—the schoolmistress' blouses, Pater Bonifacius' surplices. Eros Bela continued in his unemotional attentions to her—he was more sure of success than ever. His words of courtship were the drops of water that were ultimately ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... rhyme so nicely. Seems almost as though it was done a-purpose! Reminds me of piece day at school. There was a mighty pretty piece I learned called the 'Wreck of the Asperus.'" And she subsided into a genteel melancholy. ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... bed—mother, servant lass, and a'; but, on hearin't, I bangs up, on wi' my claes, lichts a cannle, and opens the door. On doing this, then, I sees a porter loaded wi' trunks and bandboxes, and behint him a very pretty, genteel-lookin ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... that, it is difficult to make a nice, genteel sitting-room out of an apartment of which the principal features are a sink and a big gas stove. The gas stove, of an obsolete pattern, was fed by a tiresome, shilling-in-the-slot arrangement. It had been the property of the people from whom the Buntings had taken over ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... endosmose and exosmose go on under much freer conditions; the individual particle is much more ready to filtrate up or down to its proper level. Mr. W.D. Howells writes that "once good society contained only persons of noble or gentle birth; then persons of genteel or sacred callings were admitted; now it welcomes to its level everyone of agreeable manners or cultivated mind;" and this, which may be true of modern society in general, is infinitely more true in America than elsewhere. It might almost be asserted that everyone in America ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... o'er with modern pedantry, With a long sweeping train Of comments and disputes, ridiculous and vain, All of old cut with a new dye: How soon have you restored her charms, And rid her of her lumber and her books, Drest her again genteel and neat, And rather tight than great! How fond we are to court her to our arms! How much of heaven is ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... or any other names by which it may be fitting to designate the very farcical pieces in which he usually performs. There are no farces now upon the French stage; the term is voted low. Moliere, it is true, wrote and acted farces, until he glided into a higher style; but the more genteel authors and actors of the present time, will not so far condescend. They willingly produce and perform the most pitiful buffooneries, but then it is under a better sounding title. They look to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... be procured. During the first act I and two more stood elbowing each other at the door of one of the front boxes, the seats of which were all full. The person who was next me was hard-favoured, had a look of audacious impudence, with that mixture of dress which forms the vulgar genteel, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... governing classes from participating in the expansion of commerce. German barons, for instance, often with only a few florins a year income, could not supplement it by trade; all they could do was to rob the traders, robbery being a thoroughly genteel occupation. Hence foreign governments were, as a rule, less alive and less responsive to the commercial interests of their subjects. Philip II trampled on commercial opinion in a way no English sovereign could have done. Indeed, complaints were raised in England ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... could of many words, and skipped several good lines altogether. But after a while the watery blue eyes of the good woman were languidly raised, an insipid smile spread over her red and white porcelain face, and in a voice which she strove to make as genteel as possible, she said to Beautiful Sara, "He sings very well. But I have heard far better singing in Holland. You are a stranger, and perhaps do not know that the choir-leader is from Worms, and that they will keep him here if he will be content with four hundred florins ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... pine-knots, grandad, what they lighted, an' the leader sent a squad ter 'reconnoitre,' ez he called it. An' whilst he waited he stood an' talked ter me about the roads in Greenbrier an' the lay o' the land over thar. He war full per-lite an' genteel." ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... peculiar classes forced into existence by the hotbed of a great city, and owing a part of their gusto to town usage, may be narrow enough if compared with general nature, but they are broader than the singularities whom Mr. Dickens copies or invents as representatives of genteel country life, or human nature in general. In the mere style there is frequently an improvement—less effort and greater ease, with occasional touches of the felicity of Goldsmith; but we should have thought the work was likely to be less popular than many of the previous tales of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... lantern. That college had some time before been dissolved; and Dr. Watson, a professor here, (the historian of Philip II.) had purchased the ground, and what buildings remained. When we entered this court, it seemed quite academical; and we found in his house very comfortable and genteel accommodation[171]. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... personal vanity. He hoped and thought Lady Alice Mordaunt liked him in a calm and reasonable manner, which is the best guarantee for married happiness. But it was the loss of a tranquil home, a luxurious life, an escape from the genteel poverty of a deeply embarrassed earl's daughter to the ease and comfort of a rich man's wife, that he deplored for her. Poor helpless child! she would probably find a rich husband ere long who would ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... very genteel lodging-house, in the very genteel neighborhood of Russell Square, early in the afternoon of a September day, a young girl stands impatiently awaiting the return of Sir Victor Catheron. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... is?" "Is she ony great body?" "Hae ye ony guess what brought her here?" and, "Is yon bonny creature her ain bairn?" But to these and sundry other interrogatories, the important hostess gave for answer, "Hoot, I hae nae time to haver the noo." She stopped at a small, but certainly the most genteel house in the village, occupied by a Mrs. Douglas, who, in the country phrase, was a very douce, decent sort of an old body, and the widow of a Cameronian minister. In the summer season Mrs. Douglas let out her little parlour to lodgers, who visited the village to seek health, or for a few ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... home library. Real leather bindings of morocco or pigskin are rich and suggestive of good food within, but imitation leather must join other domestic outcasts. Though it may look well at first it soon shows its quality of shabby-genteel. Calf has deteriorated because of the modern quick method of tanning by the use of acids, which dries the skin and causes it to crack. Books in party attire of white paper and parchment and very delicate colors are not good comrades, for the paper cover which must be put on to ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... he said quietly. 'I'm glad the young lady's well again, but genteel formal ain't much in ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... Ardsley's rooms without knowing how she got there, and even Elinor's gentle words of greeting sounded stiff and formal to her quivering, over-wrought humor. Miss Ardsley's genteel accents grated horribly on her. She was anxious to have the interview over and she readily agreed to take the room at once, without evincing any interest in it or anything else. All that she wanted just then was to get away by herself, so afraid was she that the tears so near her eyelids ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... her six pairs of tan kid, in a beautiful cardboard box. He could ill afford the gift, and made one of his whimsical grimaces when he got the bill. The young lady who served him looked infinitely more genteel than Mary Ann. He wondered what she would think if she knew for whom he was buying these dainty articles. Perhaps her feelings would be so outraged she would refuse to participate in the transaction. But the young lady was happily unconscious; she had her best smile for the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... day, a lady somewhat turned of thirty, of genteel appearance and engaging address, entered this shop, and asked to see some white lace veils. Several were shewn to her at the price of from twenty-five to fifty louis each. These not being sufficiently rich to please her taste, others more costly were ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... lad, you who are so genteel when you like, and earn a hundred and eighty francs a month,—you're genteel, but you're short of good manners, it's that chiefly I find fault with you about. So you spat on the window-pane; I'm certain of it. May I drop dead if you didn't. And you're ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... a large family. At the age of fifteen they put her out to service at the New Barns Farm. I attended Mrs. Smith, the tenant's wife, and saw that girl there for the first time. Mrs. Smith, a genteel person with a sharp nose, made her put on a black dress every afternoon. I don't know what induced me to notice her at all. There are faces that call your attention by a curious want of definiteness in their whole ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... 1729 he left a collection of books which his old friend and publisher, Jacob Tonson, described (in a letter preserved at the Bodleian) as "genteel & well chosen." Tonson thought so well of the collection that he urged his nephew, then his agent in London, to purchase Congreve's books. But Congreve had willed them to Henrietta, the young Duchess of Marlborough, who was much concerned with keeping ...
— The Library of William Congreve • John C. Hodges
... desirable crease that would be seen later on extending in straight lines from mr. Chandler's patent leather shoes to the edge of his low-cut vest. So much of the hero's toilet may be intrusted to our confidence. The remainder may be guessed by those whom genteel poverty has driven to ignoble expedient. Our next view of him shall be as he descends the steps of his lodging-house immaculately and correctly clothed; calm, assured, handsome—in appearance the typical new york young clubman setting out, slightly bored, to inaugurate the pleasures ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... pretension. Mr. Lincoln knows that reply was made on the spot, and yet now he asks this question! He might as well ask me—Suppose Mr. Lincoln should steal a horse, would I sanction it; and it would be as genteel in me to ask him, in the event he stole a horse, what ought to be done with him. He casts an imputation upon the Supreme Court of the United States, by supposing that they would violate the Constitution of ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... countenance. Should you ever go to the great city, among the grand folks, you would make a sensation, madam. I have made one myself, who am dark; the chi she is kauley, {38} which last word signifies black, which I am not, though rather dark. There's no colour like white, madam; it's so lasting, so genteel. Gentility will carry the day, madam, even with the young rye. He will ask words of the black lass, but beg the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... living, breathing, moving men and women out of his canvas! Sometimes he is ranting and exaggerated, as are all men of great genius who wrestle with Nature so boldly. No doubt his heroines are more expansively endowed than would be thought genteel in our country, where cryptogams are so much in fashion, nevertheless there is always something very tremendous about him, and very often much that is sublime, pathetic, and moving. I defy any one of the average amount of imagination and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Gallowgate policeman. He pretended to be making reports and seeking orders. "We've gotten three o' the deevils, sir. What'll we dae wi' them?" he shouted; and back would come the reply in a slightly more genteel voice: "Fall them to the rear. Tamson has charge of the prisoners." Or it would be: "They've gotten pistols, sir. What's the orders?" and the answer would be: "Stick to your batons. The guns are posted on the knowe, so we needn't hurry." And over all the din there would be a perpetual ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... Cecile does not seem to have been an extraordinarily gifted woman from an artistic or intellectual point of view, it is quite evident that she possessed a refinement that must have appealed forcibly to a man brought up in such genteel surroundings and as sensitive as Mendelssohn. Such a woman must have been, after all, better suited to his delicate genius than a wife of unusual gifts would have been. For it is a helpmeet, not another genius, that a man of genius really needs most. The woman who, without being prosy or commonplace ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... me sort of refined. Take the color out of me. Bleach me—that's it. I want to go to the seaside. Pale people go; rosy people don't. I want to be awful pale by to-night. How can it be done? It's more genteel to be pale." ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... in time for dinner.' With that a sarvent began sounding a big conch-shell, a great door was flung open, and the next thing, I found myself in an ilegant room, sitting down to dinner with a mighty genteel ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... a great pleasure to me, Dr. Frampton, to make your acquaintance, more especially, sir, to find you surrounded by those evidences of a prosperous practice which I had indeed inferred from your genteel reticence and the quality of your notepaper. At the end of a long journey, undertaken on the strength of that inference, it is delightful to find my best ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... money for all sorts of institutions. In order to provide Russell with the means to bestow unlimited largess, Field endowed him with the touch of Midas. He would report that the matchless exponent of "Shabby Genteel" bought lead mines, to be disappointed by finding tons of virgin gold in the quartz. Like Bret Harte's hero of Downs Flat, when Russell dug for water his luck was so contrary that he struck diamonds. When he ordered oysters each half shell had its ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Vandals were. Outwardly the village was crude and forbidding, and many of the Solons were attired in coon- skin caps and other startling apparel. The fashionable clothing, the one which came to be generally adopted as men grew to be "genteel," was blue jeans. Even "store clothes," as they came to be called, ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... Episcopal, or any way Presbyterian," said Mrs. Plausaby, "for they get paid better than Methodist or Baptist. And besides, it's genteel to be Episcopal. But, I suppose, some notion'll keep you out of being Episcopal too. You'll try to be just as poor and ungenteel as you can. Folks with ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... discreetly, endeavored to find out these important details. Neither hints nor questions had resulted satisfactorily. Was it possible that this was the reason, this country uncle? If so—well, if so, here was a Heaven-sent opportunity for a little genteel and perfectly safe detective work. Mrs. Dunn creakingly crossed ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... coming to-night, so we won't have dinner till late; that will be real genteel and give us plenty of time," added Tilly, suddenly realizing the novelty of the task ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... genteel and comely that the Urchin and I would like to have some pictures of it for future generations, particularly as we see it on an autumn morning when, as I say, the motors are kenneled and the landscape has ceased ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... noise of the door-handle being turned makes him drop her hand, and they all fall simultaneously into what they hope is an easy attitude. And then Sarah appears upon the threshold with a letter and a small packet between her first finger and thumb. She is a very genteel girl, is Sarah, and would scorn to take a firm ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... shall hear the testimony in the case, and submit a copy thereof, together with his decision thereon, to the Court for confirmation. Then, before the referee—who is to be properly feed for his officiation—go the divorce-lawyer and two or three shabby-genteel-looking 'witnesses,' who from thenceforth shall never be findable by mortal man again. The 'witnesses' swear to any thing and every thing—that they have seen and recognized defendant in highly improper houses with improper persons; that they know plaintiff to be pure, faithful, and shamefully ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... was vain, for on his return to his room he encountered in a hallway one of the loungers who had witnessed the recent scene at the hotel. After a second's stare the man passed on down to the shabby-genteel parlor, and soon whist, novels, and papers were dropped, as the immaculate little community learned of the contaminating presence beneath the same roof ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of five miles, you pass through a village called Shirley Street; and at the distance of another fire miles, you arrive at Hockley-house; a place of entertainment, where travellers of every denomination are accommodated in a genteel manner, and on reasonable terms. About one mile from hence, on the road to Stratford, is Umberslade, or Omberslade, where the Archer family were used to reside, ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... Child obeys, disconcerted.) That's worse! I can see the s'rimps blushin' for yer inside their paper bags! Now see Me do it. (Bones executes a caricature of a curtsey, which the little Girl copies with terrible fidelity.) That's ladylike—that's genteel. Now sing out! (The Child sings the first verse of a popular Music-hall song, in a squeaky little voice.) Talk about nightingales! Come 'ere, and receive the reward for extinguished incapacity. On your knees! (The little Girl kneels before him while a tin medal is fastened upon her frock.) ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... PRESS] Blimy! It amooses 'em, all but the genteel ones. Cheer oh! Press! Yer can always myke somefin' out o' nufun'? It's not the fust thing as 'as existed in yer ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... months before Ned was graduated, the establishment was in systematic running order under the supervision of the pearl of housekeepers. Here David Lynde proposed to spend the rest of his days with his nephew, who might, for form's sake, adopt some genteel profession; if not, well and good, the boy ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... reaching the house on the hill. When it came, via a little group on the terrace after the luncheon, Mrs. Sayre was upset and angry and inclined to blame Wallie. Everything that he wanted had come to him, all his life, and he did not know how to go after things. He had sat by, and let this shabby-genteel doctor, years older than the girl, walk ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the genteel life of Fayal should share this parsimony. As a general rule, the higher classes on the island, socially speaking, live on astonishingly narrow means. How they do it is a mystery; but families of eight contrive to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... on a melancholy street. The unsubstantial houses tried to seem—not respectable, no word so honest could be applied to them, but—genteel, and failed even in that miserable ambition. Percival used to watch the plastered fronts, flaking in the sun and rain, old while yet new, with no grace of bygone memory or present strength, till he fancied that they might be perishing of some foul leprosy like that described ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Thursday, 22nd. Genteel breezes and Clear weather. At 4 p.m. saw the Salvages bearing South; at 6, the Body of the Island bore South 1/2 West, distant about 5 leagues. Found the Variation of the Compass by an Azimuth to be 17 degrees 50 minutes West. At 10 the Isles of Salvages bore West by South 1/2 South, distance ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... himself. When I accuse him of being "amateurish" I do not use that vile word in contradistinction to "professional." In a sense all true artists must be amateurs; the professional view, the view that art is a hopeful and genteel way of earning one's living, is possible only to official portrait-painters and contractors for public monuments. When I say that Morris, like almost all our visual artists and too many of our modern writers, was amateurish, I mean that he was not serious enough ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... boat arrived at Natches, a rather good-looking, genteel-appearing man came on board to purchase a servant. This individual introduced himself to Jennings as the Rev. James Wilson. The slave-trader conducted the preacher to the deck-cabin, where he kept his slaves, ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... cause of his leaving them is only half told in Mr Aldis Wright's edition of the Letters (p. 365, footnote). Mr Berry, a small man, had taken to himself a second wife, a buxom widow weighing fourteen stone; and she, being very genteel, could not brook the idea of keeping a lodger. So one day—I have heard FitzGerald tell the story—came a timid rap at the door of his sitting-room, a deep "Now, Berry, be firm," and a mild "Yes, my dear;" ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... marsh, perhaps, standing with unequalled grace upon the longest legs known in this world, is a troop of giant birds as wonderful as the pelican, but how opposite! The beautiful flamingo is a bird of feeble intellect, delicate appetite, and genteel tastes. It cannot eat fish, for its slender throat would scarcely admit a pea. Besides, the idea of catching anything, or even picking up food from the ground, does not occur to its simple mind. Its diet consists of certain small crustaceans, classed by naturalists with water-fleas, which ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... has been these last two years in an obscure garret writing for bread. He says, however, that he is sure he is happier, even in this situation, than are some of his cousins at this instant, who are struggling in poverty to be genteel, or to keep up a family name, and he would not change places with those who are in a state of idle and opprobrious dependence. I understand (remember, this is a secret between ourselves)—I understand that Secretary Cunningham Falconer has ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... Everything was done in a genteel and ordinary way, but on the other hand, there was no lingering. Anna found herself next Sydney Courtlaw, with his friend close at hand. Opposite to her was a sallow-visaged young man, whose small tie seemed like a smudge of obtusively shiny black across the front of a high close-drawn collar. ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... spiritual resources of those who cannot or dare not express their unfulfilled ideals in words. Serious poetry, profound religion (Calvinism, for instance), are the joys of an unhappiness that confesses itself; but when a genteel tradition forbids people to confess that they are unhappy, serious poetry and profound religion are closed to them by that; and since human life, in its depths, cannot then express itself openly, imagination is ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... situated in one of the northern, southern, eastern, or western suburbs—we have reasons for not being particular—at the distance of two miles and three-quarters from the black dome of St Paul's. It consists of thirty genteel-looking second-rate houses, standing upon a veritable terrace, at least three feet above the level of the carriage-way, and having small gardens enclosed in iron palisades in front of them. The garden gates ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... 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 ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... apparently with the true cause of the evil—the tyranny of conventional feeling—deprecated the emigration of those classes supposed to be the most slavishly subjected to it, without having previously made a trial of their energies. He proposed that every 'genteel' family, before setting their lives and fortune upon the cast, should establish themselves for a time in some solitary district of their own country, remote from the comforts and conveniences of life, and try whether their industry and ingenuity were of an available kind. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... a friend: "The office is very genteel, 10s. a day, perquisites, and no expenses;" and, to another, he speculates on the chance of procuring a company in an American regiment. "But this I build not on, nor indeed am I very fond of it," he adds; and this was fortunate, for the expedition, after dawdling ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... visit to the post-office there was a tea-party. Mrs. Harrop, Mrs. Cobb, Mrs. Sweeting, the grocer's wife, and Miss Tarrant, an elderly lady, living on a small annuity, but most genteel, were invited to Mrs. Bingham's. They began to talk of Mrs. Fairfax directly they had tasted the hot buttered toast. They had before them the following facts: the carrier's deposition that the goods came from Great Ormond Street; the lay-figure and what it wore; Mrs. Fairfax's prices; the little ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... considerate in all things about my lady, and she wanted for nothing whilst he had it to give. Well, when things were tight with them about this time, my son Jason put in a word again about the Lodge, and made a genteel offer to lay down the purchase-money, to relieve Sir Condy's distresses. Now Sir Condy had it from the best authority that there were two writs come down to the sheriff against his person, and the sheriff, as ill-luck would have it, was no friend ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... outward pomp and the vague tales of concierges, footmen, and cooks, she pictured her boy at twenty more beautiful than an archangel, his breast glittering with decorations, in a drawing-room full of flowers, amid a bevy of fashionable ladies with manners every whit as genteel as had the actresses ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... "over which I had no control, but quite the contrary, weakened the impression of that image for a time. At which time Miss Summerson's conduct was highly genteel; ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... a shabby-genteel man who lives by his wits. He is fairly educated and can write a plausible letter. He is dangerous; his stock-in-trade comprises local directories, WHO'S WHO, annual reports of charitable societies, clergymen's lists, etc. He is a begging-letter ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... dogs in the street drew him to the window, out of which he looked by jumping on a chair, just as a troop of "curs of low degree" tore past after a rather genteel-looking dog with a kettle tied to his tail. They whirled rapidly by in a turmoil of dust, and clink, and cur-dog yelp, but not so rapidly as to prevent Sam from perceiving the terrible degradation to which a gentleman-dog had been subjected. The sight had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... particular, and always to wash their hands before carving. We are told of one boy that his gentility was so great that he would not wipe his hands like the others, but waved them about in the air until they were dry! I think this must have made them red and rough, which would not be very genteel. ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... street, and a small enclosed porch, containing the main entrance, affording a glimpse up and down the street through an oval window on each side, its characteristic was decent respectability, not sinking below the boundary of the genteel. It has often perplexed my mind to conjecture what sort of man he could have been who, having the means to build a pretty, spacious, and comfortable residence, should have chosen to lay its foundation on the brink of so many graves; each tenant of these narrow houses ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it well enough when I was your age," said the mother indulgently, "but a barn is not at all a genteel place to be born in. My mother had had a little unpleasantness with the family she lived with, and, of course, she was too proud to stay on after that. And so she left them, and went to live in the barn. It wasn't at all the sort of life she ...
— Pussy and Doggy Tales • Edith Nesbit
... to add these items to the record, so that the judge can have a copy," said Mr. Briggs to the confidential secretary. "The subject isn't a very genteel one, Miss Kilgour, but orders are orders, and you'll have ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... in the Rue—say the Rue Millevoye, so that we may not interfere with possible vested interests. Was it respectable? Was it genteel? Did good country families frequent it? Were all the comforts of an English home to be had? Had Mrs. Grundy cast an approving eye into every nook and corner? Of course there were Bibles in the bedrooms; and you were not made ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... window of his committee-room, facing which window I placed myself, to see and to hear all that could be heard or seen. At length, after he had been waited for, for about an hour (which, by-the-bye, is considered genteel), the worthy lawyer arrived, seated in an open barouche, with Mr. Michael Castle on one side, and Alderman Noble on the other! It was but a sorry cavalcade; and although there was some cheering amongst his partizans, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... thought so!" "What an object!" "Forcing herself into genteel society, too!" "The audacity of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... on his discriminatingly chosen shabby-genteel clothes with a care for the effect he intended them to produce. The collar and cuffs of his shirt were frayed and yellow, and he fastened his collar with a pin and tied his worn necktie carelessly. His overcoat was beginning to wear a greenish shade and look threadbare, so was ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sir, for me to go afore you; and don't you think, Mas'r Harry, now that you're a great, rich gentleman just come over from foreign abroad, that it would be more genteel-like to go round to the front and give a big knock ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... whether daughters of the upper-ten-dom, the mediocrity, the cottage, or the kennel, aim at one standard of dress and deportment, seldom accomplishing a perfectly triumphant hit or an utterly absurd failure. Those words, "genteel" and "ladylike," are terrible ones and do us infinite mischief, but it is because (at least, I hope so) we are in a transition state, and shall emerge into a higher mode of simplicity than has ever been known to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... recollect, courteously beckon an offender to approach him, doffing his hat the while as if speaking to the quarter-deck; and then, begging the trembling youngster's pardon for detaining him, would proceed to inform him in the "politest and most genteel manner in the world" that he was "the d—-d son of a sea cook,"—subsequently rattaning him furiously, amidst a plethora of expletives before which the ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... reverend man had become every year a little fonder of his purse; he had hoped that his sons would have qualified themselves to take pupils, and thus achieve for themselves, as he phrased it, "A genteel independence"; whilst they openly derided the career, calling it "an admirable provision for the more indigent members of the middle classes." For which reason he referred them to their maternal uncle, a man of ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... family, my worthy friend," continued Mr. Murdoch—"it is a very pretty one, as we say vernacularly, being numerous, and the sons highly genteel young men; the daughters not less so. A neighbour of the same very polite character, coming on a visit when I was among them, asked the father, in the course of a conversation to which I was privy, how he meant to dispose of his ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... is a genteel expression for a young girl to apply to herself! That High School does you ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... solutions of the mystery of Ralegh's leap into prominence, Fuller's well-worn story, which is now Scott's, commends itself for comparative simplicity. Everybody has heard how her Majesty, meeting with a plashy place, made some scruple to go on; when Ralegh, dressed in the gay and genteel habit of those times, presently cast off and spread his new plush cloak on the ground, whereon the Queen trod gently over, rewarding him afterwards with many suits for his so free and seasonable tender of so fair a footcloth. Fuller, again, it is who vouches ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... White replied. He nodded to Sommers. The doctor remembered White as one of the negative figures of his early months in Chicago,—a smiling, slim, youthful college boy. Evidently he was the genteel member of the firm. Sommers thought again. He could not wait. "Will you carry him five points more?" ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Mrs. Jenny, I know you, and I know Mrs. Flauntit; but 'tis not Beauty or Wit that takes now-a-days; the Age is altered since I took upon me this genteel Occupation: but 'tis a fine Petticoat, right Points, and clean Garnitures, that does me Credit, and takes the Gallant, though on a stale Woman. And again, Mrs. Jenny, she's kept, and Men love as much for Malice, as for Lechery, as they call it. Oh, 'tis a great Mover to Joy, as they say, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... remedies, that the White Slave Agitation may properly be criticised. In England it distinguished itself by the ferocity with which the lash was advocated, and finally legalised. Benevolent bishops joined with genteel old maids in calling loudly for whips, and even in desiring to lay them personally on the backs of the offenders, notwithstanding that these Crusaders were nominally Christians, the followers of a Master who conspicuously reserved ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... if he happened to hear her; "oh, upon my credit"—he was a man of too much consequence to swear "by this and by that" now—"upon my credit, Ellish, if you die soon, you'll see the genteel wife ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... gives the world to understand, that Johnson, 'being an admirer of genteel manners, was captivated by the address and demeanour of Savage, who, as to his exterior, was, to a remarkable degree, accomplished.' Hawkins's Life, p. 52. But Sir John's notions of gentility must appear somewhat ludicrous, from his stating the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... between servants and their employers as in France. In England, on the other hand, it is difficult to persuade a young girl to accept domestic service; she requires what she imagines to be something higher, or—to use her own word—more 'genteel.' If she be a dressmaker, or a shop girl, or a barmaid, she assumes the title of 'young lady,' and advertises—to the disgust of all sensible people—as such. This monstrous notion, which strikes at the root of all social comfort, and a great deal of social respectability, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sunbeam, I am so fine. It seems as if the sunbeams were always looking for me under the water. Ah! I am so fine that even my mother cannot find me. Had I still my old eye, which was broken off, I believe I should weep; but no, I would not do that, it is not genteel ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... once which there was no danger of forgetting; how a young gentleman called on him one morning, and told him that his father having, just before his death, dropped suddenly into the enjoyment of an ample fortune, he (the son) was willing to qualify himself for genteel society by adding some literature to his other endowments, and wished to be put in an easy way of obtaining it. Dr. Johnson recommended the university, "for you read Latin, sir, with facility?" "I read it a little, to be sure, sir." "But do you read it with facility, I say?" "Upon ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... gentleman of this city of acknowledged taste and erudition, who saw him in England, we have had a description of Mr. Dwyer. He says that nature has been uncommonly bountiful to this actor. That he is very handsome, has a fine person, and might, in lively, bustling, genteel comedy, be as great as any man, if his industry were equal ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... proper exercise is pure, chaste, virtuous, and even an ingredient in good manners. It is this which renders men always more polite towards women than to one another, and more refined in their society, and which makes women more kind, grateful, genteel and tender towards men than women. It makes mothers love their sons more than their daughters, and fathers more attached to their daughters. Man's endearing recollections of his mother or wife form his most powerful ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... is no otherwise remarkable than for its wells, which are nearly empty at high water, but which rise as the tide declines. This little village has of late been the resort of a considerable number of genteel company, for which bathing-machines and every accommodation have been provided. Here are a variety of lodging houses, a good inn, with convenient stables, coach-houses, etc. It is most frequented by such ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... chins. The labels on the ready-made clothing are curious in their way. Here a pair of trousers in glaring brown and yellow stripes is ticketed with the alluring word, "Lovely." Other garments are offered to the public, with such guaranties as "Original," "Genteel," "Excelsior," and "Our Own." There is not an article among them but has its ticket of recommendation, and another card affixed to each sets forth the lowest price for which it is to be had. The number and variety of hats on show along this queer arcade are very characteristic of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... it, in fact; my house is in the warehouse. It's not a very genteel locality, nor a fine house, it is good enough for me; but I warn you not to expect anything great, and I can't alter my way ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... through the genteel crystal of nineteenth century civilization, they are all barbarous, unnatural, intensified; but considering the age in which they lived—the tendencies of that age, the gods they worshipped, the practices in which they indulged,—they are all true to life, ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... table take a long time walking round it. I picture to myself two persons of ordinary size sitting in that great room at that great table, far apart, in neat evening costume, sipping a little sherry, silent, genteel, and glum; and think the great and wealthy are not always to be envied, and that there may be more comfort and happiness in a snug parlour, where you are served by a brisk little maid, than in a great dark, dreary dining-hall, where a funereal major-domo and a couple of stealthy footmen minister ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her boxes at the station, her next anxiety was to secure a respectable, or rather genteel, lodging in the popular seaside resort confronting her. To this end she looked about the town, in which, though she had passed through it half-a-dozen times, ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... admitted to the Court, and there I had the pleasure of seeing Mdlle. Chitroff dancing, and also Mdlle. Sievers, now Princesss, whom I saw again at Dresden four years ago with her daughter, an extremely genteel young princess. I was enchanted with Mdlle. Sievers, and felt quite in love with her; but as we were never introduced I had no opportunity of declaring my passion. Putini, the castrato, was high in her favour, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... silly little fool to stand so aloof, just because she was poor and lived in a faded locality. She mocked herself. Poor but proud, like the shopgirl in the movies. Denied herself companionship because she was ashamed of her genteel poverty. And now she was paying for it. Silly little fool! It wasn't as if she did not know how to make and keep friends. She knew she had attractions. Just a senseless false pride. The best friends in the world, after a series of rebuffs, would drop away. Her mother's friends ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... existed as a poor fishing-village and mourned its departed glories. That it would ever again be a place of interest to anybody but people of fishy pursuits was an idea Tenby did not entertain concerning itself; but, lo! in the present century there arose a custom among genteel folk of going down to the sea in bathing-machines. It was discovered that Tenby was a spot favored of Neptune (or whatever god or goddess regulates the matter of surf-bathing), and Tenby was taken down from the shelf, as it were, dusted, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... Spanish omelette; and, for the rest, the products of the sheepwalk and the garden came in as volunteer auxiliaries,—very different from the mercenary recruits by which those metropolitan Condottieri, the butcher and greengrocer, hasten the ruin of that melancholy commonwealth called "genteel poverty." ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... select society in their own sets, and they consequently cannot have a dance without guinea tickets nor a pic-nic without dozens of champagne. This shows their native ignorance and vulgarity more than enough; genteel people go upon a plan directly contrary, not merely enjoying themselves, but enjoying themselves without extravagance or waste: in this respect the gentility-mongers would do well to imitate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... Lauder kept several pets in his beautiful seat at the Grange, long occupied by the Messrs Dalgleish of Dreghorn Castle as a genteel boarding-school, and now by the Misses Mouatt as one for young ladies. We have often seen the tombstones to his dogs, which were buried to the south of that mansion, in which Principal Robertson the historian died, and where Lord Brougham, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... a useful volume, when the hand may require to be relieved from its weight, or when it is proper to take a pinch of snuff, or agreeable to wipe one's forehead. Josses, beakers, and Sevres' vases have unquestionably the entree into a genteel apartment; but they are not entitled to a monopoly of the locale; nor are Roman antiquities, or statues even by Canova, justifiable in usurping the elbow-room of living men and women. Most unfortunately for myself, I have a very small house, and a wife of the most enlarged taste; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... over," which is scarcely probable, considering how greatly it is now the fashion for "potent, grave, and reverend signors," and signoras also, to join the gay quadrille, &c. (and here we may as well note, that in genteel society, dowager honourables and old ladies may dance, whilst young, plain misses may not)—there are sundry modes of rendering yourself agreeable, which your own taste and talents, it is to be presumed, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... supposed. What could he do to give her friends of her own age? What could he do to find her lovers, a husband? McMurtagh slept not nights for thinking on these things. John Hughson he now saw to be impossible; Harley Bowdoin was out of the question; but were there not still genteel youths, clerks like himself, but younger, some class of life for his petted little lady? Jamie had half-thoughts of training some nice lad to be fit for her,—Jamie earned money amply; of training him, too, to take his place and earn his salary. Every discontented ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... thought. Their theology is too gloomy and shadowy to afford them much pleasure in contemplation; their religion is a thing of form and not of life, so it brings them no joy or satisfaction. As to the reforms of the day, they are too genteel to feel much interest in them. There is no class more pitiable than the unoccupied woman of fashion thrown wholly upon herself.... Does not the abuse of the religious element in woman demand our ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... first plan, but Uncle showed me that it was wiser not make genteel paupers of them, but let them pay a small rent and feel independent. I don't want the money, of course, and shall use it in keeping the houses tidy or helping other women in like case," said Rose, entirely ignoring ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... forest-master at the first station called Maitah, fifty-four versts off. Such a companion was not less unexpected than agreeable, in so remote a corner of the world. He was a very good botanist, and understood French and Latin; a modest, sensible, genteel young man, and what must appear a little singular, perfectly happy and satisfied with his situation. Even in those wild regions he filled up his leisure hours with study and the chase, and said that he never found the time hang heavy ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... the wit of the London Stock Exchange is subtle enough for me. His father did not joke. Indeed he was full of useful information, and only too fond of imparting it, and he always made use of the choicest language in doing so; and Mrs. Scatcherd was immensely genteel. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... a little disgusted with this dialogue, as well as with the air and manner of the two beings by whom it had been carried on, was about to inquire whether he could not be accommodated with a private sitting-room, when two or three strangers of genteel appearance entered, at sight of whom the boy threw his cigar into the fire, and whispering to Mr. Price that they had come to 'make it all right' for him, joined them at a table in the farther end ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Charles was a genteel, accomplished young man of eighteen when he left his father's palace at Vienna, for England, where a British fleet was to convey him to Portugal, and, by the energy of its fleet and army, place him upon the throne of Spain. He was received at Portsmouth in England, when he landed from Holland, ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... as he termed it. He charged the circus man double the usual advertising rates, working the agent for unlimited free tickets. The genteel word "complimentary" had not become associated with show tickets ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... classics, the most reputed historians, and all the best French, English, or Italian writers. His apprehension was quick, his imagination fine, and his memory remarkably strong; though his greatest commendations were a very genteel address, a ready wit and an excellent elocution, which shewed him to advantage wherever he went. There was, notwithstanding, one principal defect in his disposition, and this was an infinite vanity, which gave him so insufferable ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... entrance look down on you so grimly; the front of the booking-offices, in their garment of clean stucco, look so primly respectable that you cannot help feeling ashamed of yourself,—feeling as uncomfortable as when you have called too early on an economically genteel couple, and been shown into a handsome drawing-room, on a frosty day, without a fire. You cannot think of entering into a gossip with the Railway guardian, for you remember that "sentinels on duty are not allowed to talk," except to ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... tall, slender and awkward, in a simple blue homekeeping dress, an omnivorous reader and a very authentic wit, and the lady of pedigree, short and plump, dressed with Victorian fussiness, living at the intellectual level of palmistry and genteel fiction, pink in the face and generally flustered by a sense of my aunt's social strangeness and disposed under the circumstances to behave rather like an imitation of the more queenly moments of her own cook. The one ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... difficult to comprehend. It is because you talk the American and the dictionary talk only the English. I will try to learn the American if you will to me give the instructions. Dear godfather, you are not in anger against me? I make always attention to be polite and genteel, because already I love you from far. But Marie say there is the miss understand in our letters she cannot explicate. For three nights I sleep not well because I search to comprehend what is it that makes bad, then this morning I have it ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... state, though a very charming person, was an actress or goddess, or something in that line. Lacoontola, however, in spite of her papa's indiscretion, married a prince, and was, in fact, perfectly genteel and quite religious. Before her marriage, she appears to have 'lived in the woods' the year round; her wardrobe being 'turu-lural.' She used to wear the 'dearest' little zouave of the 'tender bark' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... not unfrequently, with the Lombards, who love to make the angel appear on the flowery grass against a background of Alpine peaks, such as you see them, rising blue and fairylike from the green ricefields about Pavia. Crivelli, however, though a Lombard, prefers a genteel residence in town, the magnificent Milan of Galeazzo and Filippo Visconti. He gives us a whole street, where richly dressed and well peruked gentlemen look down from the terraces, duly set with flower-pots, of houses ornamented with terra-cotta figures and medallions ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... are so fond, so blinded in their Choice, That they are ravish'd with their beautious Prize; In such a case the young unthinking Sot, Boasts what a handsome Genteel Wife he'as got, Doates on her Face, commends her Shape and Air, And thinks her Virtuous beyond compare: When all the time she plays her Pranks unknown, And with her Gallant rambles up and down; [*?]y, brings ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... fronts and fresh lawns, stucco and tiles; then here and there corner lots, the great gray, towered, wooden mansions the stock-brokers of the "seventies" built, and below them, like a contingent of shabby-genteel relations, the narrow gray wooden faces of what was "smart" in the "sixties". It was a continuous progress backward toward the old, the original town. There was no stately nucleus. This town was a succession of widening ripples of progress, each newer, more polished than the last, but ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... nearly threw the owner of the eyes out of her place. The little flurry gave opportunity for Mrs. Dolly Page—that was the lady's name—to drop her veil over her face, and for Sam Rice to show his genteel handling of the ribbons, and conquer the unaccountable disturbance ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... not going to stand this, whoever else is. It aint a slight thing, Alison; it aint the sort of thing that a girl can get over. There are you, only seventeen, and so pretty and like a real lady. Yes, you are; you needn't pertend you aint. Me and my people were always genteel, and you take after us. I'll see to it. You shan't be accused of theft, my dear, ef ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... pretty well," said Tom, "and I guess I could lick some of the bad boys; but I could teach 'em all I know in half a day. Here's a coachman wanted. That won't do, either. 'Wanted.—A man with a small capital, to enter upon a light, genteel business.' I've got the small capital, and it's gettin' smaller every day. Perhaps I wouldn't be ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... expressed my sense of his lordship's civility, and owned the situation would be acceptable to me, as I was not at present encumbered with riches, and living in London I found was likely to prove expensive. I had desired to have a genteel apartment, and Enoch had told me that one had been hired for me at a guinea and a half per week, at which I had been not a little startled. The secret of want of wealth a very cunning man would have concealed: a very wise man, though from other motives, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... fault. Mr Ernest bought the tickets like a gentleman should (it says in the etiquette book), and I couldn't fight with him there and then,—you're always telling me to be more genteel." ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... prized so highly here, no man seems ashamed that he has no family to boast: all feigning would indeed be useless and impracticable; yet it struck me with astonishment too, to hear a well-bred clergyman who visits at many genteel houses, say gravely to his friend, no longer ago than yesterday—that friend a man too eminent both for talents and fortune—"Yes, there is a grand invitation at such a place to-night, but I don't ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... prefer the swagger and audacity of Crocker. Her Majesty's Civil Service, too, had its charms for her. The Post Office was altogether superior to Pogson and Littlebird's. Pogson and Littlebird's hours were 9 to 5. Those of Her Majesty's Service were much more genteel;—10 namely to 4. But what might not a man do who had shown the nature of his disposition by tearing up official papers? And then, though the accidents of the occasion had enveloped her in difficulties on both sides, it seemed ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Madame Carpentier seems to me a fine lady, ever so genteel; but the Irish woman! Ah! grand Dieu! she puts me in mind of a soldier. I'm afraid of her. She smokes—she swears—she carries a ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... to himself daily, and yet it pained him to go through the streets, feeling solitary and downcast. His eyes even filled with tears, as one day passing by his house he saw the gates open, and equipages, as in former days, at his door, while genteel and rich people, with cold, apathetic countenances, were entering his house as they had done of yore. Formerly they came to Gotzkowsky's splendid dinners, now they had come to the auction. The fauteuils and velvet-covered sofas, the carpets and gold-embroidered curtains, ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... to Charles Grant, Jr., and awaited the call of Grant to receive it. He soon called for it, when an officer, stationed in the house, stepped forward and arrested Grant. On examining him, it appeared that his true name was Palmer, a young man of genteel appearance, resident in the adjoining town of Belfast. He had been a convict in Maine, and had served a term in the State's prison in that State. Conscious that the circumstances justified the belief that he had had a hand in the murder, he readily made known, while he protested ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... came to pass that when Mr. Whittington's face was washed, his hair curled, and dressed in a rich suit of clothes, that he turned out a genteel young fellow; and, as wealth contributes much to give a man confidence, he in a little time dropped that sheepish behaviour which was principally occasioned by a depression of spirits, and soon grew a sprightly and good companion, insomuch that Miss ...
— The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H.
... living—one railroading in Spokane Falls, the other clerking in Washington, D.C. Don't mention the Universalists—there's be'n two in the fam'ly; nor insanity—there's be'n one o' them. The girl in the corner is the one that the remains has be'n keeping comp'ny with. If you can make some genteel allusions to her, it'll be ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unwilling to allow him the merit which it may be he has. Nor is this sentiment so unjust and unreasonable as at first sight it may seem; for if a man has parts, he must know of what infinite consequence it is to him to have a graceful manner of speaking, and a genteel and pleasing address: he will cultivate and improve them to the utmost. Your figure is a good one; you have no natural defects in the organs of speech; your address may be engaging, and your manner of speaking graceful, if you will; so that, if they are ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... "amen corner" of the church sat Brother Eyer, Who persisted every Sabbath-day in singing with the choir; He was poor but genteel-looking, and his heart as snow was white, And his old face beamed with sweetness when he sang ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... by a bright-eyed, mellow-throated canary, the whole of that paradise being doubtless under the watch and care of little Laura Birch. This was the ladies' parlor,—the grand reception-room, also, of any genteel male guest, should one for a wonder appear. Little Laura, however, was no longer as little as she had been,—though just as innocent, and ten times as bewitching to most people who knew her. You could ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... pealing of the high organ; children afield, bathers by the brookside, ramblers on the brambly common, kite-fliers in the windy and cloud-navigated sky; and then, at another cadence of the hymn, back again to church, and the somnolence of summer Sundays, and the high genteel voice of the parson (which he smiled a little to recall) and the painted Jacobean tombs, and the dim lettering of the Ten Commandments in ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... I done wunst? He, he! Went to th' Young Men's Chrissen Soshiashen. Ole lady, you know, coaxed. He! he! You bet! Prayer meetin', Bible class, or somethin'. All slick young fellers 'th side whiskers. Talked pious, an' so genteel, you know. I went there fer comp'ny! Didn' go no more. Druther git drunk at the 'free-and-easy' ever' night, by George, 'n to be a slick kind 'f feller 'th side whiskers a lis'nin' t' myself make purty speeches 'n a prayer Bible class meetin' or such, you know. Hey? w'at ye say? Hey? 'S comp'ny ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... Susan, we could keep a little school—for genteel children only, of course. I would do ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... had said very simply, "for the Germans to get a 'double casualty.'" It was the sort of remark, he thought, that he would have expected Margaret to make. With all the horror of genteel pauperism staring her in the face, that woman was thinking big, and was keeping her head up. With all the bitterness of loss behind her, she had, that very day, so she told him, been helping ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... momentary feeling of pity: yet Fanny was ashamed of this kindness, and afraid that Mary and Alice would think her anxious to show Miss Lindsay particular attention; so putting on her old "care-for-nobody airs," she said, "Don't you undertake to faint, Mary Palmer. We country girls are neither genteel nor sentimental enough ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... college and sundry at school; had the reputation of being almost a beau, and, at least in Westbourne society, half a wit; and was a tall, fair-faced, lathy young man, dressing well, and looking rather genteel, in spite of an overgrown boyishness which hung about him and kept the Master fastened to his name, though he had left twenty-five behind him. Master Harry had made attempts on law, physic, and divinity, without completing the studies requisite for any of those learned ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... Look ye, Mrs. Jenny, I know you, and I know Mrs. Flauntit; but 'tis not Beauty or Wit that takes now-a-days; the Age is altered since I took upon me this genteel Occupation: but 'tis a fine Petticoat, right Points, and clean Garnitures, that does me Credit, and takes the Gallant, though on a stale Woman. And again, Mrs. Jenny, she's kept, and Men love as much for Malice, as for Lechery, as they call it. Oh, 'tis a great Mover to Joy, as they say, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... it would seem very genteel for a young lady like Miss Dearborn, who 'boards round,' to take a baby from place to ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... on oiled wheels. After the huge clatter of New York, there is something mellow and human about the drowsy hum of Chestnut Street, the genteel reaches of Walnut, and the neat frontage of Spruce Street. Ellenora, so quick to notice her surroundings, was at first bored, then amused, at last lulled by the intimate life of her new home. She had never been abroad, but declared that London, out-of-the-way London, must be something like ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Sunday costume of the Bun Hill district, a curious and interesting survival of the genteel traditions of the Scientific Age. On a weekday the folk were dingily and curiously hung about with dirty rags of housecloth and scarlet flannel, sacking, curtain serge, and patches of old carpet, and went either bare-footed or on rude wooden sandals. These people, the ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... refused to answer even when Christine called him. He skulked miserably past Christine's sisters when he met them in the passage. He scowled at them, his head down, like a hobbled, angry little bull. And Christine's sisters drew in their nostrils in a last genteel effort at self-control. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... looking at them. "Them stockings will do to put on a sore throat, but won't do for feet. It is humiliating for a man like me to be without stockings. A man may be bald-headed, and it's genteel; but to be barefooted, it's ruination. The legs are good, too," he added, thoughtfully, "but the feet are gone. There is something about the heels of stockings and the elbows of stove-pipes, in this world, that ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... terrified Josef, amid the tittering hush of the genteel assembly, bolted from the room, and then solved the whole difficulty by bolting from the ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... matter of that, it is difficult to make a nice, genteel sitting-room out of an apartment of which the principal features are a sink and a big gas stove. The gas stove, of an obsolete pattern, was fed by a tiresome, shilling-in-the-slot arrangement. It had been the ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... at Chicago I want to recommend a man for you to get it is Liver-eating Johnson that is the naim he is generally called he is an old mauntneer and large and fine looking and one of the Best Story Tellers in the country and Very Polight genteel to every one he meets I wil tel you how he got that naim Liver-eating in a hard Fight with the Black Feet Indians thay Faught all day Johnson and a few Whites Faught a large Body of Indians all day after the fight Johnson ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... Sara observed that she made the best she could of many words, and skipped several good lines altogether. But after a while the watery blue eyes of the good woman were languidly raised, an insipid smile spread over her red and white porcelain face, and in a voice which she strove to make as genteel as possible, she said to Beautiful Sara, "He sings very well. But I have heard far better singing in Holland. You are a stranger, and perhaps do not know that the choir-leader is from Worms, and that they will keep him here if he will be content ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... wonder and amusement Selwyn watched the spectacle of these people of more than average education and intelligence contenting themselves with a perpetual routine of small-talk and genteel insularity, and he wondered how it was that a race so gifted with the blessed quality of humour could evolve a state of society offering such a butt to the ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... fifty years of age, now entered. His habiliments were somewhere between decent and shabby genteel, and his voice and manners had that distinguished gentleness which wins—because it feels—its way. This was the Disdar Aga, the last relic of the wealthy Turks of the place: for before the Servian revolution Shabatz had its twenty ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... overhead and rent and fuel, and then they sell a sandwich at fifteen cents, which is, uh, the way they figure percentage of profit—well, make it, say, seven hundred per cent.! 'Course just estimating roughly like. Now can you beat that? And tea-rooms is a safe, sound, interesting, genteel business if there ever was one. What have you got ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... streamed over his cheeks if any reference were made to his daughters' earning their bread. So, over and above other daily cares, the Child of the Marshalsea had always upon her the care of preserving the genteel fiction that they were ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... behalf of the coloured race by becoming their teachers and their helpers. From such persons of culture and refinement he even learned the dignity of labour. He learned from their everyday example that education did not merely mean settling down into a more genteel life, but meant larger responsibilities and harder work. In other words, he came to see that the sharpening of the mental faculties was to ensure the hands working more efficiently, while it might be necessary ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... cunning brain was evolving, and which he determined to put in execution. The Englishmen met the Americans very cordially, and Lieutenant Matson, who was every inch a gentleman, did not dare be other than genteel in the presence of the lady he loved; for he was as passionately in love with Morgianna as was Fernando. The lieutenant was of a romantic turn of mind, and the mystery of the sea waif had interested him. He was quite sure she was the daughter of some nobleman. ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... the cleaver-cuts in its hacked counter, which projects into the street under a little penthouse-roof, as if waiting for a new occupant. The upper half of the door was open, and, on my rapping at it, a young person in black made her appearance and admitted me: she was not a menial, but remarkably genteel (an American characteristic) for an English girl, and was probably the daughter of the old gentlewoman who takes care of the house. This lower room has a pavement of gray slabs of stone, which may have been rudely squared when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... villas which I have mentioned. His name, it appears, was Fitzroy Simpson. He was a man of excellent birth and education, who had squandered a fortune upon the turf, and who lived now by doing a little quiet and genteel book-making in the sporting clubs of London. An examination of his betting-book shows that bets to the amount of five thousand pounds had been registered by him against the favorite. On being arrested he volunteered that statement that he had come down to Dartmoor in the hope of getting ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Hawkins gives the world to understand, that Johnson, 'being an admirer of genteel manners, was captivated by the address and demeanour of Savage, who, as to his exterior, was, to a remarkable degree, accomplished.' Hawkins's Life, p. 52. But Sir John's notions of gentility must appear somewhat ludicrous, from his stating the following circumstance as presumptive ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... girl whoop-in' an' Martin telephonin' for a doctor. Then I broke the news over the house telephone to Mrs. Markham. She waited ten minutes, and called me down. It come out just as I figured. She wanted me to 'tend door. I'd been playin' the genteel stupid, you know, so she trusted me. And I must say I'd rather she hated me, the way I'm out to do her. She told me that I was to sit by the door and bring in the names of callers, and if anyone ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... the man who owns it," said he, "a genteel dilettante with a bank account and an easy conscience, a steam-yacht ain't in it with a camera. You see a man doing nothing but loafing around making snap-shots, and you know right away he reads up well in 'Bradstreet.' You notice these old millionaire ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... nowhere is there such real attachment between servants and their employers as in France. In England, on the other hand, it is difficult to persuade a young girl to accept domestic service; she requires what she imagines to be something higher, or—to use her own word—more 'genteel.' If she be a dressmaker, or a shop girl, or a barmaid, she assumes the title of 'young lady,' and advertises—to the disgust of all sensible people—as such. This monstrous notion, which strikes at the root of all social comfort, and a great deal of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... chair of Sanscrit in any of his native universities, and no demand anywhere for the only mental wares which he had to dispose of, we should have been forced to retire into genteel poverty, consoling ourselves with the aphorisms and precepts of Firdousi, Omar Khayyam, and others of his Eastern favourites, had it not been for the kindness and liberality of his half-brother William Farintosh, the Laird of ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had been a street of some pretensions. Even now, in comparison with the neighbourhood in which it was set, it maintained an air of genteel respectability, and its gloomy three-storeyed houses had in many cases no more than one family to a floor. It was, however, one of those back streets of the East End which are never deserted, for its adult inhabitants plied trades which took them abroad ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... this lady, a fine and intelligent young officer. I had the good fortune to be admitted to the Court, and there I had the pleasure of seeing Mdlle. Chitroff dancing, and also Mdlle. Sievers, now Princesss, whom I saw again at Dresden four years ago with her daughter, an extremely genteel young princess. I was enchanted with Mdlle. Sievers, and felt quite in love with her; but as we were never introduced I had no opportunity of declaring my passion. Putini, the castrato, was high in her favour, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... same marsh, perhaps, standing with unequalled grace upon the longest legs known in this world, is a troop of giant birds as wonderful as the pelican, but how opposite! The beautiful flamingo is a bird of feeble intellect, delicate appetite, and genteel tastes. It cannot eat fish, for its slender throat would scarcely admit a pea. Besides, the idea of catching anything, or even picking up food from the ground, does not occur to its simple mind. Its diet consists of certain ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... which the inferior practitioner perpetually commits. People with small means sometimes have generous impulses in connection with money—rich people, never. My lord, with forty thousand a year; Sir John, with property in half a dozen counties—those are the men who never forgive the genteel beggar for swindling them out of a sovereign; those are the men who send for the mendicity officers; those are the men who take care of their money. Who are the people who lose shillings and sixpences by sheer thoughtlessness? Servants and small clerks, to whom shillings and sixpences are of ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Not—and a darn scalawag into the bargain. So what's the use? Will you go, or won't you?' Then if he'd begin to hem and haw and try to put it off with one thing or another, why, just hint in a roundabout way—perfectly genteel, you understand—that there'd be doings with a kittle of tar and feathers that same night at eight-thirty sharp, rain or shine, with a free ride right afterward to the town line and mebbe a bit beyond, without no cushions. Up about the Narrows would be a ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... processes of endosmose and exosmose go on under much freer conditions; the individual particle is much more ready to filtrate up or down to its proper level. Mr. W.D. Howells writes that "once good society contained only persons of noble or gentle birth; then persons of genteel or sacred callings were admitted; now it welcomes to its level everyone of agreeable manners or cultivated mind;" and this, which may be true of modern society in general, is infinitely more true in America than elsewhere. It might almost be ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... have known intimately and loved the genteel old man of the city when the once famous domestic drama of "Grandfather Whitehead" was conceived. In the play the old man—a once prosperous merchant—finds a happy home in the household of his son-in-law. And here it is that the gentle author has drawn at once the poem, the picture, and ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... they removed to another part of Portsea, and subsequently went to live at Chatham, and where the future genius first saw light, was eighty years ago quite in a rural neighbourhood; and in those days must have been considered rather a genteel residence for a family of moderate means in the middle class. Even now, with the pressure which always attends the development of large towns, and their extension on the border-land of green country ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... considered to be daft; Birdie evidently had been treated badly in his youth and remained distrustful and suspicious to the end; Kid was the most indefatigable worker in the team; Wolf's character possessed no redeeming point of any kind, while Brownie though a little too genteel for very hard work was charming as a pet, and it may also be said of him that he never lost an opportunity of using his pleasant appearance and delightful ways to lighten his afflictions. The load for this dog team after Depot A had ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... consider select society in their own sets, and they consequently cannot have a dance without guinea tickets nor a pic-nic without dozens of champagne. This shows their native ignorance and vulgarity more than enough; genteel people go upon a plan directly contrary, not merely enjoying themselves, but enjoying themselves without extravagance or waste: in this respect the gentility-mongers would do well to imitate people ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... he replied, in a tone of the most insolent indignation, "wot ever do you mean by runnin' agin my 'ead like that? Hain't you got no genteel boys in the West-end to butt agin, that you come all the way to Vitechapel to butt agin me? I've a good mind to 'and you over to the p'leece. Come, you owes me a copper ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... by two or three French officials attended by an escort of Annamese policemen. These latter had a decidedly ladylike, genteel air with their hair smoothly brushed and twisted in a low knot at the back of the neck, the whole bound round with a black kerchief laid in neat folds. Their uniform was of dark blue woollen set off by putties of a lighter blue, and their appearance was decidedly shipshape. I talked with one ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... tips on his lips, like Lady Hopkins' poodle. I heard Mr. Fulmer say he was a son of Marrs; he spoke as if everybody knew his father, so I suppose he must be the son of the poor gentleman who was so barbarously murdered some years ago, near Ratcliff Highway—if he is, he is uncommon genteel. At 12 o'clock we got into a boat and rowed to the packet; it was a very fine and clear day for the season, and Mr. Fulmer said he should not dislike pulling Lavinia about all the morning—this, I believe, was a naughty-call phrase—which I did not rightly comprehend, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... silver dish; but what happened further they knew not; or, in fact, what it was to be boiled, and to lie on a silver dish, they could not possibly imagine; but it was said to be delightful, and particularly genteel. Neither the chafers, the toads, nor the earth-worms, whom they asked about it could give them any information—none of them had been boiled or laid on a ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... eye for a capable man was infallible, had observed a genteel, tall, good-looking young German waiter in the hotel, who looked superior to his place. He turned out to be the son of a wealthy hotel proprietor at Frankfort, who had sent his son to Meurice's in a sort of apprenticeship, to learn how a large Parisian ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... that frequently in their Native Language, which every one methinks should be most concerned to cultivate, especially Letters, in which a Gentleman must have so frequent Occasions to distinguish himself. A Set of genteel good-natured Youths fallen into such a Manner of Life, would form almost a little Academy, and doubtless prove no such contemptible Companions, as might not often tempt a wiser Man to mingle himself in their Diversions, and draw them into ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... It is an oblong sheet of glass, set in a frame of dark, highly varnished wood, carved in the worst taste of the Regency period, and relieved with faded gilt. Glancing at it from a distance, you would guess the thing a relic from some "genteel" drawing-room of Miss Austen's time. But go nearer and look into the glass itself. By some malformation or mere freak of make, all the images it throws back are livid. Flood the room with sunshine; stand before this glass with youth and hot ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... behind the sand-hills on this side. Our brave escort was, therefore, inclined to put us forward as a forlorn-hope, and secure their own retreat in case of an attack. But as we were all well armed, and had never considered their attendance as anything more than a genteel way of buying them off from robbing us, we allowed them to lag as much as they chose. Finally, as we approached the Pilgrims' Ford, one of them took his station at some distance from the river, on ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... in the trolley cars, merely served to ridicule the representatives of Russian officialdom, giving frequent rise to tragi-comic conflicts in public and to utterances of indignation in the press. The public pronouncements of these genteel chinovniks who were anxious to train the Jewish masses in the fear of Russian bureaucracy and inculcate in them polite manners aroused the attention both of the Russian and the foreign press. It was universally felt that these farcical performances of uncouth administrators ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... gentleman, of a more genteel appearance than the rest, came forward, and for a while regarding us, instead of pursuing the chase, stopped short, and giving his horse to a servant who attended, approached us with a careless, superior air." The family are sweetly grouped—the story well told—the easy assurance of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... absolutely don't need that," she thought sadly. "It's possible to live just so. There are others, now, living on maintenance. And, they say, far better than if they had twirled around an altar. What's so bad about that? Peaceful, quiet, genteel ... I'd darn socks for him, wash floors, cook ... the plainer dishes. Of course, he'll be in line to get married to a rich girl some time. Well, now, to be sure, he wouldn't throw me out in the street just so, mother-naked. Although he's a little simpleton, and chatters a lot, still it's ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... accommodation, and removed to a house of his own, "a pretty garden-house, in Aldersgate, at the end of an entry." Aldersgate was outside the city walls, on the verge of the open country of Islington, and was a genteel though not a fashionable quarter. There were few streets in London, says Phillips, more ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... from the obscene objects of low life? Must the public be again disgusted with the grovelling adventures of a waggon? Will no writer of genius draw his pen in the vindication of taste, and entertain us with the agreeable characters, the dignified conversation, the poignant repartee, in short, the genteel comedy of ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... well in the future. I look high. I mean to be a lady, as good as the best. Would Miss Kathleen O'Hara take so much notice of me if I was not a very nice, lady-like sort of a girl? I am sure no one could look sweeter than I do in my pale-blue blouse. Even Tom says so. He said I looked very genteel, and that he'd like his great friend, Walter Amber, to see me. I don't want to have anything to do with Tom's friends. Poor Tom! if mother can apprentice him to somebody, that is the most that can be expected. But as for me, the very lowest position I intend ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... fond of fun, and if not fond of money yet judiciously disposed to gain as much as he could make, or as his apprentices and careful wife could make for him: and gradually progressing from a smaller to a larger shop, from a less to a more "genteel" business, and finally ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... spectres of soldiers, these unhappy men broken down with hunger and fatigue, the genteel National Guards, warmly clad and wrapped up for the winter, commenced to utter foolish speeches and big hopes which had been their daily food for several months: "Break the iron circle;" "not one inch, not a stone;" "war to the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... convinced by your arguments, but were I to sign the pledge, what good would it do. I have no desire to go about with a sermon on my lips, and a frown on my brow, to bestow on all the luckless wights who 'touch, taste or handle.' It is not genteel to scold, and I fancy they might think me impertinent were I to advise. Who is there among my acquaintance who would not resent my interference with their habits ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... HE WILL READ IT IN THE PAPERS,' replied the dear little fashionable rogue of seven years old. She knew already her importance, and how all the world of England, how all the would-be-genteel people, how all the silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all the grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants' ladies, and the people living at Clapham and Brunswick ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... masters of the different houses, but travellers were subjected to a great inconvenience, in order that this abstraction might not be violated. There may be some small remuneration, but no one can suppose for a moment, that the keeper of a genteel establishment of this nature wishes to see his carriage-houses, gateways, and halls thronged with soldiers. Society oppresses him to maintain appearances! At the present day the presence of soldiers might be the means of sustaining justice, while ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... considerately entered into conversation with Shoni, endeavouring to express himself in his mother-tongue, but with that hesitation and indistinctness common to the dwellers in the counties bordering upon England, and to the "would-be genteel" of too many other parts of Wales, who, perfectly unconscious of the beauty of their own language, and ignorant of its literature, affect English manners and customs, and often pretend that English ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... select parlours did not open upon the main street, it being far from her desire to attract promiscuous trade. The parlours, indeed, were situated upon one of the "nicest" streets in Coombe and occupied a corner lot, so that a splendid view down two of the most genteel residential streets was obtainable from their windows. The only sign of business anywhere was a board of chaste design over the doorway, bearing the simple legend, "A. MILLIGAN." Even the word "Dressmaker" was considered superfluous. Also there was one ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... looked at her—it did seem a particular kind of question, so to speak, an' she took a fit of coughin'" (here Mrs. Domeny simulated a genteel and hesitating attack of the infirmity in question), "an' at last, says she, very earnest, 'Bain't there one of them at all as hasn't got ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... they were old, looked bright and pleasant as if they were confident that the affection which had been theirs for years would be continued to them by new owners. He picked up old volumes and spent much time in contemplating the inscriptions inside them ... fading inscriptions in a thin, genteel handwriting that had the careful look of writing done by people who were anxious that the record should not offend a schoolmaster's eye ... and as he read these inscriptions, a queer dejection settled on ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... occasion, at the moment when she seemed to be abandoned by everyone, to show those "wretched contemptible lodgers" that she knew "how to do things, how to entertain" and that she had been brought up "in a genteel, she might almost say aristocratic colonel's family" and had not been meant for sweeping floors and washing the children's rags at night. Even the poorest and most broken-spirited people are sometimes liable to these paroxysms of pride ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Belinda. "I call occasionally and leave my card in the shape of an apple, finding Madam Rosa living like an independent lady, with her large box and private yard on the sunny side of the barn, a kind ostler to wait upon her, and much genteel society from the city when she ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... street ever rejoiced in a more expressive name than Dull Street. It was not a specially dirty street, or a specially disreputable street, or a specially dark street. The neighbourhood might a hundred years ago have been considered "genteel," and the houses even fashionable, and some audacious antiquarians went so far as to assert that the street took its name not from its general appearance at all, but from a worthy London alderman, who in the reign of George the First had owned most ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... as I told him,—took a genteel office, furnished it neatly, dressed with a certain elegance, soon made a pleasant circle of acquaintances, and began to work his way into the right kind of business. I missed him, however, for some days, not long after he had opened ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... do only what he liked. I didn't think he was that game, and told him so. He said I'd better take a seat some day and see how I liked it. I asked him wasn't they all very good-looking chaps, and he said Starlight was genteel-lookin', but there was one great, big, rough-lookin' feller—that was you, Jim—as was ugly enough to turn a cask ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... know, Bill," said the other, "this here's the difference. When they get drunk, it's genteel drunk, and there's no sin in that; but when we poor fellows get drunk, it's wulgar ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... Ne parlez pas du people!" cried the Countess Zamoiska, with a gesture of disgust. "A set of beastly peasants, no better than their own cattle, or a band of genteel robbers, who have made it unsafe to live anywhere on ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... again took the cars for Kehl, about four miles from Strasburg, a distance of nearly ninety miles. The first-class cars are very luxurious and reasonable; second class, excellent, and very genteel-looking persons using them. Lord Cowley, father of Lady Bulwer, wife of the minister from England at Washington, was in the cars with us, and two of his children—one a beautiful little girl. They were going to Baden, and were accompanied by ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... festive scene it was; for the room was small, and twenty mortals were stowed therein. One fat lady sat in the fireplace, Papa Clomadoc leaned his heavy head upon the sideboard, and the plump shoulders of Madame F. were half out of the front window. 'But it was genteel. Oh! I assure you, yes,' as ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... about you as long ago as 1915, and you know what happens to people when LENIN really starts to worry about them. He wasn't satisfied that enough violent interest was being taken in you; the mere Socialists he regarded as far too moderate and genteel. As for their First and their Second International—he wanted something thoroughgoing, something with a bit of ginger to it. So at the Zimmerwald Congress on the 5th September of that year all the out-and-outs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... nothing to them. They had no notion London had a voice. Still less had they any notion she was a prodigious living creature. London was the place where they resided—that was all, and, since the streets are admittedly noisy and dusty, they had taken a house in this genteel and convenient suburb. Of the tremendous life and force of things, miscalled man-made and inanimate, they had no faintest conception. Small wonder they went to bed betimes and slept a dreamless sleep! Thinking of which— notwithstanding ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... he produced The School for Scandal, a caustic satire on London society, which has no superior in genteel comedy. It has been said that the characters of Charles and Joseph Surface were suggested by the Tom Jones and Blifil of Fielding; but, if this be true, the handling is so original and natural, that they are in no sense a plagiarism. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... angle. She did not, for example, consider herself to be in the least peculiar, but, on the contrary, a very normal woman. She had always used tapers; she could remember the period when every one used tapers. In her view tapers were far more genteel and less dangerous than the untidy, flaring spill, which she abhorred as a vulgarity. As for matches, frankly it would not have occurred to her to waste a match when fire was available. In the matter of her sharp ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... Tching-whang, and recognized him immediately. It is astonishing how like lightning unpleasant facts do fly. In less than two minutes, every soul in the gardens knew that Mien-yaun, the noble, the princely, the loftily-descended, the genteel, was going to marry ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... and wax-plants and, whenever anyone came to visit her, she always gave the visitor one or two slips from her conservatory. There was one thing she didn't like and that was the tracts on the walks; but the matron was such a nice person to deal with, so genteel. ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... and conceited baronet, has three daughters, the eldest two, unmarried, and the third, Mary, the wife of a neighbouring gentleman, Mr. Charles Musgrove, heir to a considerable fortune, and living in a genteel cottage in the neighbourhood of the Great house which he is hereafter to inherit. The second daughter, Anne, who is the heroine, and the only one of the family possessed of good sense (a quality which Miss Austin is ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... a youth desolate and strange indeed lay before them. A spinster who was a poor relation was the only person of respectable breeding who ever came near them. To save herself from genteel starvation, she had offered herself for the place of governess to them, though she was fitted for the position neither by education nor character. Mistress Margery Wimpole was a poor, dull creature, having no wilful harm in her, but endowed ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Can be in worse taste than to say "she is a beautiful lady," or "a clever lady." One should always say "beautiful woman," "clever woman." The would-be genteel make this mistake constantly, and in the Rosa-Matilda style of novel the gentleman always kneels to the lady, and the fair ladies are scattered broadcast through the book, while the fine old Saxon word "woman" is left out, or not ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... enlivens the performance here and there with original reflections on life, which are perfectly dignified, but become humorous from contrast with their surroundings. In spite of its comical effect, the piece has a very genteel air, for its material is taken from that general stock of information that passes current in cultivated families. The young man of fashion who had never heard of Elijah, or of Poe's "Raven," ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... marm. It is not often we gets a tip for taking a gent. Ve are funk shin hairies as is not depreciated, mam, and the more genteel we takes 'em the rougher they cuts; and the very women no more like you nor dark to light; but flies at us like ryal Bengal tigers, through taking ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... had but fitted the work, he'd have been mighty comfortable; but as it was, what he got wouldn't have kept him in shoe-leather, but for making both ends meet by wearing his shoes in his pocket, except when he was in the town, and obliged to look genteel for the credit of the place ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... what is known as the Club House are in perhaps the best condition of any in that portion of the town, but it is certainly damaged beyond possibility of repair. On the upper floor five bodies are lying unidentified. One of them, a woman of genteel birth, judging by her dress, is locked in one of the small rooms to prevent a possibility of spoliation by wreckers, who are flocking to the spot from all directions and taking possession of everything they ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... parts of the kingdom, may think such a situation desirable, takes this public method of enabling them to obtain it. The salary, which will vary according to the talents of the reporter, will at least afford a genteel subsistence, and the business need not interrupt the pursuit of studies necessary for a more important profession. A gentleman who has never tried parliamentary reporting, will be preferred by the advertiser, because he has observed, that those who have last attempted ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... was a pleasing young gentleman of a genteel appearance, with a great deal to say for himself in the way of religion, as was right, it being his business. 'Name this child,' says he, and she gives a start that nobody sees but myself. So, thinking that the child being likely to die, ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... exhibited a kind of wildness, however, which did not fail to interest me—there were stones, rocks and furze in abundance. Turning round the corner of a hill, I observed through the mists of evening, which began to gather about me, what seemed to be rather a genteel house on the roadside; on my left, and a little way behind it a strange kind of monticle, on which I thought I observed tall upright stones. Quickening my pace, I soon came parallel with the house, which as I drew ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... about; which coming in time to his knowledge, he thought of a notable Device to prevent the Consequences that generally ensue on those occasions to Persons in his way of Life. His first step was to order Glaziers and Painters to new-ornament his House in the most genteel manner. He next hurried to the Pool, and order'd in about a hundred Chaldrons of Coals, tho' it was the warm Season of the Year. These Circumstances seem'd to demonstrate a Continuance in his House, and for three or four Days together, when the ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... kind Judge,' says I real winning and genteel, 'this man is so good at explainin' things away, ask him to talk off this bump over my ear. I surely didn't get a buggy spoke and laminate ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... the cook, which, I believe, often takes place. Tim, the head groom, was a very nice, genteel fellow, and I daresay I might have taken up with him, if I hadn't met with my James, though never with John, who was the plague of my life. To begin with, he had a black whisker, that I couldn't bear to look at, let alone putting ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... fine comparison, Charley," said a clear, sarcastic voice near them; and a young man, bearing the unmistakable stamp of the genteel loafer about him, stretched out a small white hand, with a large diamond glittering on the little finger, and shook Charley's over the back of ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... the purlieus of the Place de Laborde were still far from inviting. The genteel pedestrian, who by chance should turn out of the Rue de la Pepiniere into one of those dreadful side-streets, would have been dismayed to see how vile a bohemia dwelt cheek by jowl with the aristocracy. In such places as these, haunted ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... fishing, shooting, and riding, and were lavishly hospitable. They sought to have their children well taught, not only in letters but in social accomplishments like dancing; and at the proper season they liked to visit the Virginian watering-places, where they met "genteel company" from the older States, and lodged in good taverns in which "a man could have a room and a bed to himself." [Footnote: Letter of a young Virginian, L. Butler, April 13, 1790. Magazine of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... without finding a single woman that could be exactly compared with her. The distant perfume of her person and her genteel elegance reminded him of certain dubious ladies who were always traveling alone when he was captain of the transatlantic liners. But these acquaintances had been so rapid and were so far away!... Never in his history as a world-rover had he had the ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... candelabras; and if we don't employ them as corks for our empty bottles, why, John puts them into the last new chimney ornament, and we have to pay for them when the play is over. Skinflint is a nice man,—pious and genteel, a good father, husband, etc. He made money in that famous Rotten-Iron Company, which paid the original purchasers cent per cent, and then, some how or other, passed off from the stock list. He was largely concerned in the well-known Cheetamall Copper Company, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... in the prize-package business, but that got played out, and I was a gentleman at large, seeking for a light, genteel business that wouldn't ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Lytton's flashy romance, "Paul Clifford," have been devoured by the public, "Captain Singleton" has remained unread and almost forgotten. But the explanation is simple. Defoe's plain and homely realism soon grew to be thought vulgar by people who themselves aspired to be refined and genteel. The rapid spread of popular education, in the middle of last century, was responsible for a great many aberrations of taste, and the works of the two most English of Englishmen, Defoe and Hogarth, were ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... whole of the day in their several occupations; he is a man of leisure, and must either remain alone or associate with other men of leisure; and who are the majority of men of leisure in the towns of the United States? Blacklegs of genteel exterior and fashionable appearance, with whom he associates, into whose snares he falls, and to whom he eventually loses property about which he is indifferent. To be an idle man when every body else is busy, is not only a great unhappiness, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... very old. The lawn was large and ill kept; the house, a square old-fashioned brick, was set far back from the street, and partly hidden by trees. Around it all was a rusty iron fence. The place had the air of genteel ruin, such as ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... no, ma'am. (Persuasively.) Oh, no, sir, not at all. A little pretty and tasty no doubt; but very choice and classy—-very genteel and high toned indeed. Might be the son and daughter of a Dean, sir, I assure you, sir. You have only to look at them, sir, to—- (At this moment a harlequin and columbine, dancing to the music of the band in the garden, which has just reached the coda of a waltz, whirl one another ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... really appears to me as if the sunbeams were always seeking for me under the water. Ah! I'm so fine that my mother cannot find me. If I had my old eye, which broke off, I think I should cry; but no, I should not do that; it's not genteel to cry." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and it was dinner time, and she was hungry, and hot, and tired, and—"mad." She did not bless her rescuer; she heaped maledictions upon his head—mild ones at first, but growing perceptibly more forcible and less genteel as the way grew rougher, and her feet grew wearier, and her stomach emptier. Then, as if her troubles were all to come in a lump—as they have a way of doing—she stepped squarely into a ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... imprecations then commonly in use; but which, happily for us, we never hear, except among the most degraded classes of society. Swearing was formerly considered to be a habit of gentility; but now it betrays the blackguard, even when disguised in genteel attire. Those dangerous diseases which are so surely engendered by filth and uncleanness, he calls not by Latin but by their plain English names. In every case, the Editor has not ventured to make the slightest alteration; but has reprinted the whole ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "coons has more genteel home life in jail than they does out. An' don't forget the District of Columbia is governed by folks that ain't residents of it, only durin' the session. Th' politicians don't leave their frien's in the cooler ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... only under escort, and with her face buried in a hood of almost incredible size, affording only a glimpse of the poor pale cheeks, quite unlike the rosy vigor of the damsels on the mountain-side. The girls, I was told, did not covet this privilege of seclusion; but let us be genteel, ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... at home when he arrived, and received him with some surprise, Mrs. Wheeler, who was in her usual place on the sofa, shook hands with him in a genteel fashion, and calling his attention to a somewhat loudly attired young man of unpleasant appearance, who was making a late tea, introduced ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... them to memorize, the performance would be perfect!" He threw back his head and laughed aloud, the sound ringing through the room. Sylvia had seldom seen him so light-heartedly amused. He explained: "I haven't seen this sort of solemn, genteel posturing for several years now, and I find it too delicious! To see the sweet, invincible American naivete welling up in their intense satisfaction in being so sophisticated,—oh, the harmless dears!" He cried out upon them gaily, with the indulgence of ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... you've noticed me a haulin' up and down the Parade when the band's a playin'), says to me, says she, 'It ain't so much the easy goin' of your chair, Mr. WISTERWHISTLE, as makes me patronise it, as its general genteel appearance. For there's many a chair at Brighton that can't hold a candle to it!'" But at this point he was interrupted by the appearance of a dense crowd that half filled the street, and drew up in silent expectation opposite ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... correspondent of ours, struck apparently with the true cause of the evil—the tyranny of conventional feeling—deprecated the emigration of those classes supposed to be the most slavishly subjected to it, without having previously made a trial of their energies. He proposed that every 'genteel' family, before setting their lives and fortune upon the cast, should establish themselves for a time in some solitary district of their own country, remote from the comforts and conveniences of life, and try whether their industry and ingenuity were of an available kind. He seemed to be of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... nonsense. Mr. Twentyman is behaving honest and genteel. What more would you have? Give him an answer like a ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... young gentleman called on him one morning, and told him that his father having, just before his death, dropped suddenly into the enjoyment of an ample fortune, he (the son) was willing to qualify himself for genteel society by adding some literature to his other endowments, and wished to be put in an easy way of obtaining it. Dr. Johnson recommended the university, "for you read Latin, sir, with facility?" "I read ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... become of their children? Will Jonadab, their first-born, be a gentleman like his maternal ancestors? — But how, indeed should he, with the pursuits of a cow-boy and the hands of a scavenger? It is very well for one who cares nothing for genteel society, and whose bearish manners, in fact, unfit him for it, to lead such a life; but is she to endure this for ever, and see her daughters married to men who wear long beards and ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... was more popular than it showed itself twenty years later. Every country town of any pretensions, in addition to its assembly rooms had its theatre, which reared good actors, to which provincial tours brought London stars. Genteel comedy was not past its perfection. Adaptations of the Waverley novels, with musical dramas and melodramas, drew great houses. Miss O'Neill had just retired, but Ellen Tree was making a success, and Macready ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... battered and bent, though doubtless never quite so fine, Colonel Newcomes not less; with more reminders in short than I can now gather in. Of those forms of the seedy, the subtly sinister, the vainly "genteel," the generally damaged and desperate, and in particular perhaps the invincibly impudent, all the marks, I feel sure, were stronger and straighter than such as we meet in generally like cases under ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... replied. He nodded to Sommers. The doctor remembered White as one of the negative figures of his early months in Chicago,—a smiling, slim, youthful college boy. Evidently he was the genteel member of the firm. Sommers thought again. He could not wait. "Will you carry him ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... anything, I have no doubt he is very sensible. He has good manners, is a model of dress, and is reckoned ornamental in all societies. Next to him is Miss Crotchet, my sister-in-law that is to be. You see she is rather pretty, and very genteel. She is tolerably accomplished, has her table always covered with new novels, thinks Mr. Mac Quedy an oracle, and is extremely desirous to be called "my lady." Next to her is Mr. Firedamp, a very absurd person, who thinks ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... the difference between retail and wholesale,—and that is no trifle, I admit, Captain Ludlow, in a commercial country, especially in genteel life. Still, Sir, revenue is the country's right and therefore I allow a smuggler to be a bad man only not so bad as those I have just named, particularly your Dutchman! The Queen is right to make those rogues lower their flags to her in the narrow seas, which are her lawful property; ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... which no hereditary pride, or gentlemanly love of doing nothing, prevents him from using. This ill-will, to be sure, is mostly of a negative kind; its most common form of manifestation is in absence of speech or action, a sort of torpid and genteel ignoring all unpleasant neighbours; but really the whale-fisheries of Monkshaven had become so impertinently and obtrusively prosperous of late years at the time of which I write, the Monkshaven ship-owners were growing so wealthy and consequential, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... received them in his closet. Mr. James Melvil being first in the commission, told the king his errand, upon which he appeared angry, and charged them with sedition, &c. Mr. James being a man of cool passion and genteel behaviour, began to answer the king with great reverence and respect; but Mr. Andrew, interrupting him, said, "This is not a time to flatter, but to speak plainly, for our commission is from the living God, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... nourished; into such a world that illustrious shepherd, Carlo Innocenze Frugoni, was born. He was the younger son of a noble family of Genoa, and in youth was sent into a cloister as a genteel means of existence rather than from regard to his own wishes or fitness. He was, in fact, of a very gay and mundane temper, and escaped from his monastery as soon as ever he could, and spent his long life thereafter at the comfortable court ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... on board the next morning with the owner, John Picket, Esq. Soon after they got Purnell into a boat, and carried him on shore; but he was still so very feeble, that he was obliged to be supported by two men. Mr. Picket took a very genteel lodging for him, and hired a nurse to attend him; he was immediately put to bed, and afterwards provided with a change of clothes. In the course of the day he was visited by every doctor in the town, who all gave him hopes of recovering, but told him it would ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... happy life must Priscilla's be—so young, so beautiful, so beloved. "Not that wealth brings happiness, my dear Miss Theodora. Riches are very deceitful, you know; but there is a great deal of solid comfort in a genteel sufficiency." ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the evening, for the children were allowed to have the grand parlor, and dance to the music of the band until nine o'clock. This was a privilege we older ones talked of continually, and looked forward to all day. We were so dainty, genteel, and good-mannered for an hour, that it impressed even ourselves; and boys and girls became models of gentleness and polite behavior, and the effect of those delightful evenings has given growth and direction to many ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... much of me. Only remember what my life has been! From babyhood I have never seen anything but poverty. My father was a gentleman, but poor; my mother— but don't let me speak of her. You can never guess what is endured by genteel paupers. I cannot be disinterested; I cannot be blind to the advantages of such a marriage. I do not dislike you—no, no; and I do not love anyone in the world," she added, with a laugh, when asked ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Mason, and there was of course great joy at Orley Farm. The old father felt that the world had begun again for him, very delightfully, and was more than ever satisfied with his wisdom in regard to that marriage. But the very genteel progeny of his early youth were more than ever dissatisfied, and in their letters among themselves dealt forth harder and still harder words upon poor Sir Joseph. What terrible things might he not be expected to do now that his dotage was coming on? Those three ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
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