"Refined" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gentleman at the depot remark that the very enormity of the crimes committed by the Romanists, is their best protection. "For," said he, "some of their practices are so shockingly infamous they may not even be alluded to in the presence of the refined and the virtuous. And if the story of their guilt were told, who would believe the tale? Far easier would it be to call the whole a slanderous fabrication, than to believe that ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... protest as the beneficiary of a vote that was demonstrably fraudulent in its character,—a vote that was tainted with crime and stained with the blood of innocent men. It is assuredly not to be presumed that violent acts and murderous deeds are less repulsive to Mr. Seymour than to any other refined Christian gentleman. But his silence in respect to the wicked transactions of his supporters in Louisiana, when he was a candidate for the Presidency, has persuaded many honest-minded Democrats that the whole narrative ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... deal better. She is refined and beautiful. She mustn't go; I can't allow it. But she has written me such a queer letter, and implored and besought of me not to come to see her, that I am forced to accede to her wishes. So you will have to go to her to-night and tell ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... possible centuries. Those who have any doubts on this subject may consult Sainte-Palaye, passim, and more particularly vol. ii. p. 69.[7] The vows of chivalry were no better kept than any other vows whatsoever; and the songs of the Troubadours were not more decent, and certainly were much less refined, than those of Ovid. The "Cours d'Amour, parlemens d'amour, ou de courtoisie et de gentilesse" had much more of love than of courtesy or gentleness. See Rolland[8] on ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... had made a near approach to the custom of more refined nations and had permanent graveyards, either on the sides of hills, thus rendered sacred, or under large old shady trees; they reverence the tombs of their ancestors, and plant the largest elephants' tusks, as monuments at the head of the grave, or entirely ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... oil and refined petroleum products, machinery, automobiles, consumer goods, industrial raw ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... had bled in secret; she came out into society again; and she did every thing she could, in her gentle, quiet way. She joined temperance societies,— helped push 'em forward with her money and her influence. With other white-souled wimmen, gentle and refined as she was, she went into rough bar-rooms, and knelt on their floors, and prayed what her sad heart wus full of,—for pity and mercy for her boy, and other mothers' boys,—prayed with that fellowship of suffering that made her sweet ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... in his face; and the Strange Lady steps in. She is a very attractive lady, tall and extraordinarily graceful, with a delicately intelligent, apprehensive, questioning face—perception in the brow, sensitiveness in the nostrils, character in the chin: all keen, refined, and original. She is very feminine, but by no means weak: the lithe, tender figure is hung on a strong frame: the hands and feet, neck and shoulders, are no fragile ornaments, but of full size in proportion to her stature, which considerably exceeds that of Napoleon ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... for twelve years. Being cut off from the external world, he communed with his own soul; and, inspired by Him who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire, he composed the noblest of allegories, the merit of which was first discovered by the lowly, but which is now lauded by the most refined critics, and which has done more to awaken piety, and to enforce the precepts of Christian morality, than all the sermons that have been published by all the ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... to the Greeks in intellectual acquirements, was no where more conspicuous than in their public amusements. While the refined Grecians sought to gratify their taste by music, the fine arts, and dramatic entertainments, the Romans derived their chief pleasure from contemplating the brutal and bloody fights of gladiators; or at best, such rich shows ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... coarse? They themselves admit that I write amatory verse with sufficient sprightliness and skill. The explanation is obvious to every one; it is this. He who could not read the letter which Pudentilla wrote in Greek altogether too refined for his comprehension, found it easier to read this letter and set it off to greater advantage ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... may as well leave you where you are, and allow the Red Margrave to save me the trouble. The loss of his castle will not make him more compassionate, especially if he learns you were the cause of it. You will then experience some refined tortures, I imagine; for, like myself, he may think hanging too good for you. I should never have fired his castle had it not been ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... gazing abstractedly out the window, "of 'winter lingering in the lap of spring,' though the metaphor is not in the most refined taste." ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... endure habits, manners, and ideas, which the close contiguity of married life will force upon his disgusted palate, and which must banish all love. Man by instinct desires in his wife something softer, sweeter, more refined than himself; and though in failing to obtain this, the fault may be all his own, he will not on that account the more easily reconcile himself ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... feminine nature almost alarmingly boundless. I stared too, it comes back to me, at these exhibitions, and perhaps even thought it became a young man of the world to express as to this or that object a refined and intelligent preference; but what I really most had before me was the chorus of abjection, as I might well have called it, led, at the highest pitch, by Honorine and vaguely suggesting to me, by the crudity, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... for more than the heart of man. That such a system fosters character and produces first-rate men of action and rulers is undeniable, but it is fatal to poetry, and the poetry which we produce is what might be expected—refined, highly polished, but artificial and wanting in sincerity. It bears the same relation to true poetry that etiquette and polished manners do to truth and nature. To realize the difference between the poetry of the school and the poetry of nature compare the faultless English and elegant ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... home. He proved to be quite an original. One of his whims was, that he would never go into the kitchen nor yet into a poor man's cottage; but he formed a habit of visiting by himself at the country houses in the neighbourhood of Cromer, and his refined manners and intelligence made 'Speaker' a welcome guest wherever he ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... taught that man lives for the state, must be trained up for the state, belongs to the state, and is of no value outside of the state. Hence the pagan civilization of Greece and Rome, being intensely human, while it became very splendid and refined, became also, and could not help becoming intensely and unutterably corrupt—so corrupt that St. Paul refrained from finishing the disgusting catalogue of its awful sins and vices. The church, Christianity, could save man, but it could not save ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... supplement to the cultivated field lands. Let us rejoice that there is still so much wilderness left in Germany. In order for a nation to develop its power it must embrace at the same time the most varied phases of evolution. A nation over-refined by culture and satiated with prosperity is a dead nation, for whom nothing remains but, like Sardanapalus, to burn itself up together with all its magnificence. The blase city man, the fat farmer of the rich corn-land, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... Jethro Bass, after all, was—Jethro Bass. All his life Bob had heard him familiarly and jokingly spoken of as the boss of the state, and had listened to the tales, current in all the country towns, of how Jethro had outwitted this man or that. Some of them were not refined tales. Jethro Bass as the boss of the state—with the tolerance with which the public in general regard politics—was one thing. Bob was willing to call him "Uncle Jethro," admire his great strength and shrewdness, and declare that the men he had outwitted had richly deserved ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Her coat was glossy; one could see she had just been combed down. They brought Gerasim the soup. He crumbled some bread into it, cut the meat up small, and put the plate on the ground. Mumu began eating in her usual refined way, her little muzzle daintily held so as scarcely to touch her food. Gerasim gazed a long while at her; two big tears suddenly rolled from his eyes; one fell on the dog's brow, the other into the soup. He shaded his face ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... of the splendid manhood embodied in our ranks to-day. Their language is certainly reprehensible, but after all we must realize that their vocabulary is not an extensive one, and the employment of adjectives which, to a refined ear, sounds deplorable, is only used by them to describe an intensity which no other words they possess would be capable of rendering. I am, of course, not referring to blasphemy or obscenity, which is immediately checked by every ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... merits, than Captain M. He is a sincere Christian, a brave officer, and an accomplished gentleman. Under the orders of Commodore Sloat, he first raised the American flag in San Francisco. We spent the afternoon most agreeably, and the refined hospitality, courteous manners, and intelligent and interesting conversation of our host made us regret the rapidly fleeting moments. The wines on the table were the produce of the vine of California, and, having attained age, were of an excellent quality ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... sturdy, very brown of leg, and insolent of demeanor—swaggering along as if conscious of there being a full-grown man buttoned up within a boy's ragged coat. The swagger was accompanied by a whistle, whose neat crispness announced habits of leisure and a sense of the refined pleasures of life; for an artistic rendering of an aria from "La Fille de Madame Angot" was cutting the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... is due the praise of having first refined the Roman taste in dramatic poetry, as Ennius had but a short time before done in Epic, by introducing the Greek model, as the standard of literature. Both were, according to Suetonius, half Greeks, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... of fortune, family, and education, whose youth had been passed in the most refined circles of private life, should present herself to the people as a public lecturer, would naturally excite surprise any where, and the nil admirari of the old world itself, would hardly be sustained before such a spectacle; but in America, where women are guarded ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... scholarly man, of refined tastes and a sensitive organization, fervently spiritual, and earnestly devoted to his work. It was all education to grow up under his influence. I shall never forget the effect left by the tones of his voice when he first spoke to me, a child of ten years, at a neighborhood ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... which are wound by the hands of angels, for the light of heaven seems to ripple in their silken spirals swaying to the breeze. Fanny O'Brien was one of those sylphs,—strong in tenderness, invincible under misfortune, soft as the music of her voice, pure as the azure of her eyes, of a delicate, refined beauty, blessed with a skin that was silken to the touch and caressing to the eye, which neither painter's brush nor written word can picture. Beautiful still at forty-two years of age, many a man would have ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... and costly lace as she went up the steps, clinging to Wilford and looking ruefully around for Esther, who had disappeared through the basement door. Another moment and they stood within the marbled hall, Katy conscious of nothing definite—nothing but a vague consciousness of refined elegance, and that a handsome, richly-dressed lady came out to meet them, kissing Wilford quietly, and calling him her son—that the same lady later turned to her, saying, kindly: "And this is my ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... higher degree of honor and excellence than civilization and knowledge can confer. He deemed that the elevation and independence of mind, resulting from the rude simplicity of savage life, is sought in vain among the members of refined and organized societies.[206] ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... everything after the human model and attempts to know everything according to arbitrary resemblances. Myth-making activity, which we have studied in the child and in primitive man, is the embryonic form whence arise by a slow evolution religious creations—gross or refined; esthetic development, which is a fallen, impoverished mythology; the fantastic conceptions of the world that may little by little become scientific conceptions, with, however, an irreducible residuum of hypotheses. Alongside ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... said he, 'I perceive Mrs. Fishwife, the actress. She should have played in the comedy we are come to see, but threw up her part from scruples of conscience. It was not sufficiently refined for her exquisite sensibility; it wounded her feelings, offended her morals, and outraged her modesty. Yet in the Green-room, she is never happy unless when the men are relating some lewd tale, or repeating obscene jests; at every one ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... it were. But at heart, after these many years of contact, they are still simple. They are mindless, gentle, squatting bare backed in the shade, chewing, spitting, betel nut. Chewing as the ox chews, thinking as the ox thinks. Gentle brown men and women, touching the edge of the most refined civilization of ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... the longer held back, the better worth having; lightened of whatever might detract from their value, that is, refined or purified. In making the remark here, that "delighted" refers not to the recipient nor to the giver, but to the gifts, I pass by the nonsense that the greatest master of the English language did not heed the distinction between ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various
... been before you. Who is there, that, upon hearing this name, does not instantly recognize everything of genius the most profound, everything of literature the most extensive, everything of discovery the most penetrating, everything of observation on human life the most distinguishing and refined? All these must be instantly recognized, for they are all inseparably associated with the name of Lord Verulam. Yet, when this prodigy was brought before your Lordships by the Commons of Great Britain for having permitted his menial servant to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... sits in a swivel chair at the bureau, busy with papers. He has gout, and his left foot is encased accord: He is a thin, dried-up man of about fifty-five, with a rather refined, rather kindly, and rather cranky countenance. Close to him stands his very upstanding nineteen-year-old daughter JILL, with clubbed hair ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... after the animals had all Tried on the regal crown, or let it fall, Because their heads were all too big, Or too small, too horned, or too thick, The monkey slipped through it; And with it cut up many a trick, Which they all thought refined, And chose him with one mind. Only the fox regretted the election, And swore to reign in his defection. He came and made his compliment; "Sire," said he, "I know a treasure meant For your high majesty. I will show The spot where it lies hid." The monkey went at ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... material in the blood is distributed to every part of the body. "From this distribution of blood in these minute vessels," he says, "the structure of organs derive their constituent parts; through these vessels brain matter, muscle, gland, membrane, are given out from the blood by a refined process of selection of material, which, up to this time, is only so far understood as to enable us to say that it exists. The minute and intermediate vessels are more intimately connected than any other part with the construction and with the function ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... of people there who began to laugh. The common herd are neither charitable nor refined, and every eye was turned towards that poor lady. Have you ever seen a woman going mad, Monsieur? Well, we were present at the sight! She got up and fell back on her chair three times following, as if she had wished ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... shame. Suggestions are to others as to me: But I beleeue although I seeme so loth, I am the last that will last keepe his oth. But is there no quicke recreation granted? Fer. I that there is, our Court you know is hanted With a refined trauailer of Spaine, A man in all the worlds new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his braine: One, who the musicke of his owne vaine tongue, Doth rauish like inchanting harmonie: A man of complements whom right and wrong Haue chose as vmpire ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... pathologic. And one consequence of this was that many of the early Christian writers brought to the consideration of the subject of sex a concentration of mind that resulted in disquisitions of such a nature that it is impossible to do more than refer to them. The sexual relation instead of being refined was coarsened. Marriage was viewed in its lowest form, more as a concession to the weakness of the flesh than as a desirable state for all men and women. Nor can it be said, after many centuries, that these ideas are quite eradicated from ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... said Newman. "You're helpless as a babe, and you might as well acknowledge it. Now, listen to this. You're crazy about Jane Atwood, or all signs fail. In fact, you probably hope to marry her. She's a classy, refined girl, with a big purpose in life. What's more, she's got peculiar notions of what's right and what's wrong. If she knew her father was a crook, and that he died to escape you, where do you think you'd get off? She'd never ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... little rooms had blossomed into a fresh, satisfying beauty that needed only the addition of the personal adornment which Anthony's bride would be sure to bring, to become a home—the home not only of a poor man but of a refined and cultured one as well. Restricted though she had been to the most inexpensive means of bringing about this happy result, Juliet had made them all tell toward an effect of great harmony and beauty. Perhaps ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... public were to receive payment in these pretexts for want of better coin. Henry complained that even Sully and all the world besides attributed to jealousy that which was really the effect of a most refined malice. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to trace a story with only three examples as data: but it appears to me not unreasonable to suppose that our Tagalog story is a refined, pious, Christianized modernization of the Visayan form represented by "The Two Wives and the Witch;" and that the Visayan form, in turn, goes back to some Indian or Malayan moral tale of two wives, rivals for the affection of their husband. ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... prevailed (however mutilated and changed in the course of time) throughout all this portion of the world, from Madagascar to the most distant discoveries eastward; of which the Malay is a dialect, much corrupted or refined by a mixture of other tongues. This very extensive similarity of language indicates a common origin of the inhabitants; but the circumstances and progress of their separation are wrapped in the darkest veil of obscurity."—History of Sumatra, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... such thing! You ought to be more generous than to make such a statement as that about a poor young stranger who—who—why, he is the very opposite of that! He is considerate, courteous, obliging, modest, gentle, refined, cultivated-oh, for shame! how can you say ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... water, that the women washing may take water without danger at their pleasure. This countrey is so fruitfull, that it causeth the women as other creatures to bring foorth one, two, and oft-times three at a birth. Fiue miles southwarde of Cairo is a place called Matarea, where the balme is refined: and therefore some will say, that the trees which beare the balme growe in the said place, wherein they are deceiued: for the sayde trees growe two dayes iourney from Mecca, in a place called Bedrihone, which yeeldeth balme in great plenty, but saluage, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... ha!... Course you high-strung virgin kind of shemales take some time to learn to get over your choosey, finicky ways. But, Lord love you! I don't mind that much. Never could stand for these rough-necks that claim they'd rather have a good, healthy walloping country wench than a nice, refined city lady. Why, I like refinement! Yes, sir, I sure do!... Well, it sure was some trip. Guess we won't forget it in a hurry, eh? Sure is nice to rub up against some Southern swells like we did that night at the Avocado Club. And that live bunch of salesmen. Gosh! Say, I'll never forget that ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... the carnage lasted. The Protestants losing all control over themselves, carried on the work of death not only without pity but with refined cruelty. More than five hundred Catholics lost their lives before the 17th, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... inexorably just as old John Marshall. He is a man absolutely free from eccentricities and affectations; he neither walks nor talks on stilts. His manners have the warmth and grace that sincerity and simplicity give. In bearing, he is animated and thoughtful, manly and refined. His firmness, while it does not amount to obstinacy, marks the clear-cut individuality and decision of his character. He has the guiding faculty and the power of containing himself. He takes a just measure both of himself and of other men. If the country will ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... such a set. They were always talking of women and horses: and their talk was not refined. They were stiff and formal. Adalbert spoke in a mincing, slow voice, with exaggerated, bored, and boring politeness. Adolf Mai, the secretary of the Review, a heavy, thick-set, bull-necked, brutal-looking young man, always pretended ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... while his eyes were speedily opened to his father's addiction to drinking, gambling, and debauchery. These experiences would most certainly have demoralised and depraved his childish mind had it not been for the powerful influence the refined and cultured mother had from the first exercised upon her son. The contrast between his parents was so startling that it could not fail to awaken the better side of the child's nature, and to imbue him with pure and healthy notions of the ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... will be unlike. They may angels' Lord, Victories' God, see. They shall be cleansed, Sundered from sins, as smelted gold, That is in the flame from every spot 1310 Through fire of the oven thoroughly cleansed, Freed and refined. So shall each of those men Be freed and made pure from every sin, From heavy crimes through fire of that doom. Then afterwards they may peace enjoy, 1315 Eternal bliss. To them angels' Warden Shall be mild and gentle, for that they every evil Despised, sins' work, and ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... (1479-1516) and the country entered upon a period of internal homogeneity and tranquility which might be expected to foster artistic production. Such was the case; but literature was not the first of the arts to reach a highly refined state. The first half of the sixteenth century is a period of humanistic study, and the poetical works coming from it were still tentative. JUAN DEL ENCINA (1469-1533?) is important in the history of the drama, for his eglogas, representaciones ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... spiritual, musical, admired, the joy of the meadows, and the favorite bird of spring; finally, a gross little sensualist, who expiates his sensuality in the larder. His story contains a moral worthy the attention of all little birds and little boys; warning them to keep to those refined and intellectual pursuits which raised him to so high a pitch of popularity during the early part of his career, but to eschew all tendency to that gross and dissipated indulgence which brought this mistaken little bird ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... true that, on purely verbal grounds, refined distinctions can be drawn between the sections of the Report dealing with the airline's stance at the inquiry and with costs; but we have no doubt that their overall effect is that most readers would understand them as closely associated. It follows, we think, that if the findings in paragraph 377 ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan
... Cardinal Mazarin found all the avenues to a negotiation either shut or impassable. This despair of success in the Court was eventually more to the advantage of the Court than the most refined politics, for it did not hinder them from negotiating, the Cardinal's natural temper not permitting him to do otherwise; but, however, he could not trust to the carrying out of negotiations, and therefore beguiled our generals with fair promises, while he remitted 800,000 ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the more refined neighbors rather dreaded them, and even the villagers spoke of most of them as "wondrous rampageous!" But Mrs. Maybright always smiled when ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... dome of the Capitol at Washington, not unworthily. By a fortunate chance, which the sculptor could hardly have foreseen, the bulky and roughly modelled figure gains airiness and majesty from its lofty position, where its sickly-sweet countenance and clumsy adornment are refined by distance. It has become, in a way, a national ideal, a ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... every one is that of money. When the other guardian died, of course Max had to assume the charge of Chad,—who'll not be of age for nearly two years,—though I should think he must be a serious trial, for Max is so thoroughly nice himself, so honourable and clever and refined, that this affected, snobbish little Dresden-china-young-man, as Betty calls him, must jar on him in every way, though perhaps Chad is on his ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... however, who is desirous to make his instructions exceedingly simple, is in danger of bringing his language too low, or of expressing himself in a manner which may not please persons of refined taste. His own good sense will teach him to avoid this if possible. But in the hurry of writing or speaking, he may not always succeed. When this happens, the fault into which he has been betrayed ought to be overlooked by those who are aware, that ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... accompanied by General and Mme. Bertrand, the former a tall, slim, good-looking man, of refined manners and domestic habits, though of a sensitive and hasty temper; his wife, a lady of slight figure, but stately carriage, the daughter of a Irishman named Dillon, who lost his life in the Revolution. Her vivacious ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... was." Almost every statesman of his time was as changeable as he was, but he possessed a capacity for business which distinguished few if any of his rivals. He is admitted on all hands to have been in private life a gentleman of the most refined habits. He wrote well on various subjects, his chief productions being Essays on the Union of the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland; on the Gowrie Conspiracy; and a "Plain Explication" of the Prophecies of Daniel ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... are ignorant of their language, religion, manners, and customs. Are any pains taken to teach them these? Are they treated as men? Does not slavery itself depress the mind, and extinguish all its fire and every noble sentiment? But, above all, what advantages do not a refined people possess over those who are rude and uncultivated. Let the polished and haughty European recollect that his ancestors were once, like the Africans, uncivilized, and even barbarous. Did Nature make them inferior to their sons? and should they too have been ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... mansion refurnished in a style worthy of the high-born and gently-reared bride who was to inhabit it; and I thought what joy it would give me if she should walk through the halls and chambers of her new home, and find everything arranged to suit her own delicate and refined taste, and answering all her requirements as ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... with a lynx eye; not one word of writing ever came to Tchitchikof through the medium of the post. Their knowledge of him speedily resolved itself into this: that he was a dashing, handsome young man, of most refined and polished manners, eminently gifted with that self-possession which is the never-failing accompaniment of good-breeding and intercourse with what is termed good society, elegant in dress, and, as the host of the Eagle announced, decidedly eccentric. This ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... of Health; and that several Vices, destructive both to Mind and Body, are inconsistent with the Habit of it. But these Reflections I shall leave to the Leisure of my Readers, and shall observe in the Third Place, that it bears a great Analogy with Purity of Mind, and naturally inspires refined ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the afternoon thought it was less clear than usual, and stared at himself in the looking-glass, wondering whether he were not too ugly altogether, as I always told him. To tell the truth, he was not so ugly as he had been; for the months with the contessina had refined him singularly, and perhaps he had caught a certain grace of manner from the baroness. He had grown more silent too, and seemed always preoccupied, as well he might be: but he had concealed his affair with the Lira family ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... blue and the gray were arranged around the table, in alternate seats. I sat between two members of the celebrated Smith family. One of them, R. Chilton Smith, was a relative of General Lee, or of his chief-of-staff, a young man of very refined manners, highly educated and well bred. He sent a package and a message by me to a friend in Winchester, a commission that was faithfully executed. The other was the son of Governor, better known as "Extra Billy" Smith, of ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... landed his fleet at the mouth of the river Tiber. Disregarding the distinctions of rank, age or sex, these licentious and brutal plunderers subjected their helpless victims to every species of indignity and cruelty. Hence the hostility to arts and science, the tokens of refined civilization,—indiscriminate devastation of life and property perpetrated by the savage warriors, has given ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... Louise, "Tato's education will be accomplished, and she will be as refined and ladylike as any girl of her age we know. Blood will tell, they say, and the monk who taught her must have been ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... in time of trouble. An irruption of the great volcano of Kilauea, or an earthquake, always brings a deal of latent loyalty to the Great Shark God to the surface. It is common report that the King, educated, cultivated and refined Christian gentleman as he undoubtedly is, still turns to the idols of his fathers for help when disaster threatens. A planter caught a shark, and one of his christianized natives testified his emancipation ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... moment, with one exception; and the only female characters, Mrs. and Miss Gentle, would have been very much better away. They are not in the least lifelike, and usually exhibit the namby-pambiness into which Wilson too often fell when he wished to be refined and pathetic. The "English" or half-English characters, who come in sometimes as foils, are also rather of the stick, sticky. On the other hand, the interruptions of Ambrose, the host, and his household, though a little farcical, are well judged. ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... powers and privileges non-essential to her, however mere mortal men may find them indispensable to their own freedom and happiness. But to the denial of her right to vote, whether that denial be the blunt refusal of the ignorant or the polished evasion of the refined courtier and politician, woman can oppose only her most solemn and perpetual appeal to the reason of man and to the justice of Almighty God. She must continually point out the nature and object of the suffrage and the necessity that she possess ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... it he was good to look upon, with his steady eyes, the straight ultra-refined nose with slightly-distended nostrils, and a jaw which, in shape and strength, belied the almost feminine beauty of ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... inadequacy of all theories and explanations of Christ and Christianity from an unbelieving point of view. It was the first attempt of unbelievers to explain where Christ's power came from. Like all first attempts, it was crude, and it has been amended and refined since. Earlier generations did not hesitate to call the Apostles liars, and Christ's contemporaries did not hesitate to call Him 'this deceiver.' We have got beyond that; but we still are met by explanations of the power of the Gospel and of Christ, its subject and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... just sat in his office, and kept the ship owners waitin' in line, swearin' bitter and refined cuss-words about 'ignorant fiend' and 'cussed pedagogue,' which last, for Kink's enlightenment, means a kind ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... flew rapidly. Society had flung its doors open to him, and what was more, he had found some warm friends, in whose houses he could come and go at pleasure. He enjoyed keenly the privilege of daily association with high-minded and refined women; their eager activity of intellect stimulated him, their exquisite ethereal grace and their delicately chiseled beauty satisfied his aesthetic cravings, and the responsive vivacity of their nature prepared him ever new surprises. He felt a strange fascination ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... good man, this Mr. Bellows; not specially refined in manner, but possessing a delicacy of character and a lively sensibility which placed him among the ranks of nature's noblemen. He had been fortunate in business, and owned the principal store in the place, where he exercised a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... wall of "Lady Anne's" sangar, his head resting on its stones, lay a white-bearded man, poorly dressed, but refined in face. It was De Villiers, the commandant of the Harrismith district—a relation, a brother perhaps, of the Chief Justice De Villiers, who entertained me at Bloemfontein less than four months ago. Across his body lay that of a much younger man, with a short brown beard. He is thought to have ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... The refined tastes that are supposed to accompany gentle blood, his love of art, his talent for music and drawing, had accidentally attracted the attention of the little travelling-party which old Lady Harbottle chaperoned. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... all very anxious to taste the Bordeaux wines; but our palates, accustomed to the stronger vintages of Spain, I suspect were not in a condition to appreciate the more delicate and refined bouquets which ought to characterize claret. A vin ordinaire, which now at restaurateur's would cost three francs, was then furnished at the hotels for fifteen sous: a Larose, Lafitte, Margot, such as we are now paying eight or ten ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... crime, but from any failure in her duty. And then again my ideas changed; I remembered the cry that she had uttered in presence of my father's dead body: "I am punished by God!" I was not sufficiently charitable to her to admit that those words might be merely the utterance of a refined and scrupulous mind which reproached itself even with its thoughts. I also recalled the gleaming eyes and shaking hands of Termonde, when he was talking with my mother about my father's mysterious disappearance. If they were accomplices, this was a piece ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... her throat there was a cowslip—a rare flower in Orkney. She wore a rough, homespun frock, as all the other girls did; but, for some reason which I cannot explain, Thora Kinlay was quite unlike her companions. Such was the refined gentleness of her nature that I can compare her only with the tern—the most beautiful, I believe, ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... it, mistaking the effect for the cause—had refined into a manner that might be characterized as 'difficile', though Hodder had never found her so. She liked direct men; to discover no guile on first acquaintance went a long way with her, and not the least of the new rector's social triumphs ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... about their work, and Schmucke looked on precisely as an idiot might have done. Broken down with sorrow, wholly absorbed, in a half-cataleptic state, he could not take his eyes from the face that seemed to fascinate him, Pons' face refined by the absolute repose of Death. Schmucke hoped to die; everything was alike indifferent. If the room had been on fire he would not ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... wanted magic, that which was expressed seemed an enchantment almost. The gentle spirit, with its vein of tender pessimism, in puzzled revolt against the wrongness and cruelty of a shadowy world, the brooding thought too whimsical to be bitter, the fancy too refined to be boisterously merry—all these conspired to fascinate us as we came to perceive and appreciate them beneath the rather stiff little verses. To read Miss Coleridge's poems was to make acquaintance with a charming and delicate soul that wished to be understood and was willing to be intimate. ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... Linnaeus flinched from this rather too absurd parentage, old navigators were less scrupulous. Observing this creature in the distance, sporting on the waves, the upper part of its body quite out of the sea, the sailors, whose eye is not of the most refined, and who have no objections generally to the marvellous, imagined they saw a new species of human beings; and hence arose those stories of mermaids and sirens which have been told from the days of Homer downwards, and the ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... d'Amour, the Osbaldistone, the Napoleon, the Irish tie, the Mathematical tie, and the Oriental,—no, 'pon my honor it's unique, it's—it's—" the Marquis sighed, shook his head, and words failing him, took out his enamelled snuff-box. "Sir," said he, "I have the very highest regard for a man of refined taste, and if there is one thing in which that manifests itself more than another, it is the cravat. Sir, I make you free of my box, pray honor me." And the Marquis flicked open his snuff-box and extended it ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... did during this session of the Irish parliament. In consequence of this zeal for the new government, shewn at a time when they stood much in need of men of abilities, and so little expected from the young marquis, the king who was no stranger to the most refined rules of policy, created him a duke, the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... brow, dressed with scrupulous care, and looking at the frightful scenes with the dauntless eye of an eagle. He is the chosen leader of the Republican party which for many years has controlled the destinies of the "Old Bay State." Next stands a man in every way in strong contrast to his refined companion, a short, stout, ruddy-faced son of Ireland, but now Mayor of the city of Boston, a Democrat of Democrats, carelessly dressed, a political boss, who under ordinary circumstances would never have affiliated with ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... week over the birth of a daughter to Lord and Lady Lee, whose prominence in our social circles makes the event one of first importance in our week's annals. Little Beatrix, for so they have decided to christen her, will some day be a notable addition to our refined and gracious circles. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... kitchen garden, or emulating Professor Schliemann at Mycenae, the new-comers were evidently persons of refined musical taste: the lady had a contralto voice of remarkable sweetness, although of no great compass, and I used often to linger of a morning by the high gate and listen to her executing an arietta, conjecturally at some window upstairs, for the house was not visible ...
— Our New Neighbors At Ponkapog • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... was a man of gracious presence, of good education, of extensive reading, and of courteous manners, refined by his having mingled in New York society. He was always well dressed, usually wearing in his office a Prince Albert coat, buttoned closely in front, with a flower in the upper button-hole, and the corner of a colored silk handkerchief visible from a side pocket. Dignified, as became ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... "concord of sweet sounds," and no difficulty is experienced by band-masters in recruiting their forces from natives, the boys learning readily, and acquitting themselves very well upon instruments foreign to the country. There is, however, no manifestation at present of the spread of a refined taste, and many years will probably elapse before any thing like good music will be common in ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... while there was absolutely nothing to recommend this identification of the unknown author. The intellectual characteristics of the work present a trenchant contrast to the refined scholarship and cautious logic of this accomplished prelate. Only one point of resemblance could be named. The author shows an acquaintance with the theological critics of the modern Dutch school; and a knowledge of Dutch writers ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... the coup d'oeil on entering an anderoon. With such surroundings, one would expect to find refined, if not beautiful women; but, though the latter are rare enough, the former are even rarer in Persia. The Persian woman is a grown-up child, and a very vicious one to boot. Her daily life, indeed, is not calculated to improve the health of either mind or body. Most of the time is spent ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... only to have been anxious to shake me off—regardless whether you dashed me to atoms by the fall.—In truth I have been rudely handled. Do you judge coolly, and I trust you will not continue to call those capricious feelings "the most refined," which would undermine not only the most sacred principles, but the affections which unite mankind.——You would render mothers unnatural—and there would be no such thing as a father!—If your theory ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... a very determined man," he said; "he will carry out any scheme in which he is interested. Had he consulted me about this, I would have been glad to have aided him with money or advice. My son-in-law is an extremely well-read, refined, well-bred man. He does not court publicity. While he was staying in my house he spent nearly all the time in the library translating an Indian book on Buddhism. My daughter has no ambition to be a queen ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... logic formed in the severest school, and tried by long practice; gifted with a rare command of language and an eloquence well nigh superhuman; and withal graced with manners the most accomplished and refined, and a person unusually handsome, graceful, and attractive. Mr. DAVIS entered public life with almost unparalleled personal advantages. Having boldly presented himself before the most rigorous tribunal in the world, he proved himself worthy of its favor and attention. He ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... trance a trifle longer than might otherwise have been necessary, endeavoring to select the unquestionably correct hero for his story, and Osborne was the result. Osborne was moderately witty. His repartee smacked somewhat of the refined comic paper—that is to say, it was smart and cynical, and not always suited to the picture; but it wasn't vulgar or dull, and his personal appearance was calculated to arouse the liveliest interest. He was clean shaven and clean cut. He looked more like a modern ideal of infallible ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... and fail, As from the field, beneath her pail, She trips it down the uneven dale: Meeter for me, by yonder cairn, The ancient shepherd's tale to learn; Though oft he stop in rustic fear, Lest his old legends tire the ear Of one who, in his simple mind, May boast of book-learned taste refined. ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... seated on the shingle close to a man still young, of gentle and refined appearance, who was reading some verses. But he read them with such concentration, with such passion, I may say, that he did not even raise his eyes toward me. I was somewhat astonished, and I asked the conductor ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... attention to the principles which lie embedded in all great poetry. At the worst, to seek for truth in poetry is a protest against the constant tendency to read it for the sake of the emotions which it stirs, the tendency to make it a refined amusement and nothing more. That is a deeper wrong to art than any which the theoretical moralist can inflict. Of the two, it is better to read poetry for ethical doctrines than for fine sensations; for poetry purifies the passions only when it lifts the reader into the sphere of ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... was—that he had become the certain master of ten thousand a-year; his premises were—what the reader has seen. I do not, however, mean to say, that if the reader be a youth hot from Oxford, he may not be able to prove, by a very refined and ingenious argument, that Titmouse was, in what he did above, a fine natural logician; for I recollect that some great philosopher hath demonstrated, by a famous argument, that there is NOTHING ANYWHERE: ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... fog could not prevent Shandon from noticing a short, rather stout man, with a refined, agreeable face and pleasant expression, who came towards him, seized both his hands, and pressed them with a warmth and familiarity which a Frenchman would have said ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... of poems, have been better, if he had used quite the Goody's own language? Now and then a home rusticism is fresh & startling, but where nothing is gained in expression, it is out of tenor. It may make people [crossed out] folks smile and stare, but the ungenial coalition of barbarous with refined phrases will prevent you in the end from being so generally tasted, as you deserve to be. Excuse my freedom, and take the same liberty with ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... me," said the odd young man. "My name is Blastion and I am a burglar by profession. When I saw you the other night, at work on the premises next door to me, I was struck by your refined face. I said to myself: 'At last the profession is being recruited by gentlemen, men of culture, men of refinement. At last a profitable, withal risky, pursuit is being dignified, nay, graced, by the proper sort of person.' And I saluted you in a happy, haphazard ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Naturally he thinks abstractly, but is compelled to construct concrete methods of presenting his ideas. He never describes a strong emotion in detail, but delights in using suggestions and sidelights. His pure and refined manhood, his delicate fancy and deep interest in moral and religious questions, his conscience in its most artistic form, all are presented to the reader in the choicest garb of well chosen words and attuned to a subtle rhythm ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... which she is ever ready to exercise toward man, not waiting till the last moment of his danger, but seeks to relieve him in his early afflictions. It gushes forth from the expansive fullness of a tender and devoted heart, where the noblest, the purest, and the most elevated and refined feelings are matured and developed in those may kind offices which ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... of the House Committee looked across and saw the new mother, with the sunshine on her yellow braids, and her face refined from ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... leaned. These marks show a man tall and slender. He entered the house dripping with water, moving about like a street sprinkler and leaving signs of his presence in the places he visited. He seems to be a person of rather refined tastes, inclined to be neat in personal appearance, for he went to Frank's bathroom to clean up. There he used the washbowl and the toilet articles, leaving black hair ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... surroundings. The candle placed near the keyboard cast a strange light upon the most expressive of heads. Against the dark background of the church the striking features of a noble face were thrown into strong relief: a forehead broad and refined, an aristocratic nose, a fair moustache turned up at the ends, and, notably, two fine blue eyes, which, without a glance at the fingers on the keys, were fixed on the vaulted roof ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... museum, the national dances, the characteristic art of Sven Scholander and his daughter Lisa, gave us a deeper understanding of the people whose guests we were and showed us some of the roots from which it draws its strength. Another aspect also, the refined culture of modern Sweden, was the dominant note of the dinner at Hasselbacken with the heartfelt speech of the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... mistake was made in Mrs. Major," he hurried, "was that she was not a perfect lady. Our—forgive me for saying 'our'—our cats are refined cats, cats of gentle birth, of inherent delicacy. Their attendant should be of like breeding. She should be refined, her birth should be gentle, her feelings delicate. She should be ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... life he is guarded with anxious solicitude. To its pleasures he is conducted by the ever-ready hand of maternal affection. His person is shaped and improved by a succession of masters; his mind is opened, invigorated and refined by the assiduous superintendence of learning and wisdom. While a child he is served by a host of menials and flattered by successive trains of visitors. When a youth he is regarded by a band of tenants with reverence and awe. His equals in age bow to his rank; and multitudes, ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... gulf; the very skies seem different—your own feelings, thoughts—nature itself—alter, when you have passed that Styx which divides the wanderers from the habitants; your spirits are not so much damped, as tinged, refined, ennobled by a certain inexpressible awe—you are girt with the stateliness of Eld, and you tread the gloomy streets with the dignity of a man, who is recalling the splendours of an ancient court where ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Hon. Robert T. Todd, of Lexington, Kentucky. She came to Springfield in 1839, to live with her sister, Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards. "She was young," says Mr. Lamon, "just twenty-one,—her family was of the best and her connections in Illinois among the most refined and distinguished people. Her mother having died when she was a little girl, she had been educated under the care of a French lady. She was gifted with rare talents, had a keen sense of the ridiculous, a ready insight into the weaknesses of individual character, and a most fiery and ungovernable ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... festive,—all through the conjunction of our Promethean with our culinary fire raises up new powers and species of food to the human frame, and indeed performs by machinery a part of the work of assimilation, enriching the sense of taste with a world of profound objects, and making it the refined participator, percipient, and stimulus of the most exquisite operations of digestion. Man, then, as the universal eater, enters from his own faculties into the natural viands, and gives them a social ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... library of the nineteenth century. Some of his shorter tales, such as Le Nez d'un Notaire and L'Homme a l'Oreille Cassee, have had a great vogue with those who like comic situations described with lively, if not very refined, wit. He was also a good topographer; indeed this element enters largely into most of his so-called novels already noticed, and constitutes nearly all the interest of a very pleasant book called Maitre Pierre. This is ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury |
