"Courtly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... disgust, for his pleasures were miscellaneous and coarse; a man truly abandoned to the most violent passions: the other side pleasing, exciting admiration; a man with an enormous power of work, affable, dignified, with courtly manners, and enchanting conversation, making friends with everybody, out of real kindness of heart, because he really loved the people, and sought their highest good; a truly patriotic man, and as wise as he was enthusiastic. This great orator and statesman was outraged and alarmed at the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... ear; it is visible harmony. This bird cannot do an ungraceful thing. It has the bearing of a bird of fine breeding. Its cousin the robin is much more masculine and plebeian, harsher in voice, and ruder in manners. The wood thrush is urban and suggests sylvan halls and courtly companions. Softness, gentleness, composure, characterize every movement. In only a few instances among our birds does the male assist in nest-building. He is usually only a gratuitous superintendent of the work. The male oriole visits the half-finished structure ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... it you ever heard, most gracious Emperor, that in a question of faith laymen should be judges of a bishop? What! have courtly manners so bent our backs, that we have forgotten the rights of the priesthood, that I should of myself put into another's hands what God has bestowed upon me? Once grant that a layman may set a bishop right, and see what will follow. The layman in consequence discusses, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... speak to any one who called him "Colonel,"—was a hoary-headed patriarch. His step was firm, his form erect, his intellect strong and clear, his countenance classic, serene, dignified, commanding, his manners courtly, his voice musical, —fascinating. He had had his vices,—all his life; but had borne them, as his race do, with a serenity of conscience and a cleanness of mouth that left no outward blemish on the surface of the gentleman. He had gambled in Royal Street, ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... OF, Queen Elizabeth's favourite, fifth son of the Duke of Northumberland; won the queen's favour by his handsome appearance and courtly address; received many offices and honours, and on the death, under suspicious circumstances, of his Countess, Amy Robsart, aspired to her hand; still favoured, in spite of his unpopularity in the country, he ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Church leaders whom I had known he was the only man who showed none of the robustness of the Western experience. Tall, stately, white-bearded, elegant and courtly, he prided himself most obviously on his manners and his culture. He rarely spoke in any but the most subdued and silken tones of suavity. He walked with a step that was almost affected in its gentility. If he had any passions, he held them in such smooth concealment ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... man was of your own world—the world of which you were so fond that sometimes it seemed to me that you cherished it more than our love. At times when I so doubted you did not calm me. You were amused by the thought that you were stretching out to me a hand of courtly condescension, and I, in an excess of humiliation, I cast aside that hand. You knew it then, and ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... and with courtly grace stretched out his hand to the conquered youth, saying, "Thank the noble lady of Montfaucon for your life and liberty. But if you are so totally devoid of all goodness as to wish to resume the combat, here am I; let ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... Cranmer archbishop of Canterbury stood godfather to the princess; and Shakespeare, by a fiction equally poetical and courtly, has represented him as breaking forth on this memorable occasion into an animated vaticination of the glories of the "maiden reign." Happy was it for the peace of mind of the noble personages there assembled, that no prophet was empowered at the same time to declare ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... fetishes of the Church, as Maya's holy cup for water, all holy books, crosses, banners, with sacred emblems in their order, and finally the Czar, humbly, and, like all his people, on foot, followed by courtly throngs. These all proceeded to a handsome pavilion or kiosk, erected close to the edge of the water, when the Metropolitan of the Church reverently made an incision in the ice, and took out a little water in a sacred golden cup bearing strange devices. The ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... soldier of fortune. London was a fitting place for such ambition, for those were chivalrous times. Artevelde's daughter entrusts the youth with the commission, and dispatches him to the King: he acquits himself with courtly discretion, and, having displayed some prowess in a passage of arms, soon obtains an appointment in the royal service. Edward's interview with the lady determines him to start instantly for Flanders, and the young citizen (Borgia) ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... do!" reprimanded the magistrate, forgetting his courtly dignity for the moment and breaking into a grin; for Jim and he were ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... that I would not discover myself till I knew the truth. I advanced a pace, but not so far as to pass from the shadow of the shrubs which grow here, and taking my stand in such a fashion that the moonlight did not strike upon my face, I bowed low in the courtly Spanish fashion, and disguising my voice spoke as a Spaniard might in broken English which I will ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... in mind. The whole of this scene of the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke seems introduced for the purpose of showing by anticipation the characters of Richard and Bolingbroke. In the latter there is observable a decorous and courtly checking of his anger in subservience to a predetermined plan, especially in his calm speech after receiving sentence of banishment compared with Mowbray's unaffected lamentation. In the one, all is ambitious hope of something yet to come; in the other ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... having some inducements to suspect me a tamperer, he was sufficiently rigid. The first time, that ever I took notice of him, was in the very beginning of the Parliament held in November 1640, when I vainly thought my selfe a courtly young Gentleman: (for we Courtiers valued our selves much upon our good cloaths.) I came one morning into the House well clad, and perceived a Gentleman speaking (whom I knew not) very ordinarily apparelled; for it was ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... George, son of the deceased Frederick, Prince of Wales; the groom was John Stuart, Earl of Bute, an impoverished descendant of an ancient Scottish chieftain. The prince was young, virtuous, and amiable; the earl was in the prime of mature manhood, pedantic, gay, courtly in bearing, and winning in deportment. He came as an adventurer to the court of George the Second, for he possessed nothing but an earldom, a handsome person, and great assurance; he lived in affluence in the royal household of Frederick, because he played Lothario well not only in the amateur ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... had enough of poetry in her to be pleased with Malcolm's quiet enthusiasm, and spoke a kind word of sympathy with the old man's delight as she rose to take her leave. Duncan rose also, and followed her to the door, making her a courtly bow, and that just ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... within the range of his vision, his courteous smile seeming intended for each separate individual, and yet overlooking none, nor resting long on any, his high brow serene and unbent, his flowing robes falling back from his courtly figure, as with his red hat in his hand he bowed his way through the bowing crowd. His departure, which was quickly followed by that of several other cardinals and prelates, was the signal that the dancing ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... steadied the man, for he was a really brilliant and famous actor beginning to break. He grew courtly. "Miss Merival, I assure you I shall be ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... conduct in retaining the island till the time when it was abandoned, was carried by a similar majority; but "the indignant nation plainly perceived that the house felt unwilling to sanction the disgraceful measures of the principals concerned in this expedition; while it was too courtly to visit the commander with any severity of punishment, and too dependent to condemn the acts of a cabinet which did not seem likely to be dissolved." Lord Chatham, however, quailed before the storm raised against him; for, to avoid the consequences of an address for his removal, he resigned the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... nothing surprising in the great politeness of this letter, compared with the almost crude ones which he has since written to me. He thought I was in great favor with Madam Richelieu; and the courtly suppleness, which everyone knows to be the character of this author, obliged him to be extremely polite to a new comer, until he become better acquainted with the measure of the favor ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... creatures, and of contributing to their happiness; perhaps no person in existence has seen more of the world and life in its various phases than himself. His manners are naturally to the highest degree courtly, yet he nevertheless possesses a disposition so pliable that he finds no difficulty in accommodating himself to all kinds of company, in consequence of which he is a universal favourite. There is a mystery about him, which, wherever he goes, serves not ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... a courtly fair, John cried, enchanted with her air, 'What lovely wench is that there here?' 'Ventch! Je vous n'entends pas, Monsieur.' 'What, he again? Upon my life! A palace, lands, and then a wife Sir Joshua might delight to draw: I should like ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... for Anthony. He had seen world-powers incarnate below him in the glittering rustling figure of the Queen, and the dark-eyed courtly Ambassador in his orders and jewels at her side. There they had sat together in one carriage; the huge fiery realm of the south, whose very name was redolent with passion and adventure and boundless wealth; ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... native of Connecticut." This left him in a bad humor for the remainder of the evening. The editor of this series has said of him: "General Scott was a man of true courage—personally, morally, and religiously brave. He was in manner, association, and feeling courtly and chivalrous. He was always equal to the danger—great on great occasions. His unswerving loyalty and patriotism were always conspicuous, and of such a lofty character that had circumstances rendered the sacrifice necessary he would have unhesitatingly followed the glorious example of ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... he said, in a tone of courtly regret, "if only I could be certain that you did not come here this morning, two miles, running all the way, merely from affection ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... treat of, two of the branches of this ancient house were extinct; the third and only surviving branch was represented by the reigning prince, Maximilian Emanuel Van Horn, twenty-four years of age, who resided in honorable and courtly style on his hereditary domains at Baussigny, in the Netherlands, and his brother, the Count Antoine Joseph, who is the subject ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... the proudest aristocrat, and he had sentenced a man to be hanged for the murder of his own slave. An old-fashioned man, tall and spare of figure and bowed somewhat with age, he was always correctly clad in a long frock coat of broadcloth, with a high collar and a black stock. Courtly in address to his social equals (superiors he had none), he was kind and considerate to those beneath him. He owned a few domestic servants, no one of whom had ever felt the weight of his hand, and ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... morning rose, Nature seemed to mourn the day, Which consigned before its close Thousands to their kindred clay; How unfit for courtly ball, Or the giddy festival, Was the grim and ghastly view, E're evening ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... the barn itself in search of the assembled Friends. The officer in charge was a young Ensign, Lawrence Hodgson, a very gay gentleman indeed, a gentleman of the Restoration, when not only courtiers but soldiers too, knew well what it was to be courtly. ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... the Hotel Ritz, and a most important looking personage in blue uniform assisted them to alight. Other attendants in unostentatious livery swung open the glass doors and our party entered. The proprietor, who advanced to meet them, was a courtly, polite Frenchman, in correct evening dress, whose suave and deferential manner was truly typical of his race. He seemed to take a personal interest in his newly arrived guests, and himself conducted them ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... a thin, serious-looking young man, had approached Jean hat in hand and addressed him with courtly politeness. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... ALTASCAR (Senor). A courtly old Spaniard in Bret Harte's Notes by Flood and Field. He is dispossessed of his corral in the Sacramento Valley by a party of government surveyors, who have come to correct ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... hear my doom decided by thy lips, Though it should part me from thy side forever. Oh, do not arm that gentle face of thine With looks so stern and harsh! Who—who am I, That dare aspire so high, as unto thee? Fame hath not stamp'd me yet; nor may I take My place amid the courtly throng of knights, That, crown'd with glory's lustre, woo thy smiles. Nothing have I to offer but a heart That overflows with truth and love ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... the life of the British capital. He had long since demonstrated his qualifications for a post, which, in the distinction of the men who have occupied it, has few parallels in diplomacy. The scholarly Lowell, the courtly Bayard, the companionable Hay, the ever-humorous Choate, had set a standard for American Ambassadors which had made the place a difficult one for their successors. Though Page had characteristics in common with all these men, his personality had its own distinctive ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... intercourse, Frederic had no more gracious notice from Mabel's brother than this semi-apology, delivered with stately condescension, and a courtly bow in ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... is such a courtly seigneur that he seems to bring the eighteenth century with him; you feel that his sedan chair is at the door. He ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... and, saluting me with a courtly bow, he turned and re-crossed the street, while I entered the inn and was ushered into ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... were in a fair way—if the exploit could be accomplished by perseverance—of crying themselves to sleep. These were our bridal compliments; much more flattering, I imagine, if not quite so honey-accented, as the courtly phrases with which the votaries and the victims of ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... cause—the cause was of no importance whatever to her—but for the act itself. Their best friends! She could hardly realize it. Jimmie Brooks, jovial Jimmie, with a broken nose and sundry bruises! And Paul Lorimer, distinguished Paul, who had the courtly bearing which was the despair of his fellows, and the manner of a dozen generations of culture wherewith to charm the women of his acquaintance. He with a black eye and a split lip! So the paper stated. It was vulgar. Brutal! The act of ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... accomplished, courtly, genteel, urbane, civil, cultivated, gracious, well-behaved, complaisant, cultured, obliging, well-bred, courteous, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... he observed his fair Nun to be followed wherever she went, by a mask habited like Testimony in Sir Courtly Nice, whose attention was fixed upon her and him; and he doubted not, that it was Mr. Turner. So he and the fair Nun took different ways, and he joined me and Miss Darnford, and found me engaged as I before related to your ladyship, and his Nun at ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... of all the benefits of our new home, however, was making the acquaintance of the leading family of Western Pennsylvania, that of the Honorable Judge Wilkins. The Judge was then approaching his eightieth year, tall, slender, and handsome, in full possession of all his faculties, with a courtly grace of manner, and the most wonderful store of knowledge and reminiscence of any man I had yet been privileged to meet. His wife, the daughter of George W. Dallas, Vice-President of the United ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... the king ever honored with that distinction. Hay, some time after, was created Viscount Doncaster, then earl of Carlisle, and got an immense fortune from the crown, all which he spent in a splendid and courtly manner. Ramsay obtained the title of earl of Holderness; and many others being raised on a sudden to the highest elevation, increased, by their insolence, that envy which naturally attended them as ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... frighted garrison would have hauled down their colors without firing a shot. This I am warranted to say by the declaration of numbers of their officers, who afterwards fell into our hands. But in place of an immediate 'coup de main', the courtly D'Estang sent a flag, very politely inviting the town to do him the extreme honor of receiving ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... Bembo was a different man from Guarini. I cannot imagine him listening to the sparrows; I cannot imagine him plucking a flower,—except he have some courtly gallantry in hand, perhaps toward the Borgia. He was one of those pompous, stiff, scholastic prigs who wrote by rules of syntax; and of syntax he is dead. He was clever and learned; he wrote in Latin, Italian, Castlian: but nobody reads him; he has only a little crypt in the "Autori ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... barbarism. Men steeped in antique learning, pale with the close breath of the cloister, here spent the noon and evening of their lives, ruled savage hordes with a mild, parental sway, and stood serene before the direst shapes of death. Men of courtly nurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry, here, with their dauntless hardihood, put to shame the boldest sons of toil." [Footnote: Parkman: "Pioneers of France in the New World." New library edition. ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... general impression conveyed by the perusal of Evelyn's Diary and his other literary works. The long friendship of these two was only terminated by the death of Pepys on 26th May, 1703, not long before Evelyn had himself to depart from this life. 'This day died Mr. Sam. Pepys, a very courtly, industrious and curious person, none in England exceeding him in knowledge of the navy, in which he had passed through all the most considerable offices, Clerk of the Acts and Secretary of the Admiralty, all which he performed with great integrity. When ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... danced with its hundred absurdities, was as fashionable at Revonde as elsewhere. Counsellor, like a courtly bear, was induced to ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... been willing to let him take charge of his daughter. She remembered the rejoicing in the family when she arrived. How they gathered around her and embraced her! Robert Bucknor, the father of the present owner, was then a young man. How gentle and tender he was with her, how courtly and kind! ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... had passed quietly with Hector Campbell. His duties had been but slight during the siege, and as during his stay at Sedan and in Switzerland he had continued to work hard at Italian, at the former place under a teacher, who instructed him in more courtly dialect than that which he acquired from Paolo, so during the six months before Perpignan he had, after taking the advice of Turenne, set himself to acquire a knowledge of German. Working at this for eight hours a day under the tuition of a German gentleman, who had ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... court of Greece received some information concerning the extent and nature of the plot, and orders were given by King Otho to hold a council of his trusted advisers. The Bavarians Hess and Graff, and the Greeks Rizos, Privilegios, Dzinos, and John the son of Philip, (for one of the courtly councillors of the house of Wittelspach rejoices in this primitive cognomen,) met, and decided on the establishment of a court-martial to try and shoot every man taken in arms. Orders were immediately prepared for the arrest of upwards of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... courtly young Frenchman had quite as great a sense of noblesse oblige as his bride. He bowed to the black woman as though she was the highest lady in the land and accepted the parcel, tied clumsily with baby ribbon by the gnarled fingers of ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... monarchy as the tenth horn of the Beast in Revelations,—a horn that has set more sober wits dancing than that of Huon of Bordeaux. Those were days, we are inclined to think, of more solid and elegant hospitality than our own,—the elegance of manners, at once more courtly and more frugal, of men who had better uses for wealth than merely to display it. Dinners have more courses now, and, like the Gascon in the old story, who could not see the town for the houses, we miss the real dinner in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... this Sabbath day's journey did not scandalise Betty, and her father eagerly welcomed his kinsman, and insisted that he should go no farther. Sir Amyas accepted the invitation, nothing loth, only asking, with a little courtly diffidence, if it might not be convenient for him to sleep at the Great House, and begging the ladies to excuse ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... admiration in the mind of Judge People's Friend—an effect that so much the more proved the wearer's address, for that high functionary was bound ex officio to entertain a sovereign contempt for all courtly vanities. I saw the eye of the captain kindle, however, and when the insolent young coxcomb actually had the temerity to turn his back on his master, and to work his brush under his very nose, human nature could ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... will be mine," said the courtly Mr. Wortley, producing a silver case primed with sovereigns and slipping one coin on to the table. Then Mrs. Durrant got up and passed down the room, holding herself very straight, and the girls in yellow and blue and silver ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... hero prince. Radha becomes all in all, yet touches of Krishna's princely majesty remain throughout. Even as a cowherd Krishna shows an elegance and poise which betrays his different origin. And in the Rasika Priya it is once again his courtly aura which determines his new role. A blend of prince and cowherd, Krishna ousts from poetry the courtly lovers who previously had seemed the acme of romance. Adoration of God acquires the grace and charm of courtly loving, passionate sensuality all ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... Guiana was dedicated to the Lord Admiral Howard and to Sir Robert Cecil, with a reference to the support which the author had found in their love 'in the darkest shadow of adversity.' There was probably some courtly exaggeration, mingled with self-interest, in the gratitude expressed to Cecil. Already the relation of this cold-blooded statesman to the impulsive Raleigh becomes a crux to the biographers of the latter. Cecil's letters to his father from Devonshire on the matter of the Indian carracks in 1592 ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... OF THE NORTH The story of Fort o' God, where the wild flavor of the wilderness is blended with the courtly atmosphere of France. ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... From courtly pomp removed, But not secluded from his friends, For frienship's bond he loved; A noble reputation too Crowns all his latter days; The young men they admire him, And the aged ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... meat were ready, the Major put it on the table and with a courtly wave of his hand said, "D-d-draw up, Charley." They seated themselves. The Major gave a piece of bread and a piece of bacon to his guest, and took the other piece, of each, for himself. After he had eaten a while—the Major got up, went to the fireplace ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... vowed: A game of close contentious crafts and creeds Played till white England bring black Spain to shame: A son's bright sword and brighter soul, whose deeds High conscience lights for mother's love and fame: Pure gipsy flowers, and poisonous courtly weeds: Such tokens and such trophies ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... The old inhabitants of the place, long gathered to their fathers, tho living still in history, seem to have left their halls for the chase or the tournament; and as the heavy door swings upon its reluctant hinge, one almost expects to see the gallant princes and courtly dames enter those halls again, and sweep in stately procession along ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... for centuries. Human beauty terrified the great artists, who painted with a cross on their breasts and a rosary on their sword-hilts. Bodies were hidden under the stiff, heavy folds of sackcloth or the grotesque, courtly crinoline, and the painter never ventured to guess what was beneath them, looking at the model, as the devout worshiper contemplates the hollow mantle of the Virgin, not knowing whether it contains a body or three sticks to hold up the head. The joy ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... window, and snored loudly at the panes. But the colonel heeded it not, and remained abstracted and silent until the door opened to Miss Tish and Pansy—in her best frock and sash, at which the colonel started and became erect again and courtly. ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Thoreau, racy of his native soil; Longfellow, in his day and way the chief interpreter of America to England; Whittier, so intensely local that, as Professor Matthews puts it, "he wrote for New England rather than for the whole of the United States;" Lowell, courtly, cultured, cosmopolitan, and yet the creator of Hosea Biglow; Holmes, as American in his humour as Lamb was English, who justly ranks with Lamb and Goldsmith among the personally best-beloved writers ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... slender youth and fair! A courtly, gentlemanly grace—the Grace of God! The tenure of his mother's Throne, and great men's fame Sat like a sparkling jewel on his brow. Ah, Albert Edward! When you homeward sail Take back with you, and treasure in your soul ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Monday at Farnham Castle, when the good Bishop's venison was in season. Of course, at such a table I constantly met celebrities, but a mere list of their names would be tedious, and any public record of private hospitalities I hold to be improper. No doubt the kindly and courtly Bishop Sumner held high festival like an ancient Baron, at such a rate (for those were golden times from renewed leases for the see) as no successor with a less unlimited income could well afford. The grandeur of Farnham Castle died with him: and my good ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... big brindled brute turned quietly round with a friendly snort and went after the cows—and Barty got up and made it a courtly farewell salute, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the lights were all out and a masked and courtly old gentleman in satin breeches was standing in the bright firelight pouring brandy into a giant bowl of raisins; and now he was gallantly bowing to Roger himself who was plainly expected to assist with a lighted match. He did ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... aquiline, and delicately pointed; the mouth fringed with a short silky beard, small and ripe, yet firm as granite, with just pout enough of the lower lip to give hint of that capacity of noble indignation which lay hid under its usual courtly calm and sweetness; if there be a defect in the face, it is that the eyes are somewhat small, and close together, and the eyebrows, though delicately arched, and, without a trace of peevishness, too closely pressed down upon them, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Scotland. He had, among other incidents of a striking character marking his reception there at the same period, seen, on his chance entrance into the theatre, the whole audience rise spontaneously in recognition of him, the musicians in the orchestra, with a courtly felicity, striking up the cavalier air of "Charley is my Darling." If only out of a gracious remembrance of all this, it seemed not inappropriate that the very last of the complimentary readings should have been given by the novelist at Edinburgh, and ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... economical of gesture, playing on the jealous Moor as plays a skillfully handled bow upon a finely attuned violin. His was truly an objective characterization. His Don Giovanni was broadly designed. He was the aristocrat to the life, courtly, brave, amorous, intriguing, cruel, superstitious and quick to take offense. In his best estate, the drinking song was sheer virtuosity. Suffice to add that Verdi intrusted to him the task of "originating" two such widely sundered roles as Iago and ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... plentifully minister Beauteous apparel and delicious cheer, So order'd that it still excites desire, And still gives pleasure freeness to aspire, The palm of Bounty ever moist preserving; To Love's sweet life this is the courtly carving. Thus Time and all-states-ordering Ceremony Had banish'd all offence: Time's golden thigh 60 Upholds the flowery body of the earth In sacred harmony, and every birth Of men and actions[49] makes legitimate; Being us'd aright, the use of time is fate. Yet did the gentle flood transfer once ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... their jewelled boxes of amber, porcelain, ebony and agate as they were of their flowing wigs and clouded canes, the handles of which were not unfrequently constructed to hold the cherished dust. We are told by courtly Dick Steel, that a handsome snuff-box was as much an essential of 'the fine gentleman' as his gilt chariot, diamond ring, and brocade sword-knot. We know them to have been manufactured of the costliest material, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... ran through the courtly throng at these words, and the women shuddered and grew pale. Sah-luma, irritated at the sudden interruption that had thus distracted the general attention from his own fair and flattered self, gave an expressively petulant glance toward Theos, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... If he had been rich and strong, he would probably have refused his daughter to a Gond, even though complaisant bards might invent a Rajput genealogy for the bridegroom. The story about the army of fifty thousand men cannot be readily accepted as sober fact. It looks like a courtly invention to explain a mesalliance. The inducement really offered to the proud but poor Chandel was, in all likelihood, a large sum of money, according to the usual practice in such cases. Several ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... in this on the wall Over against his consort, whose Laces, and hoops, and high-heeled shoes Make her the finest lady of all The queens or courtly dames you choose, In the ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... Lyndon family, came driving into the courtyard of the house which they inhabited; and in that carriage, by her Ladyship's side, sat no other than the 'vulgar Irish adventurer,' as she was pleased to call him: I mean Redmond Barry, Esquire. He made the most courtly of his bows, and grinned and waved his hat in as graceful a manner as the gout permitted; and her Ladyship and I replied to the salutation with the utmost politeness and ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thou seest, though courtly pleasures want, Yet country sport in Sherwood is not scant: For the soul-ravishing, delicious sound Of instrumental music we have found The winged quiristers with divers notes Sent from their quaint ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... neglect was the reason why he resolved to have no connection with him[752]. When the Dictionary was upon the eve of publication, Lord Chesterfield, who, it is said, had flattered himself with expectations that Johnson would dedicate the work to him[753], attempted, in a courtly manner, to sooth, and insinuate himself with the Sage, conscious, as it should seem, of the cold indifference with which he had treated its learned authour; and further attempted to conciliate him, by writing two papers ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... mention these trivialities, but that they actually influenced many lives, as trifles will in the world, where a gnat often plays a greater part than an elephant, and a mole-hill, as we know in King William's case, can upset an empire. When Tusher in his courtly way (at which Harry Esmond always chafed and spoke scornfully) vowed and protested that my lady's face was none the worse—the lad broke out and said, "It is worse: and my mistress is not near so handsome as she was"; on which poor Lady Esmond gave a rueful ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... orders to whom they had been accustomed to pay the homage which slaves render their masters. The laborers, the humble artisans, the toil-worn peasants, could not appear with any thing like equality in the presence of the high-born men and courtly dames who, through their ancestry of many generations, had been accustomed to wealth and rank and power. Thus, to the lower orders, the dress of a gentleman, the polite bearing of the prince, the courtly manner of the noble, excited suspicion, and ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... is courtly now, this is sweete, this plaine, this is familiar, but by the Court of France, our peevish dames are so proud, so precise, so coy, so disdainfull, and so subtill, as the Pomonian Serpent, mort dieu the Puncke of Babylon ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... comes to them as white man never came before. He is a young man of about eight and thirty, wearing about his lithe and well-knit figure a sash of skyblue silk. He is tall, handsome and of commanding presence. His movements are easy, agile and athletic; his manner is courtly, graceful and pleasing; his voice, whilst deep and firm, is soft and agreeable; his face inspires instant confidence. He has large lustrous eyes which seem to corroborate and confirm every word that falls from his lips. These ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... thee in thy prime, When thou wert blessed with innocent content, Thy robust dwellers, prodigal of time, Yet still with cheerful heart to labor went; Nor envied lordly pomp, with courtly train, Of empty rank ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... proper position might be. At one time I imagined they must belong at the middle of the cycle where at the end of Elegy XIII Priapus' mother summons her son. Obviously Goethe, just returned north from his two years in Italy (1786-88), and alienated from prim, courtly friends (especially since he had taken a girlfriend into his cottage), had no thought of publication when he indited these remembrances of Ancient Rome. But he did show them to close friends, one of whom was the wonderful dramatist Friedrich ...
— Erotica Romana • Johann Wolfgang Goethe
... commanding as well as courtly in the tone and bearing of this extraordinary man, that Paul half involuntarily removed his ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... her out; he was all high courtly politeness. As Lady Georgina descended, he made yet another dexterous effort to relieve her of the jewel-case. I don't think she noticed it, but automatically once more she waved him aside. Then she turned to me. 'Here, my dear,' she said, handing it ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... rode, acknowledging the cheering of his soldiers with smiles and courtly bows, till at length he pulled rein just in front of the triple line of archers, among whom were mingled some knights and men-at-arms, for the order of battle was not yet fully set. Just then, on the plain beneath, ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... but little of the Latin tongue; now, for perhaps the first time in her life, she regretted this deficiency. Smiling, she pointed to a group of cypresses which hid part of the portico, and her questioner, with a courtly bow, went on. He wore the ordinary dress of a Roman noble, and had not even a dagger at his waist. As soon as he had passed the cypresses, he saw, within the shadow of the portico, the figure his eyes had sought; then he stood still, and ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... If such your rites, no LEVITE here I view, But BAAL'S PRIESTS may leap and shout with you.[B] O whither urge these bodings of my breast? Let hope, let charity their flight arrest! In Britain's SARDIS, surely some remain Whose courtly robes yet bear no wilful stain! PRINCES! and PEERS! once more on you I call— Save! save your tottering glory ere it fall! If truth, if virtue, to your hearts be dear; If sounds of sweet content you love to hear; If generous sons, and daughters ...
— The Ghost of Chatham; A Vision - Dedicated to the House of Peers • Anonymous
... very hue of savage mind, Yet in rude accents show the thought refined:— Assume the naivete of infant age, And in such prattle seem still more a sage; The golden mean with tact unerring seized, A courtly critic shone, a simple savage pleased; The stoic of the woods his skill confessed, As all the Father answered in his breast, To the sure mark the silver arrow sped, The man without a tear a tear has shed; And thou hadst wept, ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... sits. Who does not remember the "sacred cause of protection," the cause for which sovereigns were thwarted, Parliaments dissolved, and a nation taken in? Delightful, indeed, to have the right honorable gentleman entering into all his confidential details, when, to use his courtly language, he "called" upon his sovereign. Sir, he called on his sovereign; but would his sovereign have called on the right honorable baronet, if, in 1841, he had not placed himself, as he said, at the head of the gentlemen ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... choose the present constitutional ruler, for, while the virtues we have named may seem commonplace, they are not so when embodied in an emperor. One thing which places William at a disadvantage is his excessive frankness, which is, in him, almost a fault, for if he couched his utterances in courtly or diplomatic phrases, they would pass unchallenged, instead of being cited to ridicule him. His mistakes have largely resulted from his impulsive nature coupled with chauvinism, which is, perhaps, justifiable, or, at least, excusable, in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... told him her simple tale. The marquis listened at first with courtly interest, then with profound emotion. She drew from her bosom the letter that he had written to her father, the chief. His own writing brought before him the scenes of almost a half-century gone, the struggle for liberty in the new land to which he had given his young soul. He remembered ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... to observe her, at first, but as she now approached the porch he rose from his chair and bowed with a courtly grace that astonished her. In many ways his dignified manners seemed to fit ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... in his polished courtly manner. "I must apologize for having kept you waiting so long. Pray come into my study. I fear Julie was somewhat brusque and rude to you. She is a good soul, ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... undoubtedly competent to remit penalties without limit. He was therefore competent to annul virtually a penal statute. It might seem that there could be no serious objection to his doing formally what he might do virtually. Thus, with the help of subtle and courtly lawyers, grew up, on the doubtful frontier which separates executive from legislative functions, that great anomaly known as ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... increase. Racine, in a most touching scene, makes one of his heroic characters offer to wipe off the tears of a heroine lest they should discolour her rouge! I had a classmate at college, who was so very ultra courtly in his language, that he never forgot to say, Mr. Julius Caesar, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the loss of such a man, and heal his conscience, flagrant with the smart of such a crime? You have the matter at length in Plutarch. He told him, "that let a sovereign do what he wilt, all his actions are just and lawful, because they are his." The palaces of all princes abound with such courtly philosophers. The consequence was such as might be expected. He grew every day a monster more abandoned to unnatural lust, to debauchery, to drunkenness, and to murder. And yet this was originally a great ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... friendly visit, taking "five-o'clock tea" in the English fashion, and with a retinue of two or three attendants making the tour of the close-shaven lawns, the firm gravelled walks and the broad and frequent flights of steps that led from one terraced flower-garden to another. These were courtly and educated descendants of terrible scourges of mankind in old days—of Sayns who were simply robbers and highwaymen, levying bloody toll on the Coblenz merchants' caravans, and of Brandenburgs who were famous for their ravages and raids. Times have changed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... prince and the manners of a clown are poor partners," said the farmer. "My second wish is for suitable learning and courtly manners, which cannot ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... plainest meals must be the best. To stomachs clogg'd with costly fare Simplicity alone is rare; While high, and nice, and curious meats Are really but vulgar treats. Instead of spoils of Persian looms, The costly boast of regal rooms, Thought it more courtly and discreet To scatter roses at her feet; Roses of richest dye, that shone With native lustre, like her own; Beauty that needs no aid of art Through every sense to reach the heart. The gracious dame, though well she knew All this was much ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... face had grown so grave. Sir Charles might well experience shame for this retrogression of one of his own class, the broken obligations of nobility; the traditions shattered. But he thanked John Steele in an old-fashioned, courtly way for what he had once done for his niece whose life he had saved. Perhaps it was the reaction in himself; perhaps John Steele merely fancied a distance in the other's very full and punctilious expression of personal indebtedness; his courteous reiteration that he should feel honored ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... as he approached nearer and nearer, so handsome, so graceful, so winning, one of his white hands carelessly resting on the spirited animal's proudly arched, glossy neck, and with the other raising his hat from his brown curls in true courtly cavalier fashion to her, as he saw her standing there, apparently awaiting him ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... country; said that he thought it made people jolly mouldy. He did not see that it was a pity to press that fact upon me; the truth was that he was thinking of himself for the time being, though he was no egoist. And whereas the courtly egoist pays you compliments first and then returns to a more congenial self-contemplation, my burly young friend would, I have not the slightest doubt, grow more companionable and considerate every day that one knew ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright; No begging wants his middle fortune bite: But sweet content exiles ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... I sat facing them both), with his thin, bony nose and a perfectly bloodless, narrow physiognomy clamped together, as it were, by short, formal side whiskers, had nothing of Sir Leicester Dedlock's "grand air" and courtly solemnity. He belonged to the haute bourgeoisie only, and was a banker, with whom a modest credit had been opened for my needs. He was such an ardent—no, such a frozen-up, mummified Royalist that he used in current conversation turns of speech contemporary, I ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... immediately into her own hands, and thirty-five days after Henry's death, secretly married her former admirer, Sir Thomas, now Lord Seymour, who was described by Hayward as "fierce in courage, courtly in fashion, in personage stately, in voice magnificent, but somewhat empty in matter." The union was not a happy one, owing mainly to Seymour's intrigues with the Princess Elizabeth, a circumstance that was thought to have ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... an exhalation; Pass'd! Pass'd! for us, forever pass'd, that once so mighty world, now void, inanimate, phantom world, Embroider'd, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous legends, myths, Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and courtly dames, Pass'd to its charnel vault, coffin'd with crown and armor on, Blazon'd with Shakspere's purple page, And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme." [Footnote: Whitman, ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... picture of a little old Indian woman with a broadcloth folded about her shoulders, a small carven pipe between her lips, a world of sorrow in her deep eyes—sorrow that he had brought there. He bent suddenly and kissed Mrs. Harold's fingers with a grave and courtly deference. "Thank you," ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... have terminated is doubtful, if Arthur himself had not appeared upon the scene, calm, dignified, and courtly in his manner, which insensibly won upon his hearers, as in a few well-chosen and eloquent words, he proceeded to prove that though he might be peculiar in some respects, he was not mad, and that a man might repair his own house, and cut off his own water-pipes, and take up his sewer, and detect ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... then," added Clymer. "Go with Mrs. Brewster, Kent; good morning, madam," and with a courtly bow ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... shapely, remarkably handsome, fond of showy attire and luxurious surroundings, full of animal spirits, rapid and animated in speech, and aristocratic in sentiment; Socrates short, thick-set, remarkably ugly, careless in attire, destitute of all courtly graces, democratic in the highest degree, and despising-utterly those arts and aims, loves and luxuries, which appealed so strongly to the soul of his ardent friend. Yet the genius, the intellectual acuteness, the lofty aims, and wonderful conversational power of Socrates overcame all his natural ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... with Poitou. Ireland alone broke the symmetry of an empire that bordered the Atlantic from the Hebrides to Spain, and the fame of empire had its attractions for the heirs of the Norman conquerors. Patriotic and courtly historians remembered that their king was representative of Gerguntius, the first king of Britain who had gone to Ireland; the heir of Arthur, to whom Irish kings had been tributary; the ruler over the Basque provinces, from whence undoubtedly the Irish race had sprung. To fill up what was ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... boy's attention was attracted to another part of the wagon. The head clown stepped from the wagon and, with dignified tread, approached Abner Adams. He grasped the old man by the hand, which he shook with great warmth, making a courtly bow. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... stupendous palace in the garden, and a stately city round the palace: the city was peopled with parasites, who daily came to do worship before the creator of these wonders—the Great King. "Dieu seul est grand," said courtly Massillon; but next to him, as the prelate thought, was certainly Louis, his vicegerent here upon earth—God's lieutenant-governor of the world,—before whom courtiers used to fall on their knees, and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Hunky Kid; In his homicidal blindness, He lifted his hand against Rosalind Not in the way of kindness; He chased poor Celia off at L., At R.U.E. Le Beau, And he put such a head upon Duke Fred, In fifteen seconds or so, That never one of the courtly train ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... Post hoc, perhaps, not propter hoc; and yet Through all the changes of the sky and sea That old white clock of ours with the battered face Does seem infallible. There's a love-song too, The sailors on the coast of Sweden sing, I have often pondered it. Your courtly poets Upbraid the inconstant moon. But these men know The moon and sea are lovers, and they move In a most constant measure. Hear the words And tell me, if you can, what silver chains Bind them together." Then, in a ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... him, it is indeed wonderful that he can keep away;" and the old squire bowing again with such courtly grace as to drive what little self-possession remained to poor Maria after her flying entry ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... herself strangely moved. For it was very startling to see this so familiar figure under so unfamiliar an aspect—to see Julius March, her everyday companion and assistant, his reticence, his priestly aloofness, his mild and courtly calm, swept under by a tide of personal emotion. Lady Calmady was drawn to him by deepened sympathy. Yet regret arose in her that this man proved to be, after all, but as other men. She was vaguely disappointed, having ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... in almost idolatrous respect to females of gentle birth, in generous fondness for the nascent poetry of the time, in a keen intellectual relish for subtle thought and disputation, in a taste for architectural magnificence, and all courtly refinement and pageantry, the Normans were the Paladins of the world. Their brilliant qualities were sullied by many darker traits of pride, of merciless cruelty, and of brutal contempt for the industry, the rights, and the feelings ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... Tennis is another courtly exercise in which Dallington urges moderation. "This is dangerous, (if used with too much violence) for the body; and (if followed with too much diligence,) for the purse. A maine point of the Travellers care." He reached France when the rage for ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... gentlemen-in-waiting to the Duke of Brunswick, color-bearer in the service of the Duke of Weimar, gentleman-in-waiting to our sainted father, of ever-blessed memory; lastly, and at last, master of ceremonies in our service;—said Baron Pollnitz, overwhelmed by this stream of military and courtly honors which had been thrust upon him, and thereby weary of the vanities of this wicked world; misled, also, by the evil example of Monteulieu, who, a short time ago, left the court, now entreats ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the meeting between Mr. Lyons and Mrs. Taylor. He was deferential, complimentary, and genial, and he made a suave, impressive offer of his personal services, in response to which Mrs. Taylor regarded him with smiling incredulity—a smile which Selma considered impertinent. How dared she treat his courtly ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... circulate in tens of thousands, would perhaps be the most blessed antidote which could be bestowed upon us. The heroes themselves were the men of the people—the Joneses, the Smiths, the Davises, the Drakes; and no courtly pen, with the one exception of Raleigh, lent its polish or its varnish to set them off. In most cases the captain himself, or his clerk or servant, or some unknown gentleman volunteer, sat down and chronicled the voyage which he had shared; and thus ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... minister whispered a word or two in the grand ducal ear, and motioned the lion to come forward. His Imperial and Royal Highness, after one glance of helpless suffering at the stranger, fixed his gaze on his own boots. A long pause ensued, during which courtly etiquette forbade the stranger to utter a word. At last His Highness shifted his weight on to his left foot, hung his head down on his shoulder on the same side, and said "Ha!" Another pause, the presentee hardly considering ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... Henry as the direct heir to the crown. Born in February, 1155, Henry was in his eighth year when this ceremony was performed. Some little time before he had been committed by his father to the chancellor to be trained in his courtly and brilliant household, and there he became deeply attached to his father's future enemy. The swearing of fealty to the heir, to which the barons were now accustomed, was performed without objection, Thomas himself setting the example by first ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... perhaps as naturally flattered by the attentions of a lord as she was fascinated by his handsome face and figure and his courtly manners; but the father had other designs for his heiress than marrying her to a prodigal young nobleman. "Your blood, my lord, is good," he once told him; "but ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... told the Prioress that his men had spied a lad accompanying the shepherd who escorted the lady, and who, he thought, had a certain twang of south country speech; and no sooner had he carved for the ladies, according to the courtly duty of an esquire, than the inquiry began as to who had found the maiden and where she had been lodged. Prioress Agnes, who had already broken her fast, sat meantime with the favourite hawk on her wrist and a large dog beside her, ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... do take a seat! Permit me!" He arose and with courtly grace placed a chair for his companion. "I recall you perfectly. The mistake you made in my name came to be a joke and byword after I went home. You saw me snooping around the Light and thought I was the Government, inspecting Captain David's domain. It all comes to me quite clearly. I remember, ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... think, winding among the shallows, as the Spanish bank comes nearer, and the boat at last grounds lightly on its soil. Before us is the old town we are seeking,—a type perhaps of the nation itself, in its courtly unthrift, its proud misgovernance. ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... mouthpiece for a deeper observation of the meaning of the incident he is supposed to witness and describe than Marot and the rest saw, characteristic differences between these two poets of the time are brought out, the genuineness of courtly love and chivalry is tested, and to the original story of the glove is added a new view of the lady's character; a sketch of her humbler and truer lover, and their happiness; and a pendent scene showing ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... our modern life; the fact that these two great branches of the modern philosophy make their appearance in history at the same moment, that they make their appearance in the same company of men—in that same little courtly company of Elizabethan Wits and Men of Letters that the revival of the ancient learning brought out here—this is the fact that strikes the eye at the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... try, however irritating the circumstances, to be most courtly, for the honor of the store," said Jack. "I told her that I was very sorry and I would speak to you ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... not the man to give his comely daughter away at random: indeed he cherished the thought of keeping her in Florence and by his side, so courtly refusals of proffered hands, and hearts, and crowns, were dealt out to one and all the suitors. Pope Paul IV., who was on the best of terms with Duke Cosimo, and never forgot what he owed in his elevation to the Papal throne to his friend's influence, ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... knelt to kiss the little white hand that had led a King to ruin. Everywhere the stern Malignant had found himself outside the circle of the elect. At the Hotel de Rambouillet, in the splendid houses of the newly built Place Royale, in the salons of Duchesses, and the taverns of courtly roysterers and drunken poets, at Cormier's, or at the Pine Apple, in the Rue de la Juiverie, where it was all the better for a Christian gentleman not to understand the talk of the wits that flashed and drank there. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... separation. But to consult on a question does not amount to a determination of that question in the affirmative, still less to the acting on such a determination: but we shall see, I suppose, what the court lawyers, and courtly judges, and would-be ambassadors will make of it. The excise law is an infernal one. The first error was to admit it by the constitution; the second, to act on that admission; the third and last will be, to make it the instrument of dismembering the Union, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a market-place suitable to its commercial consequence. Hence, Smithfield market is almost a public nuisance, while its extensive business is settled in public-houses in the neighbourhood; and the hay market, held in the fine broad street of that name, but ill accords with the courtly vicinity of Pall Mall and St. James's. It is, however, to fruit and vegetable markets that this observation is particularly applicable: for instance, what a miserable scene is the area of Covent Garden market. The non-completion of the piazza square is much to be ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various
... by a punctilious old Mahommedan gentleman to an Indian official; and was much impressed by the distinction of manner and fine appearance of the Mohammedan landholder. When the exchange of polite banalities came to a pause, he expressed a wish to learn the courtly visitor's opinion of ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... him face to face in the hall. When he saw who his daughter's companion was he looked for a moment grave. But he had all the courtly instincts of a gentleman of the old school, and though outside he might have acted differently, the man was under his own roof now, and must be treated as a guest. Besides, he had implicit faith in his daughter's judgment. So he held out ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Erigena, surnamed Scotus, a man renowned for learning, sitting at the table, in respect of his learning, with Charles the Bauld, Emperor and King of France, behaved himselfe as a slovenly scholler, nothing courtly; whereupon the Emperor asked him merrily, Quid interest inter Scotum et Sotum? (what is there between a Scot and a Sot?) He merrily, but yet malapertly answered, 'Mensa'—(the table): as though the emperor were the Sot ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... is, I fear me, not courtly, thank you also. I will add that I think our lady cousin here should be knighted too, if such a thing were possible for a woman, seeing that to swim a horse across Death Creek was a greater deed than to fight ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... omelet for Nugent and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall, thin form of Langton; the courtly sneer of Beauclerk and the beaming smile of Garrick; Gibbon tapping his snuff-box and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... courtly. I believe Mr. Vainlove has not rubbed his eyes since break of day neither, he looks as if he durst not approach. Nay, come, cousin, be friends with him. I swear he looks so very simply—ha, ha, ha. Well, a lover in the state ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... courtly glee And downcast eager glance that shuns the sky, Above, about, are signs thou canst not see, Portents in heaven and earth!—And one goes by With other than thy prosperous, laughing eye, Framing the rough web of his rueful lays, The sorrow and ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... who, by the Privilege of her Sex, must be allow'd the most competent Judge of Inequalities, out of an Excess of Condescension and Goodness, came running to the Relief of oppressed poor Tony; and, in courtly Language, rated her own oppressive Dogs for their great Incivility to Strangers. The Dogs, in the Middle of their insulting Wrath, obey'd the Lady with a vast deal of profound Submission; which I could not ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... excited such universal interest, or that has been so much studied and discussed, as the "Nibelungenlied". In its present form it is a product of the age of chivalry, but it reaches back to the earliest epochs of German antiquity, and embraces not only the pageantry of courtly chivalry, but also traits of ancient Germanic folklore and probably of Teutonic mythology. One of its earliest critics fitly called it a German "Iliad", for, like this great Greek epic, it goes back to the remotest times and unites the monumental fragments of half-forgotten ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... and reflections, this dignified and delightful old gentleman said he thought the young people of to-day were less mannerly than in the olden time, less deferential, less decorous. This may be true, and I tried to be sufficiently deferential to my courtly host, not to disagree with him. But when I look upon the young people of my own acquaintance, I recall that William went, as a matter of course, to put the ladies in their carriage; Jamie took the hand luggage as naturally as if he were born for nothing else; Frank never failed to open a door ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various |
