"Ill-bred" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been a matter of amazement to me that Lady Holland should have been allowed to ride rough-shod over society, as she did for so long, with such complete impunity. To be sure, in society, well-bred persons are always at the mercy of ill-bred ones, who have an immense advantage over everybody who shrinks from turning a social gathering into closed lists for the exchange of impertinences; and people gave way to Lady Holland's domineering rudeness for the sake of their hosts and fellow-guests, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... say nothin' for a minute an' then he said 'Wh-a-t?' in a most feeble manner, an' she asked him it right over again. Then she said he was more nervous an' made very queer noises an' finally asked her what in Noah's ark she wanted to know for. She says she could n't but think that very ill-bred, considerin' her age, but she was in a situation where she had to overlook anythin', so she told him as she knowed an' he knowed, too, as any one could take a canary-bird an' travel anywhere an' never know what it was to be put off for nothin'. She said he ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... appears; passage along the Route Ronde formally interdicted for the moment. There is nothing for it but to draw up at the glaring cross-roads, and get down to make fun with the notorious Cocardon, the most ungainly and ill-bred dog of all the ungainly and ill-bred dogs of Barbizon, or clamber about the sandy banks. And meanwhile the Doctor, with sun umbrella, wide Panama, and patriarchal beard, is busy wheedling and (for aught the rest of us know) bribing the too facile sentry. His speech is smooth and dulcet, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with him betwixt heaven and earth, which when Ma'aruf saw, he made sure of destruction and wept and said, "O Abu al-Sa'adat, whither goest thou with me?" Replied the Jinni, "I go to cast thee down in the Desert Quarter,[FN91] O ill-bred wight of gross wits. Shall one have the like of this talisman and give it to the folk to gaze at? Verily, thou deservest that which hath befallen thee; and but that I fear Allah, I would let thee fall from a height of a thousand fathoms, nor shouldst thou reach the earth, till ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... that it is not because the landlord does not want children in the house but because he does not want such ill-bred children, vandals, who have no respect for anything. He charges high rent because his investment is good for only ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... "with whom Mazarin sought an alliance, was invited by him to send him a list of the conditions on which he would do him the honor to negotiate with him. The prince, who had a great repugnance to treat with such an ill-bred fellow, made out a list, against the grain, and sent it. In this list there were three conditions which displeased Mazarin and he offered the prince ten ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... into the room, with slouchy, ill-bred carriage, a young man whose sole reputation was that of being the greatest rake in Paris, the Duc de Richelieu, half-gamin, half-nobleman, who counted more victims among titled ladies than he had fingers on his hands, whose ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... Bonnet; "he came to this vessel to bring me a message from my daughter, but he is an ill-bred stripling, and can neither read ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... relations are often ill used. Relatives, poor or rich, may be such ill behaved, self-assertive, disagreeable persons, that we cannot treat them as we gladly would; but our endeavour should be to develop every true relation. He who is prejudiced against a relative because he is poor, is himself an ill-bred relative, and to be ill-bred is an excluding fault with the court of the high countries. There, ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... ever such a child! Why, Minnie darling, you must know that such things are very, very ill-bred, and very, very indelicate and unrefined. And then, think how he came forcing himself upon us when we were driving. Couldn't he see that he wasn't wanted? No, he's a savage. And then, how he kept giving us all a history of his life. ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... Caesar ate without taking any notice of it, and reproved his friends who were out of humour on the occasion. "You should be content," he said, "not to eat what you don't like; but to find fault with your host's ill-breeding is to be as ill-bred as himself." Once upon a journey he was compelled by a storm to take shelter in a poor man's hut, which contained only a single chamber and that hardly large enough for one person, on which he observed to his friends that the post of honour must be given to the worthiest and the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... on the ear, that he fell senseless to the ground. Then exclaimed the female dwarf, "Ha ha! goodly Peredur, son of Evrawc; the welcome of Heaven be unto thee, flower of knights, and light of chivalry." "Of a truth, maiden," said Kai, "thou art ill-bred to remain mute for a year at the Court of Arthur and then to speak as thou dost of such a man as this." And Kai kicked her with his foot, so that she fell to the ground senseless. "Tall man," said Peredur, "show me which is Arthur." "Hold ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... Claudia, 'I have never seen you display this ill-bred brutality before. I had not expected you to show it in my ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Although philosophers of all ages have agreed in their aim to expose human imperfections in order to rectify them, their methods have differed. Those moralists who have inveighed magisterially against man's vices generally have been "abandon'd to the ill-bred Teachers of Musty Morals in Schools, or to the sowr Pulpit-Orators." Those who, by "nipping Strokes of a Side-wind Satyr, have endeavour'd to tickle Men out of their Follies," have been welcomed and caressed by the very people who were most abused. Since self-love waves ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... Atheist" in the post-office at Pisa. He finds that you had "a little turned-up nose," a feature no less important in his system than was the nose of Cleopatra (according to Pascal) in the history of the world. To be in harmony with your nose, you were a "phenomenal" liar, an ill-bred, ill-born, profligate, partly insane, an evil-tempered monster, a self-righteous person, full of self- approbation—in fact you were the Beast of this pious Apocalypse. Your friend Dr. Lind was an embittered and scurrilous apothecary, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... of Carlyle—may their tribe increase!—are indignant because one Edmund Gosse, in his introduction to the late edition of "Heroes and Hero Worship," alludes to the lion of modern literature as "an undignified human being, growling like an ill-bred collie dog." They take Mr. Gosse too seriously—dignify him with their displeasure. James Anthony Froude—a literary gun of much heavier caliber than Mr. Gosse appears to us from this passing glimpse—once wrote, if I remember aright, in a similar vein of the grizzled ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... lot! Is then my high descent forgot? 60 Reduced to drudgery and disgrace, (A life unworthy of my race,) Must I too bear the vile attacks Of rugged scrubs, and vulgar hacks? See scurvy Roan, that brute ill-bred, Dares from the manger thrust my head! Shall I, who boast a noble line, On offals of these creatures dine? Kicked by old Ball! so mean a foe! My honour suffers by the blow. 70 Newmarket speaks my grandsire's fame, All jockies still revere his name: There yearly are his triumphs told, There ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... forward in that manner, you ill-bred spalpeens? Can't you stand back, and behave yourselves like common Christians?—back with you! or, if you make me get my whip, I'll soon clear you from about the dacent man's door. Hagarty, why do you crush them ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... gentleman who looked well as I thought, at first sight, thanks to his tailor, was dainty enough to take off his boots in order to put on a pair of old shoes! Another, an old man, who was probably some wealthy upstart (these are the most ill-bred), while sitting opposite to me, had the delicacy to place his two feet on the seat quite close to me. This ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... in variety, and this made variety. She was unaccustomed to the great world and its ways; there could be no charm in that, for he liked the utmost elegance of the best breeding. Here he fetched himself up again. Lois was not in the least ill-bred. Nothing of the kind. She was utterly and truly refined, in every look and word and movement showing that she was so. Yet she had no "manner," as Mrs. Caruthers would have expressed it. No, she had not. She had no trained and inevitable way of speaking and looking; her way was her ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... Mr. Ward," she began abruptly, in a whisper, "is the rudest, most ill-bred person I ever met. When I talked to him the other day I thought he was nice. He was nice, But he has behaved abominably—like a boor—like a sulky child. Has he no sense of humor? Because I played a joke on him, is that any reason why he ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... would have begun to fight the devil in a very different and a very stupid way. They would have begun by scolding the idiotic cabman; and next they would make his wife angry by saying it must be her fault as well as his, and by leaving ill-bred though well-meant shabby little books for them to read, which they were sure to hate the sight of; while all the time they would not have put out a finger to touch the wailing baby. But Diamond had him out of the cradle in a moment, set him up on his knee, and told him to look at ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... accomplishments, virtues, beauty, disposition, endowments, and graces belonging to the enchanting Prudence. He and the widow exhibit her drawings,—Livingstone is in raptures, or pretends to be (for he is not an ill-bred man). What a piercing expression flashes from those studies of eyes (in chalk)! what an artistical grouping of legs! what a Saracen's-head-upon-Snow-hill-like ferocity frowns from that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 4, 1841 • Various
... eyes from the floor. He knew she would think him ill-bred, he was ashamed of himself, but he could not help it. He was full of bashfulness. Now, bashfulness is almost always a sure sign ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... a scene, which then, as to-day, ladies considered an ill-bred thing to do, there was no escape, since half Leyden gathered at these "sledge choosings," and many eyes were on her and the Count. Therefore, because she must, Lysbeth took the proferred hand, and was led to the sledge, catching, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... sexual impulses; though carefully educated, she adopted the occupation of her mother, and at the age of twenty-two was exiled to Siberia for robbery and attempt to murder. The child of a chance father and a prostitute mother is not fatally devoted to ruin; but such a child is ill-bred, and that fact, in some cases, may neutralize all the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... noisily, meanwhile passing comments on those persons who are so unfortunate as to be her traveling companions, has no claim to the much-abused title of "lady." But you can hardly compare your manners and those of your friends with the deportment of low-born, ill-bred girls. I fancy that you would find that everyone would pronounce sentence as severe upon them as upon you, were ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... still, I could not comprehend why there were three state-rooms for these four persons. I was, just at that epoch, in one of those moody frames of mind which make a man abnormally inquisitive about trifles: and I confess, with shame, that I busied myself in a variety of ill-bred and preposterous conjectures about this matter of the supernumerary state-room. It was no business of mine, to be sure, but with none the less pertinacity did I occupy myself in attempts to resolve ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... final conclusions be reasonably objected to:—"First, That every Person who indulges his Ill-nature or Vanity, at the Expense of others; and in introducing Uneasiness, Vexation, and Confusion into Society, however exalted or high-titled he may be, is thoroughly ill-bred;" and "Secondly, That whoever, from the Goodness of his Disposition or Understanding, endeavours to his utmost to cultivate the Good-humour and Happiness of others, and to contribute to the Ease and Comfort of all his Acquaintance, however low in Rank Fortune may have placed him, or however ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... in black;—but there was nothing to prepossess him about either of them. One of them was insignificant and very plain. The other was fat and untidy. They neither of them looked like ladies. What if fate should have sent to him as a daughter,—as a companion for his girls,—that fat, untidy, ill-bred looking young woman! As it happened, the ill-bred looking young woman whom he feared, was a cook who had married a ship-steward, had gone out among the islands with her husband, had found that the speculation did not answer, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... inspiration—a mystery, too; an enigma among men, lonely and impressive; not fully understood nor understandable to the depths of that great heart of his; not fully explainable, for what strange power was it lifted that ignorant, ill-bred, uncouth, backwoods boy to a station ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... valor!" and when dared by Sir Lucius, he replies, "I don't mind the word 'coward;' 'coward' may be said in a joke; but if he called me 'poltroon,' ods, daggers and balls——" "Well, sir, what then?" "Why," rejoined Bob Acres, "I should certainly think him very ill-bred." Of course, he resigns all claim to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... easily when he was gone. "I never seed a more odd, fierce, ill-bred-looking young man! I declare I am quite afraid of him. ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the stone again with ordinary effort, in spite of the characters inscribed on it; the inscription does not hinder them. If you wish, therefore, follow Bertalda's desire, but, truly, she knows not what she asks! The ill-bred Kuehleborn has set his mark especially upon her; and if this or that came to pass which he has predicted to me and which might indeed happen without your meaning any evil—ah! dear one, even you would then ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... dedicated to the Pope, containing the "Pater Noster," in one hundred and fifty different languages, was struck off in the presence of his Holiness. During this visit to the printing office an ill-bred young man kept his hat on in the Pope's presence. Several persons, indignant at this indecorum, advanced to take off the young man's hat. A little confusion arose, and the Pope, observing the cause of it, stepped up to the young man and said to him, in a tone of kindness ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... say we quarreled upon this point, for she would not quarrel upon any. It was, of course, very unfair of me to press her, very ill-bred, but I really could not help it; and I might just as ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... not say that, living in the same house with the young lady to whom people have married me, I am ill-bred and do not speak to her, but I am not in love with her. I banter and jest with her when time permits (which is only in the evenings when I chance to be at home, for in the morning I write in my room, and ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... I care little, especially since he never borrowed money of me. There is a Statute of Limitations for all such things in letters as well as in law. What is much harder to forgive is the ill-bred pertness, often if not always innocent enough in intention, but rather the worse than the better for that, which mars so much of his actual literary work. When almost an old man he wrote—when a very ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... that young Tony have been after? And dared Miles call at Wren's End that evening, in the hope of a glimpse of Meg, or would it look inquisitive and ill-bred? ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... something great? That uneasy titter, caught from time to time as one turns Miss Coleridge's pages, we seem to have heard before in the Arena chapel or at the end of a Bach fugue. It is the comment of sophisticated refinement that can neither sit still nor launch out into rapturous, but ill-bred, ecstasies, of the weakling who takes refuge in slang or jocularity for fear of becoming natural and being thought ridiculous. Miss Coleridge stood for Kensington and Culture, so she smiled and shrugged her shoulders at Medea, and called the Bacchae "Hallelujah Lasses." She and Kensington admired ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... well beg my pardon," said Mrs. Chatterton, "for of all ill-bred girls, you are certainly the worst. I want you." Then she ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... hurried on to cover her confusion, "that it was not an ill-bred, common trick for her to take possession of a man of my party, and utterly ignore me. She has everything on earth that I want; she treats me like a dog, and she could give me a glorious time by merely ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... picturesque High Street. It would soon be dusk; a wintry light was over everything. Rosalind Merton and Miss Day followed behind. Maggie, who was always absorbed with the present interest, did not heed or notice them, but Priscilla heard one or two ill-bred giggles. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... down her one sheaf of corn to an old watermill, itself mossy and rent, scarcely able to get its stones to turn. An ill-bred dog stands, joyless, by the unfenced stream; two country boys lean, joyless, against a wall that is half broken down; and all about the steps down which the girl is bringing her sheaf, the bank of earth, flowerless ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... Hlestakov, who sings songs from every opera, but has no more ear than a smoked herring, an unlucky fellow who has squandered all the money for his travelling expenses, knows all Mickiewicz by heart, is ill-bred, far too unreserved, and babbles till it makes you sick. Like me, he is fond of talking about his uncles and aunts. The other lieutenant, M., a geographer, is a quiet, modest, thoroughly well-educated fellow. If it were ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... of feeling and usual regard for "the amenities" indicate, they are "well-bred." To say that they are not is as ungenerous as to criticise the conduct of the insane. But habitual, cold-blooded, and willful ill-temper—the trade-mark of unmitigated selfishness—is indisputably ill-bred. Whatever the tendency, temperament, or temptation, good form requires the cultivation and the exhibition of good humor and a disposition to take a cheerful and generous view of people ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... habitual intercourse with well-bred persons, this surely is the wisest course that could be adopted, and a hundred degrees above that fidgety, jackdaw-like assumption of nonchalance with which the ill-bred amongst ourselves seek to cover their ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... would have thought any other child uncouth and ill-bred, if she did any one of the many outrageous things that Gwen was always doing. In Gwen she thought it bright and smart, and Gwen held the same opinion, but a young sailor, happening along just in time to hear her say something about a Jack Tar, that was not quite ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... always out of humour." One day, at dinner, his wife said to him, with her usual laugh, "My love, you contradict everybody. Do you know that you are quite rude?" To which he replied, "I did not know I contradicted anybody in calling your mother ill-bred." But the good-natured old lady was in no wise affronted, "Ay; you may abuse me as much as you please," she said. "You have taken Charlotte off my hands, and cannot give her back again. So there I have the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... didn't come into this wilderness to be preached to by a lay John the Baptist! He is an ill-bred fellow!" ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... much store by Mistress Forrester's manner, Aunt Ratcliffe,' Dorothy said; 'an ill-bred country child, who, of course, is ignorant, so ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... Isabella, the daughter of Philip IV. The barons, who were already inclined to win back some of the authority of which Edward I. had deprived them, were very angry at the place taken over their heads by an upstart favourite, especially as Gaveston was ill-bred enough to make jests at their expense. The barons found a leader in Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the son of that Edmund, the brother of Edward I., who had received the title of king of Sicily from the Pope (see p. 197). Thomas of Lancaster had very large estates. He was an ambitious man, ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... months had seen no women more attractive than the squaws of the North-West Coast or South Sea Islands; and sailors, under such circumstances, are exceedingly susceptible, me ipso testi; he had made up his mind, too, that she could be no other than ignorant and ill-bred withal. When, then, her exquisite beauty, her lovely, retiring modesty of manner, free alike from affectation or sheepishness, her expressive and eloquent features, all burst upon his view at once, his heart was taken "by storm,"—he ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... of the insult before it had left his lips. Railsford, however, ignored it, and quietly taking the cigars from the case, took them away with him, leaving the case on the table. Felgate's impulse was to follow him and apologise for his ill-bred words. But his evil genius kept him back; and before bed-time arrived he not only repented of his repentance, but reproached himself for not saying a great deal more than he had. Felgate had a wonderful gift ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... about from friends in common, but to an entire stranger she generally merely bows her head slightly and says: "How do you do!" Strictly speaking, it is always her place to offer her hand or not as she chooses, but if he puts out his hand, it is rude on her part to ignore it. Nothing could be more ill-bred than to treat curtly any overture made in spontaneous friendliness. No thoroughbred lady would ever refuse to shake any hand that is honorable, not even the hand of a coal heaver at the risk ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Indians have!" she began, with a grimace. "One must needs be an Indian to live in them! And how ill-bred the people are! They pass us without uncovering. Knock off their hats, as the curates do, and the lieutenants of ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... but perfectly decorous, sensation. However greatly these elegant people might lack the spirit of Him who was "the friend of publicans and sinners" they would not for the world do anything that was overtly rude or ill-bred. Only the official sexton frowned visibly as the youth took a seat near the door. Others looked askance or glided past like polished icicles. Haldane's teeth almost chattered with the cold. He felt himself oppressed, and almost pushed ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... these things so well as you say you do, my dear Mrs. Broadhurst,' whispered she; 'but look there now; they are at their books! What do you expect can come of that sort of thing? So ill-bred, and downright rude of Colambre, I must ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... came from the Social Trustee, while she added to the Calculating, who happened to be sitting next: "So ill-bred. It just shows that a person can never be educated above her station ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... would never again recur. Therefore he seated himself on his own deck-chair, some twenty paces from her, and began to fill his pipe, gloomily enough. Yet, in spite of gloom, he watched her,—surreptitiously of course. There was no ill-bred staring in ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... schoolmaster took an interest in this woman. But it was not only her beauty that attracted him, he [Pg 62] also felt that they were kindred spirits on account of her parentage. He was filled with jealousy and anger when he heard those ill-bred fellows calling her "Sophia Tiralla," plain and simple Why couldn't they say "Mrs. Tiralla"? That would have been the proper thing for them to do. The schoolmaster continued to bite his lips and stare in front of ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... those two minutes, had put Fleda perfectly at her ease, ill-bred eyes and ears being absent. She looked up and answered, with such entire trust in him, as made her forget that she had ever had ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... says it is extremely ill-bred to indulge in comments on a person's personal appearance," declared Rosemary heatedly. "My hair is a part of ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... his breast, with the distinct heart-shaped spots! It may be objected to Robin that he is noisy and demonstrative; he hurries away or rises to a branch with an angry note, and flirts his wings in ill-bred suspicion. The thrasher, or red thrush, sneaks and skulks like a culprit, hiding in the densest alders; the catbird is a coquette and a flirt, as well as a sort of female Paul Pry; and the chewink shows his inhospitality by espying your movements ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Athenian gentleman,—and there are a few such as he still extant,—writes to his nearest and dearest friend none but the best letters. It appears to him as ill-bred to say stupid or silly things to her, as to say what he does say clownishly. He cannot conceive of doing what is so frequently done now-a-days. He brings as much of Pericles to the composition of a letter as to the preparation of a speech. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... finding they were resolved to degrade him, he presently rallied them in answer to all they said; nor could all the cautions of his friends persuade him to any submission, after receiving so rough and ill-bred a treatment as they gave him: and impatient to return to Sylvia, where all his joys were centred, he was with much ado persuaded to stay and hear the resolution of the Council, which was to take ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... doubtless right, lady," Mr. Prohack agreed. "You always could judge better than I could myself when I had had enough, and what would be the ultimate consequences of my eating. And as for your lessons in manners, what an ill-bred lout I was before I met you, and what an impossible person I should have been had you not taken me in hand night and day for all these years! It isn't that I'm worse than the average husband; it is merely that wives are the sole repositories of the civilising influence. Were it not for ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... her teeth, and looking as malicious as an ill-bred cur, said that if the light belonged to nobody here nobody else should have the benefit of it; and attempted to empty the oil upon the hearth. This was more than Rollo was disposed to permit. He seized her arm with no gentle grasp, and saved all the oil but a few drops, which ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... gaiety in the town; but I saw little of it. My cousin was occupied with her own concerns, having now a sickly baby to turn her mind from thoughts of her own diversion; her husband was a sour-tempered man; and the prentices that were in the house were ill-mannered and ill-bred. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... was all you felt (What vain vulgarian the wish ne'er knew To paint his lodging a flamboyant hue?) And when the praises of the dead you've sung, 'Twas appetite, not truth, inspired your tongue; As ill-bred men when warming to their wine Boast of its merit though it be but brine. Nor gratitude incites your song, nor should— Even charity would shun you if she could. You share, 'tis true, the rich man's daily dole, But what ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... who is talking. Never take the words out of anyone's mouth and finish the sentence for them. To do this is ill-bred and does not bespeak your superior discernment, but your ignorance of ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... difficult to manage Soldiers in such a Manner, that in less than Half a Year not an Oath should be heard among them. If there were Two Armies in the Same Country, and of the same Nation, in one of which the Soldiers should curse and swear, as much as is commonly done among all loose, and ill-bred People, and in the other the Men should have been cured of that bad Custom, it is incredible what Reputation of being Good and Religious, those, who would only forbear Swearing, would gain beyond their Adversaries, tho' they were equally guilty with them ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... she get her obstinacy?" Mrs. Dale sighed. "I suppose it was from her father's side. And the whole affair is so ill-bred; one would know Helen was not all a Howe. I always felt there was something lacking in Charles Jeffrey, though poor dear Mary was so infatuated. Yes, I remember, when that sister of his came here to visit us, I did not feel sure, not at all sure, that the Jeffreys were really well-born ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... at my arm and suggested that we get rid of the girls, and go across to "The Railway" and have one. We did. In the lounge of "The Railway" he told me the one about the lady and taxi. It was very good, but extremely ill-bred. He was a prominent local doctor, so I told him the one about the medical man on the panel, and about the Bishop who put gin in his whisky. Then he told me another ... and another. He remembered the old days at the London.... ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... stared at him in undisguised wonder. 'You may think me ill-bred to say it, sir,' she remarked, 'but I cannot but marvel where you have been, or what you have done all your life. Why, the very children in the ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... listen and not to speak. The Governor and Isaacs whispered. The Governor looked at Dennis, who was resplendent on the platform; but Isaacs, to give him his due, shook his head. But the look was enough. A miserable lad, ill-bred, who had once been in Boston, thought it would sound well to call for me, and peeped out, "Ingham!" A few more wretches cried, "Ingham! Ingham!" Still Isaacs was firm; but the Governor, anxious, indeed, to prevent a row, knew I would say some thing, and said, "Our ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... it, Major, the mo' I am overwhelmed by my action. It was inconsiderate, suh. It was uncalled for, suh; and I am afraid"—and here he lowered his voice—"it was ill-bred and vulgar. What could those gentlemen who stood by have thought? They have all been so good to me, Major. I have betrayed their hospitality. I have forgotten my blood, suh. There is certainly an apology due ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to hold up their heads at the shanty, and quite another to hold them up on the noisy, swarming campus where they knew nobody, and where the ill-bred bullies of the school felt free to jeer and gibe at their poor clothing and ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... white of his breast, with the distinct heart-shaped spots! It may be objected to Robin that he is noisy and demonstrative; he hurries away or rises to a branch with an angry note, and flirts his wings in ill-bred suspicion. The Mavis, or Red Thrush, sneaks and skulks like a culprit, hiding in the densest Alders; the Cat-Bird is a coquette and a flirt, as well as a sort of female Paul Pry; and the Chewink shows his inhospitality by espying your movements like a Japanese. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... clergyman—beauty, of the eagle-beaked kind; wealth, her share of the family plate; high birth, a sister to the Hon. Theodore Atkinson. But if the exemplary man had cast his eyes lower, peradventure he had found more happiness, though ill-bred persons without family plate are not necessarily amiable. Like Socrates, this long-suffering divine had always with him an object on which to cultivate heavenly patience, and patience, says the Eastern proverb, is the key to content. The spirit of Xantippe seems to have ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to get introduced to her; a furore to see her. As she went through a crowd people whispered her name and made way for her to pass, staring at her after a fashion which is totally modern and detestably ill-bred; and yet which, sad token of the decadence of things in these later days, is not beneath the dignity or the manners of persons whose breeding is supposed to be ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... heard to laugh while you live. Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and in manners; it is the manner in which the mob express their silly joy at silly things; and they call it being merry. In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter. True wit, or sense, never yet made anybody laugh; they are above it: They please the mind, and give a cheerfulness to the countenance. But it is low buffoonery, or silly accidents, that always excite laughter; and that is ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... an ill-bred fellow, and that to answer his jeering would be time wasted, I turned the talk upon ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... women—just to set an example to the world of how people ought to live. Dolly Chapman, his wife, (for what would a reformer be without a wife,) was a ponderous woman, weighing more than two hundred pounds, and a proof that even in matrimony the opposites meet. She was a fussy, ill-bred woman, spoke with a strong nasal twang, and a sincere believer in all the reforms advocated by her husband, though she differed with him on one or two points of religion. And there was Mattie Chapman, a bright, bouncing girl of fifteen, ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... took me aside as an understanding confidant as to the life around us. Springfield was almost a mudhole. She was offended by it, but also she found much in it to make her laugh. There were the gawks; the sprawling ill-bred men; the illiterate young women; the mushroom life; the haste, the crudities of living; the ugliness and the disorder; the unsettled, ever restless, patchy catch as catch can existence; the attempt, in a word, to make life, to build a town, a capital. All this shocked or amused ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... vis-a-vis, and altogether conducted himself in such a manner that one was forced to say to him (chorus), Ah, my friend Thomas! at Paris that's hardly done. Ah, mon ami Thomas! at Paris that is not done at all. The audience is in ecstasies of delight at this ill-bred conduct on the part of the cousin from the provinces—secretly conscious as they are, even though they be blousards, that they are Parisians, and know how to behave themselves in a polite manner; and the vocalist, recovering ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... suppose I have won it; the man must be deuced ill-bred mentally either to wear the so-called fame as an ornament or to put it up for show. I confess that at first it gratifies one's vanity; but only a spiritual parvenu would find it sufficient to fill the whole life, or take the place of real happiness. It is ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... I—I am not ill-bred, but I simply could not help following her. She was so b-b-beautiful that it hurt; and I only wanted to look at her; I didn't mind being hurt. So I walked on and on, and sometimes I'd pass her and sometimes I'd let her pass me, and when she wasn't ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... bad company. The one great amusement is pelting a black hat, the glossier the better. After a short time even this pleasure palls, and, moreover, victims grow scarce, for the crowd, contrary to the run of Italian crowds, is an ill-bred, ill-conditioned one, and take to throw nosegays weighted with stones, which hurt and cut. So the long three hours, from two to five, pass drearily. Up and down the Corso, in a broken, straggling line, amidst feeble showers of chalk (not sugar) plums, and a drizzle ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... more strenuously that he should learn some trade. His poor mother obstinately opposed this scheme. Many were the boisterous quarrels on this subject the boy witnessed, sobbing between his parents; for his father was a rough, ill-bred mountaineer, who had reached Paris through the barrack and the battle-field, neither of which tends to smooth the asperities of character. The woman was tenacious; for what will not a mother's heart brave? what will it not endure? Those natures which are gentle as water are yet deep and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... after his interview with his mamma, robed in a wonderful dressing-gown, and puffing his pipe in gloomy silence, Anatole, too, must have remarked that something affected his master's spirits; though he did not betray any ill-bred sympathy with Harry's agitation of mind. When Harry began to dress himself in his out-of-door morning costume: he was very hard indeed to please, and particularly severe and snappish about his toilet: he tried, and cursed, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stamping furiously on the seat of the chair; "I hate 'em—nasty, showy, pretentious, ill-bred creatures; regular shrieking hypocrites, ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... of what went on in her mind, but her thoughts on the subject of Mignon were not flattering. Ill-bred, she mentally styled her, and decided that she would look into the matter of ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... was named, Guly glanced anxiously toward his brother, but Arthur's eye was turned another way, and when the collation was brought he sat readily down at the table by Clinton's side. Guly did not wish to appear ill-bred or impolite, and he accepted the hearty invitation of his new acquaintance to "sit by," with as good a grace as he could command. Of the wine, however, he could not be prevailed upon to touch a drop—though he did not fail to perceive the sneer that curled Mr. Clinton's ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... my daughter talk of her. An insolent, ill-bred girl. I have been taught to consider her somewhat a disgrace to your excellent ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... very ill-bred, very loutish, and very badly taught, my friend, to speak to me in that fashion, without first taking off your hat, without observing rationem loci, temporis et personae. What! you begin by an abrupt speech, instead of saying Salve, vel salvus sis, doctor ...
— The Jealousy of le Barbouille - (La Jalousie du Barbouille) • Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
... pang of jealousy as yet, and so, while he could not understand Griffith's restless anxiety to resent his presence, could still tolerate it and keep cool. Yet, as might be expected, he rather underrated his antagonist. Seeing him only in this one unfavorable light, he regarded him simply as a rather ill-bred, or, at least, aggressively inclined individual, whose temper and tone of mind might reasonably be objected to. Once or twice he had even felt his own blood rise at some implied ignoring of himself; but he was far the more urbane and well-disposed of the two, yet whether lie was to be highly ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... very good and kind to let me go at all after he found the sort of society rampant around her. He didn't like it extremely, but being the prince of husbands, he was lenient to my desires, and yielded the point. She seems to live in the abomination of desolation, as far as regards society—crowds of ill-bred men who adore her, 'a genoux bas', betwixt a puff of smoke and an ejection of saliva—society of the ragged red, diluted with the low theatrical. She herself so different, so apart, so alone in her melancholy disdain. I was deeply interested in that poor woman. I felt a profound ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... proud islanders must have forsaken for a time the road to nobleness when we are able to exalt the saying "A full purse is the only true friend" into a representative English proverb! We do not rage and foam as Timon did—that would be ill-bred and ludicrous; we simply smile and utter delicate mockeries. In the plays that best please our golden youth nothing is so certain to win applause and laughter as a sentence about the treachery or greed of friends. Do those grinning, superlatively insolent cynics really represent the ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... evening walk, with all the camp dogs in attendance,—the nimble greyhound, the age-stiffened and sedate spaniel, the saucy, ill-bred bull-terrier, and the naive baby pug. The loitering walk usually ended at the red farmhouse a mile away, and the walkers returned to the camp in the gloaming, loaded with flowers, saturated with the delicious mountain air, and filled with a peace ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller |
