"Well-meant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their well-meant zeal, and loud in their remonstrances on the imprudence and rashness of my conduct. They called me presumptuous and cruel in exposing my wife and child, as well as myself, to such imminent hazard, for the sake of one, too, who most probably was worthless, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... in respect of Tupia, but it is liable to much objection as a general maxim. Besides the greater number of impracticable prejudices which attach themselves to imperfectly cultivated minds when placed in new situations, and which often render well-meant exertions unavailing, it is certain, that superior knowledge both affords greater aptitude of accommodation to unusual circumstances by the speedy discovery it enables the person to make of the principles ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... little information of a miscellaneous kind. "He was a great lover of music by nature," says his famous son, "and played the harp without knowing a note of music." He had a fine tenor voice, and when the day's toil was over he would gather his household around him and set them singing to his well-meant accompaniment. ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... ought to have demanded for him a treatment of deference and respect, himself listened too readily to complaints and invectives, and suffered them to prejudice him against the truly amiable, ingenuous, and kind-hearted minister. Instead of putting candid constructions on well-meant purposes, of cautioning his inexperience, or giving friendly advice, he treated him with coldness and neglect.[3] The only apology for this is that suggested by Southey.[4] "The Governor, who had causes enough to disquiet him, arising from the precarious state of ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... silence to suppress my griefs I've tried, And kept within its banks the swelling tide! But all in vain: unbidden numbers flow; Spite of myself my sorrows vocal grow. This be my plea.—Nor thou, dear Shade, refuse The well-meant tribute of the willing muse, Who trembles at the greatness of its theme, And fain would say what suits so high a name. Which, from the crowded journal of thy fame,— Which of thy many titles shall ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... well-meant visit to Berlin proving so futile, had left Maupertuis in the humor we saw;—pirouetting round his Apartment, in tempests of rage at such contradiction of sinners on his sublime Law of Thrift; and fulminating permission to Konig: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... the apartment which had been formerly occupied by the two Glendinnings, and when her faithful attendant, Tibbie, had exhausted herself in useless attempts to compose and to comfort her. Father Eustace also dealt forth with well-meant kindness those apophthegms and dogmata of consolation, which friendship almost always offers to grief, though they are uniformly offered in vain. She was at length left to indulge in the desolation of her own sorrowful feelings. She felt as those who, loving for the first ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... supreme and devastating study of the illiterate minor official in Bumble. That one figure lit up and still lights the whole problem of Poor Law administration for the English reading community. It was a translation of well-meant regulations and pseudo-scientific conceptions of social order into blundering, arrogant, ill-bred flesh and blood. It was worth a hundred Royal Commissions. You may make your regulations as you please, said Dickens in effect; this is one sample ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... enterprise I was informed, when I called for my bill, that that was all right; and I still recall with amusement the incredulous and obstinate resistance of the clerk to my insistence on paying my way. I hope that the genial proprietors do not attribute the asterisk that I gave the hotel to their well-meant efforts to give me quid pro quo, but credit me with a totally unbiassed admiration for their ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... chubby hands and began to drag her round the room. Her howls drew Scipio's attention from his work, and he turned to find them a struggling heap upon the floor. He dashed to part them, kicked over a bucket of drinking water in his well-meant hurry, and, finally, had to rescue them, both drenched to the skin, ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... went to pay their visit to the German Ocean, leaving her with Mysie—which they certainly would not have done, could they have foreseen how the well-meaning lady—nine-tenths of the mischiefs in the world are well-meant—would hurt the feelings of the gentle-conditioned girl. For a long time after, as often as Gibbie entered the shop, Mysie left it and her mother came—a result altogether as Mrs. Sclater would have had it. But hardly anybody was ever in less danger of falling ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... the difference between a boy and a girl. A healthy, well-conditioned boy becomes embarrassed and cross at a well-meant compliment spoken in the presence of another, believing that the person who is complimenting him is making fun of him in some unknown and covert way. But to a girl a compliment that is sincere is as grateful as dew to a rose, and Stella always felt much elated when Ted complimented ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... The nurse. Won't you take baby for a minute, sir? Just to get acquainted, and for appearance's sake." She whispered the well-meant entreaty. Brock, now well into the spirit of the situation, obligingly extended his arms. The baby set up a lusty howl ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... though a Catholic," replied the Countess. "I have long feared that the well-meant zeal of our priests for increasing converts, would draw on them the suspicion of the English nation. These efforts have been renewed with double energy since the Duke of York conformed to the Catholic faith; and the same event has doubled the hate and jealousy of the Protestants. So ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... British formed themselves into peace committees, and endeavoured to convey to the fighting commandos some information as to the hopelessness of the struggle, and the lenient mood of the British. Unfortunately these well-meant offers appear to have been mistaken for signs of weakness by the Boer leaders, and encouraged them to harden their hearts. Of the delegates who conveyed the terms to their fellow countrymen two at least were shot, several were condemned to death, and few returned ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ties of kindred are, as they decrease in number, can tell how this news fell upon my heart. All my poor uncle's kindnesses came one by one full upon my memory; his affectionate letters of advice; his well-meant chidings, too, even dearer to me than his praise and approval, completely unmanned me; and I stood speechless and powerless before my cousin as he continued to detail to me the rapid progress of Sir ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... under his seat for more leisurely inspection later on. He had to smile to think of the patience, the ingenuity and the eccentric operation of the well-meant project of his young inventor friend. The bellows principle of increasing the furnace draft might have been harmless in a stationary engine. Even on the locomotive it had shown some added suction power while the locomotive was going ahead, but ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... happens to be from Sunday to Sunday, is almost sure to find in every city of considerable size at least one imperious capable baffling clergyman. If one is strictly honest and fair toward him, to say nothing of being a well-meant and hopeful human being who is living in the same world with him and who feels very imperfect too, finding any serious and honest fault with the sermon, or at least laying one's finger upon what the fault is, seems to be almost ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... and he works to that end.) She accepted. We watched our opportunity, and, between dances, when no one was taking notice, we whispered the word of warning. For a moment she looked alarmed, but did she heed? Evidently not. Possibly she resented the well-meant advice, and, in consequence, soon paid the fearful ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... attention of his hearers, till he happened to notice that they all had their eyes fixed in a diabolical squint. Something of the same kind would, we fear, be the effect on a large number of persons of well-meant expositions of the English civil-service reform and its admirable results. Nor will any appeals to the moral sense excite an indignation at the workings of our present system sufficiently deep and general to demand its overthrow. Civil-service ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... wild with fear lest the servants, in their stupid but well-meant wish not to disturb me, might have sent important visitors away. However, when Marianne came flying in, in answer to my long peal of the electric bell, she said that no one had been. There were letters and one telegram, and all ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... fellows considered themselves as champions for the bird which had come over land and sea, and chosen its shelter under their mother's roof. They therefore marshaled themselves with blowguns, to execute summary vengeance; but their well-meant endeavors brought destruction upon the mud-built domicile they wished to defend. Their artillery loosened the foundations, and down it came, precipitating its four little inmates to the ground. The mother of the children, Good Samaritan-like, replaced the little outcasts in their nest, and ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... occasional snatches of the talk. Presently she rose; softly entered the house and listened at a closed door on the northward side—Captain Wren's own room. An hour previous, tortured between his own thoughts and her well-meant, but unwelcome efforts to cheer him, he had begged to be left alone, and had closed his ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... To every one outside the Rutter clan she had insisted that she was sorry for Harry, but that she could never marry a man whose temper she could not trust. She never put this into words in answering the well-meant inquiries of such girl friends as Nellie Murdoch, Sue Dorsey, and the others; then her eyes would only fill with tears as she begged them not to question her further. Nor had she said as much to her father, who on one occasion had asked her ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... seasonal unemployment, is the chief stumbling block in the way to a solution of the problem of poverty; that he furnishes the human power in "sweated trades:" that immigrants form the majority of unskilled and sweated laborers; if we remember that there is not a shred of evidence (except the well-meant enthusiasm of the protagonists of the immigrant) to show that immigration has "forced-up" the American laborer and his standard of living, instead of displacing him downward; if we remember that probably 10,000,000 of our people are in poverty, and that though the immigrant ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... such heavy complaints against you?" "I have not beaten her, but just because she looked so strange I wanted to comb her hair with my hand; she, however, got away from me, and left me quite spitefully. Then I hurried after her, and in order to bring her back to her duty, I threw at her as a well-meant admonition whatever came readily to hand. I have shared joy and sorrow with her also, for whenever I hit her I was full of joy, and she of sorrow, and if I missed her, then she was joyful, and I sorry." The judges were not satisfied with ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... umbrellas without a murmur, and smart men on drags shook hands effusively as, amidst a frantic roar of delight, Bendigo strode past the post. The moment after, I looked round for my incongruous stranger, and saw him engaged in a well-meant attempt to press a currant bun upon a carriage-horse tethered to one of the trees—a feat of abstraction which, at such a time, was only surpassed by that of Archimedes at the sack ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... prohibited his people from taking any part in the wild Bacchanalian revels. Anxious to save him from the consequences of his impiety, Dionysus appeared to him under the form of a youth in the king's train, and earnestly warned him to desist from his denunciations. But the well-meant admonition failed in its purpose, for Pentheus only became more incensed at this interference, and, commanding Dionysus to be cast into prison, caused the most cruel preparations to be made for his immediate ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... my fellow prisoners was particularly communicative and obliging, and gave me a great deal of well-meant advice, no doubt, as to how I might live at the public expense outside the prison walls, as well as explanations in every department of crime. I remember the following dialogue taking place between us, which also serves to show how an ignoramus in the science, ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... that we may at least imagine, as he was so reluctant, that he did what he could to soften the proceedings. Jean de la Fontaine, too, was a milder man than her former questioners, and in so small an assembly she could not be disturbed and interrupted by Frere Isambard's well-meant signs and whispers. She speaks at length and with a self-disclosure which seems to have little that was painful in it, like one matured into a kind of age by long weariness and trouble, who regards the panorama of her life passing ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... higher. How could he have dreamed of kissing her? He could hardly refrain from tears. Surely nothing more pitiable had ever been known than the condition of this poor young thing, now as heretofore the victim of her father's well-meant but blundering policy. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... grill, the wigged, attentive, weary Speaker, the table and the mace and the chapel-like Gothic background with its sombre shadows, conspire together, produce a confused, uncertain feeling in me, as though I was walking upon a pavement full of trap-doors and patches of uncovered morass. A misplaced, well-meant "Hear, Hear!" is apt to be extraordinarily disconcerting, and under no other circumstances have I had to speak with quite the same sideways twist that the arrangement of the House imposes. One does ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... foreseen the very real misery—for any doubt of her own qualities, any fear of her ability to carry herself well in any situation, are among the most acute of a proud woman's miseries—which for some twenty-four hours was brought upon Maggie by the well-meant intrigue of which he was pulling the hidden strings, he might, because of his love for Maggie, have discarded his design even while he was creating it, and have sought a measure pregnant with less distress. But perhaps it was just as well that Larry did not know. Perhaps, even, it ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... curtain rose upon the first act. This dramatic scheme took away the breath of the house for a moment, but only for a moment. Then the lungs once more did their accustomed duty, and enabled a large number of excited persons to hiss with a wonderful penetration. Their well-meant efforts did not have the effect of terrorizing the author. On the contrary, he quickly responded to the hostile uproar, and, coming forward in a very neat Jaeger suit, a flannel shirt, and a pair of admirably fitting doeskin gloves, bowed with great gravity and perfect self-possession. ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the apples was regarded by a fellow-traveller with a species of horror. "Touch them not, if you value your life." Every draught of fresh air and water inspired me with renewed health and spirits, and I disregarded the well-meant advice; the gentlemen who gave it had just recovered from the terrible disease. He was a middle-aged man, a farmer from the Upper Province, Canadian born. He had visited Montreal on business for the first ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... larger class of our people are inclined to go to the opposite extreme, and ignore veneration, in its human aspect, altogether. They have no reverence for anybody or anything. This class of people will read our book, and, we trust, profit by its well-meant hints. We respect them, though we can not always commend their manners. They have independence and manliness, but fail to accord due respect to the manhood of others. It is for their special benefit that we leave touched with considerable ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... enemy were immediately turned; they retreated in confusion, amid the laughter of all France; and a quiet, dignified statement as to the rights of scientific instructors by Wurtz, dean of the faculty, completed their discomfiture. Thus a well-meant attempt to check science simply ended in bringing ridicule on religion, and in thrusting still deeper into the minds of thousands of men that most mistaken of all mistaken ideas: the conviction that religion and science ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... suffrage—an arrant misnomer—has fallen short of its well-meant original purpose is beyond dispute. We see its baneful effect in municipal, State and national government. The unparalleled political corruption in most of our large cities, the narrowness of public men in State and nation, whose horizon is bounded ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... was glad that at last it was over and they were out in the sunshine once more. He turned into the carefully reserved place at the head of the procession with almost a sense of relief. He was tired, fiercely tired, of the well-meant but insistent pity which dogged him with a tenacity that drove him desperate. They would not even allow him ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... neighborhood. We'd fall into the hands of the Japanese or the English. As a matter of fact, we again had great luck. On the day before a Japanese warship had been cruising around here. Naturally, I rejected all the well-meant and kindly advice, and did this in the presence of my lieutenants. I demanded provisions, water, sails, tackle, and clothing. They replied we could take on board everything which we had formerly had on board, but nothing which would mean an ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... three unhappy fellows in tail coats, with incipient down on their chins, whom the Doctor and the master of the form were always endeavouring to hoist into the upper school, but whose parsing and construing resisted the most well-meant shoves. Then came the mass of the form, boys of eleven and twelve, the most mischievous and reckless age of British youth, of whom East and Tom Brown were fair specimens. As full of tricks as monkeys, and of excuses as Irishwomen, making ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... an escort? She had not given it a thought. Surely one might go about a matter of business without a gentleman's escort? The Fremont girls did so. That it might be improper had not occurred to her, and it vexed her to be reminded of it by Hugh, so his well-meant offer failed ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... is only half-baked, and her power for mischief may be hardly, if at all, impaired by the grilling. We can now see that in such matters half-measures are useless. To kill the animal first and burn it afterwards is a weak compromise, dictated no doubt by a well-meant but utterly mistaken kindness; it is like shutting the stable-door when the steed is stolen, for obviously by leaving the animal's, and therefore the witch's, body nearly intact at the moment of death, it allows ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... fictitious characters, incidents, and situations), as a warning to others. She hated her work, but would pursue it. When reasoned with on the subject, she regarded such reasonings as a temptation to self- indulgence. She must be honest; she must not varnish, soften, nor conceal. This well-meant resolution brought on her misconstruction, and some abuse, which she bore, as it was her custom to bear whatever was unpleasant, with mild, steady patience. She was a very sincere, and practical Christian, but the tinge of religious ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte
... defend your own acts! for you consented to it. Nor yet shall I deny that I advised him to withdraw himself from the toils of the warfare and the voyage, and to try by rest to assuage his cruel pains. He consented, and {still} he lives. This advice was not only well-meant, but {it was} fortunate as well, when 'twas enough to be well-meant. Since our prophets demand him for the purpose of destroying Troy, entrust not that to me. The son of Telamon will be better to go, and by his eloquence will soften the hero, maddened by diseases ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... all we get by our well-meant effort to convince Spaniards of the brutality of bullfights. Must Chicago be virtuous before I can object to Madrid ale, and say that its cakes are ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... for this well-meant counsel. "But," said he, "my friends and I are weary, and we must think of resting for the night before we set forth ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... long before the village was traversed; then, through a mist of them, she saw a hand stretched to meet her own and heard a voice which rang kindly on her ears. It was Sally Trevennick, who faced the spiteful laughter without flinching and said a few loud, friendly words, though indeed her well-meant support brought scant comfort with ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... La Valliere that the reader of "Vingt Ans Apres" is inclined to flee. Well, he is right there too, though not so right. Louise is no success. Her creator has spared no pains; she is well-meant, not ill-designed, sometimes has a word that rings out true; sometimes, if only for a breath, she may even engage our sympathies. But I have never envied the King his triumph. And so far from pitying Bragelonne for his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... every art is founded on a science of observations; for love is not wisdom, but love must act according to wisdom in order to succeed. Mothers and nurses, however tender and kind-hearted, may, and oftenest do, weary and vex the nerves of children, in well-meant efforts to amuse them, and weary themselves the while. Froebel's exercises, founded on the observations of an intelligent sensibility, are intended to amuse without wearying, to educate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... was mostly her own. It is not a laughable sight to see the comfortable fractions of Christian communities everywhere striving, with sincere, pious, well-meant, criminal benevolence, to make their poor brethren contented with the ditch. Nor does it become so to see these efforts meet, or seem to meet, some degree of success. Happily man cannot so place his brother that his ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... himself into his cabin and read the book a second time; he underlined passages in red and blue, and when the dawn broke, he took "A well-meant little ablative on the play A Doll's House, written by the old Pal on board the Vanadis in the Atlantic off Bordeaux. ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... economic aspect, was a well-meant attempt to abolish the law of competition—that is, the natural law of the Survival of the Fittest. It was an attempt, I say; and it ended, as we know, in disaster; for it established instead, so far as it was successful, the law of the Survival of the Majority, ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... put into the litter we had made out of Henrietta's stilts and a railway rug. We put the Scotch terrier in instead; but when one end of the litter gave way and he fell out, we were not sorry that the emergency was a fancy one, and that no broken limbs were really dependent upon our well-meant efforts. ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... and Lady Bona, heare me speake, Before you answer Warwicke. His demand Springs not from Edwards well-meant honest Loue, But from Deceit, bred by Necessitie: For how can Tyrants safely gouerne home, Vnlesse abroad they purchase great allyance? To proue him Tyrant, this reason may suffice, That Henry liueth still: but were hee dead, Yet here Prince ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... you, man—to console you," says Meekin, indignant at the contempt with which his well-meant overtures had been received. "I wanted to give you some ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... at him quietly with the faintest flicker of a smile. "Ah, I won't offend you again, my dear fellow. I'm afraid that I'm a bit too impulsive, and that you are too proud a man even to listen to a well-meant and kindly ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... lightly across the tent. In this involuntary flight the little creature unfortunately struck the tent-pole with considerable force, and half of his tail was broken off—a matter of no very great importance to a lizard, perhaps, but still a discouraging reward for a well-meant warning. Notwithstanding this the little reptile returned to the bed, keeping close to his master, but he continued to be very restless and excited for ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... This apparently well-meant advice was eagerly taken up by the enemy, who now hastened, as he thought, to destroy the fleet of the Greeks. But the event proved the wisdom of Themistocles. The unwieldy armament of the Persians was unable to perform any movements in the narrow straits between the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... him, and Estelle's well-meant but ill-judged action merely served to terminate Abel's education ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... Uncle Geoffrey, rather sternly, "you are taking a sixth part of your mother's entire income; all that she has for herself and these girls; if you squander it rashly, you will be robbing the widow and the fatherless. You have scouted my well-meant advice, and Allan's"—he went on—"and are marking out your own path in life very foolishly, as we think; remember, you have only yourself to blame, if you make that life a failure. Artists are of the same stuff as other men, and ought to be ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... et anything that disagreed with me," Laurella pettishly replied to his well-meant inquiries. "You're thinkin' about yo'se'f. I never eat more than is good for me, nor anything that ain't jest right. Hit ain't my stomach. Hit's right there in my side. Looks like hit was my heart, an' I believe in my soul it is. Oh, law, if I ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... Kindly and well-meant advice, but Levy would have none of it. He still smiled, though now somewhat grimly, as he went from friend to friend, insisting that he would not fail to bring his piratical crew to justice. And ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... are torn to pieces by the common hangman in the Plaza Mayor, and cast into the air. I must confess that I am vexed and grieved that as fast as I build up, some intemperate friend rushes forward, and by his perhaps well-meant zeal casts down and destroys what has cost ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... Ellis received for his well-meant effort to ward off Mrs. Ochiltree's embarrassing inquiries was that he did not see Clara upon his next visit, which was made one afternoon while he was on night duty at the office. In conversation with Mrs. Carteret he learned that Clara's marriage had been ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Bonheur very wisely decided not to make plans for his child for a time, but see what was her natural tendency. It was well that he made this decision in time, before she had been spoiled by his well-meant ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had cleared him of any complicity in Tennessee's guilt, and left only a suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling on him, and proffering various uncouth but well-meant kindnesses. But from that day his rude health and great strength seemed visibly to decline; and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were beginning to peep from the rocky mound above Tennessee's grave, he took to ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... I can bear it; 'Tis a well-meant alms of breath; But not all the preaching since Adam, Has made ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... this well-meant advice is not to hasten his marriage, but to put it off because he is not allowed to take the course he feels safest. Or if he is willing, the parents of his prospective bride are not, and so young people do not marry on $1000 a year, for fear of the elder ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... girls of Dalton school were crowded around Dorothy, asking all kinds of well-meant questions concerning her health. Tavia, too, came in for her share of the queries, although hers did not relate to health, but to other interesting little confidences, least of which was, by no ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... was that Lucretia had at one time eagerly caught at their well-meant civilities to Helen,—now she as abruptly declined them. Why? It would be hard to plumb into all the black secrets of that heart. It would have been but natural to her, who shrank from dooming Helen to no worse ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 'vindicating the ways of God to man' might have been condemned for 'lavishing much of his attention upon syllables and sounds.' Moreover, the poor man did his best by introducing sounding proper names, even when they 'added little music to his poem:' an example of this feeble, though well-meant expedient, being the passage ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... troubled him. To diminish his fears and laugh him into something like reasonable faith, I said, "Come, cheer up; smile a little and clap your hands, now that kind Mother Earth is trotting us on her knee to amuse us and make us good." But the well-meant joke seemed irreverent and utterly failed, as if only prayerful terror could rightly belong to the wild beauty-making business. Even after all the heavier shocks were over I could do nothing to reassure him, on the contrary, he handed me the keys of his little store to keep, saying ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... arms and old men without neckties who came to him for free advice. These he guided patiently in their troubles, and he would sit an hour to listen to a piteous story. In an extremity he gave them money, or took a well-meant but worthless note. Often his callers overran the dinner hour and my mother would have to jingle the dinner bell at the door to rouse them. Occasionally he would be called on for a public speech, and for several days he would be busy ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... me from bed in a gentle, lumbering, well-meant fashion, and I was sitting up for the ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... of Gaelic courtesy to an elder, well-meant, pardonable; it visibly pleased the old gentleman to whom it was addressed, and he looked more in admiration than before upon this ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... being assured by his senatorial friends that there was no possibility of the bill being reached, and unable to bear the final blow of hearing the gavel fall which should signalize his defeat, shrinking from the well-meant condolences of his friends, he returned almost ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... the damage done was by paying her money or by entering into a forced and therefore probably unfortunate marriage with her. That is to say that sexual relationships were, by the ecclesiastical traditions, placed on a pecuniary basis, on the same level as prostitution. By its well-meant intentions to support the theological morality which had developed on an ascetic basis, the Church was thus really undermining even that form of sexual ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Mr. Browning's copy of 'Rosalind and Helen', which he had lent to Miss Flower, and which she lost in this wood on a picnic. This and a bald though well-meant notice in the 'Athenaeum' exhaust its literary history for ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... reaching some suitable stopping- place for the night. But the good people of Ismidt raise their voices in protest against what they professedly regard as a rash and dangerous proposition. As I evince a disposition to override their well-meant interference and pull out, they hurriedly send for a Frenchman, who can speak sufficient English to make himself intelligible. Speaking for himself, and acting as interpreter in echoing the words ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... strongly opposed not only by members of the Faculty but by men whose sons were in the University. The fear prevailed that the students would be unmanageable under the many temptations which Montgomery would afford, and that even the well-meant hospitality of the citizens, which was sure to be generous, would cause trouble. Whether to make the trip or not was left to my decision. I decided without hesitation in favor of the expedition, and arrangements were made for two steamboats, one to take us down the Black ...
— The Supplies for the Confederate Army - How they were obtained in Europe and how paid for. • Caleb Huse
... still we did not cease to be friends; and my well-meant warning, though it might have been more judiciously delivered, as well as more thankfully received, was not wholly unproductive of the desired effect: his visit to the Wilsons was not repeated, and though, in our subsequent ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... displayed, as a token of joy and festivity. "The tree is down! The old oak,—our landmark on the coast!" exclaimed the sailors. "It must have fallen in the storm of last night. Who can replace it? Alas! no one." This was a funeral oration over the old tree; short, but well-meant. There it lay stretched on the snow-covered shore, and over it sounded the notes of a song from the ship—a song of Christmas joy, and of the redemption of the soul of man, and of eternal life ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Robinson, he was talking with his friend Lieutenant Powell, when Cutler knocked at the wire door. The wagon-master was a privileged character, and he sat down and commented irrelevantly upon the lieutenant's pictures, Indian curiosities, and other well-meant attempts ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... been quite well for some days past, and poor old Jup annoys me, almost beyond endurance, by his well-meant attentions. Would you believe it?—he had prepared a huge stick, the other day, with which to chastise me for giving him the slip, and spending the day, solus, among the hills on the mainland. I verily believe that my ill looks alone saved me ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the well-meant and specious projects that have been brought forward, we seem driven back to the belief, that the best means of securing a fair administration of the laws made for the protection of seamen, and certainly the only means which can create any important change for the better, is the gradual one ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... to discover that success in the undertaking brought a deeper sense of exile than she could have imagined herself able to endure at the outset. She found herself more utterly alone and friendless than at any time in her life. The chance companions she formed at Interlaken,—despite a well-meant reserve,—served only to increase her feeling of loneliness and despair. The very natural attentions of men, young and old, depressed her, instead of encouraging that essentially feminine thing called vanity. She lived as one without an aim, without a single purpose ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... refused to name it a virtue, in tending a description of people, who had long ceased to expect kindness or friendliness from mankind, but were content to accept the reluctant services, which the oftentimes unfeeling instruments and servants of these well-meant institutions deal out to the poor sick ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... spared yourself that well-meant remark, Mr. Worse," answered Rachel, in a tone which made him look at her with astonishment. "It seems to me, on the contrary, that Madeleine is in very good company—just the company ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... revivalist was lost to the world when your friend became a mere broker!" And to Blake: "Why once or twice I myself became almost enthusiastic. Really, sir, you are a most convincing speaker—though if you will pardon a well-meant criticism, your low ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... scene was shifted from the East Side, there has come over there an epidemic of child crime of meaner sort, but following the same principle of gang organization. It is difficult to ascertain the exact extent of it, because of the well-meant but, I am inclined to think, mistaken effort on the part oL the children's societies to suppress the record of it for the sake of the boy. Enough testimony comes from the police and the courts, however, to make it clear that thieving is largely ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... of his tender years, however, Matt Peasley scorned this well-meant advice, notwithstanding the fact that he knew it to be sound, for by shipping as second mate and remaining in the same ship, sooner or later his chance would come. The first mate would quit, or be promoted or drowned, or get drunk; and then his shoes would be waiting for Matt tried and true, ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... friends, and from the notes of all three a memoir was compiled, but the MSS. were lost in the Mississippi. We regret that Dale's own words were thus lost; for the stories of the hardy partisan are not improved by his biographer's well-meant efforts to tell them in more graceful language. Mr. Claiborne's cheap eloquence is perhaps suited to the unfastidious taste of a lower latitude; but we prefer those stories, too few in number, in which the homely words of Dale ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... that he was speaking of the house in which this Ennis lived. It was strange that he had said nothing to these people, who evidently knew him well, in regard to the reason of her coming. It was probably a well-meant discretion that had guided his conduct, she thought, but it had caused ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... they will not be enlightened; and they who do see the real nature of the movement, its bane as well as its blessing, and who are constantly laboring to separate the chaff from the wheat, will not be helped, but hindered, by his well-meant efforts. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... In spite of the well-meant efforts made by her relatives to prevent it, Mrs. Linley committed the very error which it was the most important that she should avoid. She justified herself, instead of leaving it to events to justify her. "Miss Westerfield comes here," she argued, ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... by a considerable number of persons capable of feeling literary curiosity—a class which was then less abundant than it would now be at Cambridge. But he very soon found that his real duty was to speak to young gentlemen who had been driven into his lecture-room by well-meant regulations; who were only anxious to secure certificates for the 'poll' degree, and whose one aim was to secure them on the cheapest possible terms. To candidates for honours, the history school was at best a luxury for which they could ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... a mess of it, but as soon as he came to an end of his well-meant blunders, she stood up and began her poses and paces. It was all very innocent, with something courageous as well as appealing. She had a kind of tender dignity in her dance, and the delicate beauty of her face translated itself into the grace of her movements. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... For suddenly the admiring public took possession of her and all her affairs, past, present, and to come. Strangers demanded to look at her, question, advise, warn, congratulate, and drive her out of her wits by well-meant but very wearisome attentions. If she declined to open her heart to them, they reproached her; if she refused to endow her pet charities, relieve private wants, or sympathize with every ill and trial known to humanity, she was called hard-hearted, selfish, and haughty; if she found ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... must we do in return for this well-meant kindness? Must we not endeavour to weed out those few errors, for few I hope they are, which impoverish a mind in itself apparently fertile and of high rank?—Yes, it instantly suggested itself to ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... unfortunate outcome of the well-meant and honest attempt to procure the horse-dealer satisfaction for the injustice that had been committed against him. The knacker of Doebeln, whose business was concluded, and who did not wish to delay any longer, tied the horses to a lamppost, since the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Christianity is sometimes preached at the present day in India, in response to these well-meant but dangerous promptings, may possibly lead to the disastrous result of the incorporation of a kind of false Christ into Hinduism. Our Lord is greatly admired by a large number of intelligent Hindus. The Bible is often quoted by public speakers to illustrate ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... this simple society had its own social habits. If he did not take this well-meant advice, he must justify himself by his own method. He made up his mind to go to the next meeting of the medical society. His clothes were a trifle shabby, but as the meeting was in the evening, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... they appear to have exerted themselves to make the unhappy youth comfortable, his heart and mind were too much occupied with the dear one he had left behind for him to derive full benefit from their kind and well-meant attentions. In the first letter he wrote to his friend from his new home he says, "As Hamlet advised his mother, I have thrown away the worser part of my heart to live the purer with the other half.... Am I happy, you ask? I was never more unhappy." In other letters, written some months later, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... of the road brought familiar places in the old estate in view. Here he and Katharine and Hilary had been wont to play; there was a favorite spot, a pleasant haunt here, this had been the scene of some amusing adventure. These well-meant reminiscences nearly drove Seymour mad, but he would not stop them. Finally, they came to the place where the road divided, one branch pursuing its course along the river-bank past the boat-house ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... had been, in a way, Alice's teacher, though not greatly inclined to abet Father Beret in his kindly efforts to make a Catholic of the girl, and most treacherously disposed toward the good priest in the matter of his well-meant attempts to prevent her from reading and re-reading the aforesaid romances. But for many weeks past Gaspard Roussillon had been absent from home, looking after his trading schemes with the Indians; and Pere Beret acting on the suggestion of the proverb about the absent cat and ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... more copious than his talk; and furthermore it was always, virtually or literally, of the nature of a monologue; suffering no interruption, however reverent; hastily putting aside all foreign additions, annotations, or most ingenuous desires for elucidation, as well-meant superfluities which would never do. Besides, it was talk not flowing any-whither like a river, but spreading every-whither in inextricable currents and regurgitations like a lake or sea; terribly deficient in definite goal or aim, nay often in logical intelligibility; what ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... was, as he called it, "out of keeping." He was responsible for the introduction of young Craven into Adela Sellingworth's life. It would be very unfortunate indeed, it would be almost disastrous, if the result of that well-meant introduction were to ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... have dispensed with his well-meant kindness. Every visit I paid to Miss Blake filled my soul with bitterness. Had I been a porter, a crossing-sweeper, or a potman, she might, I suppose, have treated me with some sort of courtesy; but, ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... be well fed, and everyone would be happy. As far as we can see through the blinding mist which now surrounds us, it looks as if the State were about as competent to control trade as to control the weather. Bureaucracy is having its fling, and when the mist clears off it will stand revealed as a well-meant ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell |
