"Genteel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gratitude to his friend and patron for his nomination to a situation under government (which, had he been prudent, might have sufficed for genteel support), it is said that the royal personage condescended to observe, on the colonel's expatiating on the advantages of his office, that "now he was rich, he would so far impose upon his hospitality as to dine with him;" at the same ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various
... I was brought up by two maiden aunts in the town of Dundalk, and they were always bothering me about my manners; so that though I could hold my own in a slanging match down by the riverside, I was as awkward as a young bear when in genteel company. They used to have what they called tea-parties—and a fearful infliction they were—and I was expected to hand round the tea and cakes, and make myself useful. I think I might have managed well enough if the old women would have let me alone; but they were always expecting me to do ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... 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
... by a remark from Tozer to the effect that he 'was in for it now;' which was the only interruption he received till breakfast time. At that meal, for which he had no appetite, everything was quite as solemn and genteel as at the others; and when it was finished, he followed ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... cringing in the antechambers of Ministers, he obtained at last the Cross of St. Louis as a kind of indemnity. About the same time he also bought with his Indian wealth the place of an officer in the Swiss Guard of Monsieur, the present Louis XVIII. Being refused admittance into any genteel societies, he resorted with Barras and other disgraced nobles to gambling-houses, and he even kept to himself when the Revolution took place. He had at the same time, and for a certain interest, advanced Madame d'Estainville ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... 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
... genteel conclusion for you. When you come to Edinburgh, I'll settle an unintermitting correspondence ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... 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 |
