It was the mark of a "perfect gentleman" to unbend to plainer folk, and to mingle with them in moments of relaxation.

Lord Byron speaks of it in the "Giaour": "The rose o'er crag or vale, Sultana of the nightingale, The maid for whom his melody, His thousand songs are heard on high, Blooms blushing to her lover's tale, His queen, the garden queen, his rose, Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows.

It seemed an even match, however, for he kept his feet by sheer brute force, and his muscles seemed hard and unbending as steel.

He was not free him-self from a slight curiosity as to the reasons which had made the captain unbend in so unusual a fashion.

He must be in his eightieth year; he has been ill and seems feeble, but he is still the majestic old man, unbent in figure and undimmed in eye.

Then his dark eyebrows unbending with the reflection, maybe, that it was so much the better to his purpose that Moll could so act as to deceive him, he seats himself gravely, and replies to Jack: "Your family wit may get you a night's lodging, but I doubt if you will ever merit it so well as your daughter.

Even Jarvis unbent to him, and insisted upon his sitting with them for the third act.

" "More can one not ask of thee," Fra Paolo answered, suddenly unbending from the stilted mood of his last words.

True talk should have more body and blood, should be louder, vainer and more declaratory of the man; the true talker should not hold so steady an advantage over whom he speaks with; and that is one reason out of a score why I prefer my Purcel in his second character, when he unbends into a strain of graceful gossip, singing like the fireside kettle.

And Constance, though she looks so stately, can unbend like a school-girl.

He was cold and unbending towards his aunt, who spoke with far too much unconcern about the "great day."

The stately figure which bore itself so majestically in Courts and Parliaments naturally unbent among the costermongers of Whitechapel and the labourers of Dorsetshire.

She came down to see Mr. Bargrave's clerk that afternoon, pale, calm, collected, beautiful, but stern and unbending under the sorrow against which her haughty nature rebelled.

I doubt if he could unbend at the dinner-table like Disraeli and Palmerston, or tell stories like Sydney Smith, or drink too much wine with jolly companions, or forget for a moment the proper and the conventional.

And, when unbending among friends from his exacting literary labors, the charm of his presence and conversation was perfect.