Guy

“ School-children have a marvelous faculty of picking up slang phrases."
"Say, but this Cellini guy—"
"What does guy really mean?"
"A guy? Why, a guy is a guy!" William rumpled his hair perplexedly.
"Mr. Grogan, you don't know what the words mean yourself, half the time. How, then, do you expect us outsiders to understand?" ”

“ Whenever I see a man in a strange crowd, it reminds me of society’s phrase at parting — ‘I’ve enjoyed myself immensely!’ It has the distinction of being the only polite remark which has any claim upon veracity. ”

“ Others, on the contrary, stand out clearly as the best product of the particular set of circumstances grouped about their lives. They seem to be the finished result of a given up-bringing, of a precise tutelage, and of a chosen career. Of this second category Guy de Maupassant is a singularly complete example. ”

“ You will learn for yourself the lessons which no one else can teach you; but I think your attitude will always be that of a gentleman. There are ways and ways of doing things — even of sowing wild oats — and among these are the way of the gentleman and the way of the fool. ”

“ Said: “Now I’ll do somebody good!
I won’t ask a thing for myself or my wife,
But I’ll make all my neighbors with happiness rife.
Whate’er their conditions,
Henceforward, physicians
And indispositions
they’re rid of for life!” ”

“ It is essential to my profession that I should be continually studying the human face, attempting to obtain from it some clew as to the character of the owner, and learning to read in it the workings of the mind within. ”

“ This person was natural son to a gentleman of good family, owing to which circumstance, and to his being of a jolly, convivial disposition, and singing a good song, he was admitted to the occasional society of the gentlemen of the country, and was a member of several of their clubs for practising athletic games, at which he was particularly expert. ”

“ For a consideration, he agrees to represent another person, and in this compromising position makes love to a pretty, and, at the same time, wealthy young woman. How he proves himself to be a Soldier and a Gentleman must be left to the reader to discover. ”

“ There was once a simple-minded old gentleman of a philosophic temper and an inquiring mind. Blessed with an ample fortune and untroubled by any business instincts, he devoted his life to the search for truth. ”

“ Something — God, or chance, or destiny, or whatever you choose to call it — led me around that last turn of the road at a moment when, if I’m not mistaken, a fellow being came to the snapping-point of self-control. ”

“ The facts are their own commentary, Monsieur le Président. I am an honest man, a hard working man, an upholsterer in the same street for the last sixteen years, known, liked, respected and esteemed by all, as my neighbors have testified, even the porter who is not folâtre every day. I am fond of work, I am fond of saving, I like honest men, and respectable pleasures. ”

“ Is it any explanation, does it give any clew to this gentleman's nature, if I say that a certain aquiline character in his nose, and a peculiar dull lustre in the eye, recall that race who, with all the odds of a great majority against them, enjoy a marvellous share of this world's prosperity? Opposite to him sits one not unworthy—even from externals—of his companionship. ”

“ I am Cuthbert Ellison, the pearler, your husband, and I wish to be no other. Forget, for mercy's sake, that I ever had a past; let us live only for my present and the future. Let me be to you the husband I would wish to be; let me work, toil, knowing no weariness in what is done for you; let me build up a new life of honour for your sake, and let the dead past bury its dead. I love you, and I want no world that has not you in it. ”

“ Here lives our gentleman the greater portion of the year; lives aspiringly according to his Wordsworthian creed. He eschews or uses with admirable moderation the coarser pleasures and vanities of life. Unselfishness, gentleness, and nicety of thought and speech are the custom of his household. He himself finds congenial occupation in literary or scientific research, in the hope of adding some book or monograph to the world's store of art or knowledge. ”

“ A gentleman entered, with a pleasant, cultured face, high-nosed and pale, with something perhaps of petulance about the mouth, and with the steady, well-opened eye of a man whose pleasant lot it had ever been to command and to be obeyed. ”

“ They had loved each other before marriage with a pure and lofty love. They had first met on the sea-shore. He had thought this young girl charming, as she passed by with her light-colored parasol and her dainty dress amid the marine landscape against the horizon. He had loved her, blond and slender, in these surroundings of blue ocean and spacious sky. He could not distinguish the tenderness which this budding woman awoke in him from the vague and powerful emotion which the fresh salt air and the grand scenery of surf and sunshine and waves aroused in his soul. ”

“ As it was, no English gentleman ever approached him with the common forms of introduction, that did not come away at once surprised and charmed by the kind courtesy of his manners, the unpretending play of his conversation, and on nearer intercourse the frank, youthful spirits, to the flow of which he gave way with such zest as to produce the impression that gaiety was after all the true bent of his disposition. ”

“ How elevated must be the tone of their thoughts, the style of their conversation! and what a lucky accident it was that led you to that goal to which all your wishes and hopes have been converging!—For how much can a man live—a single gentleman like myself—here in your city? ”

“ From the etymology of the word to the humanity of the character, a full, forcible, frank, and fervent discussion of the Gentleman is given, as he figures in history, in society, in domestic life, and in literature,—and as he lives, a grand and gracious ideal, in the consciousness of the author. ”

“ In the terrible music and menace of its warning, the voice cleft the air like a great sword. The people in the theatre cowered like a field of corn when the wind blows over it. Every face grew pale, and in the slight pause and breathless silence which followed Joseph's words, quick ears could distinguish a curious sound—or, rather, the intimation of a sound. ”

“ Certain telegrams appeared in all the papers which struck a chill of fear to the very heart of all who read them, Christian and indifferent alike.
It was as though a great and ominous bell had begun to toll over the world.
The faces of people in the streets were universally pale. ”

“ High and low, rich and poor, mutually respect each other’s feelings without reference to the wealth or social status of either; and this is after all the essence of what constitutes the true gentleman. ”

“ See how the flaxen-haired young gentleman with the weak legs-he who has his pocket-handkerchief thrust into the breast of his coat-glares upon the fainthearted civilians who linger to look upon his glory; how the next young gentleman elevates his head in the air, and majestically places his arms a-kimbo, while the third stands with his legs very wide apart, and clasps his hands behind him. ”

“ One could see at a look that he considered himself a gentleman, that he lived in the country, and that the highest exercise of his gentility had been to stalk about from one mud-hole to another, with his hands in his pockets. ”

“ It was one of those gloomy days with Pierre when we pry into every corner of our souls and shake out every crease.
"All our endeavours are like the labours of those babies," thought he. And then he wondered whether the wisest thing in life were not to beget two or three of these little creatures and watch them grow up with complacent curiosity. A longing for marriage breathed on his soul. A man is not so lost when he is not alone. ”

“ What might have been termed her masculine method was based on the broad, general principle that the adult male is most interested in the persons most interested in him, and it never failed, in its many modifications, of effect. ”

“ Rosémilly, the widow of a captain of a merchantman who had died at sea two years before. The young widow—quite young, only three-and-twenty—a woman of strong intellect who knew life by instinct as the free animals do, as though she had seen, gone through, understood, and weighted every conceivable contingency, and judged them with a wholesome, strict, and benevolent mind, had fallen into the habit of calling to work or chat for an hour in the evening with these friendly neighbours, who would give her a cup of tea. ”

“ The baron gazed with a sad eye into the distance at the vast Norman landscape, undulating and melancholy, like an immense English park, where the farmyards, surrounded by two or four rows of trees and full of dwarfed apple trees which hid the houses, gave a vista as far as the eye could see of forest trees, copses and shrubbery such as landscape gardeners look for in laying out the boundaries of princely estates. ”

“ She was agitated incessantly by an exasperating need to shake off this weight of misery that crushed her, for without this tormenting obsession she would still have been so happy, alert, and healthy! She felt that her soul was still fresh and bright, her heart still young, the ardor of a being that is beginning to live, an insatiable appetite for happiness, more voracious even than before, and a devouring desire to love. ”

“ THE GENTLENESS OF TRUE GIANTHOOD. "A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies—one may say, simply 'fineness of nature.' This is, of course, compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental firmness, in fact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy. ”

“ She paused in the street to gaze at herself in the shop-windows, hanging as if by one hand to all the glass plates with which merchants ornament their facades. It became a disease, an obsession. She carried in her pocket a dainty little ivory powder-box, as large as a nut, the interior of which contained a tiny mirror; and often, while walking, she held it open in her hand and raised it to her eyes.
When she sat down to read or write in the tapestried drawing-room, her mind, distracted for the time by a new occupation, would soon return to its obsession. ”

“ Nature is expanding beneath its rays; the fields are green as far as the eye can see. The big azure dome of the sky is unclouded. The farms of Normandy, scattered over the plains and surrounded by a belt of tall beeches, look, from a distance, like little woods. On closer view, after lowering the worm-eaten wooden bars, you imagine yourself in an immense garden, for all the ancient apple-trees, as gnarled as the peasants themselves, are in bloom. The sweet scent of their blossoms mingles with the heavy smell of the earth and the penetrating odor of the stables. ”

“ If your young gentleman finds everything all right, and has a good time of it, and says he likes the life, it 's a sign that—as I may say—you had better step round to the office and look at the books. ”

“ Two thousand feet above London there is a Palace of all delights. Immeasurable wealth, the genius of great artists have been combined to make a City of Enchantment. And in every garden with its plashing fountains, in its halls of pictures and delights, upon its aerial towers, down its gilded galleries, lurking at the banquet, mingling with the music, great shapes of terror squeak and gibber like the ghosts Shakespeare speaks of in ancient Rome. ”

“ It was a holy and wonderful evening-time, as the boat glided on through the vast shining solitudes. The heavenly influence stole into the souls of the three serfs, and purged them of all fear and sorrow. Imagine the enormous change in their lives. A curtain seemed to have fallen over all that they had known. The noise of the horrible castle, the sharp orders, the lash of the whip, the fœtid terrors of the stoke, had all vanished as if they had never been. Before them might lie a wonderful life, possible happiness, freedom. ”

“ A certain reckless dash about him, not common to a refined gentleman, forces us to set him down as one of those individuals who hold an uncertain position in society; and though they may now and then mingle with men of refinement, have their more legitimate sphere in a fashionable world of doubtful character. ”

“ The sixteenth century marks an epoch in the history of the gentleman, as in all else. Old ideas disappear, to come again in new combinations. Familiar words take on meanings that completely transform them. The same hands wielded the sword and the pen. The scholars, the artists, the poets, began to feel a sense of personal worth, and carried the gallant spirit of the gentleman into their work. They were not mere specialists, but men of action. ”

“ If you had looked at that stalwart and serious gentleman in the box, correct, evidently prosperous, with his honest and rather blank gaze, you would certainly have imagined him to be one of those fortunate creatures without a history, a soul without a scar. ”

“ If India be the land of magic, this, my dearest Matilda, is the country of romance. The scenery is such as nature brings together in her sublimest moods—sounding cataracts—hills which rear their scathed heads to the sky—lakes, that, winding up the shadowy valleys, lead at every turn to yet more romantic recesses—rocks which catch the clouds of heaven. ”

“ I saw a gracious gentleman who adapts his conversation to the form of the head of the man he talks with! I had fancied that the value of life lay in its inscrutable possibilities; in the fact that I never know, in addressing myself to a new individual, what may befall me. ”

“ His father!—A very worthy man, no doubt, upright and honest in business, but with a mind which had never gone beyond the horizon of his shop. How was it that this woman, who must have been very pretty—as he knew, and it could still be seen—gifted, too, with a delicate, tender emotional soul, could have accepted a man so unlike herself as a suitor and a husband? ”