Word: gentility
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Gentle Unicorn. The unicorn, King of (nonexistent) Beasts, was reputed to be a graceful, strong animal that could not be taken by force. But like the "gentil knights" of the troubadours' verses, it would lay its head in a virgin's lap. A pity, says Ley, to believe that the unicorn is only an ugly rhinoceros, dimly and distantly seen. Perhaps the noble beast had a pleasanter prototype. Modern scientists know, Ley points out, that the horn buds of a calf can be transplanted to the middle of its forehead, where they develop together into a "unicorn" (single...
...stocky, dark man with a round face, high cheekbones and thin lips. He never smiled; neither did he grumble. His bosses liked him because he was.always the first on the job, the last to leave. The other workers in his gang liked him too and called him gentil garçon (nice guy) even though he never joined them at the bistro. Giuseppe did not drink. He had no family and no friends. He had no girl-women frightened him. Nor did he have a God. His fellow workers called him a "devourer of books." He lived alone...
...Ainsi se brise un noble coeur. Bonne . nuit, gentil prince, Que le chant de cohortes d'anges te conduise vers le repos...
...Lily Pons and the English language on a footing of jovial acquaintance rather than intimacy. Her soprano chatter is the sort which newspaper interviewers, transcribing every zis and zat with loving care, particularly admire. Of England's late King George V she said: "Ze Keeng-he ees tres gentil-zo zhentle, zo keeng." Of a shoe which was too small for even her No. 2 foot: ;'Eet ees no. I cannot enter." Pert and naive-looking with her big brown eyes, her childish face framed by a reddish pageboy bob, Lily Pons is to all appearances docile, even...
...sprint! Follow the singer!'' She brusquely interrupted arias and duets: "Très pianissimo. . . . But, my dear, you are folle with love for the man! . . . The public-look at your public, there in the galleries too." Then she burst into gay applause: "C'est gentil, ça!" Prowling around, never sitting down, the woman in white went on for three hours, abruptly dismissing one group of singers to call up another, suddenly feigning vexation that the time had passed so quickly...