"Gentry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and were suspected of a desire to preserve their consideration and their estates. The desertion in France was to aid an abominable sedition, the very professed principle of which was an implacable hostility to nobility and gentry, and whose savage war-whoop was, "A l'Aristocrate!"—by which senseless, bloody cry they animated one another to rapine and murder; whilst abetted by ambitious men of another class, they were crushing everything respectable and virtuous ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... bead on you, Gentry!" put in a third. "The best shot in the county, Mr. Sheriff, and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... exceptions. Because a small portion of the American population understand what good cookery is, it by no means follows that all do. Who would think of saying that the people of England live on white bait and venison, because the nobility and gentry (the aldermen inclusive) can enjoy both, in the seasons, ad libitum? I suspect this Mr. Cooper knows quite as well what he is about, when writing of America, as any European. If pork fried in grease, and grease pervading half ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... dress (viz., a silver helmet, a flowing periwig, a cuirass of gilt leather richly embroidered, a light blue velvet mantle, and crimson morocco half-boots): and in this habit I rode my bay horse Brian, carried off three rings, and won the prize over all the Duke's gentry, and the nobility of surrounding countries who had come to the show. A wreath of gilded laurel was to be the prize of the victor, and it was to be awarded by the lady he selected. So I rode up to the gallery where the Countess Ida was seated behind the Hereditary ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a finger to the other, in a manner and with an impressive look that was instantly comprehended. "I neither agree wholly with the one nor the other of these gentlemen. 'Tis said that, since our appearance on the coast, the dwellings of many of the gentry are guarded by small detachments of ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... for girls in those days. Among the nobles and gentry, most were like ours; young ladies of rank were Alice, Cicely, Margaret, Joan, Isabel, Emma, or Agnes: a strange name being the exception. But among working women the odd names were then the rule: they were Yngeleis, Sabelina, Orenge, Pimma, ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... which we, however, soon got clear of. At this time 4 Canoes came off to us full of People, and keept for sometime under our stern threatning of us all the while. As I did not know but what I might be obliged to send our Boats ahead to sound, I thought these Gentry would be as well out of the way. I order'd a Musquet shott to be fir'd close to one of them, but this they took no notice of. A 4 Pounder was then fir'd a little wide of them; at this they began to shake their Spears ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... actual vassals declined with the progress of enfranchisement and the upgrowth of the freeholder, the nobles had found a substitute for them in the grant of their "liveries," the badges of their households, to the smaller gentry and farmers of their neighbourhood, and this artificial revival of the dying feudalism became one of the curses of the day. The outlaw, the broken soldier returning penniless from the wars, found shelter and wages in the train of the greater barons, and furnished them with a force ready at ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... powerful Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker, and Henry VI had been once more restored to power, though for how long a period none could venture to guess. They were hard times to live through, especially for those lesser gentry and yeomen who had not placed themselves definitely under the protection of any of the greater barons, and still strove to keep their estates in peace and quiet. The turmoil of the great struggle had not spared even the obscure ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... Viscount Vincent is dead, and Captain Dugald becomes the heir presumptive to the earldom of Hurstmonceux, his prospects are so much improved that I should think he would return to England without fear of annoyance from his creditors; such gentry being usually very complaisant to the heirs of ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... you are much too hard on your husband; he is and he ought to be the master of the house." But I answered him, "No, my good pastor! If I should let my husband have his way in the household for a year, the gentry wouldn't get their rent nor the pastor his offering, for in that length of time he would turn all there was in the place into drink. Ought I let a man rule the household who is perfectly ready to sell his belongings and wife and children and even himself for brandy?" ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... years ago are of an absolute directness and frankness. They blink nothing of the sordid, the mean, the vicious, the wicked in that life, from which they rarely rise in some glimpse of the state of the neighboring gentry, and yet they abound in beauty that consoles and encourages. They are full of keen analysis, sly wit, kindly humor, and of a satire too conscientious to bear the name; of pathos, of compassion, of reverence, while in unaffected singleness ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... enterprising gentry who devote themselves to cheating the Spanish excise by smuggling cigars and English goods across the border, the Scorpions live by and on the garrison, and therefore do I name their habitat Sutlersville. "Scorpion," I should add, for the benefit of the uninitiated, is the sobriquet ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... Ther' 's lots o' th' Master's people down there, out o' sight, that's so low they never heard His name: preachers don't go there. But He'll see to't. He'll not min' their cursin' o' Him, seein' they don't know His face, 'n' thinkin' He belongs to th' gentry. I knew it wud come right wi' me, when times was th' most ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... honest and brave, very well educated and accomplished, but by no means a lady in her sense of the word. Mrs. Le Moyne's feeling toward the Northern school-teacher was very like that which the English gentry express when they use the word "person." There is no discredit in the term. The individual referred to may be the incarnation of every grace and virtue, only he is of a lower degree in the social scale. He ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... an unusual crowd, and I could not help fancying as I passed that some of the loiterers eyed me with a covert smile; and, indeed, I was shabby enough. But finding that a frown more than sufficed to restore the gravity of these gentry, I set down the appearance to my own self-consciousness, and, stroking my moustachios, strode along boldly until I saw before me, and coming to meet me, the same page who ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... of the great marble lion, which stood in his time not in Venice but in Athens. And now, king of Norway and conqueror, for the time, of Denmark, why should he not take England, as Sweyn and Canute took it sixty years before, when the flower of the English gentry perished at the fatal battle of Assingdune? If he and his half-barbarous host had conquered, the civilisation of Britain would have been thrown back, perhaps, for centuries. But it was not ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... tragedy for Andrews, before he's through with it," replied Le Drieux grimly. "They're pretty severe on the long-fingered gentry, over there in Europe, and you must remember that if the fellow lives through the sentence they will undoubtedly impose upon him in Vienna, he has still to answer for the Paris robbery and the London ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... sea-port towns to victual a ship. But as brutish as these Englishmen were, their stomachs turned at the sight. What to do in this case, they could not tell: to refuse the prisoner, would have been the highest affront offered to the savage gentry; and to dispose of them, they knew not, in what manner; however, they resolved to accept them, and so gave them, in return, one of their hatchets, an old key, a knife, and six or seven of their bullets; things which, tho' they were wholly ignorant ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... whether of the greater or lesser barons (daimyo and shomyo) or of the holders of minor benefits, if any of the gentry or soldiers (shi and sotsu) in their service be guilty of rebellion or murder, such offenders must be at once expelled ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... of "hustling" was attempted; "roughs," who had come in late, occasionally tried to bully those who looked "soft" out of their ground. Being quite a youngster, I was, naturally, the kind of game these gentry were seeking. However, I sought and obtained help among my Kaffrarian friends, so when two glib tongued scoundrels endeavored to claim my burrow on the score of prior occupation, they were soon hunted off. Messrs. Tom Barry and George Ward were entrusted by the Landdrost with the survey. ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... victim, that he too will be unable to write well till he has forgotten you and your novel, and all the annoyance and anxiety you have given him. Much may be done by asking him for "introductions" to an editor or publisher. These gentry don't want introductions, they want good books, and very seldom get them. If you behave thus, the man whom you are boring will ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... untouched, as the phrase goes, that is, more living, more intense, and more powerful to affect others, whenever it may be called to do so, than are even the dear villages of Sussex that lie under my downs. For those are haunted by a nearly cosmopolitan class of gentry, who will have actors, financiers, and what not to come and stay with them, and who read the paper, and from time to time address their village folk upon matters of politics. But here, in this broad plain by the banks of the Emmen, they knew of nothing but themselves and the Church ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... as this charming pastoral, which was probably little less in Thackeray's mind than Ivanhoe itself when he wrote Rebecca and Rowena. The author draws in (it would be hardly fair to say drags in) some of his stock satire on courts, the clergy, the landed gentry, and so forth; but the very nature of the subject excludes the somewhat tedious digressions which mar Melincourt, and which once or twice menace, though they never actually succeed in spoiling, the unbroken fun ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... must be remembered that the dominant race in Esthonia is German, and that the gentry, even if not fairies, would be expected to speak a language unintelligible to the people. It is significant that the very word for lady in Esthonian is proua, a corruption of Frau. Everything particularly fine ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... rode away to "a little town called Rugby," where at the bailiffs house they found nine more worthies, who had finished their supper, and were playing cards. One of these gentry was John Winter—the half-brother of Robert and Thomas,—whose mother was the daughter of Queen Mary's redoubtable Secretary, Sir John Bourne [Note 4]. He was either very simple or very clever, and at this distance of time it is ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... unco dark, and it's just humanly possible we might give them the clean slip. If we keep together, we make but the ae line of it; if we gang separate, we make twae of them: the more likelihood to stave in upon some of these gentry of yours. And then, second, if they keep the track of us, it may come to a fecht for it yet, Davie; and then, I'll confess I would be blithe to have you at my oxter, and I think you would be none the worse of having me at yours. So, by my way of it, we should ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... connection was known, the gentry and aristocracy of the county refused any longer to visit my father, and all communication was broken off. In a short time the ascendency which this artful girl gained over the old man was most wonderful. He lived but in her sight, ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... and amazed. These gentlemen were actually reasonable and were behaving like men of heart. Neither my books nor my father's stories—great lies, many of them, God rest him!—had taught me that the duelling gentry could think at all, and I was quite certain that they never tried. "You were looking at me, sir?" "Was I, 'faith? Well, if I care to look at you I shall look at you." And then away they would go at it, prodding at ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... wire!" Instantly I regarded Billington with a new interest. So at last I had met one of those famous gentry of whom I had so ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... effect. This home had been the dream of Stephen's manhood, and Ducie also had urged him to its speedy realization; for she knew that it was the first step towards securing for himself that recognition among the county gentry which his wealth and his old family entitled him to. Not that there was any intention of abandoning Up-Hill. Both would have thought such a movement a voluntary insult to the family wraiths,—one sure to bring upon them disaster of every kind. Up-Hill was to be Ducie's residence ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... distinctions between them do not appear to be so marked and impassable as in the cities. The manner in which property has been distributed into small estates and farms has established a regular gradation from the noblemen, through the classes of gentry, small landed proprietors, and substantial farmers, down to the laboring peasantry; and while it has thus banded the extremes of society together, has infused into each intermediate rank a spirit of independence. This, it must be confessed, is not so universally the case at present as it was formerly; ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... rank, any that hath in him a spark of ingenuity, or doth at all pretend to good manners, should find in his heart or deign to comply with so scurvy a fashion: a fashion much more befitting the scum of the people than the flower of the gentry; yea, rather much below any man endued with a scrap of reason or a grain of goodness. Would we bethink ourselves, modest, sober, and pertinent discourse would appear far more generous and masculine than such mad hectoring the Almighty, such boisterous insulting ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... 'the pleasant and absurd system of Paganism.' [Footnote: Essay on the Study of Literature, Section 56.] No wonder if in his days, and for a long time after, the passionate giants of the Ages of Fable had dwindled down to the pretty puppets with which the daughters of the gentry had to while away many a ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... the directors, however, the habit of christening engines, especially after distinguished persons or the seats of the local gentry, seemed to savour of flunkeyism and the custom was abandoned. Only on the London and North Western and the Great Western, and the London Brighton and South Coast, the writer believes, does it still generally obtain, ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... coming back to the needs of the moment, "let us know our names and station. I am Giovanni Rossini, son of the famous goldsmith of Florence; you, Giulietta, my sister. We came to Paris in the legate's train, trade being dull at home, the gentry having fled to the hills for the hot month. Of course you've never set foot out ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... any ceremony would have stuck their long daggers into the English officers had they dared. But the sight of the yardarm of a man-of-war, not to speak of her guns, has a wonderful effect in keeping such gentry in order. Along the decks were arranged a party of ladies and gentlemen, most of them jet black, dressed out in a variety of fanciful costumes. Some in pink and checked shirts, others with blankets over their shoulders, and others in loose trousers and vests, but it was easy to see ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... probability of succeeding to his father's office. All these advantages moved Squire Stubbs, as much as the ruddy brow and manly form of the suitor influenced his daughter, to abate somewhat in the article of their gentry; and so the match was concluded. None seemed more gratified than Aunt Rachel, who had hitherto looked rather askance upon the presumptuous damsel (as much so, peradventure, as her nature would permit), but who, on the first appearance of the new-married pair ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the Countess, as the custom commonly was in his boyhood, as page, waiting at her chair, bringing her scented water and the silver basin after dinner—sitting on her carriage-step on state occasions, or on public days introducing her company to her. This was chiefly of the Catholic gentry, of whom there were a pretty many in the country and neighbouring city, and who rode not seldom to Castlewood to partake of the hospitalities there. In the second year of their residence, the company seemed ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... period describes in some detail the pangs of these ill-conditioned gentry. "Two days ago," writes the Governor of Quebec in 1686, "Monsieur de Saint-Ours, a gentleman of Dauphiny, came to me to ask leave to go back to France in search of bread. He says that he will put his ten children in charge of any one who will give them a living, and that he himself ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... maintained a mature composure and a marked concern, as was her wont, throughout it all, and Peggy again reassured herself that her misgivings were without foundation. For Marjorie disliked the titled gentry. They were without exception hostile to the faith to which she so steadfastly adhered. She bore with them merely for the pleasure which she derived from the coterie made ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... for each province to send in a separate petition, the draft of which will be made in Peking and wired to the respective provinces in due course. If you approve, you will insert your name as well as those of the gentry and merchants of the province who agree to the draft. These petitions are to be presented one by one to the Legislative Chamber, as soon as it is convoked. At all events, the change in the form of the State will have to be effected ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... the neighbourhood of Montreal. He also journeyed in the Far West and wrote a fantastic account of his travels, of which an English edition was published in 1703.] 'live with greater comfort than an infinity of the gentry in France.' And for ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... co. Cambridge, and another at Braintree, co. Essex, in comfortable circumstances as yeomen farmers. Within fifty years more (1563), one of the family, Thomas, of Southcreeke, co. Norfolk, had entered the ranks of the gentry sufficiently to have his coat-of-arms recognized by the Herald Cooke, who conducted the Visitation of Norfolk in that year. From that date the majority of the family have been in good circumstances, with perhaps ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Greenville (from whom my descent is plain), and he was so much respected in the West, that the innkeepers were used to beseech him to set up achievements of his arms at the hotels where he baited on his journeys, was one of the most considerable of the County Gentry; the teachers were glad when she would treat them from her abundant store of play-money; and she was a kind of divinity among the schoolmaids her companions, to whom she gave so many cakes and sweetmeats that the apothecary had to be called in about once a week to cure many of surfeit. But ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... to John Tarwater was like the application of a mustard plaster. For, in his judgment, they were the gentry, more than any other, who had skinned him out of the broad Tarwater acres. So, at the time of his Patagonian fever, the very thought of so drastic a remedy was sufficient to cure him. He quickly demonstrated ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... had just left his house there was not one whom the duke really regretted—not one whom he regarded as an equal. In giving a marriage-feast for his son, he had bidden all the gentry of the neighborhood. They had come—very well! They ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... considered, on the morrow of the "Letters," Blaise Pascal, at the age of thirty-three, had a brilliant worldly future before him, had he cared duly to wait upon, to serve it. To develop the already considerable position of his family among the gentry of Auvergne would have been to follow the way of his time, in which so many noble names had been founded on professional talents. Increasingly, however, from early youth, he had been the subject of a ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... was always a proud Slut; and now the Wench hath play'd the Fool and Married, because forsooth she would do like the Gentry. Can you support the Expence of a Husband, Hussy, in Gaming, Drinking and Whoring? Have you Money enough to carry on the daily Quarrels of Man and Wife about who shall squander most? There are not many Husbands and Wives, who can bear the Charges of plaguing one another in a ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... little betrayed the tremulousness of the knees above them. Moreover, though William's face was red, his expression—cold, and concentrated upon high matters—scorned the stranger, and warned the lower classes that the mission of this bit of gentry was not to them. ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... more than thirty-six; but the most serviceable merchant vessels were collected from all the ports of the country; and the citizens of London, Bristol, and the other great seats of commerce, showed as liberal a zeal in equipping and manning vessels as the nobility and gentry displayed in mustering forces by land. The seafaring population of the coast, of every rank and station, was animated by the same ready spirit; and the whole number of seamen who came forward to ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... cushions, jolted the occupants abominably. Olivo went on chattering in his high, thin voice; talking incessantly of the fertility of his land, the excellencies of his wife, the good behavior of his children, and the innocent pleasures of intercourse with his neighbors—farmers and landed gentry. Casanova was bored. He began to ask himself irritably why on earth he had accepted an invitation which could bring nothing but petty vexations, if not positive disagreeables. He thought longingly of the cool parlor in Mantua, where at this very hour he might have been working ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... which probably was of a mixed breed between a Thibetian lady and a raja of Banaras, as will be afterwards mentioned; and this family had, I believe, multiplied exceedingly, and composed a numerous and warlike gentry, which, of course, contributed largely to the propagation ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... amongst the nobility and landed gentry, a fact vaguely hinted at by the white or yellow lettering on the tin deed boxes that lined the walls of his offices, setting forth such names and statements as: "The Cave Estate," "Sir Jardine Jardine," "The Blundell Estate," and so forth and so on. He knew ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... engendered by this belief breeds contempt for and indifference to the nobler aspirations of women amongst men of the higher ranks, while it crops out in tyranny in the middle, and brutality in the lower classes of society. Even the gentry and nobility of Great Britain are not all exempt from brutal manifestations of power toward their wives. We once sheltered in our own house for weeks the wife of an English Earl who had been forced to leave her home and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... life bare and stern as the starry firmament, and he felt awe at nothing, not even at the starry firmament, but only at the sense of right and wrong in man. He did not summon the poor to rise against "the idle rich," but he summoned the idle rich, the well-to-do, the gentry of independent means, the comfortable annuitants, the sportsmen, the writers and dramatists of pleasure, the artists of triviality, the pretty rhymers, and the people who are too busy for thought, to rise against themselves. It was a much harder summons to obey, and generally ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Loosefish, Sir Toms, and Sir Harrys of former days might recognize the spirited doings of their early friend. He wanted the superiority of his establishment, the excellence of his horses, the stoutness of his hounds, and the polish of his field, proclaimed, with perhaps a quiet cut at the Flat-Hat gentry; instead of which he had a mixed medley sort of a mess, whose humdrum monotony was only relieved by the absurdities and errors with which it was crammed. At first, Mr. Puffington could not make out what ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the villagers, and the officers took rooms at the inn. Except when engaged in expeditions to capture stills—of which they succeeded in finding nearly a score—there was not much to do at Ballyporrit. All the gentry resident within a wide circle called upon them, and invitations to dinners and dances flowed in rapidly. As one officer was obliged to remain always in the village with the detachment, Ralph seldom availed himself of these invitations. O'Connor and Lieutenant Desmond were both fond ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... than might have been expected in the course of so great a political change. As the excitement subsided, the kindly feeling, which never had been extinguished, began more palpably to revive. Before the epoch of agitation approached, we were a peaceful and a happy people. The peerage, the gentry, the yeomen, and the peasantry—all classes were bound together with the links of respect and of affection. The old hereditary attachment between the orders had not been broken. The poor man was proud of the noble, because the noble ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... of wealth, the amateurs men of standing at least. All know each other, and a cheerful familiarity rules. We have a duke in person frequently, who compares notes and asks a hint from the authorities around; some clergymen; gentry of every rank; the recognized agents of great cultivators, and, of course, the representatives of the large trading firms. So narrow even yet is the circle of orchidaceans that almost all the faces at a sale are recognized, and if one wish to learn the names, somebody ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... that some of the gentry who swear at large about the evils of missionaries would have been loud in their disgust at the entire absence of drink and debauchery, and the prevalence of what they would doubtless characterize as adjective hypocrisy on the part of the natives; but no decent ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... "there will never be justice for the like of us. We cannot send bailiffs to the Government to demand our dues for us; and as the wallet must be filled somehow," he said, striking his stomach, "we cannot afford to wait. Moreover, these gentry who lead snug lives in government offices may talk and talk, but their words are not good to eat, so I have come back here again to draw my pay out of the commonalty," he said, striking the mud with ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... small amount of calculation entered the audacity of his remonstrance. Perhaps—it flashed upon him—the yacht's gentry will hear I stood up for them. This could conceivably be of advantage to a man who wanted a lift in the world. "Owner of a yacht—badly scared—a gentleman—money nothing to him." Thereupon Shaw declared with heat that he couldn't be an accessory either after or before the fact. Those that ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Hook's time was tenanted by people who—though they were unknown to 'fashion,' in the sense given to the word by men of Brummel's habit and tone—had undeniable status amongst the aristocracy and gentry of England. With some justice the witty writer has been charged with snobbish vulgarity because he ridiculed humble Bloomsbury for being humble. His best defence is found in the fact that his extravagant scorn was not directed at helpless and altogether obscure persons ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... the beginning. Well, that doesn't worry me. But I should like to know how he expects to get more money out of me. I don't understand the ways of this gentry." ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... the high sheriff, did venture once more into their presence, as the poor widow did to the unjust judge, to try what she could do with them for my liberty, before they went forth of the town. The place where she went to them was to the Swan Chamber, where the two judges, and many justices and gentry of the country, were in company together. She then, coming into the chamber with abashed face, and a trembling heart, began her errand ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... predecessor—he designed to have made four different provisions: In the first place, by utterly destroying the families of all those nobles whom he had deprived of their states, so that the future pope might not reestablish them; secondly, by attaching to his interests all the gentry of Rome, in order, by their means, to control the power of the Pope; thirdly, by securing a majority in the college of cardinals; fourthly and lastly, by acquiring so much power, during the lifetime of his father, that he might be enabled of himself to resist ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... Elodie, essentially child of the people, proud, and virtuous according to her lights, were worlds apart. A bit of a socialist, Elodie, she stuck fiercely to her class. People she was. People she would remain. A daw of the people, she had tried to peacock it among the gentry. She had been detected in her borrowed plumes. At the stupid reference to her supposed morals she snapped her fingers. It was idiotic. It was the detection of the plumage that rankled in her soul. From that moment ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... on August 19. All rode the tipoia, a mere maca or hammock sadly heating to the back, but handier than the manchila: the bearers wore loose waistbelts, with a dozen small sheep's bells on the crupper, intended to proclaim our importance, and supposed to frighten away wild beasts. These gentry often require the stimulus of "ndokwe" (go on), but seldom the sedative of "malemba" (gently) or "quinga" (stop). The "boi- cavallo," the riding bull (not ox) of the interior, which costs about L4, is never used in these fashionable localities. I failed to remark the line ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... blow up the tunnel. The idea is a daring one and, if the plan had succeeded, it would have done us incalculable harm. As it is, we are safe; and tomorrow night we shall, I believe, make an expedition, and sweep the woods clear of these troublesome gentry. ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... were sacrificed to the needs or fancies of Byron's great-uncle, the "wicked Lord." One splendid oak, known as the "Pilgrim's Oak," which stood and stands near the north lodge of the park, near the "Hut," was bought in by the neighbouring gentry, and made over to the estate. Perhaps by the Druid oak Byron meant to celebrate this "last of the clan," which, in his day, before the woods were replanted, must have ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... seat of Lanhydrock lies on our bank of the river about three miles above Lostwithiel, facing the Lord Mohun's house of Boconnoc across the valley. My Lord Mohun, after some wavering at first, had cast in his fortune with the King's party, to which belonged well nigh all the gentry of our neighbourhood; and had done so in good time for his reputation. But the Lord Robarts was an obstinate clever man who chose the other side and stuck to it in despite of first misfortunes. We guessed therefore ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... great port for privateers to hail from. Not less than twenty-five of these predatory gentry fitted out at the quiet little seaside village; and, when the war was ended, few of the inhabitants were unable to tell some tale of personal adventures, cruising against the enemy. Indeed, Salem had the honor of receiving the first prize captured on the ocean after the declaration ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the other, after a moment's hesitation. "Wasn't that a spot of rain? Shall I charge these gentry?" ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... among his fellow-collegians. With none, hitherto, but the organist had he become familiar, and that only by virtue of an irresistible common interest. His poverty and humble station forbade him to intrude his fellowship on the clannish gentry of Saint George's, and certainly his cravings for hard study led him, so far from considering the exclusion as a hardship, to look upon it as a mercy, and few things he desired more devoutly than that this satisfactory state of affairs ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... try, Michael, to remember some of the other important parts of French history, and don't let your mind dwell too much upon the horrors of the Revolution. It is very terrible, all that about the excesses of the mob and their mad hatred of the nobility and gentry—A bas les aristocrates! and their cry, A la lanterne! Yes: very terrible those ruthless executions with the lanthorn and the rope. But now, please, I have finished that compound equation. Pray ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... tempted the noblesse up to Paris, that they might become mere courtiers, instead of powerful country gentlemen; how those who remained behind were only the poor hobereaux, little hobby-hawks among the gentry, who considered it degradation to help in governing the parish, as their forefathers had governed it, and lived shabbily in their chateaux, grinding the last farthing out of their tenants, that they might ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... Gates. My word, I wonder what next the gentry'll be up to, I dew. Ain't Miss STELLA orderin' of 'en about! Now she's started 'en. They ain't not allowed to go 'ittin of 'en—got to go just wheeriver the animiles want. Lor, the guse is takin his genlm'n in among the treeses! Well, if iver I did! That theer tartus gits along, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... best company in the place." It was not easy to find at Quebec proper accommodation for unmarried young women living away from home. Nairne writes in August, 1797, that he and Christine each paid $1.00 a day in Quebec where they lodged, although they mostly dined and drank tea abroad. "The town gentry of Quebec are vastly hospitable Civil and well-bred but no such a thing as an invitation to stay in any of their houses." At length a Mr. Stewart opened his doors. He must, Nairne wrote, be paid tactfully for the accommodation he furnishes. Things went ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... oughtn't never to have got a chap like 'e to do 'is jobs. 'Tis cast iron 'e is. And 'twasn't never no use going to Squire for to stand between him and we. 'E'd never set eyes on nobody, 'e wouldn't. If I'd my way I'd give every gentry what owns property a taste o' livin' on it same's we. 'E'd know a bit more aboot the fair runnin' o' ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... independent of his wife's income, he does not appear to have had a separate studio. Probably his Edinburgh clients went to Deanhaugh, and at times he seems to have painted portraits at the country houses of the gentry. But in 1785 desire to see and learn more than was possible at home took him to Italy. While in London he made the acquaintance of Reynolds, in whose studio he may have worked for a few weeks, and Sir Joshua's advice confirming ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... given to a record of the acts of fealty and homage done by the Scottish nobility and gentry in 1296 to Edward I. of England, and of value for the list it supplies of the nobles, gentry, burgesses, and clergy of the country at that period. The original written rolls of parchment have perished, but an abridged form ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... as these fellows were at home, their stomachs turned at this sight, and they did not know what to do; to refuse the prisoners would have been the highest affront to the savage gentry that offered them; and what to do with them they knew not; however, upon some debate, they resolved to accept of them; and in return they gave the savages that brought them one of their hatchets, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... said, my lord," returned Alwyn, bluntly, "to love the barons, the knights, the gentry, the yeomen, and the peasants, but to despise the traders,—I fear me that report in this ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... enjoyment was so connected with my special studies that the details would only be tiresome to you. You know who were my traveling companions, so I have only to tell you of our adventures, assuredly not those of knights errant or troubadours. Could these gentry have been resuscitated, and have seen us starting forth in blouses, with bags or botanical boxes at our backs and butterfly-nets in our hands, instead of lance and buckler, they could hardly have failed to look down upon us with pity from the height ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... honor to announce to you the arrival in Banbury of Signor James Currie's World-Renowned Circus and Grand Unrivalled Troupe of Equestrian Performers, whose feats of equitation and horsemanship have given unfeigned delight to all the courts of Europe, her Majesty the Queen, and the nobility and gentry of this and other countries. Among the principal attractions of this unrivalled troupe are Mr. Vernon Twomley, with his famous trained steed Bucephalus; Madame Orley, with her horse Chimborazo, who lacks only the gift of speech to take a first class at the University ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... public than that which they had hitherto addressed. Still posing as the heads of the government established by the Provisions, they summoned three knights from each shire to attend an assembly at St. Alban's. This appeal to the landed gentry alarmed the king so much that he issued counter-writs to the sheriffs ordering them to send the knights, not to the baronial camp at St. Alban's, but to his own court at Windsor. Neither party was as yet prepared for battle. ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... winced. A rosy flush of indignation mantled his cheeks, and only his habitual respect for the landed gentry (whom he was accustomed to call the backbone of England) checked him on the verge of a severe retort. As it was, he answered with ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... have already mentioned, are called "cookees," there seems to be also a pretty numerous class, distinguished by the name of rungateedas, or, as it has been more recently written, rangatiras, which appears to answer nearly to the English term gentry.[AX] It consists of those who are connected by relationship with the families of the chiefs; and who, though not possessed of any territorial rights, are, as well as the chiefs themselves, looked upon ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... Murewell, so that even on these winter Sundays there was almost always a sprinkling of strange faces among the congregation; and his position in the county and diocese was becoming every month more honourable and important. The gentry about showed them much kindness, and would have shown them much hospitality if they had been allowed. But though Robert had nothing of the ascetic about him, and liked the society of his equals as much as most good-tempered and vivacious people do, he and Catherine decided that ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... company with his daughter, he unluckily fell into the hands of a party of Welsh insurgents, who plundered him of all his books and papers, but these were afterwards to a great extent recovered by the exertions of the clergy and gentry of the country. In 1646 Usher came to London, and found a home in the house of his friend the Dowager Countess of Peterborough, which was situated in St. Martin's Lane, 'just over against Charing Cross.' From the roof of the building he witnessed the preliminaries of ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... disagreement in our computation produced some small remonstrance to Mrs. Francis on my side; but this received an immediate answer: "She scorned to overcharge gentlemen; her house had been always frequented by the very best gentry of the island; and she had never had a bill found fault with in her life, though she had lived upwards of forty years in the house, and within that time the greatest gentry in Hampshire had been at it; and that lawyer Willis never went to any other when ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... and the swallow-tail coat with a white shirt front the evening dress in China. I need hardly say that this action of the Peking Parliament aroused universal surprise and indignation. How could the scholars and gentry of the interior, where foreign tailors are unknown, be expected to dress in frock coats at formal ceremonies, or to attend public entertainments in swallow-tails? Public meetings were held to discuss the subject, and the new style of dress was condemned as unsuitable. At the same time it was ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... more genial: he asked me questions on England. His wife also was interested in that country. They both knew more about it than their class in England knows about France: and this astonished me, for, in the gentry, English gentlemen know more about France than French gentlemen know ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... to see that they don't, Sir Henry. It is just the kind of case he will glory in; and if Black Riot is all that you believe her, you'll carry off the Derby in spite of these enterprising gentry who—Hallo! here's the motor. Clap on your hat, Sir Henry, and come along. Mind the step! Kensington Palace Gardens, Lennard—and as fast as ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... they'll be good eleven thousand a year; and Larkin says, with smart management, I shall have a rental of thirteen thousand before three years! And that's only the beginning, by George! Sir Henry Twisden can't hold his seat—he's all but broke—as poor as Job, and the gentry hate him, and he lives abroad. He has had a hint or two already, and he'll never fight ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Priviledges, are Honourable; otherwise not: for their Power consisteth either in such Priviledges, or in Riches, or some such thing as is equally honoured in other men. This kind of Honour, commonly called Gentry, has been derived from the Antient Germans. For there never was any such thing known, where the German Customes were unknown. Nor is it now any where in use, where the Germans have not inhabited. The antient Greek Commanders, when they went ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... Most of the gentry put on mourning; the chair of state in the parliament house, the uppermost seats in the kirks, and almost all the pulpits, were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... who got returned for Suffolk on the strength of denouncing Corn Law Repeal as the ruin of the country. He has bought a fine house near Ipswich, with great gilded gates before it, and, by dint of good dinners and soft sawder, finally draws the country gentry to him.... ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... clear, de-lightful! Divinely beautiful! But what's the use of talking! You live in the Promised Land, simply! And the merchant gentry are all a devout people, and famed for many a virtue! liberality and much almsgiving! I am well content, my good soul, full to the brim of content! For their liberality to us will their abundance be greatly increased, especially ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... service in one or the other of the chapels, to see assembled the young men, who are almost all the sons of the nobility or gentry. The propriety of their conduct ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... Forest. Although it has but seven thousand permanent inhabitants, not less than forty thousand visitors have made their abode within its precincts in a single season. It is the most fashionable, and at the same time the most attractive, of the German watering-places. The nobility and gentry, as well as the blacklegs and swindlers of all the nations of Europe, gather there. The country around the town is romantic and pleasing, and with good roads through the forests and up the hills, there is a great ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic |
