"Well-meaning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... case with direct and plausible force, addressing his readers vivaciously as plain people like himself, among whom as reasonable men there cannot be two opinions. He cuts rival arguments to pieces with dexterous strokes, representing them as the confused reasoning of well-meaning but dull intellects, and dances with lively mockery on the fragments. If the authors of such arguments knew their own minds, they would be entirely on his side. He echoes the pet prejudices of his readers as the props and mainstays of his thesis, and boldly laughs away misgivings ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... with exemplary patience for certainty that the train had stopped. Then spoke as one that gives a commission to speech, and observes its execution at a distance. Her expression remained immutable. "She is a well-meaning person," said she. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the situation seemed to have changed greatly, for the brawlers of Hardy Baker's class were now in the minority, and it was sober, well-meaning citizens who occupied the space under the ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis
... privately entertained a considerable good-will for our author—nay, he even once went so far as to declare, and that openly too, and at his own table, just after dinner, that "Knickerbocker was a very well-meaning sort of an old gentleman, and no fool." From all which may have been led to suppose, that, had our author been of different politics, and written for the newspapers instead of wasting his talents on histories, he might have risen to some post of honor and profit: peradventure to be a ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... hampered with many of Mrs. Grundy's rules, and so curious to see the "Boston lady," several of the young people had agreed together between the Sunday services to call at Mrs. Markham's the following night. They were well-meaning, kind-hearted people, and would any one of them gone far out of their way to serve either Richard or his young wife; but they were not Eastern bred, and feeling somewhat awed by Ethelyn's cold, frigid manner, they appeared shy and awkward—all except Will Parsons, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... case silently for a few minutes. He was a well-meaning man, but a doctor of the old school. He believed that if medicine was a good thing, the more one took the better. Also, if dieting was ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... never frightened anybody the first time it appeared. Only on the second visit were the ghost-seers scared; but then they were scared enough for twice, and they rarely mustered up courage enough to risk a third interview. One of the most curious characteristics of this well-meaning spook was that it had no face—or at least that nobody ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... comes the reaction, when they have to fall back upon themselves. The effort has succeeded in accomplishing all that it could accomplish, namely, a deluge of emotional demonstrations and slogans, a verbal and not a real contract ostentatious fraternity skin-deep, a well-meaning masquerade, an outpouring of feeling evaporating through its own pageantry—in short, an agreeable ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... me not, my brother Edward's son, For that I was his father Edward's son. That blood already, like the pelican, Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd: My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,— Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!— May be a precedent and witness good That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood: Join with the present sickness that I have; And thy unkindness be like crooked age, To crop at once a too-long withered flower. Live in thy shame, ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... added, "I die in the faith, that the truths of God, which he hath helped the church of Scotland to own, shall be owned by him as truths so long as sun and moon endure, and that independency, tho' there be good men and well-meaning professors of that way, will be found more to the prejudice of the work of God than many are aware of, for they evanish into vain opinions. I have had my own faults as well as other men, but he made me always abhor shews. I have, I ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... Many good and well-meaning men have attempted to reconcile the statements of Genesis with the discoveries of science, but it is in vain. The divergence has increased so much, that it has become an absolute opposition. One of the antagonists must ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... a most benevolent smile on his sagacious visage, all purple as it was with the cold, this very well-meaning gentleman took the snow-child by the hand, and led her towards the house. She followed him, droopingly and reluctant; for all the glow and sparkle was gone out of her figure; and whereas just before she had resembled a bright, frosty, star-gemmed evening, with ...
— The Snow-Image - A Childish Miracle • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the noble working girl. She doesn't organize easily. Wait until the election is over. Then you come in on our schemes and we'll teach you how to do things. But don't butt in now, I beg of you. Misguided, well-meaning enthusiasts like you can do more harm to our cause than all ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... that is the way in which well-meaning policemen destroy valuable evidence. Not that it matters much in this particular instance; but it might have been a ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... Isaiah would have been considerably astonished to be told that they would have to wait seven hundred years for fulfilment. To a certain extent they were fulfilled soon afterward in the advent of the well-meaning but not very brilliant king Hezekiah. I have dwelt upon this passage at some length because it is a fair example of the way in which Old Testament literature has been pressed into the service of Christian ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... with the relation of classes to one another in an industrial district, and especially with the faults of the class that rose to power with the development of manufacturing. Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby, the well-meaning pedant and the offensive parvenu, preach the same gospel. Political economy, as they understand it, is to rule life, and this dismal science is not concerned with human well-being and happiness, but only with the profit and ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... though well-meaning youth, whom I was beginning to recognise as the cause of some misunderstanding among us. "If you don't want any more of his poem—and I don't blame you—my pal Ho, who is one of the popular Flip-Flap Troupe, ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... they were wedded, they were looking forward, joyously; now they recall the past, its losses and trials and misfortunes. They remember the children who are dead, or far away; or the prosperity once theirs, but now fled. Few old folks would care to celebrate their golden wedding; it is usually some well-meaning grandchild who sees in it "an occasion." Often, too, the excitement, the fatigue, the unusual strain on mind and body, result in ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... unfortunate truth that Miss Gibbs was not very popular at the Grange. She was clever, conscientious, and well-meaning, and preserved a high ideal of girlhood. Much too high for practical use, ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... wanted to shake hands with Tom and Larry, and for several minutes the boys were at the mercy of their well-meaning admirers. Again the sheriff came to ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... or an aged and venerable statesman to appear with all the peculiarities of a young dandy. The flowers, feathers, and furbelows which a light-hearted young girl of seventeen embellishes by the airy grace with which she wears them, are simply ridiculous when transferred to the toilet of her serious, well-meaning mamma, who bears them about with an anxious face, merely because a loquacious milliner has assured her, with many protestations, that it is the fashion, and the only thing remaining for her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... truly. I think, however, you have reversed the parable, and are but a well-meaning sheep that has donned a wolf's skin, and so we will put you to the test. We young people will give you a chance to draw up our petition, which, if you would save your character, you must do at once with sheep-like docility, asking no questions and causing no delay. There, ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... clear-sighted she was. "Of course, it is quite a different thing to try to bring about a marriage. That is certainly taking a grave responsibility." She stopped with a jerk, for she caught herself denouncing the very course of action which well-meaning friends had adopted successfully in the case of herself and her husband. If it had not been for the jerk, Sir Hamilton would not have known the comparison that was passing in her mind. She recovered herself to continue:—"Of course, trying to bring about a marriage is a grave responsibility, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... There were some well-meaning people who are counted in the temperance ranks who advised Mr. Smith to submit to Mr. Brady, and take no more active part in temperance work rather than risk the loss of his agency. This advice was no doubt meant as a kindness, although it did not partake of the ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... volunteer, the service is still an episode; to the regular, a permanent career. No doubt, if a man is thoroughly conscientious, or thoroughly ambitious, or thoroughly enthusiastic, a temporary pursuit may prove as absorbing as if it were taken up for life; but the majority of men, however well-meaning, are not thorough at all. How often one hears the apology made by volunteer officers, even those of high rank,—"Military life is not my profession; I entered the army from patriotism, willing to serve my country faithfully for three years, but of course not pretending to perfection ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... within Miss Roberta Holland's fatally well-meaning soul. "Would it be a case where I could help? I'd love to put a real artist back on his feet. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... out in a few days the products of the patient labors of generations, subverting the fundamental principles of honesty, justice, and morality on which the organized public life of the community and the private life of the individual must rest, and rapidly changing even the well-meaning and reasonable among the peasants into frenzied madmen, Luther recognized that conciliatory measures and arbitration would not avail with these mobs. His duty as a teacher of God's Word and as a ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... came to New York, from Danielsville. He was a man of good standing, well-meaning, and honest in his intentions. Maroney had looked anxiously for his coming, as he supposed his brother would be able to effect his release on bail. He knew that his brother alone could not make the bail-bond good, as one hundred thousand dollars ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... was not the slightest reason why he should punish her so severely, for that very same day he received a letter (it was brought to the house by a liveried servant), which the nobleman so frequently alluded to wrote him with his own hand, and in which he expressed his grief that his innocent, well-meaning advances should have occasioned such a misunderstanding. He declared, moreover, that he regarded the whole family with the greatest respect, and as to his intercourse with Matilda, it was simply dictated by his enthusiasm for art. Nay, ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... the Chinese possessed unbounded faith and assurance in the strength of England and her ultimate triumph, but since the agitation by shortsighted though well-meaning people, while some English dailies even advocate the sending of several Chinese divisions into Mesopotamia, this confidence has been ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... sorry to say, a good deal of truth in it, for though well-meaning, my brother was so stern and harsh that the poor little fellow was afraid of him, and took that very foolish step. It was long enough before I was able to trace him, and found the woman who kept the inn from which he ...
— The Powder Monkey • George Manville Fenn
... myriad; but I will not recall too many, lest you cry, "Hands off!" I cannot desist, however, from this word-game until I have set down a few. Whatever is not one's own by first possession is second-hand. That is what I am told my knowledge is. But my well-meaning friends come to my defence, and, not content with endowing me with natural first-hand knowledge which is rightfully mine, ascribe to me a preternatural sixth sense and credit to miracles and heaven-sent compensations ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... asks, achieved distinguished success in every country of Europe but his own? The state in which he is to be found in Ireland to-day must be, therefore, accounted for on some other theory than the inherent good-for-nothingness of his nature. "The sluggish, well-meaning mind of the English nation," he continues, "so willing to do its duty, so slow to discover that it has any duty to do, is now perforce rousing to ask itself the question, after five centuries of English domination over Ireland, how many millions it is inclined to pay, not in order to ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... the wrathful force of this voice which, with so little courtesy, bade the intruder begone, as fairly to stagger the well-meaning visitor. ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... and Gibellines, and France by those who were for and against the League: but it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestuous season. It is the restless ambition of artful men that thus breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning persons to their interest, by a specious concern for their country. How many honest minds are filled with uncharitable and barbarous notions, out of their zeal for the publick good? What cruelties and outrages would they not commit against men of ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... the Saturday-night was about to commence, and the officers of the pantry presented their compounds in good earnest. On this occasion the ladies had quietly, but firmly declined being present, but the earnest appeals of the well-meaning captain had overcome the scruples of the gentlemen, all of whom, to avoid the appearance of disrespect to his ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... be one of the rare occasions when we, Plymouth Fellows, are called upon to perform any kind of duty, and I must not be absent from my post. Captain Lennox and Mr. Thornton are here. The former seems a smart, well-meaning man; and has proposed to go over to Milton, and assist you in any search for the will; of course there is none, or you would have found it by this time, if you followed my directions. Then the Captain declares he must take you and his mother-in-law home; and, in his wife's present state, I don't ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Like all well-meaning and candid friends, the doctor found himself at once in for a deal of angry abuse, but, as he explained, he had taken so much abuse from patients at various periods of his career—and abuse fully justified—that nothing Barb could add, deserved or undeserved, to the volume would move him: "As ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... me as dead for the next six months, or gone where cubs can't follow me,—East. I know you love the baby; but do you think, dear boy,—now, really, do you think you COULD be a father to it? Consider this well. You are young, thoughtless, well-meaning enough; but dare you take upon yourself the functions of guide, genius, or guardian to one so young and guileless? Could you be the Mentor to this Telemachus? Think of the temptations of a metropolis. Look at the question well, and let me know speedily; ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... his well-meaning friend, "Think you I have not spent my whole life in preparing for this one thing?" And he handed back the smoothly polished manuscript with a smile. Montaigne says, "Should a suppliant voice have been heard out of the mouth of Socrates ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... as of all the damned onnat'ralness as come on a honest, well-meaning, civil-spoke cove—why, I'm that there cove, so 'elp me!" Saying which, he cracked his whip, the horses plunged forward, and, almost immediately, as it seemed, horses, chaise, and Postilion had lurched into the black murk of the ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... silence or loss of contemporary writers, are circumstances sufficiently favourable, indeed, to romance, but altogether inimical to historical truth.' In these words Joseph Ritson, the first and most painstaking of those well-meaning scholars who have tried to associate the outlaw with 'historical truth,' begins his 'Life of Robin Hood,' an account which occupies ten pages of his book, and is annotated and illustrated through the following one hundred and five pages. The Dictionary of National ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... was married. She was a well-meaning girl, though her piety, as with most people, was of the negative order; and her antipathy to things evil much stronger than her sympathy with things good. For a much longer time than I had expected she kept him straight—perhaps, a little too straight. But ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... purposes of order, they allowed the means of vindication to fall into disuse. The regulator system, for example, was directed to the stern and thorough punishment of evil men, but no sooner was society freed from their depredations, than the well-meaning citizens withdrew from its ranks; and, though regulator companies still patrolled the country, and, for a time, assumed as much authority as ever, they were not supported by the solid approbation of those who alone could give them lasting strength. They did many outrageous things for ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... do its work. The instinct of domination is a weed that grows rank in the shadow of the temple, climbs over it, possesses it, covers its ruin, and feeds on its decay. The unchecked sway of priests has always been the most mischievous of tyrannies; and even were they all well-meaning and sincere, it would be ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... very terrible and well-meaning person, who once spoke severely to me for treating a matter with levity. I lost my temper, and said, "You may make me ashamed of it, if you can, but you shall not bully me into treating a matter seriously which I think is wholly absurd." He said, "You do not enough consider the grave issues ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... European institutions produce mere galvanic spasms, which leave it more exhausted than before. The rosy-colored accounts we have had of Turkish Progress are for the most part mere delusions. The Sultan is a well-meaning but weak man, and tyrannical through his very weakness. Had he strength enough to break through the meshes of falsehood and venality which are woven so close about him, he might accomplish some ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... it is not the military who are responsible. There is the highest authority for believing neither General Joffre nor Lord Kitchener approves of them. They are efforts launched for political effect by loyal and well-meaning, but possibly mistaken, members of the two governments. By them these expeditions were sent forth to seize some place in the sun already held by Germany, to prevent other places falling into her hands, or in the hope of turning some neutral ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... a simple well-meaning woman in her way, and, had the circumstances of her life been less exceptional, would have earned the reputation of a good creature and steadfast chapel-goer. But our lives do not always fall in the places most suitable to our dispositions; the restive are ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... show their scars. But it becomes us to wrap ourselves in silence, and not to show to the miserable, pitiful, and drivelling world, which envies and abuses, even while applauding us, that a king can also suffer. I thank you, madame, and from this hour you will find in me a true friend, a well-meaning brother, ever ready to serve you. Give me your hand to this contract, which shall be more lasting and holier than that blessed by priests, to which our ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... disputes and set him up in opposition to other people. His delight in the story of his father's encounter with Lord Castlederry troubled her, and she tried to convince her son that Lord Castlederry was a well-meaning man, but, as she knew, without success. She had delighted in her husband's great courage and self-sufficiency, his sureness, his strong decision and his unconquerable pride and independence ... but now, in contemplation, these ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... prevent her from seeing the tyranny and brutality in which the people indulged so soon as they obtained the mastery. Her treatment of the facts of the Revolution is characterized by honesty. She is above all else an impartial historian and philosopher. She distinguishes, it is true, between the well-meaning multitude—those who took the Bastille, for example—and the rabble composed of the dregs of society,—those who headed the march to Versailles. She declares, "There has been seen amongst the French a spurious race of men, a set of cannibals, who have gloried in their crimes; and, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... the stiff and stolid Sabin; "I can see nothing suspicious about it. Indeed, it goes to show me that the rebellion is crushed; for, as I presume, the honest but well-meaning part of the rebels are ashamed, and their leaders afraid to show their faces here to-day, after last ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... somewhat resenting the unfortunate ending of his scheme, made allowances for me when the whole story was related to him. He smiled a kindly smile as I expressed to him all my regrets that I had failed to take advantage of his well-meaning ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... to my following Correspondent, Mr. Timothy Doodle, who seems a very well-meaning Man, that I have written this short Preface, to which I shall subjoin a Letter ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the devil. We are rather prone to think little of a generation that could take such nonsense seriously, but it would not be hard to find analogous false notions prevalent at the present time, which sometimes make life difficult, if not dangerous, for well-meaning individuals.[10] Life seems to have been made very uncomfortable for Constantine in Carthage. Just the extent to which persecution went, however, we do not know. About this time Constantine's work attracted the attention of Duke Robert of Salerno. ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... men should know how to put a lady up, because accidents in the field are constantly occurring, and some poor Diana who has had a tumble is always grateful to any good Samaritan who renders her this small service. A well-meaning sportsman who kindly offered me his help on such an occasion, knew so little about the mysteries of side-saddle riding, that he attempted to give me a "leg up," as if I were ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... Tiberius, which we had come go far and so toilsomely to see, it must be confessed there was very little left of it. When that well-meaning but mistaken prince died, the Senate demolished his pleasure-houses at Capri, and left only those fragments of the beautiful brick masonry which yet remain, clinging indestructible to the rocks, and strewing the ground with rubbish. The recent excavations ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... irresistible. It was Comstock himself, in fact, who invented the process whereby his followers in other fields of moral endeavour have forced laws into the statute books upon the pretence of putting down John Doe, an acknowledged malefactor, and then turned them savagely upon Richard Roe, a peaceable, well-meaning and hitherto law-abiding man. And it was Comstock who first capitalized moral endeavour like baseball or the soap business, and made himself the first of its kept professors, and erected about himself a ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... offender be admonished and given time to think: but if, for all warning to the contrary, the wilful man will have his way, and still propagate his error to the confusion of society, he must be treated like any other virtuous and well-meaning criminal: he must be restrained and coerced to the extent that the interests of ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... his posthumous works and letters? I have only been able to procure the first volume, which contains his life—very confusedly and badly written, and interspersed with dull pathological and medical discussions. It is written by a Dr. Currie. Do you know the well-meaning doctor? Alas, ne sutor ultra crepitum! [A ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... between them, and I flatter myself that the insulting coldness and indifference with which they received each other's names carried to our landlord's bosom a dismay never before felt by a good-natured and well-meaning man. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... mischief was brewing in the Colonial Office of that unhappy government which did so many stupid things and got the credit for so many more. In 1775 the well-meaning Earl of Dartmouth was superseded by Lord George Germain, who continued the mismanagement of colonial affairs for seven disastrous years. Few characters have abused civil and military positions ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... unchanged in his relations with her, unless it was that in his deep and understanding sympathy he brought her greater spiritual and mental comfort than ever. The other neighbors were kind always, in their rough, well-meaning way; but he was her chief guide and comforter, and in him, and the books which Donald conscientiously sent to her every few weeks, she found the strength ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... ready, upon such incitements as are perpetually recurring, to join in attempts to overthrow them. There is no neutral ground here: from want of due attention to the state of society in large towns and manufacturing districts, and ignorance or disregard of these obvious truths, innumerable well-meaning persons became zealous supporters of a Reform Bill, the qualities and powers of which, whether destructive or constructive, they would otherwise have been afraid of: and even the framers of that bill, swayed as they might ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... there is ever to be any reform, and return to prosperity or to the possibility of prospering, it is urgent that the nonsense of all this (and it is mostly nonsense, but not quite) should be sent about its business straightway, and forbidden to deceive the well-meaning souls among us any more. Reform, if we will understand that divine word, cannot begin till then. One day, I do know, this, as is the doom of all nonsense, will be drummed out of the world, with due placard stuck on its back, and the populace flinging dead cats at it: but whether soon ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... for the rupture between the two countries, that he evidently saw, too late, his error in having secretly encouraged the Hohenzollern candidature, and that the result of all these unhappy complications had left the well-meaning chancellor inconsolable. Such a candid confession of remorse and regret moved the Frenchman's compassion to a degree that ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... or it is never his, it never acquires the necessary warmth to interest him, the color and light to make it real. This is a curious fact, and one which your modest writer shrinks from trying to explain to his well-meaning friend, lest he seem egotistical. Only the blessed publicity of print could draw him out. Yet the psychology involved perhaps ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... well-meaning but misguided singer reached its height about twenty years ago, when new discoveries about Villon threw a glamor over the poet of checkered life. [Footnote: See Edwin Markham, Villon; Swinburne, Burns, A Ballad of Francois Villon.] At the same time Verlaine and Baudelaire in France, [Footnote: ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... getting rid of the crowd. Whatever his object, its consummation is far from being realized; the unappeased curiosity of the crowds of newly arriving people finds expression in noisy shouts and violent hammering on the door, creating a din so infernal that the well-meaning traveller quickly tires of his bargain. Following the instincts of the genuine Oriental, he conjures up the genius of diplomacy to rid himself of his guest and the annoyance ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... by the theorists and doctrinaires who delight in radical solutions by means of panaceas, and who have little taste for detailed local investigation and gradual improvement. I do not refer to the so-called "Saviours of the Fatherland" (Spasiteli Otetchestva), well-meaning cranks and visionaries who discover ingenious devices for making their native country at once prosperous and happy. I speak of the great majority of reasonable, educated men who devote some attention to the problem. Their favourite method of dealing with it is this: The intensive ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... the calm, cultivated, well-balanced voice of Chekhov, the Russian De Maupassant, nor even the apostolic, well-meaning, but comparatively faint voice of Tolstoy, the preacher: it is the roaring of a lion, the crash of thunder. In its elementary power is the heart rending cry of a sincere but suffering soul that saw the brutality of life in all its horrors, and now flings its experiences ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... Heaven that he will return," said Gray to himself, "but there is too much mystery about all this, for the matter being a plain and well-meaning transaction. If he intends to treat this poor thing, as many a poor girl has been used before, I hope that my house will not be the scene in which he chooses to desert her. The leaving the money has somewhat a suspicious aspect, and ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... doctrine of revelation and faith, firmly trusting that God in the end would bring about the union of both. This is now also my firm conviction, that we must not mix them or bring them together forcibly, as many have done with well-meaning zeal but unclear views, and as many in Germany with impure designs ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... well-meaning friends of both of these great men might have secured satisfactory mutual explanation, although no living power could have made Senator Sumner a supporter of the acquisition of the port of Samana in San Domingo. In the Senate sycophants who "carried water on both shoulders," and men ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... banks were very polite and well-meaning,' said the secretary. 'I sent word that I was coming to the city and asked the national banks, as intimately related to the treasury department, to select persons to meet me. I also notified the members of the old syndicate that I had some propositions ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Mister. "My name, translated, means gracious or kindly or well-meaning." His voice became brisker. "The translation is apropos. I'm here to do you a service. Now, about these ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... scandalized one or two innocent and patriotic critics who regarded the prowess of the British army as inextricably bound up with Highcastle prestige. But our Government departments knew better: their problem was how to win the war with Augustus on their backs, well-meaning, brave, patriotic, but obstructively ...
— Augustus Does His Bit • George Bernard Shaw
... equipped with professional scholarship, or contented with moral conformities, can minister to the sorrow and the mystery, the mingled shame and glory of a human being? This is why the average theologue, in his first parish, is like the well-meaning but meddling engineer endeavoring with clumsy tools and insensitive fingers to adjust the delicate and complicated mechanism of a Genevan watch. And here is one of the real reasons why we deprecate men entering our calling, without both the culture of a liberal education and ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... she ever known, except the pale, girlish-looking mother who had died soon after they had come to London. The elderly landlady had let her stay on, helping in the work of the house; and when even this last refuge had failed her, well-meaning folk had interested themselves and secured her employment. It was light and fairly well paid, but there were objections to it, so he gathered, more from her halting silences than from what she said. She had tried for a time to find something ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... saw a movie by the title of "Cluny Brown." The heroine was possessed with a passion for repairing plumbing, but was continually inhibited by well-meaning relatives who told her that she "didn't know her place." A scene early in the story shows Cluny on the floor under a stopped-up kitchen sink explaining her problem to a sympathetic professor who states a philosophy something like this. "To be happy, one should not have ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... sure, she was most just and impartial in her treatment of the fifty scholars under her supervision, but, possessed of about as much imagination as a cat, she failed to analyze or understand the dispositions of her charges; and well-meaning ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... is used it should, without fail, be taken from a boy when he has read it. Much harm may, I fear, result from supplying boys with the cheap pamphlets which well-meaning ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... Well-meaning people in England found it difficult to understand the intensity of feeling in America. Britain had piled up a huge debt in driving France from America. Landowners were paying in taxes no less than ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... "Oh, I didn't mean that you were fatter, I meant that your skin is clearer and your eyes are brighter." Not having a sample of your former skin, nor another pair of eyes handy to confute him with, this well-meaning liar walks off triumphantly. I, myself, however, am no better than the rest of them, though my presenting the lithograph cost me dearly one day. In one of the towns where I stopped, a young girl came to the hotel the shadow of what ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... a good thing in its time. We are only now slowly learning how to apply the opposite social principles in behalf of the Man rather than the Master, and we have not yet surmounted all the difficulties or dangers of the experiment. It is droll how, in a tolerably well-meaning world like this, any sort of contempt becomes inclusive, and a whole population suffers for the vice, or it may be the virtue, of a very small majority, or a very powerful minority. Probably the most liberal and intelligent populations of Great Britain ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... and altar recesses, but beautiful examples of the Mozarabe or Moorish style which once covered the piers of the nave, as well as the wooden choir gallery with its finely panelled under side, have been swept away by a recent well-meaning if mistaken restoration. The outside of the church is more unusual than the inside. The two remaining original apses are much hidden by the sacristy, built probably by Bishop Jorge de Castello ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... connection with the peculiar circumstances of the time. It was an era of High Church reaction, which was fast becoming a shameful persecution. The two moderate prelates, Abbot and Williams, had for years been in disgrace, and the Church was ruled by the well-meaning, but sour, despotic, meddlesome bigot whom wise King James long refused to make a bishop because "he could not see when matters were well." But if Laud was infatuated as a statesman, he was astute as a manager; he had the Church completely under his control, he was fast filling it with his partisans ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... ever till now consider'd him as a respectful, well-meaning person, as far as regarded myself; and as such, gave him a prudent share of my civilities; but I never thought either his intellects or his person sufficient to entitle ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... never have to re-live the horrors of the next hour. In spite of my bluff and hearty ways, in times of trouble I am as reticent as a clam. I was determined to hide my agony and anxiety from the well-meaning people of the Moose Hotel. I hurried to the railway station to send a telegram to the Professor's address in Brooklyn, but found the place closed. A boy told me it would not be open until the afternoon. From a drugstore I called "information" in Willdon, and finally got connected ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... form of insincerity used by a class of well-meaning but injudicious persons, who, rather than wound the feelings of their friends, conceal the truth from them, sometimes by prevarication and sometimes by positive falsehood; doing wrong, that, as they imagine, good may ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... workers thus make it their business to open up channels of publicity, at least giving the papers something to talk about, and reaching with the strikers' side of the story, churches, clubs, and other associations of well-meaning citizens, who are not at all in touch with organized labor. Allies, in particular, can do much to preserve traditions of fair play, in regard to the use of the streets for peaceful picketing. By providing bonds ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... more especially at this merry season—fraught with humour—and when reminiscences of the past make up for lack of realities of the present. To "notice" such a work is ten times more (we had almost said) trouble than to despatch half a dozen dull books, or a dozen harmless, well-meaning satires on human nature. But we will do our best to detach some of the good things from Mr. Croker's volumes, although the humour of the sketches which adorn them, is of too subtle a quality for our ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... Ours gives himself for gone; y' have watched your time: He fights this day unarmed,—without his rhyme;— And brings a tale which often has been told; As sad as Dido's; and almost as old. His hero, whom you wits his bully call, Bates of his mettle, and scarce rants at all; He's somewhat lewd; but a well-meaning mind; Weeps much; fights little; but is wond'rous kind. In short, a pattern, and companion fit, For all the keeping Tonies of the pit. I could name more: a wife, and mistress too; Both (to be plain) too good for most of you: The wife well-natured, ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... result of the weakly health and refined nature which shrank from the barbarism of the outer world, and he thought it would pass away under shelter from the rude taunts of the fierce cousins, at a distance from the well-meaning exhortations of the monks, and at the spectacle of brave and active men who could also be pious, conscientious, and cultivated. In the renewed sojourn at Windsor which James apprehended, the training of such a youth as Malcolm of Glenuskie would be ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... going to describe the struggle that followed, in deference to certain good, kind, and well-meaning people who are unable to face the stern realities of life, or—to save their country. Such things, however, must be; and they would not happen if it were not for a hard, though very sound, purpose, among beasts as among ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... swam towards the beef, examined it carefully with their eyes, and rubbed it with their noses, and then returned to their lord and master. It required but a slight stretch of the imagination to suppose that these well-meaning servants made a favorable report, and whispered in his ear that "all was right," and thus unwittingly ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... fashion in Norway since the nation regained its independence to interest one's self in a lofty, condescending way in the life of the peasantry. A few well-meaning persons, like the poet Wergeland, had labored zealously for their enlightenment and the improvement of their economic condition; but, except in the case of such single individuals, no real and vital ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... is strictly necessary to keep a workman from dying of hunger. And, down in the sphere below, the evil increases, the workmen agonise with hunger and exasperation, while above them discussion still goes on, systems are bandied about, and well-meaning persons exhaust themselves in attempting to apply ridiculously inadequate remedies. There is much stir without any progress, all the wild bewilderment which precedes great catastrophes. And among the many, Catholic socialism, quite as ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... UNCLE,—I have to thank you for a kind, short note of the 27th inst., which I received on Sunday. I gave your kind message to the King of Prussia, who was much touche by it. He is a most amiable man, so kind and well-meaning, and seems so much beloved. He is so amusing too. He is very anxious that Belgium should become liee with Germany, and I think, dearest Uncle, that it would be for the real good of Belgium if it could be so. You will have ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... What could excel, or "beat" Buzfuz with his puffed, coarse face and hulking form? His brother Serjeant has the dried, "peaked" look of the overworked barrister, and though he is in his wig we recognize him at once, having seen him before at his chambers. Mr. Phunkey, behind, is the well-meaning but incapable performer to be exhibited in his examination of Winkle; and Mr. Skimpin is the alert, unscrupulous, wide- awake practitioner who "made such a hare" of Mr. Winkle. The composition of this picture is indeed ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... reviews, unions, associations, which had all the moral virtues, save one: self-denial; for not one of them would give way to the others: and, while they wrangled over the crumbs that fell from an honest and well-meaning public, small in numbers and poor in purse, they vegetated for a short time, starved and languished, and at last collapsed never to rise again, not under the assault of the enemy, but—(most pitiful!)—under the weight of their ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... Marblehead, came out in a little boat to bring some of Clarendon's clothes, which had been left by accident. He is a clever fellow, for though Clarendon was not half civil to him, he was always polite in his way, and his frank, well-meaning civility so won upon brother, that when they parted he apologized for his rudeness, and told the Captain that he had shown himself the most of a ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... quarrel among themselves. The Rights of Man! How many wrongs have been done under that clause! The Bastille stormed; the Swiss Guard slaughtered; the Reign of Terror, with its daily procession of tumbrels through the streets of Paris; the murder of that amiable and well-meaning gentleman who did his best to atone for the sins of his ancestors; the fearful months of waiting suffered by his Queen before she, too, went to her death. Often as I lighted my candle of an evening in my little room to read of these things so far away, I would drop my Kentucky Gazette to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to me that one of our country neighbours was probably at this time in the city. He kept a store as well as cultivated a farm. He was a plain and well-meaning man, and, should I be so fortunate as to meet him, his superior knowledge of the city might be of essential benefit to me in my present forlorn circumstances. His generosity might likewise induce him to lend me so much as would purchase ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... as a simple-hearted, honest, well-meaning man, who, during a copartnership of twelve years, had gradually become impoverished, while his partner (his former clerk) having no funds but his share of the same business, into which he had been admitted without any advance of stock, had become ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... fully the glory of Greek letters, I was a very busy man, and bitter indeed was the thought that the well-meaning persons who maintain our university system had actually been keeping me all those years from the divine wells of grace and beauty. But for them, how many more years of enjoyment might I have drawn from the Socratic Dialogues, from ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... deal of the state of society under the old regime. Curious to know his opinions of their private characters, I asked a good many questions concerning the royal family. Louis XVI. he described as a-well-meaning man, addicted a little too much to the pleasures of the table, but who would have done well enough had he not been surrounded by bad advisers. I was greatly surprised by one of his remarks. "Louis XVI," observed Lafayette, "owed his death ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in a cause like this, I may be able to pacify well-meaning opposers, and to confute invidious censurers, so as to induce the latter to repent of their unreasonable contradiction, and the former to be glad to learn; for they who admonish one in a friendly spirit should be instructed, they who attack one like enemies should be repelled. But I observe ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... for to-night," thought Charles, "it is late already;" and he folded it up again and threw it on his dressing-table. "Some well-meaning person, I dare say, who thinks he knows me." He wound up his watch, gave a yawn, and put on his slippers. "Who can there be in this neighbourhood to write it?" He opened it again. "It's certainly a Catholic's writing," he ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... vexed sensibility of the soul, in this ferocity of reflection that repels the restless ardor of devotions and the well-meaning outrages of charity, he gradually saw arising the horror of those senile passions, those ripe loves, where one person yields while the other is still suspicious, where lassitude denies such couples the filial caresses whose apparent youthfulness seems new, and ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... 'of a character to cool emotion.' For indeed my anguish is very real. The collection I had amassed so carefully, during so many years, the collection I loved and revelled in, has been obliterated, swept away, destroyed utterly by a pair of ruthless, impious, well-meaning, idiotic, unseen hands. It cannot be restored to me. Nothing can compensate me for it gone. It was part and parcel ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... the pool again. "I beg your pardon," said the Kangaroo nervously. "I didn't mean an altogether animal, or even a bird, but any a—a—a——." She seemed puzzled how to speak of the Platypus, when the strange creature, seeing the well-meaning embarrassment of the Kangaroo, said affably, "any mammal or ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... upon my teeth. If I remember correctly, an ugly fang was to be removed,—at any rate, pain was involved in the matter; but no sooner was the dentist's arm around my head, and his instrument in my mouth, than the well-meaning and zealous operator began to question me upon the subject of personal religion. Now it seemed quite as bad to undertake to propagate Christianity at the point of a surgical instrument, as it would be to win proselytes by the sword; and the utter incongruity ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... And thousands of honest, well-meaning men and women, who had seen, year after year, lie after lie, one stupendous story after another, punctured, riddled, and proved a vicious and malignant slander, swallowed this latest one whole, and marvelled that the American ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... a layman, land in the hands of a layman might be also tithe-free. So that there was an object which a layman might become seized of equitably and bona fide; there was something on which a prescription might attach, the end of which is, to secure the natural well-meaning ignorance of men, and to secure property by the best ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke |
