"Postilion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we did not see much of the city. We could but observe that the streets were narrow, the houses irregular, most people black, and the volante, an amusing-looking vehicle, looking behind like a black insect with high shoulders, and with a little black postilion on a horse or mule, with an enormous pair of boots and a ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... at the big grille and draw up under the porte-cochere in front of the porter's lodge. In an instant he was out of the room, down the great stairway, and at the entrance of the rez-de-chaussee, just as the postilion, dismounting, opened the door of the carriage from which emerged a large, handsome man of about thirty-five or six, who moved with surprising agility considering the fact that he boasted but one good leg, the other member being merely a wooden stump. He was ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... England, passed us with four horses; a postilion, dressed in a drosky driver's hat and long coat, rode the leaders, while another man in a similar costume sat on the box to steer the wheelers. The omnibuses are painted black or dark red—very sombre-looking conveyances, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... November, Casanova wrote from Frankfort that a drunken postilion had upset him and in the fall he had dislocated his left shoulder, but that a good bone-setter had restored it to place. On the 1st December he wrote that he was healed, having taken medicine and having been blooded. He promised to send Francesca eight sequins to pay her rent. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... up the hill, with four horses and a postilion. The avocat was in the house searching for a book. De la Riviere, seeing the carriage first, got to his feet with instant excitement, and the others turned to look. As it neared the house, the Cure took off his baretta, and smiled expectantly, a little red spot burning ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... starlight, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing. Sometimes—towards the end of a long stage—Kit could not help wishing it were a little warmer: but when they stopped to change horses, and he had had a good run, and what with that, and the bustle of paying the old postilion, and rousing the new one, and running to and fro again until the horses were put to, he was so warm that the blood tingled and smarted in his fingers' ends—then, he felt as if to have it one degree less ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... put new life in my poor old bones, I explain myself. I am arrived, I infer, at the Inn at the Red Oak; and you, monsieur, though so young, I take to be my host. I have your description, you perceive, from the good postilion. You will do me the kindness to provide me with supper ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... The postilion blew his horn—the horses started; gayly resounded the tones of the silver bells; with a light whizzing, away flew the sledge over the snow. It bore thence a dethroned ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... mules,—four pairs and a leader. They were loaded with gaudy trappings, and their shiny coats, and backs shorn into graceful arabesques, showed that they did not belong to the working-classes, but enjoyed the gentlemanly leisure of official station. The drivers wore a smart postilion uniform and the royal crown ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... cows or goats. There will be also a valuable appendix to the work, containing a correct list of all the inns on the road between Frankfort and Geneva, with a copy of the bill of fare at each, and the prices charged; together with the colour of the postilion's jacket, the age of the landlord and the weight of his wife, and the height in inches of the cook and chambermaid. To which will be added, "Ten Minutes' Advice" upon making one shilling go as far as two. If you can give me a three-halfpenny puff in your admired publication, you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... turn his course toward Charenton, where the postmaster was, as we have said, in the interest of Madame de Maine, take him into the courtyard, whose door would close upon him, force him to enter a traveling carriage, which would be waiting with the postilion in his saddle; D'Harmental and Valef would seat themselves by him, they would cross the Marne at Alfort, the Seine at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, reach Grand-Vaux, then Monthery, and find themselves on the road to Spain. If at any of the villages ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... very well. He found that respectable people were often perfectly blind to the duties of charity in every sense of the word. He found that the only man in a whole company who pitied Joseph Andrews, when stripped and beaten by robbers was a postilion with defects in his moral character. In short, he knew that respectability often practised none but the strictly self-regarding virtues, and that poverty and recklessness did not always extinguish a native goodness of heart. Perhaps this discovery made him leniently disposed ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... morning, after an early breakfast, I set off in a postchaise for the Abbey. On the way thither I stopped at the gate of Abbotsford, and sent the postilion to the house with the letter of introduction and my card, on which I had written that I was on my way to the ruins of Melrose Abbey, and wished to know whether it would be agreeable to Mr. Scott (he had not yet been made a Baronet) to receive a ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... that is to say, deliberately and of purpose. A French postilion's 'Sacr-r-re'—loud, with the low 'Nom de Dieu' following between his teeth, is not blasphemy, unless against his horse;—but Mr. Thackeray's close of his Waterloo chapter in 'Vanity Fair,' "And all the night long Amelia was ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... of the mountain, whose peak closes the long vista. The diligence was an hour later than usual, and I passed the time in watching the smoke which continued to increase in volume, and was mingled, from time to time, with jets of inky blackness. The postilion said he had seen fires and heard loud noises during the night. According to his account, the disturbances commenced about midnight. I could not but envy my friend Caesar, who was probably at that moment on the summit, looking down into the seething ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... would have been necessary doubtless to fly to those lands with sonorous names where the days after marriage are full of laziness most suave. In post chaises behind blue silken curtains to ride slowly up steep road, listening to the song of the postilion re-echoed by the mountains, along with the bells of goats and the muffled sound of a waterfall; at sunset on the shores of gulfs to breathe in the perfume of lemon trees; then in the evening on the villa-terraces above, hand in hand to look at the stars, making plans ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... gentleman and three ladies, entered, and in the darkness the carriage was rapidly driven a short distance from the gate of Massa, when, upon some pretext, it stopped for a moment beneath the shadow of a high wall. While some directions were given, to engage the attention of the postilion, the duchess, with Mademoiselle Lebeschu and M. de Brissac, glided out of the door unperceived, when the door was shut and the horses again set out upon the gallop ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... servants of the house, with some recently converted Papists from among the Sourcraut tenantry. All drew back in horror, to let one so anathematised pass without contact. I coiled myself up near a droll-looking little postilion, who, while turning up the whites of his eyes, was coaxing me to him with a fragment of plumb-cake, which he had stolen from the banquet-table. Dr. Direful returned to the centre of the room, and mounted a desk to commence his lecture. The auditory crowded and cowered timidly round him, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... small party of Montaros, or inland robbers, and the occupants and outriders of a volante, which had just been attacked on the road. The traces that attached the horse to the vehicle had been cut, and the postilion lay senseless upon the ground from a sword wound in their head, while the four outriders were contending with thrice their number of robbers, who were armed with pistols and Toledo blades. It was a sharp hand to hand fight, and their steel rang ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... you, and our police are as good as your own. Would you like a proof of it? well, you wished to conceal your journey from me, and yet I knew of your arrival half an hour after you had passed the barrier. You gave your direction to no one but your postilion, yet I have your address, and in proof I am here the very instant you are going to sit at table. Ring, then, if you please, for a second knife, fork, and plate, and we will ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the postilion's seat. It was a little lower than my seat, and was large enough for two. The conductor's seat was at the end of my seat, under the bellows-top. There was one thing curious about his seat, and that is, that there was a joint in the iron bar of the boot, so that he could open his end of it, and ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... middle of their journey, while they halted at an inn for a short refreshment and change of horses, a postilion running up to Peregrine in the yard, fell at his feet, clasped his knees with great eagerness and agitation, and presented to him the individual face of his old valet-de-chambre. The youth perceiving him in such an abject garb and attitude, commanded him to ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... pranced into view as they cleared the gate posts. There came a moment's halt at the end of the driveway; a postilion vaulted down, threw wide the coach door and a young man sprang in. It was Harry!... Snap!! Crack!! Toot—toot!!—and they were off again, heading straight for the waiting group. Another prolonged, winding note—louder—nearer—one of triumph ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... intended to walk back in the evening, but as the bank where the Marchantia? grew was a mile or two out of the direct road, and it came on rain, we ordered out a postchaise, merely saying we wanted to drive a short way on a road which Mr Kirby indicated to the postilion. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... crooked and crowded, it had the modern note of the street car, and the mediaeval one of old women, arms akimbo, in the nooks and recesses, selling big black cherries and bursting figs. Even the old women though, as momma complained, wore postilion basques and bell skirts, certainly in an advanced stage of usefulness, but of unmistakable genesis—just what had been popular in Chicago ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... he ought to have sufficient humanity to stir me up. That I often need cheering up, I know very well." Yet he was as often in a state of extreme happiness and enjoyment of life and his talents. He even, on occasion, indulged in students' pranks. On his journey to Heidelberg he induced the postilion to let him take the reins: "Thunder! how the horses ran, and how extravagantly happy I was, and how we stopped at every tavern to get fodder, and how I entertained the whole company, and how sorry they all were when I parted from them at Wiesbaden!!" At Frankfort, one morning, he writes: ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... into the vehicle. The postilion was off in a twinkling, as the saying is, over the roughest road in England. Conversation was impossible, for Dorothy and I were jostling like two pills in a box; and as the first observation I attempted resulted in a badly bitten tongue, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... Monsieur Ribaud accompanied his guest to the railway station, and parted from him with great effusion. On his way back an old-fashioned carriage with a postilion passed him. At a sign from its occupant, the postilion pulled up, and Monsieur Ribaud, bowing to the dust, approached the window, and the pale, stern face of a dignified, white-haired woman of sixty ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... for an hour, and all sorts of vehicles are shown off, from the governor's coach and six, surrounded by his lancers, to the sorry chaise and limping nag. The carriage most used is a four-wheeled biloche, with a gig top, quite low, and drawn by two horses, on one of which is a postilion; these vehicles are exceedingly comfortable for two persons. The horses are small, but spirited, and are said to be able to undergo great fatigue, although their appearance does not promise it. This drive is enlivened by the music of the different ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... my caleche wound its slow way round the base of Montmartre, I perceived, through the deepening twilight, a long train of flame, spreading from the horizon to the gates of the city. Shouts were heard, with now and then the heavy sounds of cannon. This produced a dead stop in my progress. My postilion stoutly protested against venturing his caleche, his horses, and, what he probably regarded much more than either, himself, into the very heart of what he pronounced a counter-revolution. My courier, freighted with despatches, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... abusing the villain, Came riding postilion A nate little boy on the back of a baste, Big enough, faith, to ate him, But he lather'd and bate him, And the baste to unsate him ne'er struggled the laste, And an iligant car He was dhrawing—by gar! It was finer by far than ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... the shining rails in woods and glens where no sounds save the song of birds or the carol of the infrequent passer-by have heretofore been heard. For the present, however, the old-fashioned, comfortless diligence keeps the roads: the beribboned postilion winds his merry horn, and as the afternoon sun is getting low the dusty, antique vehicle rattles up to the court of the inn, the guard gets down, dusts the leather casing of the gun which now-a-days ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... length returned from the fiddler hunt, and being whisped over, and made tolerably decent, Mr. Watchorn, having exchanged the postilion saddle in which it had been ridden for a horn-cased hunting one, had mounted, and, opening the kennel-door, had liberated the pent-up pack, who came tearing out full cry and spread themselves over the country, regardless alike of the twang, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... my hospitable acquaintances at Strasbourg, I left the Hotel de l'Esprit between five and six in the afternoon—when the heat of the day had a little subsided—with a pair of large, sleek, post horses; one of which was bestrode by the postilion, in the red and yellow livery of the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... and indeed in the face of his news to proceed would have been folly. Even Sir Anthony Colledge confessed it wryly. One of Flowerdue's men mounted to the postilion's place, and the coach was guided through a belt of beeches, and over a strip of heath to the gates of ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... would look at her. She set out walking again; but this day she was fortunate, for she was soon overtaken by a carrier's cart which carried her to Hinckley, and by the help of a return chaise, with a drunken postilion—who frightened her by driving like Jehu the son of Nimshi, and shouting hilarious remarks at her, twisting himself backwards on his saddle—she was before night in the heart of woody Warwickshire: but still ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... and the country-people were all assembled with their baskets of poultry, eggs, and such things; the postilion had no sooner lashed the man who would have taken hold of his horse, but a great cabbage came whirling like a bombshell into the carriage, at which my lord laughed more, for it knocked my lady's fan out of ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... letterpress. In his etching of The Dark Road, Mr. Browne developed a style of etching of which he afterwards frequently availed himself, and by which (as in "Bleak House" and "Roland Cashel") he sometimes succeeded in producing remarkable effects. It shows us a postilion driving a team of horses over a dark and dreary road bordered on either hand by dismal moorland; the streaks of the approaching dawn illuminate the edges of the landscape; the single occupant of the berlin, unable to control his agitation, stands upright, and gazes anxiously ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... myself in a narrow lane, bid the postilion give a signal with his horn, that other travelers might not meet us in the narrow passage. He blew with all his might; but his endeavors were in vain, he could not make the horn sound, which was ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... horses, three abreast, the harness and trappings of the animals being blue, elaborately embroidered with gold, while the headstall of each horse was decorated with a plume of half a dozen long blue feathers. The middle horse of each trio—that which ran between the shafts—was ridden by a postilion, who guided and controlled all three of the horses under ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... the rattling of wheels, and sound of a postilion's horn, was heard. The Halle mail drove up to the door, the guard bawling out for his passenger. The young painter took a hasty leave of his friends, and sprang into the vehicle, which the next instant disappeared in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Riding postilion-wise, Jeff could control the horses. The dangerous curve was passed, but not the possibility of pursuit. The single leader he was bestriding was panting—more than that, he was SWEATING, and from the evidence of Jeff's hands, sweating BLOOD! Back of his shoulder was a jagged ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... lugging at my sword as I ran, but while I was yet fifty yards away the door of the house opened and closed behind them. An instant, and the door reopened to let out one of the men, who slammed it behind him and entered the chaise. The postilion whipped up his horses and drove off. The door yielded nothing to my hand. Evidently it was locked and bolted. I cried out to open, and beat wildly upon the door with the hilt of my sword. Indeed, I quite lost my head, threatening, storming, ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... enough, hung in the collar, refusing to draw. It was said to be an Irish horse, but how or when it got to Sardinia was as much a myth as the immigration of some of the various races by which the island is said to have been peopled in ancient times. However, Miss Edgeworth's Irish postilion and “Knockecroghery,” could scarcely have afforded us more amusement than our Sarde driver and his horse, whose good qualities he ludicrously vaunted, alternately cursing and glorifying, thumping and coaxing, the vicious beast, while we heaved at the wheels. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... if they were in quest of us, they would try to overtake this chaise or any other on the road. Ho, postilion!—an extra crown apiece for yourselves if you leave those fellows yonder behind for good." And Phil added quietly to me: "It won't do to offer 'em too much at first—'twould make ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... an active public by all this, is beyond computation. All the world is now instructed by symbols, as formerly the deaf and dumb; and instead of having to peruse a tedious penny-a-line account of the postilion of the King of the French misdriving his Majesty, and his Majesty's august family, over a draw-bridge into a moat at Treport, a single glance at a single woodcut places the whole disaster graphically before us; leaving us nine minutes and a half of the time we must otherwise have devoted to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... her head From old Tithonus' saffron bed; And embryo sunbeams from the east, Half-choked, were struggling through the mist, When forth advanced the gilded chaise; The village crowded round to gaze. The pert postilion, now promoted From driving plough, and neatly booted, His jacket, cap, and baldric on, (As greater folks than he have done,) Looked round; and, with a coxcomb air, Smacked loud his lash. The happy ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... king's messenger; most of his baggage had been sent on, but he would not part with his medicine, and this was all in the vehicle with himself. As they passed the Pyrenees they were stopped by the banditti, who dragged them out of the carriage, after shooting the postilion, and made them lie with their faces on the ground, with guards over them, while they rifled the carriage. They soon came to the packages of medicine, and observing that Le Roi was upon all the bottles, and knowing that they had possession ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... "for the driver sits on the first horse, like a postilion. It's a sort of tandem without reins. Haven't you seen it yet? We consider the volante our proudest exhibit." So Clay ordered the volante to be brought out, and placed them facing each other in the open carriage, while he climbed to the box-seat, from which position of vantage he pointed ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... Ehrenbreitstein. It is by no means a long drive from Andernach to Coblentz; and the only incident which occurred to enliven the way was the appearance of a fat, red-faced man on horseback, trotting slowly towards Andernach. As they met, the mad little postilion gave him a friendly cut with his whip, and broke out into an exclamation, which showed he ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... animals were of a novel description, bells being appended to various parts of the harness, and streamers, or plumes of white hair and gaudy ribbons, floating in the air from the bridle of each. A postilion, in a suit of grey, with an otter-skin cap, rode on the rearmost or saddle horse, and his nonchalance and perfect command of his team were surprising. This boat was some sixty yards in length, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... galloped thus as far as Villeneuve St. George's, where relays were waiting. Then four instead of two whirled the carriage away in the direction of Melun, and pulled up for a moment in the middle of the forest of Senart. No doubt the order had been given the postilion beforehand, for Aramis had no occasion even to ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... last favour, that she might accompany her through the park to the avenue lodge. So Pauncefort and herself entered the chariot, that rocked like a ship, in spite of all the skill of the coachman and the postilion. ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... your face very plainly as you lay on your back, sir, by the aid of a Postilion's lanthorn, and was greatly struck by our mutual resemblance." Sir Maurice raised his glass and looked at me, and, as he looked, smiled, but he could not hide the sudden, passionate quiver of his thin ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... foxes," said Herr Tiefel, taking up the story, "after the foxes comes the empty carriage, with its gay postilion and four. It is like a long funeral. And every man is chanting that song. And so we go slowly until we; come to the Oil Mill Tavern, where we have had many a schlager-bout with the aristocrats. And the president of our society makes his farewell speech under the vines, and we drink ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... came up, and recognised the Primate sitting with his daughter. The Archbishop looked out of the coach, and Russell cast his cloak from him, exclaiming,—'Judas, be taken!' The Primate ordered the postilion to drive, at which Russell fired at the man, and called to his associates to join him. With the exception of Hackstoun, they threw off their cloaks, and continued firing at the coach for nearly half a mile. A domestic of the Archbishop presented a carbine, but was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... fondness for history. She was not less addicted to voyages and travels—to any reading, in fact, which satisfied her love of adventure. She would envy at times the condition of a postilion, and the sight of a travelling carriage would set her ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... The postilion, after he had spoken to the woman, came to the chaise-door, and told Holloway "that he could hardly understand what she said, she talked such outlandish English; and that he could not make out where she wanted to be ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... that poetry is wanting in our era, and it has certainly disappeared from the postal service. One remembers that the postilion was for quite a while the favorite hero of our poets, the best of whom have sung to his praises, and given space to his melancholy thoughts of modern times in which he is pushed aside. It is too true that the post horn, formerly blown by a postilion, is now silenced, that the horse has ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... then? Can a man be supposed to imitate everything? We know what the noblest study of mankind is, and to this Mr. Cruikshank has confined himself. That postilion with the people in the broken-down chaise roaring after him is as deaf as the post by which he passes. Suppose all the accessories were away, could not one swear that the man was stone-deaf, beyond the reach of trumpet? What is the peculiar character in a deaf ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... posted all night, and it was ten in the morning when he reached Leamington. He directed the postilion to drive to his hotel, but it happened that on his way he had ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... and evidently portrayed from the life, have just descended ("A Tour in Foreign Parts") from the two-horse chaise, which the postilion is driving into the yard. The smallest of the three Englishmen, with "Chesterfield's Letters" under his arm, approaches the obsequious host of the "Poste Royale" with a conciliatory smile; the while the landlady is engaged in an assault upon her hen-roost, ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... entirely invisible. I've smuggled myself into the country from London—by way of Hanover—as if I were a bale of prohibited merchandise. [Wipes his forehead.] The deuce take this equestrian official business, where a man needs have the manners of a dandy with the unfeeling bones of a postilion. For four days I've scarcely been out of the saddle. [He throws himself into a chair.] Gad! if the nations knew how a man has to win his way through to the Foreign Office by years of courier-riding, they'd not think it strange that their statesmen, grown mature, seem disinclined to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... that we should find plenty of accommodation at once. This did away with the necessity of writing to the landlord, and in a short time we were once more upon the road, maids and children inside as usual, and a natty postilion cocking his white hat and flicking his little whip, in the most bumptious manner imaginable. Through Crickhowell we went without drawing bridle, and went almost too fast to observe sufficiently its very ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... had upon you. I have now come to tell you that they are harnessing two horses to your calash, and you may set off at full speed." The worthy man had assigned to my use the only two horses at his disposal; his son performed the office of postilion, and I set off to the no small dissatisfaction of some of the travellers who had arrived before me, and who, perhaps, had as good reasons as I to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... sight. A man on horseback, disguised as a postilion, his blue jacket embroidered with silver, and enormous tail from which the powder escaped in puffs, and a hat adorned with long ribbons, preceded the first carriage, cracking his whip, and crying with all his might: "Make way for the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... would go to the Court or to the parsonage. Could he have done exactly as he wished, he would have left the chaise and walked to the parsonage, so as to reach it without the noise and fuss incidental to a postilion's arrival. But that was impossible. He could not drop into Framley as though he had come from the clouds, and, therefore, he told the man to do as he had suggested. "To my lady's?" said the postilion. The archdeacon assented, and the man, with loud cracks of his ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... window and kindly bade me good-morning, while from the villages around the cock's clear crow echoed across the fields of gently-waving grain, and an early lark, high in the skies among the flushes of morning, soared here and there, and the Postilion wound his horn and blew, and blew—as the coach drove off, I would stand looking after it, feeling as if I could not but start off with it on the instant ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... and the countess, in travelling attire, issued out, and in a moment was clasped in her son's arms. He at once handed her into the carriage and took his place beside her. Malcolm closed the door and leapt up on the box, the postilion cracked his whip, ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... The coachman and postilion having likewise taken their places, the fairy said to Cinderella, "Well, my dear girl, is not this as fine an equipage as you could desire, to go to the ball with? Tell me, now, are ...
— Little Cinderella • Anonymous
... songs, like the Russian language, have a peculiar tenderness, and are full of caressing epithets. These are even frequently applied to inanimate objects. A Russian postilion, in a simple and charming song, calls the tavern, which he never can make up his mind to pass without stopping, "his dear little mother." The words Matushka, Batushka, Starinka, which we may venture to give in English by motherling, fatherling, oldling, are in Russian favourite terms of endearment. ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... lady and all the family are coming too; and that they are so nobly attended, they care not a fig for anybody. Sir, they have added two cart-horses to the four old geldings, because my lady will have it said she came to town in a coach and six—heavy George the ploughman rides postilion. ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... a general; he thought he heard shots and shrieks.... His head sank to one side, he opened his eyes.... The same fields, the same views of the steppe; the polished shoes of the trace-horse flashed in turn through the billowing dust; the shirt of the postilion, yellow, with red gussets at the armpits, puffed out in the wind.... "A pretty way to return to my native land"—flashed through Lavretzky's head; and he shouted: "Faster!" wrapped himself up in his cloak, and leaned back harder ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... and one postilion, who has a very long whip, and drives his team, something like the Courier of Saint Petersburgh in the circle at Astley's or Franconi's: only he sits his own horse instead of standing on him. The immense jack-boots worn by these postilions, are sometimes a century or two old; and are ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... announced to us the afflicting moment when we were to quit Paris. The postilion, who was to convey us to Rochefort, was already at the door of the house in which we lived, to conduct us to his carriage, which waited for us at the Orleans gate. Immediately an old hackney coach appeared; my father stept into it, and in an instant it was filled. The impatient ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... guided by her implicitly; and then, embracing Mrs Charlton, whom she left to the care of her grand-daughters, she got into a chaise, accompanied only by her maid, and one man and horse, and ordered the postilion to drive to ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... majesty permit me to call the footman, and ask him to hurry up the postilion?" said Madame von Berg, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... said the godmother, "is a coach and horse, too, as handsome as your sisters; but what shall we do for a postilion?" ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... wurds; for he has never spoke sin, for all Miss Lucy be by his bedside continual. She, poor deer, don't take on at all, in regard of crying and such woman's wurk, but looks nevertheless, for all the wurld, just like a copse. I sends Tom the postilion with this hexpress, nowing he is a good hand at a gallop, having, not sixteen years ago, beat some o' the best on 'un at a raceng. Hoping as yer Honnur will lose no time in coming to this "house of mourning," I remane, with all respect, Your Honnur's humble ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ploughboy in fustian, there the Earl of—— on a ten-pound pony, with the girths elegantly parted to prevent the saddle slipping over its head, while Miss——, his jockey's daughter, dashes by him in a phaeton with a powdered footman, and the postilion in scarlet and leathers, with a badge on his arm. Old Crockey puts on his greatcoat, Jem Bland draws the yellow phaeton and greys to the gateway of the "White Hart," to take up his friend Crutch Robinson; Zac, Jack and another, have just driven on in a fly. ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... Carter (In ten counties no smarter) Has ta'en his departure For Proserpine's orchards: And Lily, postilion, With cheeks of vermilion, Is one of a million That fill up ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... she means no harm, though the dusky mite gets smartly slapped by its mother for misbehaving. The cabin floor of bare earth is sure to be covered with these little naked, sprawling objects, like ants. On the way back to town Jane orders the postilion to drive into the private grounds of a palatial Cuban residence, where she boldly announces herself and party to the proprietor in good rolling Spanish. It is the home of Senor N——, a wealthy merchant of the city. We are received as though we belonged to the royal family. ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... any feeling himself. Baruch, at a hint from his grandfather, had been to see the postmaster. At eleven o'clock that night, the two Parisians, ensconced in a wicker cabriolet drawn by one horse and ridden by a postilion, quitted Issoudun. Adolphine and Madame Hochon parted from them with tears in their eyes; they alone regretted ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... time that ever such a thing happened in this world—hope and expectation were not disappointed. Wilton seated himself by the side of Laura, the postilion cracked his whip, which was then as common in England as it is now in France, the horses went forward, and the wheels rolling through the little street of High Halstow, were soon upon the ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... the wheels rattled over the pavement. We were off to Siberia. On we went, day and night. Pokrow, Vladimir, Nijni-Novogorod, Casan. "Pascare! Pascare!" Quicker! Quicker! was Ivan's cry to each new postilion. The snow had not yet begun to fall, and he was anxious, if possible, to cross the Ural mountains before it set in. The immense plains between Moscow and Perm were traversed with tremendous rapidity. On reaching the latter place, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... of the tea-table for the evening, to the great expenditure of souchong and congo. Accordingly, her ladyship had no sooner summoned her own woman, and her fille de chambre, to make tea, with her page, footman, and postilion, to hand it about, (in which duty they were assisted by two richly-laced and thickly-powdered footmen of Lady Binks's, whose liveries put to shame the more modest garb of Lady Penelope's, and even dimmed the glory of the suppressed coronet upon the ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... magnificent, but, I think, without good taste. You will be surprised to hear that he drives with what in America we call "Dutch collars." Six of the horses are held in hand, and the leaders are managed by a postilion. There is always one or more empty carriages, according to the number of the royal personages present, equipped in every respect like those which are filled, and which are held in reserve against accidents; a provision, by the way, that ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... well as the good with the bad, there was two days ago a great horserace in the plain de Sablon, between the Comte d'Artois,(229) the Duc de Chartres,(230) Monsieur de Conflans, and the Duc de Lauzun.(231) The latter won by the address of a little English postilion, who is in such fashion, that I don't know whether the Academy will not give him for the subject of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... accusation I believe there is some show of reason, his Majesty having laid hands on much Belgian property before the lamented outbreak which cost him his crown. A vast deal of laughing and roaring passed between these two worldly people and the postilion, whom they called "baron," and I thought no doubt that this talk was one of the many jokes that my companions were in the habit of making. But not so: the postilion was an actual baron, the bearer of an ancient name, the descendant of gallant gentlemen. Good heavens! what would Mrs. ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... shoulder. Whilst his left leg was thrown forward in preparation, a musket was levelled in his hands, along the barrel of which his eye glared fiercely upon the visage of the conductor. On the other side the scene was somewhat different. Pepe (the postilion) being awake when the interruption took place, was at once sensible of its nature. He had abandoned the reins, and jumped from his seat to the road-side, intending to escape among the trees. Unhappy youth, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various
... majesty of its execution. But, we ask, the events taking place exactly as we have described them (and sometimes even less seriously), what kind of an example can it afford? Early in the morning, the condemned is bound and thrown into a closed carriage; the postilion whips up his horses, reaches the scaffold; the ax descends, and a head falls into a basket, in the midst of the most atrocious jeerings of the vilest of a vile populace! Finally, in a hasty and secret execution, where is the example? where is ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... the blast of the postilion's horn closed the first period of my childhood. When I was four years old we went to my mother's home to attend my grandparents' golden wedding. If I wished to describe the journey in its regular order I should be forced to depend ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... civic processions, military displays, and illuminations in the cities. The exultation of the people had risen to the utmost height of national enthusiasm; and Europe was pronounced, by every Frenchman, from the Directory to the postilion, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... Stamford, which I had reached by some intolerable old coach, such as in those days too commonly abused the patience and long-suffering of Young England, I took a post-chaise to Laxton. The distance was but nine miles, and the postilion drove well, so that I could not really have been long upon the road; and yet, from gloomy rumination upon the unhappy destination which I believed myself approaching within three or four months, never had I weathered a journey that seemed to me so long and dreary. As I alighted on the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... monster with wings, flying like a postilion who has dropped something. And here is what is written on the belt," added the man, taking a paper from his pocket. "Mademoiselle Anicette, the Princesse de Cadignan's lady's maid, who came in a carriage" (the Cinq-Cygne carriage before the door of the Mulet!) "to bring ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... down from the Great St. Gothard with a carriage and four horses and only one postilion, as the most dangerous thing that a carriage and horses can do. We had two great wooden logs for drags, and snapped them both like matches. The road is like a geometrical staircase, with horrible depths beneath it; and at every turn it ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... and felt glad I had not to set out in the dark. I rose at twilight and was expecting my carriage, and wondering at its delay, when I heard that the great diligence, several miles below, had been seized by a torrent; the horses were up to their necks in water, before any one dreamed of danger. The postilion called on all the saints, and threw himself into the water. Tire door of the diligence could not be opened, and tire passengers forced themselves, one after another, into the cold water; it was dark too. Had I been there, I had fared ill. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... I was going abroad, love, I thought I was going to die; We walked arm in arm to the road, love, We looked arm in arm to the sky; And I said, "When a foreign postilion Has hurried me off to the Po, Forget not Medora Trevilian:— My own Araminta, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... drove too rapidly to allow them to answer my repeated Enquiries, I gained little, or indeed, no information concerning him. "Where am I to drive?" said the Postilion. "To Newgate Gentle Youth (replied I), to see Augustus." "Oh! no, no, (exclaimed Sophia) I cannot go to Newgate; I shall not be able to support the sight of my Augustus in so cruel a confinement—my feelings are sufficiently shocked by the RECITAL, of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the sudden action of a shy horse, which took fright at a windmill, had precipitated the travelling chariot of Mr Toobad, who had been reduced to the necessity of scrambling in dismal plight through the window. One of the wheels was found to be broken; and Mr Toobad, leaving the postilion to get the chariot as well as he could to Claydyke for the purpose of cleaning and repairing, had walked back to Nightmare Abbey, followed by his servant with the imperial, and repeating all the way his favourite ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... Girardet, whom he took home, and at his house, Jerome says, he took a plate of soup, for at half-past seven Monsieur Girardet had not yet dined. When Monsieur Savaron got into the carriage he looked like death. Jerome, who, of course, saw his master off, heard him tell the postilion 'The ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... north German post chaises are uncovered wicker carts. An English dust-cart is a piece of finery, a chef d'auvre of mechanism, compared with them and the horses!—a savage might use their ribs instead of his fingers for a numeration table. Wherever we stopped, the postilion fed his cattle with the brown rye bread of which he eat himself, all breakfasting together; only the horses had no gin to their water, and the postilion no water to his gin. Now and henceforward for subjects of more interest to you, and to the objects in search of which ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... largess ere setting forward as their guide on the expedition. Some difficulty now arose by reason of the straitness of the path; but their dumb leader hastened up the lane with unusual speed, beckoning that they should follow. From this signal it appeared that there was sufficient room, and the postilion addressed himself to proceed ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... The postilion blew his horn; it was a glorious sunny afternoon, and the sunshine soon entered into my gay child-like mind. I delighted in every novel object which met my eye, and I was journeying towards the goal of my soul's desires. ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... through Clavering, the hostler standing whistling under the archway of the Clavering Arms, winked the postilion ominously, as much as to say all was over. The gardener's wife came and opened the lodge-gates, and let the travellers through with a silent shake of the head. All the blinds were down at Fairoaks—the face of the old footman was as blank when he let them in. Arthur's face ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cluster of grapes for our supper this evening. All the street is as still as at midnight. Suddenly there breaks upon us the harsh, metallic clang of well-shod horse-hoofs upon the stony roadway—the cracking of a postilion's whip—the clatter of an ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... On one occasion, in Italy, he was waylaid and robbed of all he had, and narrowly escaped with his life. He had been playing and had been very successful, winning money, gold watches, and diamonds. As he was riding back to his hotel his postilion was shot. He immediately seized his pistols to defend himself, when he was struck on the back of the head with a bludgeon and rendered insensible. He did not return to consciousness until the next morning, when he found himself ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... at a cabinet-maker's shop in Church Street, a coach with four beautiful white horses, and a postilion on each near-horse; behind, in the dicky, a footman; and on the box a coachman, all dressed in livery. The coach-panel bore a coat-of-arms with a coronet, and I presume it must have been the equipage of the Earl of Derby. A crowd of people stood round, gazing at the coach ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... flow of gallants which approach To kiss thy hand from out the coach; That fleet of lackeys which do run Before thy swift postilion; Those strong-hoof'd mules, which we behold Rein'd in with purple, pearl, and gold, And shed with silver, prove to be The drawers of the axle-tree; Thy wife, thy children, and the state Of Persian looms and antique plate: —All these, and more, ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... Then they grew louder and clearer and louder yet, until a pair of yellow lanterns swung round the curve, and in their light we saw the two big brown horses tearing along the high, blue carriage at the back of them. The postilion pulled them up panting and foaming within a few yards of us. In a moment we were at the window and had raised our hands in a salute to the beautiful pale face which looked out ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... necessary, indeed; for the good lady's voice was heard as she walked across the court-yard to the house scolding the unfortunate postilion who had driven her from Barchester. At the moment Miss Thorne could not but be thankful that the other guests were more fashionable, and were thus spared the fury of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... completed his 'Sentimental Journey.' He also relished more than before the country delights of the village, describing it in one of his letters as 'a land of plenty.' Every day he drove out in his chaise, drawn by two long-tailed horses, until one day his postilion met with an accident from one his master's pistols, which went off in his hand. 'He instantly fell on his knees,' wrote Sterne, 'and said "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name"—at which, ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... but even had I had the means to establish myself, the profession was already over-stocked; and not a regiment of the Paris garrison but could turn out a score of prevots to button me six times for my once. I could ride, which qualified me for a postilion, and had sufficient knowledge of billiards to aspire to the honourable post of a marker; but even to such offices—could I have stooped to compete for them—I should have been held ineligible without certificates of ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various |
