Word: bred
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1870-1879
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...enough the constitution of the Amphyctyonic Council, but on election day eliminates the electors from his ticket, and votes for President directly (as a Western Professor really did), and then practical politicians call him a "d-n literary fellow." This is the result of his college training! A college-bred man can do better in professional life, where his irregular habits may be tolerated, than in business; but even here he is at a disadvantage beside a plain, matter-of-fact man of the world...
...part of the world there are very few men who approach my idea of what a gentleman ought to be. There are some bright men, and a great many smart ones; some able men, and an unusually large number of honest ones; but very few who are really well-bred men of the world. This is perfectly natural. We have no families, or if we have, etiquette does not permit us to say much about them; and, in general, our society is composed of two classes of men, - those who are busily engaged in making fortunes, and those...
...time, as somebody or other said, there was never a spot on earth so wicked that a man could not live a good life there if he wanted to; and there never was a place where manners were so horribly bad that a man who chose to be well-bred could-not succeed. I have seen one or two very well-behaved people from the far West...
...also familiar enough with the phenomena of the beginning of a Freshman-year, to understand that you have probably been invited already to about a dozen punches, from which many of your classmates had to be carried home to bed. Many of these men, too, are probably agreeable, well-bred fellows, who in their sober moments bear no more resemblance to a beast than you do. And very likely you find yourself in a predicament. You do not know whether to hold to your old prejudices and keep away from the degraded sinners, or to waive these prejudices altogether...
...however, we know that such is not the case. And the consequence is, that instead of being a leader in discovery, invention, and opinion, the representative Harvard graduate of to-day is, as a general thing, a representative merely of a slight amount of culture and the most well-bred traits. He is able to pass a fair opinion in literature, art, and occasionally in science, but is far from being a forerunner in progressive work. He is amply satisfied to luxuriate in the attainments of the present. In other words, his civilization is stationary...