"The ways of the world" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the like, and how she must always be sure to wear the cream undersleeves with the Irish point lace with her silk gown as they set it off to perfection. She recalled, too, how little experience Marcia had had in the ways of the world, and all the while the girl was being dressed in the dainty bridal garments she gave her careful instructions in the art of being a success in society, until Marcia felt that the green fields and the fences and trees ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... of repute can't let in young women (found upon a heath, forsooth), without knowing who's who. I have learn'd the ways of the world, sir. ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... grown wise in the ways of the world since he first ran away from the home where he was born. Twice since then he had built a new home, and now this would be better than either of the others. He paid no heed to Polly, when she pouted because he did ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... well-nigh unavoidable consequence. At last, after a century of improvement on pumping engines, there remained nothing but the very obvious stage of getting the engine that had been developed on wheels and out upon the ways of the world. ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... more experienced in the ways of the world, I would have known that such passion as this evinced was short-lived; that there is no witchery in a smile lasting enough to make men like him forget the lack of those social graces to which they are accustomed. But ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... people a starting home after market,—down rushes the Major to clink his glass against their glasses and cry,—Hola! Vive Somebody! or Vive Something! as if he was beside himself. And though I could not quite approve of the Major's doing it, still the ways of the world are the ways of the world varying according to the different parts of it, and dancing at all in the open Square with a lady that kept a barber's shop my opinion is that the Major was right to dance his best and to lead off with a power that I did not think ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy • Charles Dickens
... Gray Goose replied promptly, "for the story is one that teaches a lesson, even if it does come from Mr. Crow. It seems that once upon a time a young Mr. Rat said to his father, speaking as if he knew the ways of the world better than did those who had lived in it many years before he ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... You see, 'Tana, I've drifted out from the ways of the world while Max has kept up with them. So he proposed—well, no matter about the plan. I'm to suggest it to you, and as it's no loss and all gain to you, I reckon you'll be sensible enough to ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... a haste that made her almost indecipherable, "you must come. What are you dreaming of—to leave a proud, beautiful, impressionable creature like Christine the prey to so finished a villain as Linburne? You are not so ignorant of the ways of the world as not to know his intentions. Most people are saying you deserve everything that is happening to you. I try to explain, but I know you saw enough while you were here to be put upon your guard. Why don't you come? ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... very well up in the ways of the world, and I don't pretend to be. All I want is to be fair and square with everybody. I've made mistakes, though, in my time—" He stopped, and Beaton was not proof against the misery of his face, which was twisted as with some strong physical ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was but a youth, unused to the ways of the world, had much natural shrewdness. He had been brought up in the breeziness of the West, where it is not considered good form, to say the least, to ask too many questions of a man. If a person wanted to tell you his affairs, that was a different ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... go with you to Serigny," he insisted, "tell the lie and make him to believe. 'Pshaw, man, you know not the ways of the world, at least not at ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... humour—a man I thought without guile or care, passing away from England to happy connubial times along the enchanting shores which the Mediterranean bathes. We fell, as fellow-travellers generally do, upon old stories of the ways of the world we had seen. He had taken wider ranges than my duties had ever ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... meet, pick out the big bugs, and see what sort o' stuff they are made of. Let's take minister with us—he is a great judge of these things. I should like you to hear his opinion; he knows every thin' a'most, though the ways of the world bother him a little sometimes; but for valyin' a man, or stating principles, or talkin' politics, there ain't no man equal to him, hardly. He is a book, that's a fact; it's all there what you want; all you've ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... little more concerning the hereafter, he was far better informed in the ways of the world, for his life had been paved with opportunities, and he had made use of them. However, without a standard in his heart such as Edwin had erected and with no home government to protect and guide him, as a petted and humored and spoiled child he had indulged in ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... of the Creole 'pollo,' or man-about-town. He is short of stature, lean and bony. He has a long thin face, with a very sun-burnt complexion, a prominent proboscis, and his hair, eyes and eyebrows are remarkably black and lustrous. The pollo's weakness is over-confidence in himself and in the ways of the world. To him everything appears bright and sunny. Nothing in his estimation seems impossible of realisation. If you are in a difficulty, Bimba is the man to help you through, or at least to offer to do so! Bimba takes especial care to ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... brute while on the trip, both of which errors you must be careful to avoid. It is a simple matter of arithmetic to calculate what is best for you to do; but I hope on this horse question you may have the benefit of advice from some one who has had experience with the ways of the world. You ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... working girl, ignorant of the ways of the world, and can only express what I feel, Louis," rejoined Mariette, unable to resist his pleadings. "The reasons you plead for an early marriage seem good to me. I may be wrong, or I may, perhaps, be influenced by my longing to be yours; but I know that I can accede ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... fellow of infinite drollery, and, though he could scarcely read or write, by no means ignorant of the ways of the world; his knowledge of individuals was curious and extensive, few people passing his stall with whose names, character, and history he was not acquainted. "Those two gentry," said he, pointing to a magnificently dressed cavalier and lady, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... found himself circumvented in a good many ways by woman's wit. There was no dispute between them, and much as he objected to the ways of the world's people, he had no mind to defraud his small niece out of a considerable fortune that might reasonably come to her. Indeed he began to be a little afraid of Bessy Henry's willfulness. And she might marry and leave all of her money to a new ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... and after a sad parting with my mother and my little sister, set out one September morning for Osage. At the moment I was oppressed with the thought that this was the fork in the trail, that my family and I had started on differing roads. I had become a man. With all the ways of the world before me I suffered from a feeling of doubt. The open gate allured me, but the homely scenes I was leaving suddenly put ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... drawing erelong to her side a wealthy young southerner, who, just freed from the restraints of college life, found it vastly agreeable making love to the fair Helena. Simple-minded, and wholly unused to the ways of the world, she believed each word he said, and when at last he proposed marriage, she not only consented, but also promised to keep it a secret for a time, until he could in a measure reconcile his father, who he feared might disinherit him for ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... although I enjoy as good an opinion of myself as most men, that I was much less successful in making my way at court than I had expected. My competitors for advancement were numerous, and more versed in the ways of the world than I. Like them, I was obliged to begin by paying a most assiduous attention to men in office. Having once gained the privilege of being seated in the mejlis (assembly) of the head of the law, who was ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... the door being opened at any moment. He rushed to her and took her reluctant hand. "You mustn't blame me for the ways of the world. I can't change them. Do be sensible, dearest. You're only going to be here a few days longer. I've got that plan for you and your father all thought out. I'll put it through at once. I don't want the office ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... loan to us which it will borrow back from all borrowers. It is like unto the dreams of the dreamer and the sleep-visions of the sleeper or as the mirage of the desert, which the thirsty take for water;[FN116] and Satan maketh it fair for men even unto death These are the ways of the world; wherefore put not thou thy trust therein neither incline thereto, for it bewrayeth him who leaneth upon it and who committeth himself thereunto in his affairs. Fall not thou into its snares neither take hold upon its skirts, but be warned by my example. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... young fellow of ingenuous character, brought successively under the lead of several different persons wise in the ways of the world, who act toward him, each in his turn, the part of "guide, philosopher, and friend." Candide, with such a mentor bearing the name Martin, has now arrived at Venice. ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... thy father as foolish persons, possessed of more wealth than is good for the exercise of wisdom. Also, my son, thy future teaching must be not confined to the learning that wise men can impart unto thee. Thou art going to the great city to learn the ways of the world, to train thyself in self-reliance, and to prepare thyself for ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... to what he counted success, he soon began to make plainer advance toward the end on which his self-love and cupidity at least were set. But, knowing in a vague manner how he had carried himself before he went, Arctura, uninfluenced by the ways of the world, her judgment unwarped, her perception undimmed, her instincts nice, her personal delicacy exacting, had never imagined he could approach her on any ground but that of cousinship and a childhood of shared sports. She had seen that Donal was far from pleased with him, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... in years, was wise in the ways of the world. Also he was of huge stature and as strong as an ox, as he had proved more than once when put to the test. Frank, although by no means as large as his chum, was sturdy and strong, and able to give a good account of himself ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... no use, Viola," interrupted Rachel, rising. Her face had hardened again. "We cannot change the ways of the world." She crossed the room, but stopped with her hand on the door-latch. Turning to her daughter, she said: "Whatever Kenneth may think of me, he has the greatest respect and admiration for you. He bears no grudge against Minda ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... gentleman of fashion, without fleecing him and rooking him, as would inevitably be the case if he fell into the clutches of those birds of prey always on the lookout for young squires from the country coming up to learn the ways of the world, with a plentiful ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that it is only necessary to defeat the propaganda of this vile and dangerous industry in four great countries. And for the common citizen, touched on the tenderest part of his patriotic susceptibilities, there are certain irrefutable arguments. Whether the ways of the world in the years to come are to be the paths of peace or the paths of war is not going to alter this essential fact, that the great educated world communities, with a social and industrial organization on a war-capable scale, are going to dominate human affairs. ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... say that. I have known Mr. Saltram some time, as you may have heard and like him very much. But my cousin Mrs. Pallinson has quite an aversion to him, and speaks against him with such a positive air at times, that I have been almost inclined to think she must be right. I am very inexperienced in the ways of the world, and am naturally disposed to lean a little ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... in the ways of the world," she interjected, "to know my own mind. I love you, Guy, and unless I've mistaken your attitude, you love me. When our minds meet in such a matter, why should anything be permitted to intervene?" Her hand still lay in his; her eyes held his; her personality fairly enveloped them. With lips ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... allurements must have either very strong nerves or very bad sight, if he persist in saying that there is more danger to be apprehended from the former than the latter. He knows very little of modern manners and must be a very suckling in the ways of the world who imagines that a young man has any thing to fear from the actresses on the stage, who has gone through the ordeal of a common ball-room, or even walked of a fine day through our streets. The ladies ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... here, Dolly Fayre," and Alicia's eyes flashed, "I won't be dictated to by a little country ignoramus! I've had experience in the ways of the world, and you haven't. Now suppose you let me alone. It's none of your business, as you ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... my very worthy uncle. He said, with a sly laugh: 'When he has heard a few confessions, he will understand the ways of the world better!' The bishop was right. My brother was consecrated. In a short time he became very tolerant and considerate, as a man ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... irony of the methods by which the two professional truth-sifters darken counsel with words, and make skilful sport of life and fact. The whole poem is a parable of the feeble and half-hopeless struggle which truth has to make against the ways of the world. That in this particular case truth and justice did win some pale sort of victory does not weaken the force of the lesson. The victory was such and so won as to stir in us awful thoughts of fatal risks and certain defeats, of falsehood a thousand times clasped for truth, of fact a thousand ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... been imprisoned on suspicion of murder, and a woman who had gained her livelihood by needlework. All these considerations made the fancy of the merry abbe less ridiculous, and Francoise herself, being sufficiently versed in the ways of the world to understand the disadvantage under which she laboured, was less amazed and disgusted than another girl might have been, when, in due course, the cripple offered her himself and his dumb-waiter. He had little more to give—his ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... for we are all so. We trust and trust, and yet we know that love and money will kill honesty and truth at any moment. These two are sacred— more sacred than honesty or truth. Diavolo! What a fool I was. I ought to have known that Lorenza was too pretty to be left alone— ignorant as she was of the ways of the world. ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... Nature revealed her heart to her in long solitary walks by sea and fen. But of the world of men and women Sisily knew nothing whatever. The secrets of the huddle of civilization are not to be gathered from books or solitude. Sisily was completely unsophisticated in the ways of the world, and her deep passionate temperament was full of latent capacity for good or evil, for her soul's salvation or shipwreck. Because of her upbringing and temperament she was not the girl to count the cost in anything she did. She was a being of impulse who had never learnt restraint, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... lived to be nearly twenty-eight years old, a short life to show ability in most of the ways of the world, but long enough to test the quality of a poet, not merely in promise, but in performance. There is no doubt that he had the indefinable but unmistakable touch of genius. Only a portion of his slender ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... Dost thou, then, hesitate? Monarch, thou art well acquainted with the ways of the world, and knowest that ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... had risen to his feet, and there was something in the huge, lean strength of him, in the bold look of his eyes, in the ring of his deep voice, that inspired respect. Rough he was, and not over refined or carefully trained in the ways of the world, cruel perhaps, and overbearing too; but he was every inch a Saracinesca, and the old man ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... best physician after all," he said to himself, reining in his beautiful Arab at last, and baring his brow to the fresh breeze. "Even as she is his best friend. Only we don't believe it. We live in the world and follow the ways of the world, until our faculties are blunted, our natures demoralised, our tastes vitiated, our energies enfeebled. How many lands I have travelled over, how many cities I have seen, and yet I verily believe that the wild Sioux in his prairies, ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... themselves, they became convinced that there was some mystery about this child. Mrs. Miller had never spoken of her brother until he made his sudden and brief appearance at Allanbay; and unsuspicious and unlearned in the ways of the world as Mrs. Jernam was, she had perceived that he belonged to the doubtful classes. The truth was, that Mrs. Miller could have told them nothing about her brother beyond the general fact of his being "a bad lot." She had heard of him only at rare intervals since he had left his father's ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... any one unshaken by the ways of the world, exemption from sorrow, freedom from passion, and security: this is the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... brandy. Sennit struck me as being a much more difficult subject to get along with. There were signs of cogniac about his face too, but he had more rank, more at stake, and brighter hopes than the master's-mate. Then he was evidently better practised in the ways of the world than his companion, and had constantly a sort of uneasy vigilance about his eye and manner that gave me ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... recognize them as such, and he would not have known just how to answer you if you had asked him what was his philosophy of life. He was range-bred—as purely Western as were the cattle he tended—but he was not altogether ignorant of the ways of the world, past or present. He had that smattering of education which country schools and those of "the county seat" may give a boy who loves a horse better than books, and who, sitting hunched behind his geography, dreams of riding afar, of shooting wild things and of sleeping under ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... Nature's supreme quod erat demonstrandum. What was there to distract him or disturb him? He did not know,—but there was something. This sumptuous creature, this Eve just within the gate of an untried Paradise, untutored in the ways of the world, but on tiptoe to reach the fruit of the tree of knowledge,—alive to the moist vitality of that warm atmosphere palpitating with voices and music, as the flower of some dioecious plant which has grown in a lone ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the cat met Mr. Fox in the wood, and because she thought he was clever and experienced in all the ways of the world, she addressed him in ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... thoughts. For, although they had scored against their adversaries in misleading them as to their intentions, both realized that Balcom was a tremendously clever man, astute and wise beyond the average in the ways of the world, and that the slightest lack of caution, the smallest flaw in the acting of the parts they had elected to play, would inevitably lose for them ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... king and leman—the pageant of the world goes by, set in a frame of stone and jewels, clothed in scarlet and rags. Princes Street and the Elysian Fields, the Strand and the Ringstrasse—these are the Ways of the World today. ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... formed in all other respects such an important organ as the will should be missing. His absence of volition was but the result of his perception of the vanity of all earthly ambitions, and his absence of desire the outcome of his contempt for all that was worthless and transitory, his aversion to the ways of the world a tragic foregoing of the hope of ever getting behind it, and reaching the eternal root and ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... told him her trouble. He must act like other people, she said, or tongues would begin to wag. He must forget that he had ever been a weather vane and must learn the ways of the world. The Golden Archer's heart was ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... to him. Although his tales were written for his grandchildren, so finished a telling of the tale as we find in Laboulaye, with its delightful hits of satire, appeals more to the grown-up versed in the ways of the world. But the sage remarks of worldly wisdom of Uncle Remus could not fail to impress a little boy: "Go where you will and when you may, and stay long ez you choosen ter stay, en right dar en den you'll sholy fin' dat folks what git full er consate en proudness ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... ask with vehemence, "you went to the trouble of coming to hunt for me, as you didn't see me turn up at home for several days, eh? But what young lady introduced you in here?" Then noticing that her whole head was bedecked with flowers, old goody Liu laughed. "How ignorant of the ways of the world you are!" she said. "Seeing the nice flowers in this garden, you at once set to work, forgetful of all consequences, and loaded your ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of his life, Dr. Melmoth had never been placed in circumstances so embarrassing as the present. He was altogether a child in the ways of the world, having spent his youth and early manhood in abstracted study, and his maturity in the solitude of these hills. The expedition, therefore, on which fate had now thrust him, was an entire deviation from the quiet pathway of all his former years; ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a studio can be so called—was merry. I was learning the ways of the world. I liked the life. I wrote to John almost every day. The freedom of the den, the change from rote lessons to post- graduate work was pleasant. I ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... crops and tillages, was most sporting in her descriptions of shooting and hunting, and had an exhaustive understanding of, and sympathy with, the animal world, which seemed quite uncanny to town-bred girls. Here, however, her knowledge stopped, and of the ways of the world, the hundred and one restrictions and obligations of society which come as second nature to most girls, she knew no more than a South Sea Islander dancing gaily upon the sands, and stringing shells in her dusky locks. "I wish I was born a savage!" was indeed her daily reflection, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... interesting object to all my acquaintances were I distractedly in love with him, I cannot say that I regret my comparative insignificance. Importance may sometimes be purchased too dearly. Kitty and Lydia take his defection much more to heart than I do. They are young in the ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young men must have something to live on as ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... out they'll scare all the angleworms back into their holes," he grumbled—a remark which shows that he knew little about the ways of the world. And when Rusty Wren swerved near him and called to him to look out for Mr. Chippy's visitor—that he was "a bad one"—young Master Robin actually puffed himself up ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Lucy Morris,—without a shilling, without position, a girl who had earned her bread as a governess, simply because he loved her. It was a wonder to himself that he, a lawyer, a man of the world, a member of Parliament, one who had been steeped up to his shoulders in the ways of the world, should still be so pure as to be capable of such a sacrifice. But it was so; and the sacrifice would undoubtedly be made,—some day. It would be absurd in one conscious of such high merit to be afraid of the ordinary social incidents of life. It is the debauched ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... had met Captain Mildare, the hero of Futtehabad and Ahmed Khel. The Colonel's wife was a pretty, delicate, graceful creature, some three years older than her black-browed handsome friend, and much more learned, as, of course, befitted a married woman, in the ways of the world. And Lady Lucy saw the budding of young passion in the heart of her junior ... and it occurred to her that it would furnish a very excellent excuse for the constant presence of Captain Mildare, if ...! the sweetest and most limpid women have their turbid depths, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... lived too long in these mountain solitudes," thought she; "her ideas will become romantic, and her taste fastidious. If it is dangerous to be too early initiated into the ways of the world, it is perhaps equally so to live too long secluded from it. Should she make herself a place in the heart of her mother and sister it will be so much happiness gained; and should it prove otherwise, it will be a lesson learnt—a ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... wood, Mr. Varleigh noted the position of the high-road by his pocket-compass. Captain Stanwick laughed at him, and offered me his arm. Ignorant as I was of the ways of the world and the rules of coquetry, my instinct (I suppose) warned me not to distinguish one of the gentlemen too readily at the expense of the other. I took my aunt's arm and settled it in ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... returned home almost cowed. But on the following morning he determined to make a still further effort, so that he might, if possible, return to the ways of the world, which were already becoming strange to him from the desolation of the life which he had been leading. He went out, and, taking the road by the church, up the creek, he came at about a distance of two miles from his own house to Coed, ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... bounds of country, and had made himself the poet of the English-speaking race. A man of vast learning and varied acquirements, thoroughly versed in the ways of the world, he is still as simple and unaffected in thought and ways as when he listened to and wondered at the dashing of the wild waves on the shore in his boyhood's home. A most gifted and accomplished artist, he has been faithful to nature in all ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... he was a perfect spark from the flint and steel. There was in Paolo a subtle intelligence in feeling, a delicate appreciation of the other person. But the mind was unintelligent, he could not grasp a new order. Maria Fiori was much sharper and more adaptable to the ways of the world. Paolo had an almost glass-like quality, fine and clear and perfectly tempered; but he was also finished and brittle. Maria was much coarser, more vulgar, but also she was more human, more fertile, with crude potentiality. His passion was ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... day after his conversation with Lancaster at the club Arthur dropped round casually at Holloway, and brought with him a proposal which he said had just been made him by a colonial newsagent. It was a transparent little ruse enough; but Ernest and Edie were not learned in the ways of the world and did not suspect it so readily as older and wiser heads might probably have done. Would Ernest supply a fortnightly letter, to go by the Australian mail, to the Paramatta 'Chronicle and News,' containing London political and social gossip of a commonplace kind—just the petty ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... taste for expense is often acquired, before the means of gratifying it are obtained. Boys listen with anxiety to the conversation of those who are a few years older than themselves. From this conversation they gather information respecting the ways of the world, which, though often erroneous, they tenaciously believe to be accurate: it is in vain that their older friends may assure them that such and such frivolous expenses are not necessary to the well-being of a man in society; ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... unseemly things all day long, keeping not the commandments of God neither fearing His judgment? Many times a day I had liefer been dead than alive, seeing young men follow after vanities and hearing them curse and forswear themselves, haunting the taverns, visiting not the churches and ensuing rather the ways of the world than that of God.' 'My son,' said the friar, 'this is a righteous anger, nor for my part might I enjoin thee any penance therefor. But hath anger at any time availed to move thee to do any manslaughter or to bespeak any one unseemly or do any ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... with yellow, and even her boys wear clothes like their mother's for a couple of seasons; for Heart of Nature does not allow them to come out in their red and black uniforms until they are three years old, and know the ways of the world." ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... this letter, he paused for a moment, and then said dryly, in handing it to Miss Isabella, "Miss Pringle is improving in the ways of the world." ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... according to their own accounts, "a strange family; they rarely acted like other people; their hearts were in the right place, but their heads seemed to be doing anything but what they ought."—"They were remarkable," says another statement, "for their worth, but of no cleverness in the ways of the world." Oliver Goldsmith will be found faithfully to inherit the virtues ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Murillo's work. He now advised the young painter to go to Rome, but he had been away from Seville for three years, and he longed to be again at home in his beautiful native city. During his absence he had learned much in art and in the ways of the world. He had met many distinguished artists and statesmen ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... and unusual thing in a girl of her age. Every word she said, every move she made to-day, was exactly as I would have been proud to hear, and to see a daughter of mine speak and move. If I had only myself to consider, I would make her my friend, because I'm seasoned in the ways of the world, and she could influence me only as I chose to allow her. With you youngsters it is different. You'll find her captivating, and you may let her ways sway you without even knowing it. All these outward ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... he attracted her. He stirred her to an interest which she had believed herself too old, too jaded with the ways of the world, ever to feel again. But she did not want to yield to the attraction. She wanted to hold aloof for a space. She had come to this quiet corner of the world in search of peace. She wanted to avoid the problems of life, to get back her poise, to become an onlooker and ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... worth while to take me into his confidence. In either case, I am here—and I will have my say. I shall put myself in the place of your father and speak as, I believe, he would have spoken. I may seem harsh and bitter toward my own son, but remember, Miss Ethel, I have had vastly more experience in the ways of the world than you have—and ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... was so plausible, that he found it an easy task to deceive a girl as unsophisticated as Elinor Wildegrave, who was a perfect novice in the ways of the world. She could not believe it possible that Mr. Hurdlestone could stoop from his dignity to act a despicable part; that deception could lurk beneath such a grave demeanor. Elinor was not the first human being whose faith has ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... ready to go to Shawan, Naomi clung to him to hinder him, as if remembering his long absence when he went to Fez, and connecting it with the illness that came to her in his absence; or as seeming to see, with those eyes that were blind to the ways of the world, what was to befall him before he returned. He put her from him with many tender words, and smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead, as though to chide her while he blessed her for so much love. But her dread increased, and she held to him ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... I knew nothing but tyranny and oppression, hatred and vengeance. It was therefore not surprising that, when my turn came, I did to others as I had been done by. Jackson had no excuse for his treatment of me, whereas, I had every excuse for retaliation. He did know better, I did not. I followed the ways of the world in the petty microcosm in which I had been placed. I knew not of mercy, of forgiveness, charity, or goodwill. I knew not that there was a God; I only knew that might was right, and the most pleasurable sensation which I felt, was that of anxiety for vengeance, combined ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... a most brutalising effect on the lay population; who, told that they were, and believing themselves to be, beings of a lower order, and living by a lower standard, sank down more and more generation after generation. They were of the world, and the ways of the world they must follow. Political life had no inherent sanctity or nobleness; why act holily and nobly in it? Family life had no inherent sanctity or nobleness; why act holily and nobly in it either, if there were no holy, noble, and divine principle ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... finished was not lightly to be dislodged. Simon's education consisted of the knowledge conveyed in seaport schools for the sons of tradesmen, while a long course of penny dreadfuls had given him a peculiar and extensive acquaintance with the ways of the world. Carefully curtained away in a secret compartment, lay his elementary Hebrew lore. It did not enter into his conception of the perfect Englishman. Ah, how he rejoiced in this wider horizon of London, so thickly starred with music-halls, billiard-rooms, and ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... in a short time this became unavoidable; for variations in rules of conduct make fellowship impossible. The lax Christians, who, on the strength of their objective possession, viz., the apostolic doctrine and writings, sought to live comfortably by conforming to the ways of the world, necessarily sought to rid themselves of inconvenient societies and inconvenient monitors;[213] and they could only do so by reproaching the latter with heresy and unchristian assumptions. Moreover, the followers of the new prophets could not permanently recognise the Churches of the "Psychical,"[214] ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... much more comfortable in her tactics, and without consulting anybody sent for a hairdresser. "It's all very well for Wallachia," said Livy,—Miss Petrie's name was Wallachia,—"but I know a nice sort of man when I see him, and the ways of the world are not to be altered because Wally ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... in a business-like manner placed the rich ornament on her bosom, where it seemed as much out of place "as a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear," and hastily walked off with the prize before I could recover from my astonishment! I was a stranger to the ways of the world, and it did not occur to me, until years afterwards, that this was an IMPROMPTU comedy, ingeniously devised and skilfully performed by two capital actresses, for the purpose of swindling me ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... marries and reforms at sixty. The club breaks up; and the Spectator resigns his functions. Such events can hardly be said to form a plot; yet they are related with such truth, such grace, such wit, such humor, such pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world, that they charm us on the hundredth perusal. We have not the least doubt that, if Addison had written a novel, on an extensive plan, it would have been superior to any that we possess. As it is, he is entitled ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... false basis. "George," he said to himself, "is a young man; he will think nothing of this: a fellow at his age cares nothing for money." George did care but little for the money, but he did care about his father; and he understood the ways of the world well enough to know that his father ought to have paid his own bill. He began for the first time to experience something of that feeling which his ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... better than anything in the First. But the later part has, of course, not quite so much freshness; and nobody need want anything better than the successive scenes, slightly glanced at already, in which Gil Blas is taught, by no means finally,[321] the ways of the world; the pure adventure interest of the robbers' cave, so admirably managed and so little over-dwelt on; the experiences of travel and of the capital; the vivid pictures of petit maitre and actress life; the double deception—thoroughly Spanish this, but most freshly and universally ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... wisdom of the wise appeared—how peddling and foolish and mean—contrasted with their superb trust. How sordid were the ways of the world, its fears and suspicions, from the vantage point to which they had climbed. Material things even suggested this thought to Raymond, and when before noon, they stood on the green crown of Golden Cap, with the earth and sea ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... of heresy, with which they took it for granted he was infected, from having dwelt so long among those obstinate and perverse heretics, the English; but Anastasio was too well acquainted with human nature, and with the ways of the world, to be thrown off his guard. He gave most munificently to the church; and, in spite of all their attempts to place Isabella in a convent, as a boarder, succeeded in retaining her under the immediate care ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... The ways of the world are full of haste and turmoil; I will sing of the tribe of the helpers who travel ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... American's misunderstanding of England is chiefly the result of his absorption in his own affairs and lack of a standard of comparison. The Americans as a people have been until recently, and still are in only a moderately less degree, peculiarly ignorant of other peoples and of the ways of the world. ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... is the woman God has created for you, in the name of all that is holy, do not let another man usurp your rights. Do not let one like Dexter bear her off to gild a heartless home. Remember that Jessie is young, inexperienced, and unskilled in the ways of the world. She is not schooled in the lore of love; cannot understand all its signs; and, above all, can no more look into your heart, than you can look into hers. How is she to know that you love her, if you stand coldly—I might say cynically—observant at ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... might more correctly say, that though she had then reached an age which makes some girls young women, it had not as yet had that effect upon her. She was then nineteen; but her life in her father's house had been dull and monotonous; she had gone very little into company, and knew very little of the ways of the world. The Mackenzie baronet people had not noticed her. They had failed to make much of Walter with his twelve thousand pounds, and did not trouble themselves with Margaret, who had no fortune of her own. The Ball baronet people were at extreme variance with all her family, and, as a matter of course, ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... of a prominent suburban resident is, the neighbors say, a precocious youngster; at all events, she knows the ways of the world. ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... is a proverb which says, 'Physician, cure thyself.' What did I tell you, Monsieur La Mothe? The five minutes are not up yet." But Stephen La Mothe discreetly answered nothing. One of the first lessons a man learns in the ways of the world is to keep his fingers ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... retirement of domestic life, we think it proper to notice the events which closed the great struggle between England and France for empire in America. In that struggle he had first become practised in arms, and schooled in the ways of the world; and its results will be found connected with the history of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Sister Halsey, that you look down on us all as if we weren't good enough for you, although you're too kindly to let it be seen. According to the ways of the world, of course, it's so. If I'm as rough and uneducated as most of our folks, at least I can think in my mind what it would be not to be rough, and I can think sometimes how it all ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... attack, they must speedily have been disillusioned. The mystic poet proved to be a formidable fighting-man. Before very long it must have dawned upon the Inquisitionary deputies at Valladolid that they had caught a Tartar. Unversed in the ways of the world, Luis de Leon came of a legal stock, and was thoroughly at home in a law-court. A master of dialectics, he was always alert, always prompt to criticize the evidence, always ready to deal with every point as it arose, always prepared to furnish ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... they pleased, and felt no anger because they had elected a Conservative. They might send up to Parliament the most antediluvian old Tory they could find in England if they wished, only not his son, not a Palliser as a Tory or Conservative. And then, though the little town had gone back in the ways of the world, the county, or the Duke's division of the county, had made so much progress, that a Liberal candidate recommended by him would almost certainly be returned. It was just the occasion on which a Palliser should show himself ready to serve his country. There would ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... throat, which in a strong man means tears. And still he waited on, earning his bread in the humble village which knew nothing of him, save as one of themselves,—for the inhabitants of the place were deaf and blind to the ways of the world, and read little save old and belated newspapers, so that they were ignorant of his newly celebrated personality,—till one day the Fates gave him that chance for which, though he was unconscious of it, he had been holding himself back, and counting the slow strokes of time;—time ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... of her beauty, More than the palm of its peace; And who beyond Christ's portal to mortal Desires would bend her knees? The ways of the World have flowers, And any who will pluck those; But let there ever be a place Where none ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... husband's saying to the minister's wife who sat next to him, 'Oh, Mrs. Cook, I quite forgot to express my sympathy with you; I heard that you had lost your cat.' The blow was deliberately administered, and I felt it as an insult. I was wrong, I know. I was ignorant of the ways of the world, and I ought to have been aware of the folly of placing myself above the level of my guests, and of the extreme unwisdom of revealing myself in that unguarded way to strangers. Two or three more experiences ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... the voice and the woman's gaze came back to the chamber. "That I know not. Travelling the ways of the world and plucking roadside fruits, for he is no home-bred and womanish stripling. Wearing his lusty youth on the maids, I fear. Nay, I forget. He is about to wed the girl of Avesnes and is already choosing his bridal train. It seems he loves ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... ignorant. But in "The Last of the Mohicans," while the man continues the same, the aspect he presents is wholly different. All that is weak in his character is in the background; all that is best and strongest comes to the front. He is in the prime of life. Ignorant he still remains of the ways of the world as found in the settlements; but there is no trace of discontent or fretfulness. He has full room for the exercise of his native virtues, and in the character of the acute and daring scout he finds ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... in polished society, and whose admiration he had enlisted, as much by the charms of inimitable wit as by the graces of his matchless person. What wonder that the gentle girl, all unskilled as she was in the ways of the world, should receive his frequent visits with pleasure; and when her kind father intimated to her that her lover was a man possessing no visible resources, and was besides very unwilling to allude to his former history, which was involved in much obscurity, ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... refined a girl. He was, in her sight, superior to any one she had ever met, and her affections were engaged before she was aware of the state of her own feelings. He did not conceal his, and, little versed in the ways of the world, while utterly free from deceit, he expressed his opinions with a freedom which many persons under the circumstances would not have done. Hannah, though admiring his many fine qualities, could not forget that he was destitute of the most important of all things—sound religious principle. ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... you have looked after my poor, dear boy, Mr. Wooster! So this is how you have abused my trust! I left him in your charge, thinking that I could rely on you to shield him from evil. He came to you innocent, unversed in the ways of the world, confiding, unused to the temptations of a large city, ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... to sacrifice delicacy, affection, principle, to the desire of worldly establishment or aggrandizement, how is the regeneration of society to be expected from them? Formerly, too, this spirit was confined to the old, hackneyed in the ways of the world, and who, having worn out the trifling affections which they ever had, would subject those of their children to the maxims of worldly prudence. This we learn from fiction and the drama, where the worldly wisdom of age is always represented as opposed to the generous but imprudent passions ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... were brought up. Upon the education of the boys the Prince of Wales utilized his own knowledge of life as well as the traditions of his father's training of himself. He is said to have believed that the study of men and the ways of the world had not been sufficiently considered in his own case and that he wished his sons, while escaping the nervousness, constraints and adulation which surrounded the Court, should also avoid the sycophancy and flattery which might be ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... irrelevant and very amusing, though always returning to the point at intervals with arguments in favour of the acceptance of his bid. He was so genial and pleasant and such good company, for no man was ever better acquainted with the ways of the world, that he very rarely, I think, left the premises without a deal, though sometimes he was in his gig before the final bargain was struck. It is a custom of the trade for the seller to give something back ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... short and pleasant run, I certainly did not learn much of my profession, but I did learn a little of the ways of the world. First, as to Captain Delmar, his conduct to me was anything but satisfactory; he never inquired for me during the time that I was unwell, and took no notice of me ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... your torn feet freeze, And you whittle away the useless clay, and crawl on your hands and knees. Often it leads to the dead-pit; always it leads to pain; By the bones of your brothers ye know it, but oh, to follow you're fain. By your bones they will follow behind you, till the ways of the world are ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... of anything in the criminal line. It may be well for me to go to Chicago and visit Martin's Aunt Scarlet. How that woman hates me, simply because I was the means of breaking up a gang of spurious money makers, of whom old Dan Scarlet was the chief. Well, well, the ways of the world are curious enough. By the way, I haven't sent that line to Nell yet. The girl will feel ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... alone, I hope!" replied Maitre Pierre, with some emphasis; "I am vieux routier [one who is experienced in the ways of the world], and none of those upon whom feigned disorders pass ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... some years older than Renestine and was aware that she was but a school girl, untutored in the ways of the world, even less than most girls of her age. But Renestine's modesty, her innocence, her beauty, appealed to him as no other woman's charms had done and thoughts of her took possession him. His stuffy little office in McKinney, in the long, narrow store ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... of ideas and thoughts had taken possession of her, reawaking in her the germ of that ambition to be somebody which she had felt so often when a girl, and which now was to bud and blossom, and bear fruit a hundred fold. She would take the girl, and from her learn the ways of the world as presented at Brier Hill. She would no longer wear sacking aprons, and open the door herself. She would be more like Grace Atherton, whom she watched admiringly as she went down the walk to the handsome carriage waiting for her, with driver and footman in tall hats and ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... youth, it was whispered, the Duke Wilhelm Ludwig, father of the reigning Duke of Wirtemberg, had initiated her into the ways of the world in general and of courts in particular; in gratitude wherefore she was reputed to have performed the same office, twenty years later, for his son Eberhard Ludwig. The Duke of Zollern, several Hohenlohes, and many Gemmingens had been her slaves; not to mention ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... obligation to them. They were smaller men than my captain, of a slender, graceful build, and the hair of both was quite white, but from my post of observation I could see that they were men of courtly manners, well used to the ways of the world, and talking now quite eagerly with all the wealth of gesture and ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... "When he was with Marie Louise, he used to be forever teasing her ladies about a thousand things; it often happened that they stood up against him, and he would carry on the discussion and laugh heartily when he had succeeded in vexing the young girls, who, in their frankness and ignorance of the ways of the world and the court, made very lively and unaffected answers which were amusing for those to ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Paris; and Ishmael said very little, but, with his deadly clarity of vision for once working beneficently, sat there aware how young and somehow rather lovable they were through it all, while he himself, whom they were obviously treating as so so much younger in the ways of the world, felt old compared with them. The only thing he did not fully realise was just how ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... to consider that in climbing to some unknown, unseen height in deep darkness I was, after all, doing a wiser thing than living in the world with the ways of the world,—ways that are for the most part purely hypocritical, and are practised merely to overreach and out-do one's fellow-men and women—ways of fashion, ways of society, ways of government which are merely temporary, while Nature, the invincible and eternal, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... his clerk well, knew his restless ambition, his insatiable greed, his intense selfishness, his indomitable will. And he had good reason to know. Three times during the past year his clerk had forced from him an increase of salary. Indeed, Samuel Sprink, young though he was and unlearned in the ways of the world, was the only man in the city that Rosenblatt feared. If by any means Samuel could obtain a hold over this young lady, he would soon bring her to the dust. Once in Samuel's power, she would soon sink to the level of the ordinary Galician wife. True, she ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... the sense of responsibility and the excitement of the hour 'languid Johnny,' to borrow Bulwer Lytton's phrase, 'soared to glorious John.' Palmerston, like Melbourne, was all things to all men. His easy nonchalance, sunny temper, and perfect familiarity with the ways of the world and the weaknesses of average humanity, gave him an advantage which Lord John, with his nervous temperament, indifferent health, fastidious tastes, shy and rather distant bearing, and uncompromising convictions, never possessed. ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... have been, Doctor, to some extent." At hearing this the Doctor made very evident signs of discontent. "You cannot alter the ways of the world suddenly, though by example and precept you may help to improve them slowly. In our present imperfect condition of moral culture, it is perhaps well that the company of the guilty should ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... angry, except with the ways of the world. I do like to be spoken to as if I had common-sense. I really often feel as if I could understand a little more than I ever hear even from young gentlemen who have been to college." Mary had recovered, and she spoke with ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... more about the ways of the world than poor Tom did, shook his head dubiously. He served the coffee and some crackers and dry breakfast food of which he had brought a number of packages, and they ate of this makeshift repast as they ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... own poor and cared for the stranger at the gates. Later the church built hospitals and refuges and prepared for the care of all the oppressed. Thousands who were careworn, oppressed, or disgusted with the ways of the world turned instinctively to Christianity for relief, and were not disappointed. The Greeks and the Romans had never practised systematic charity until taught by the Christians. The Romans gave away large sums ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... to Melbourne by the first train in the morning. I don't think he'll try his artful dodges on this section of the bush again; and it has made all the boys very watchful about betting, so it wasn't a bad thing, on the whole. They think they know all about the ways of the world now. Look, Tommy—the horses are off! Watch through the trees, and you'll ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... even in these last evil days the living God is ready to prove Himself as the living God, by being ever willing to help, succour, comfort, and answer the prayers of those who trust in Him: so that we need not go away from Him to our fellow-men, or to the ways of the world, seeing that He is both able and willing to supply us with all we can need in His service. From the beginning, when God put this service into my heart, I had anticipated trials and straits; but knowing, as I did, the heart of ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... day and tell her a secret, a very great secret, which she was sure would comfort her and make ample amends to her for all her distress of the night before. Little Annie Eustace was so very innocent and ignorant of the ways of the world that had her nearest and dearest been able to look into her heart of hearts, they might have been appalled, incredulous and reverent, according to their natures. For instance, this very good, simple young girl who had been born with the light ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman |
