"Backstairs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what it leads to; wild talk to-day, and wilder doings to-morrow,' said the old man. 'For there is one thing certain: that this Gondremark has one foot in the Court backstairs, and the other in the Masons' lodges. He gives himself out, sir, for what nowadays they call a patriot: ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... middle-class citizen of London town. Since the form, he founded was, as we have seen, democratic in its original motive and subsequent development, it was fitting that the first shaper of the form should have sympathies not too exclusively aristocratic: should have been willing to draw upon the backstairs history of the servants' hall for his ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... shows his lack of true perception when he ascribes the true inwardness of the Reformation to the greed of the monarch for the spoils of the clergy. At bottom what mainly impresses him is the immense influence of personal accident upon events. Intrigue, a sudden dislike, some backstairs piece of gossip, here is the real root of great changes. And when he expresses a "thorough contempt" for the kind of work scholars such as Scaliger and Petavius had achieved, he shows his entire ignorance of the method whereby ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... had all been despatched, the wedding veil disinterred, and the best Brussels and Honiton safely disposed in a box, when an extremely dilapidated and much-inked collection of school-books had been routed out of the backstairs cupboard (commonly called Erebus) and duly packed, when a selection of lighter literature had been made with a view both to Valetta and Lilian; when Gillian had shown all she could to Mrs. Mount, visited all the animals, gone round the garden, and made two beautiful posies of autumn flowers, ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the vaulted flight of stairs leading directly out of the house. Of the two doors in the drawing-room, one, on the left, led to the grand staircase and the hall; the other, on the right, opened on the backstairs, and on a side entrance to the house, used by the family when they were pressed for time, as well ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... may believe report, She holds the golden key Of the backstairs, and can command A potent influence in the land, But K———N best can tell; Tis most clear, no ill betide us, Near the Georgium sidus This planet likes to dwell. Lovely as light, when morning breaks{51} Above the hills in golden streaks, Observe yon blushing rose, Uxbridge, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... or The Battle of the Blues.' Fancy waking up here after a heavy night. I suppose the designer was found 'guilty, but insane.' Another two cupboards? Thanks. That's fifty-nine. And yet another? Oh, no. The backstairs, of course. As before, approached by a door which slides to and fro with a gentle rumbling noise, instead of swinging. The same warranted to jam if opened hastily. Can't you hear Falcon on the wrong side with a butler's tray full of glass, wondering why he was born? Oh, and the bijou spiral leads ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... as a President-maker. When the President was made, and the world was saying "President Hanway," that man should be dull indeed who did not look upon John Harley as the power behind the curtain. He would control the backstairs; he would wear a White House pass-key as a watch-charm! John Harley as well as Senator ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis |
