"Butler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anything, or that what was served to him should not have been the best, supplied and served in the best way. Failure on such points would have so much surprised him that he would scarcely have known what steps to take. But Jervis, his butler, knew what was best as well as Mr. Tatham did, and was quite as little disposed to put up with any shortcoming. I say I am not sorry for him that he was not married—up to this time. But, as a matter of fact, the time does come when one becomes sorry for the well-to-do, highly respectable, refined, ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... happiness in tormenting the helpless and the innocent; and the name of Sanglier, which was a sobriquet of his own adopting, or of Flint Heart, as he was usually termed on the borders, had got to be as terrible to the women and children of that part of the country as those of Butler and Brandt became at ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... focused on him, Miss McGoun staring with head lifted from her typing, Miss Bannigan looking over her ledger, Mat Penniman craning around at his desk in the dark alcove, Stanley Graff sullenly expressionless—as a parvenu before the bleak propriety of his butler. He hated to expose his back to their laughter, and in his effort to be casually merry he stammered and was raucously friendly and oozed wretchedly out of ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... footman was next called up. His duty was to wait on the butler and attend the servants' door, to take in provisions delivered there. And the first plausible clue to the mystery of Salome's disappearance was received ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... W. ANSON knew well the first duty of a stage-butler, to keep coming on whenever a stop-gap is wanted; but he had also great personal qualities, to say nothing of his astounding record of forty years' service in a house where strong liquor was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... you lend me your coach, or I'll go on—nay, I'll declare how you prophesied popery was coming only because the butler had mislaid some of the apostle spoons, and thought they were lost. Away went religion and spoon-meat together. Indeed, uncle, I'll indite ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... all that happened—not to clear myself, but to help you to find out the truth.' His story is as follows: Yesterday afternoon, owing to his constant attendance on his father, he did not look at the evening papers, and it was not until after dinner, when the butler brought him one and told him of its contents, that he learned that his brother was alive and at the Bath Hotel. He drove there at once, but was told that about eight o'clock his brother had gone out, but without giving any clew to his destination. As Chetney had ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... said aloud, as had never happened in the case of any former young gentleman within his experience; but it would be difficult to say if this were sober fact or custard-cups. The servants, with the butler at their head, had all an interest in seeing Little Dombey go; and even the weak-eyed young man, taking out his books and trunks to the coach that was to carry him and Florence to Mrs Pipchin's for ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... butler, who was formerly footman, and a rejected admirer of hers, used to tell the anecdote now and then, at those little cabals that will occasionally take place among the most orderly servants, arising from the common propensity of the governed to talk against administration; but he has left it off, of ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... butler took the cup upstairs on a silver salver. But when the young master saw it he waved it away, till the butler with tears begged him just ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... butler had seen him hurrying over the stairs to his own room just five minutes ago. And in less than a minute Jasper was up in ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... substance of the popular knowledge of one of the profoundest thinkers of the early part of the eighteenth century,—the time of Shaftesbury and Locke, of Addison and Steele, of Butler, Pope, and Swift,—one of the most fascinating men of his day, and one of the best of any age. Beside, or rather above, Byron's line should ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Brentwood had recently said to her, there was some difficulty about the will, which was a pity, as the only people she knew besides Mr Lockhart who knew anything about it were a footman named Rogers and a butler named Sutherland, both of whom had been witnesses to the will; but the footman had gone to the bad, and the butler had gone ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... force was about six thousand five hundred strong, in three divisions, under Generals Butler, Twiggs and Worth. The troops went into camp at Walnut Springs, while the engineer officers, under Major Mansfield—a General in the late war—commenced their reconnoissance. Major Mansfield found that it would be practicable ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... are nowhere tolerated, while the dietitians of predigested food, a la Professors Eliot and Butler, are the successful perpetuators of an age of nonentities, of automatons. In the literary and dramatic world, the Humphrey Wards and Clyde Fitches are the idols of the mass, while but few know or appreciate the beauty and genius of an Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman; an Ibsen, a Hauptmann, a Butler ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... gave the Rev. E. Taylor as pleasant a ten minutes as he had enjoyed for some time, and he passed on the worthy man to the butler with instructions as to "something hot." Then ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... in commotion. Robert had spoken to the butler, and everywhere were knots of whisperers. Miss Fennimore met Phoebe with her eyes full of tears, tears as yet far from those of Phoebe herself. 'Your mother has heard nothing,' she said; 'I ascertained that ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mere amusement, but such as required deep and serious thought. Before he was nine years old, he had read over and over again, with the deepest interest, Edwards on the Affections, Edwards on the Will, and Butler's Analogy. ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... their height, and the Duc for the fifth time is leading his charming fiancee to the supper-room, when the venerable butler announces, in a voice that attracts universal attention, a ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... glances with Natasha, who was sitting opposite. Pierre spoke little but examined the new faces, and ate a great deal. Of the two soups he chose turtle with savory patties and went on to the game without omitting a single dish or one of the wines. These latter the butler thrust mysteriously forward, wrapped in a napkin, from behind the next man's shoulders and whispered: "Dry Madeira"... "Hungarian"... or "Rhine wine" as the case might be. Of the four crystal glasses engraved ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Alexander, that most capable artist, lost to the world recently at the height of a very useful career. John W. Beatty's and Francis Murphy' landscapes, on either side, are both beautiful, in the Barbizon spirit. Howard Russell Butler's "Spirits of the Twilight" is very luminous, and Lawton Parker's "Paresse" in its sensual note runs "Stella" a close second in a colour scheme and design of such beauty that one cannot help getting a great deal of aesthetic satisfaction ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... king, were to be feasted as well as himself; and more provisions would be eaten and more wine drunk in that one day than generally in a month. However, Sir Oliver expressed much thankfulness for the king's intended visit, and ordered his butler and cook to make the best preparations in their power. So a great fire was kindled in the kitchen; and the neighbors knew by the smoke which poured out of the chimney that boiling, baking, stewing, roasting, and frying ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thugs in broad daylight as he| |was crossing the railroad tracks at the | |foot of First avenue east, Fred Butzer, a| |stonemason of Butler, Minn., was thrown | |to the ground, a gag placed in his mouth,| |his pockets were rifled ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... door for Aaron, and stepped aside to let his new employer do the speaking. They were admitted to the house by a thin, old man wearing a pink turban. As they followed this butler down a hallway, Aaron and Waziri heard the shrieks and giggles of feminine consternation that told of women being herded into the zenana. The Amishman glimpsed one of the ladies, perhaps Sarki Kazunzumi's most junior ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... And Butler, in his satirical description of Sir Hudibras, ascribes to his hero more practical philosophy than he appears to have intended, and more, certainly, than is found in ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... fast chained in St. Peter's Church, Cornhill; and says, "he was after some chronicle buried at London, and after some chronicle buried at Glowcester"—but, oh! these incorrect chroniclers! when Alban Butler, in the "Lives of the Saints," v. xii., and Murray's "Handbook," and the Sacristan at Chur, all say Lucius was killed there, and I saw his tomb with my ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... later, I drove to the house late in the afternoon. I found it a very old place, standing quite alone in its own grounds. Anderson had left a letter with the butler, I found, pleading excuses for his absence, and leaving the whole house at my disposal for my investigations. The butler evidently knew the object of my visit, and I questioned him pretty thoroughly during dinner, ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... force now against the provost's bulging bows, now against his over-leaning quarter, encountering him now as he lurched, now as he heeled, until at length he landed him high, though certainly not dry, on the top of his own steps. The moment the butler opened the door, and the heavy hulk rolled into dock, Gibbie darted off as if he had been the wicked one tormenting the righteous, and in danger of being caught by a pair of holy tongs. Whether the tale was true or not, I do not know: with after-dinner humourists ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... clanging of the front-door bell resounded through the house for the second time. The frightened butler, who was a young man and rather nervous, stood by the door, not daring to open it. The ladies of the household had by this time come out of the dining-room; Mrs. Wedmore looked flush and frightened; the girls were tittering. Smothered ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... "The Butler House," he said, relinquishing his bag into the hands of the first driver who reached him, and settled back into the cushions with a sense of bewilderment, as if something long forgotten had been recalled. He knew what it was as he drove along in all that clamor ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... commissions to superintend the evacuation of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the adjacent islands were forthwith appointed—for Cuba, Major-General James F. Wade, Rear-Admiral William T. Sampson, Major-General Matthew C. Butler; for Puerto Rico, Major-General John R. Brooke, Rear-Admiral Winfield S. Schley, Brigadier-General William W. Gordon—who soon afterwards met the Spanish commissioners at Havana and San Juan, respectively. The ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley
... thieving butler he had discharged in London. His attention did not linger on this familiar soft-shuffling tool of the master thief, however, but snapped back to the big, good looking young man with the branching shoulders ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... in which my unbelieving friends laughed at each other's hypotheses, and left me destitute of any. Finding that they conclusively confuted one another, and perceiving at last that the idea of the superhuman origin of Christianity did, and, as Bishop Butler says, alone can resolve all the difficulties of the subject, I was compelled to forego all the advantages of infidelity, and condescended to "depress" my conscience to the "Biblical standard"! Would to Heaven that it had never been ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... awakened by a ringing of the outer bell and blows upon the great hall-doors. Squire Beltham was master there: the other members of the household were, his daughter Dorothy Beltham; a married daughter Mrs. Richmond; Benjamin Sewis, an old half-caste butler; various domestic servants; and a little boy, christened Harry Lepel Richmond, the squire's grandson. Riversley Grange lay in a rich watered hollow of the Hampshire heath-country; a lonely circle ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... from the Admiralty would call at nine, sir; but he didn't mention no name, and I was to show you into the library. Sir William is still up in the laboratory, sir"—the butler lowered his voice to a confidential undertone—"with all the Naval gentlemen that was dining here—their Lordships, sir." He turned as he spoke and led the way across the hall. "It's a long time since you was last here, sir, if I may say so——" There was the faintest tone of reproach in the old ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... in those days, there was always breakfast, but very few people came down to it. In saying this the story accepts the phraseology of the household, which must have known. Norbury the butler, for instance, who used the expression to the Hon. Percival Pellew, a guest who at half-past nine o'clock that morning expressed surprise at finding himself the only respondent to The Bell. It was the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... outnumbered, succeeded in holding his ground after a very sanguinary battle. He was later placed in command of the garrison at Washington, and in November sailed from New York with a strong force to replace General B. F. Butler at New Orleans as commander of the Department of the Gulf. Being ordered to co-operate with Grant, who was then before Vicksburg, he invested the defences of Port Hudson, Louisiana, in May 1863, and after three attempts to carry the works by storm he ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... invitation by any means. Were all Miss Perry's weeks blank with the exception of Thursday, and was her only desire to see her old friend's son? Time is issued to spinster ladies of wealth in long white ribbons. These they wind round and round, round and round, assisted by five female servants, a butler, a fine Mexican parrot, regular meals, Mudie's library, and friends dropping in. A little hurt she was already that Jacob ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... the steward, the steward, my fine Temperat steward, did soe lecture us before my ladie for drinking ... at midnight, has gott the key of the wine C[ellar from] Timothie the Butler and is gon downe to make [himself] drunke ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Captain Vincent can have done about what he wants. And then, again, they are but recently married, and all their furnishings are new and handsome. There is one advantage in being with colored troops—one can always have good servants. Mrs. Vincent has an excellent colored soldier cook, and her butler was thoroughly trained as such before he enlisted. It did look so funny, however, to see such a black man in a ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... nature. Nothing came out of these speculations but an occasional elevation of mind among the learned, and a profound conviction of the misery of man and the obstacles to his perfection. [Footnote: See Archer Butler's fine lecture on the Indian Philosophies.] The Greeks, starting from physical phenomena, went on in successive series of inquiries, until they elevated themselves above matter, above experience, even to the loftiest abstractions, and until they classified the laws of thought. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... letters in the "Clarion" this week which in various ways interest me very much. One is concerned to defend Darwin against the scientific revolt against him that was led by Samuel Butler, and among other things it calls Bernard Shaw a back number. Well, most certainly "The Origin of Species" is a back number, in so far as any honest and interesting book ever can be; but in pure philosophy nothing can be out of date, since the universe must be a mystery even to the believer. There ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... kept two servants, June the "China boy," who had been with them since the beginning of things, and Delphine the cook, a more recent acquisition. June was, in a way, butler and second boy combined; he did all the downstairs work and the heavy sweeping, but it was another time-worn custom for Mrs. Ravis and Turner to spend part of every morning in putting the bedrooms to ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... afterward of Chichester, and Bishop Trelawny (Sir Jonathan Trelawny, Bart., of Cornwall), two of the "seven bishops"; imprisoned for disobeying an illegal order of James II. "And shall Trelawny die? Then twenty thousand Cornishmen will know the reason why." But the most eminent was Bishop Joseph Butler, the author of "The Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion" and of the "Sermons on Human Nature." He was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, and was educated as a Nonconformist. He was Bishop of Bristol from 1738 to 1750, when he was translated to Durham. In 1836, the see ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... in a rich green velvet dress, while a superb diamond glistened with subdued lustre in her beautiful bosom. She wore no ornaments in her dark hair, which was, as indeed might be said of Kate, "when unadorned, adorned the most." The gray-headed old butler, (as brisk as his choicest champagne,) and the two steady-looking old family servants, going about their business with quiet celerity—the delicious air of antique elegance around them—the sense ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... be down directly, sir," said the butler, as he ushered the visitor into the commodious library on the ground-floor, which had witnessed for so long the death-in-life of Lord Tranmore. But now Lord Tranmore was bedridden up-stairs, with two nurses to ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... up at a gloomy-looking house in a fashionable square. Roland rang the door-bell. There seemed a certain element of the prosaic in the action. He wondered what he should say to the butler. ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... Lord Lansdowne's beautiful villa at Richmond, which he lent to the Duff Gordons after a severe illness of my father's, my mother mentions Hassan el Bakkeet (a black boy): 'He is an inch taller for our grandeur; peu s'en faut, he thinks me a great lady and himself a great butler.' Hassan was a personage in the establishment. One night, on returning from a theatrical party at Dickens', my mother found the little boy crouching on the doorstep. His master had turned him out of doors because he was threatened with blindness, and having come now and then ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... which they had been assigned. A maid was unpacking trunks under his sister's supervision. Mrs. Bines was in converse with a person of authoritative manner regarding the service to be supplied them. Two maids would be required, and madame would of course wish a butler— ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... As. Mr. A. C. Swinburne said of him: "He rode life's lists as a god might ride." Of English Literature and especially of poetry he was an omnivorous reader. He expressed warm admiration for Chaucer, "jolly old Walter Mapes," Butler's Hudibras, and Byron, especially Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, with its allusions to his beloved Tasso, Ariosto and Boccaccio. Surely, however, he ought not to have tried to set us against that tender line ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... so skilfully concealed his intention that by midnight of the sixteenth he had moved the whole Union army with its artillery and trains about twenty miles directly south and across the James River, on a pontoon bridge over two thousand feet long, to City Point. General Butler, with an expedition from Fortress Monroe, moving early in May, had been ordered to capture Petersburg; and though he failed in this, he had nevertheless seized and held City Point, and Grant thus effected an immediate ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... and some steaming artichokes, which the nun had brought up at the request of the cook whose only son the physician had saved; he invited her attention to the little pies, the fruits and cakes which were laid ready, and played the part of butler; and then, while they heartily enjoyed the meal, they ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Histoire Ecclesiastique, tome i., note 4., for a full discussion of this question. Also Mosheim's De Rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum Commentarii, saeculum primum, sec. 1.; and Butler's Lives of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... butler, Mr. Ferdinand—that bulky and veracious gentleman—threw open the latticed windows of the drawing-room and let the cold air rush blithely in. Then he made up the fire carefully, placed a copy of Mr. Malkiel's ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... was a kind of favourite with his master, and kend a' the folks about the castle, and was often sent for to play the pipes when they were at their merriment. Auld Dougal MacCallum, the butler, that had followed Sir Robert through gude and ill, thick and thin, pool and stream, was specially fond of the pipes, and ay gae my gudesire his gude word wi' the laird; for Dougal could turn his master ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... sovereigns tried to make out of their different courts subordinate circles of the first court, and rivalled with one another in vassalage. One wanted to be the cup-bearer of the ensign of Brienne; another, his butler. Charlemagne's history was put under contribution by the erudition of the German chancellor's officers. The higher they were, the more eager their demands. As Bonaparte said in Las Cases, a lady of the Montmorencys would have hastened to undo the Empress's shoes." The monarchs were ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... seriously affected by the reality that your provisions are also apportioned to the needs of your landlord's family. Even then, the ideal remains beautiful, and you have an image, somewhat blurred and battered, of home, such as money cannot elsewhere buy you. If your landlord is the butler who has married the cook, your valeting and cooking approach as nearly perfection ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... who went out there with me was a large man, and I had been admiring his size all the way. I was still admiring it as he stood by the governor on the veranda, talking; then the Fijian butler stepped out there to announce tea, and dwarfed him. Maybe he did not quite dwarf him, but at any rate the contrast was quite striking. Perhaps that dark giant was a king in a condition of political suspension. I think that in the talk ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was at an end; and time and chance, that strip off all disguises, have discovered, that the intimate of lords and dukes is a nobleman's butler, who has furnished a shop with the money he has saved; the man who deals so largely in the funds, is a clerk of a broker in 'Change-alley; the lady who so carefully concealed her quality, keeps a cook-shop ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... been satirized by Butler in the Third Part of Hudibras, 1678, three years before the crisis in his remarkable career, and while his schemes still prospered. To Butler he is the unprincipled turn-coat who thinks ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... 18th of December, 1814, through his Aid-de-camp, Colonel Butler, the General issued another address to the colored soldiers, who had proven themselves, in every particular, worthy of their country's trust, and in every way worthy of the proudest position of enfranchised ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... sprung, directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of the human intellect? That from hence were the vast accomplishments and the brilliant fancy of Cicero, the withering fire of Juvenal, the plastic imagination of Dante, the humor of Cervantes, the comprehension of Bacon, the wit of Butler, the supreme and universal excellence of Shakspeare? All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Whatever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, there ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... I find any information as to the saint who figures in the following curious story? Regiolapidensis may probably mean of Koenigstein, in Saxony; but Albon Butler takes no notice ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various
... sympathetic, and in less than a quarter of an hour had exchanged the most solemn vows that we would never marry one another." While I was rubbing my eyes and making up my mind whether I had stumbled upon a great satirist or no, I heard a voice from below—"Signor Butler, Signor Butler, la vettura e pronta." I had therefore to leave my doubt unsolved, but all the time as we drove down the valley I had the words above quoted ringing in my head. If ever any of my readers come across the book itself—for I should hope it will be published—I should be very grateful ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... tracts in private houses, explaining that they will make another call later, and doing so if they receive the least encouragement. They take great pains to reach servant girls with their literature and arguments, and the story has been published* of a Mormon missionary who secured employment as a butler, and made himself so efficient that his employer confided to him the engagement of all the house servants; in time the frequent changes which he made aroused suspicion, and an investigation disclosed the fact that he was a Mormon of good education, who used his position as head ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... if we may so call it, of finding the materials for his plot in incidents which carry in themselves so much of dramatic power that a story is evolved from them with the facility and inevitableness of a fate. When the United States forces under General Butler occupied New Orleans, certain developments connected with the workings of "the peculiar institution" were made, which showed a state of social degradation of which we had not supposed even Slavery capable. It appeared that women, so white as to be undistinguishable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... dinner was over we returned together to the drawing-room. Although Mr. Fairlie (emulating the magnificent condescension of the monarch who had picked up Titian's brush for him) had instructed his butler to consult my wishes in relation to the wine that I might prefer after dinner, I was resolute enough to resist the temptation of sitting in solitary grandeur among bottles of my own choosing, and sensible enough to ask the ladies' permission ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... has been a busyish month for a sick man. First, Faauma—the bronze candlestick, whom otherwise I called my butler—bolted from the bed and bosom of Lafaele, the Archangel Hercules, prefect of the cattle. There was a deuce to pay, and Hercules was inconsolable, and immediately started out after a new wife, and has had one up on a visit, but says she has "no conversation"; and I think he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enormous complex of crooked politics and crookeder finance, Cowperwood himself stands out in the round, comprehensible and alive. And all the others, in their lesser measures, are done almost as well—Cowperwood's pale wife, whimpering in her empty house; Aileen Butler, his mistress; his doddering and eternally amazed old father; his old-fashioned, stupid, sentimental mother; Stener, the City Treasurer, a dish-rag in the face of danger; old Edward Malia Butler, that barbarian in a boiled shirt, with his Homeric hatred and his broken ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... memory of "the first known forefather of the poet." This lately turned up ancestor, who does not date very far back, was also named Robert Browning, and is described on the mural marble as "formerly footman and butler to Sir John Bankes of Corfe Castle." Now, Robert Browning the poet had as good right as Abou Ben Adhem himself to ask to be placed on the list of those who love their fellow men; but if the poet could have been consulted ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and "flit." To flit, a verb applied to Clifford's nocturnal prowls, expressed, perhaps, as well as anything, the gaiety proposed. Dinner was ordered at Mignon's, and while Selby interviewed the chef, Clifford kept a fatherly eye on the butler. The dinner was a success, or was of the sort generally termed a success. Toward the dessert Selby heard some one say as at a great distance, "Kid Selby, drunk ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... BOLT CUTTER.—O.E. Butler and S.P. Dunham Marshalltown, Iowa.—This invention relates to improvements in hand instruments for cutting bolts, and consists in the combination with the handles of an instrument, such as patented to the inventors, January ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... when her sovereignty is owned, an inward repose and satisfaction; when she is disobeyed, a sense of discord and rebellion, of unrest and disturbance. This is sound and indisputable, and it cannot be more clearly stated or more vividly illustrated than by Butler; but he manifestly regards conscience as legislator no less than judge, and thus fails to recognize any objective standard of right. It is evident that on his ground there is no criterion by which ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... at the lute; bound to amuse this highborn woman, fading away in the monotony of feudal life, with few books to read or unable to read them, and far above all the household concerns which devolve on the butler, the cellarer, the steward, the gentleman, honourably employed as a servant. To them, to these young men, with few or no young women of their own age to associate, and absolutely no unmarried girls ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... was a rigid disciplinarian in all matters concerned with sport. His servants, one and all, from the old, white-haired family butler down to the little stable-boy, idolised him, but never presumed to disobey his slightest command. For many years before he came to live at the mansion, the Hunt had fallen into a state of extreme neglect; the pack was one ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... stood drawn up to make the most of his very inconsiderable height, eyes straight ahead, hands at sides, chin elevated and stationary. Nothing was plainer than that he aped the burlesqued English butler—unless it be that it was even more obvious that in his chosen role he was a ridiculous failure. There never was the man less designed by nature for the part than ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... the kindness of Mr. Austin Dobson, author of "Thomas Bewick and his Pupils," to reproduce from that work a picture of the stocks, engraved by Charlton Nesbit for Butler's "Hudibras," 1811. ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... masquerade as his bastard progeny, he would either accept his interlocutor's premisses and tell him to build up his precious northern civilization on a basis of slavery; or he would reject them and advise him, with Samuel Butler, to make a bonfire of the machines. The latter is, indeed, the more probable alternative; for it is that to which the more thoughtful and prophetic (perhaps one can add also, the more Hellenic) of our modern guides are turning. When men so diverse ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... the bell. He had to wait. He shook guiltily, as though he, and no member of his family, had sinned. A little more, and his tongue would have cleaved to the gold of his upper denture. The double portals swung backwards. Mr. Prohack beheld the portly form of an intensely traditional butler, and behind the butler a vista of outer and inner halls and glimpses of the soaring staircase. He heard, somewhere in the distance of the interior, the ringing laugh of his ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... was called, the butler gave him a letter—he had been there about a fortnight—from his aunt. He opened it, expecting that it was to say that she was ill. He found that ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of morality or of religion, of the existence of authorities, who grow up directly in ideas of negation in everything, that is to say, savages. Well, he's of that class. He's the son, it appears, of some Moscow butler, and has never had any sort of bringing-up. When he got into the academy and made his reputation he tried, as he's no fool, to educate himself. And he turned to what seemed to him the very source of culture—the magazines. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... living upward of eighty. In Dunsford, a small village, there were living at one time 80 persons above the age of four score. Colonel Thomas Winslow was supposed to have died in Ireland on August 26, 1766, aged one hundred and forty-six. There was a man by the name of Butler who died at Kilkenny in 1769 aged one hundred and thirty-three. He rode after the hounds while yet a centenarian. Mrs. Eckelston, a widow in Phillipstown, Kings County, Ireland, died in 1690 at one hundred ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... "Mr. Thayer," the old butler announced imperturbably, and the subject of discussion came slowly across the great dusky room towards the circle of ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... and most cheerful. News came from the Castle that our old duke was unwell, was confined to his room, then to his bed. One morning—I remember it as if yesterday—as I was walking through the court-yard with one of the farm-servants, the butler looked from a window above, shook his head mournfully, folded his arms across his breast, and bent his eyes towards the ground. We read his meaning at a glance,—"The good Duke James was dead!" For days and days the people gave way to a deep, even a passionate grief, as ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... to lead the life of a hermit, and escape the cares of royalty. Timid by temperament, yet liable to fits of uncontrollable anger, he broke his furniture to pieces when irritated, and threw dishes that displeased him in his butler's face, but left affairs of state mainly to his valet, who earned many a penny by selling the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... national convention of the Whig party at Philadelphia on June 7, 1848, on the fourth ballot, defeating General Scott, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Webster. At the election on November 7 the Whig ticket (Taylor and Fillmore) was successful, receiving 163 electoral votes, while the Democratic candidates (Cass and Butler) each received 127 votes. He was inaugurated March 5, 1849, and died in Washington City July 9, 1850. Was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... that vast apartment, the first of the many papal ante-chambers. But before long the Guard returned, and behind him, on the threshold of the adjoining room, appeared a man of forty or thereabouts, who was clad in black from head to foot and suggested a cross between a butler and a beadle. He had a good-looking, clean-shaven face, with somewhat pronounced nose and large, clear, fixed eyes. "Signor Squadra," said Pierre for the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... reception. Consequently I gasped out something about its being the sultriest 47th of August in eighteen years, and plumped back into a chair opposite him. "I wouldn't mind a Remsen cooler myself," he went on, "but the fact is your butler is off for to-night, and I'm hanged if I can find a lemon in the house. Maybe you'll join me in a smoke?" he added, shoving my own bundle of brevas ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... pages to serve as an introduction to what follows, from the hand of my friend, Mr. Butler. The Committee of the Guild asked me to prepare a volume on the most notable of our ancient churches; and finding that other engagements stood in the way of my doing so, I recommended that the work should be entrusted to Mr. Butler, of whose ability to do it well ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... she retired from the stage, and was married to Mr. Pierce Butler of Philadelphia, a gentleman of fortune, accomplishments, and an honorable character. The history of this union is sufficiently notorious. On both sides there was ambition: it was a distinction to be accepted by a woman of so much genius; it was a great happiness to change the dominion of ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... to set that down as more deceit, as if it were the poor thing's business to denounce her mother. Now, to show you that I can be sure that Edna was brought up to the Church, I will tell you her antecedents. Her father was Sir Thomas Deane's butler; they lived in the village, and she was very much in the nursery with the Miss Deanes—had some lessons from the governess. There was some notion of making her a nursery governess, but Sir Thomas died, the ladies went abroad, taking her father with them; ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Edinburgh, have a very peculiar outline; they resemble an immense elephant crouching down. We passed Mushats Cairn, where Jeanie Deans met Robertson; and saw Liberton, where Reuben Butler was a schoolmaster. Nobody doubts, I hope, the historical accuracy ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... tolerable dinner he was sitting over a bottle of the port which he prized beyond anything else his succession had brought him, when the door of the dining-room opened suddenly and the butler appeared, pale with terror. "My lord! my lord!" he stammered as he closed the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... gleamed confusedly here and there, as an outer landscape through the high-colored scenes of a stained window. He waited thus an hour, an hour and a half, two hours. He began to look pale and ill, whereupon the butler, who came in, asked him to have a glass of wine. Melbury roused himself and said, "No, no. Is she ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... gave a loud peal, and Jencks the butler opened it to receive a box about two feet ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... office-boy. He says nothing, apparently does nothing. But that evening, as you are going home in the Tube, a burly working-man treads heavily on your gouty foot. In Ladbroke Grove a passing hansom splashes you with mud. Reaching home, you find that the cat has been at the cold chicken and the butler has given notice. You do not connect these things, but they are all alike the results of your unjust behaviour to your office-boy in the morning. Or, meeting a ragged little matchseller, you pat his head and give him six-pence. ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... was to visit George. There was something very engaging in the thought of being ushered into his presence by a respectable butler, and making my excuses for having called at such an unreasonable hour. I pictured to myself how he would look as I gradually dropped my assumed voice, and very slowly the almost incredible truth ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... volume is destined to create a profounder sensation in this country than any philosophical or religious work of this century. It is a defence of revealed religion, equal in ability to the "Analogy" of Bishop Butler, and meets the scepticism of our age as effectually as that great work in an earlier day. The Pantheism and Parkerism infused into our popular literature will here find an antidote. The Lectures excited the ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... he spent in Chicago. She was assisted in this work by Mrs. James W. Morrisson, secretary of the Chicago Equal Suffrage Association; Mrs. George Bass, president of the Chicago Woman's Club; Mrs. Jean Wallace Butler, a well-known business woman; Mrs. Edward L. Stillman, an active suffragist in the Rogers Park Woman's Club; Miss Florence King, a prominent patent lawyer and president of the Chicago Woman's Association of Commerce; Miss Mary Miller, another Chicago lawyer and president of the Chicago Human ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... with the gentlemen to listen," said she, and was saved by Harry and the butler, who came in ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... peasant on the hills—and I have asked amid the mountains of Braemar and Deeside—'How do you know that this book is divine, and that the religion you profess is true? You never read Paley?' 'No, I never heard of him.'—'You have never read Butler?' 'No, I have never heard of him.'—'Nor Chalmers?' 'No, I do not know him.'—'You have never read any books on evidence?' 'No, I have read no such books.'—'Then, how do you know this book is true?' 'Know it! Tell me that the Dee, the Clunie, and the ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... hardly removed the traces of his journey, and changed his dress, when his butler announced that the dinner ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... Brazer's death the store was moved across the street, where it still remains, forming the ell of Gerrish's block. The post-office was in the north end of it, during Mr. Butler's term as postmaster. About this time the son, William Farwell Brazer, built a store nearly opposite to the Academy, which he kept during some years. It was made finally into a dwelling-house, and occupied by the late Jeremiah Kilburn, whose ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... behind her to make sure that the old butler of the house had retired discreetly out ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seven o'clock when she came down the stairs to be informed by the butler that the gentlemen had not come home yet, and should ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... his appearance, a suave domestic, wearing the inconspicuous livery of an English butler rather than the ornate uniform which ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... THAT?" and he tossed the Pope's missive into a corner. "M. l'Abbe knows," he said, bowing and grinning, "that though the Pope's paper may pass current HERE, it is not worth twopence in our country. What do I care about the Pope's absolution? You might just as well be absolved by your under butler." ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... For I cannot pay them. They had got a worse trick than that. The same man bought and sold to himself, paid the money, and gave the acquittance; the same man was butcher and grazier, brewer and butler, cook and poulterer. There is something still worse than all this. There came twenty bills upon me at once, which I had given money to discharge. I was like to be pulled to pieces by brewer, butcher, and baker; even my herb-woman dunned me as I went along the streets. Thanks to my ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... obliged by any reference to information respecting Bishop Blaize, the Santo Biagio of Agrigentum, and patron saint of Ragusa. Butler says little but that he was bishop of Sebaste, in Armenia, the proximity of which place to Colchis appears to me suspicious. Wonderful and horrible tales are told of him; but I suspect his patronage of wool-combers is founded ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... a letter for Mrs. Churchill, sir," said Franklin, endeavouring to pronounce his "sir" in a tone as respectful as the butler's ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... when the butler was off duty, my brother, home from Princeton, answered the door bell. A gentleman entered, asking if the ladies were at home; he handed his silk hat to John, then his cane, then his coat, and then, he said "Now, announce ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... Marrables were old and infirm, Walter was allowed to do just as he pleased in the house. He was encouraged to hunt. There was shooting for him if he wished it. Even the servants about the place, the gamekeeper, the groom, and the old butler, seemed to have recognised him as the heir. There would have been so comfortable an escape from the dilemma into which his father had brought him,—had he not made his ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... into a hotel at St. John's, we met the butler in the hall, to whom I said, "We wish to stop here to-night." He turned round, scratching his head, evidently much put about. But thinking that my wife was white, he replied, "We have plenty of room for the lady, but I don't know about ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... us his shining example to note, And Stuart has captured his uniform coat; But 'tis puzzling enough, as his deeds we recall, To tell on whose shoulders his mantle should fall; While many may claim to deserve it, at least, From Hunter, the Hound, down to Butler, the Beast, None else, we can say, without risking the trope, But himself can be parallel ever ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... would retire to the back part of the House to bark at the Butler and act as if he had been ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... low extraction, and who never received any regular education. He was an imitator of the famous Butler, and wrote his Reformation, a poem, with an aim at the same kind of humour which has so remarkably distinguished Hudibras. 'Of late years, says Mr. Jacob, he has kept a public house in the city, but in a genteel way.' Ward was, in his own droll manner, a violent antagonist to the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... Fubsby's, M'm. As you have no butler, M'm, I presume you will wish me to act as sich. I shall bring two persons as haids to-morrow; both answers to the name of John. I'd best, if you please, inspect the premisis, and will think you to allow your young man to show ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and Colour-Sergeant Plunkett, Coldstream Guards, collected 150 men, and helped the 9th Brigade crossing the river under Captain Lord Newtown Butler. ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... mixtura dementia! There is no excellent knowledge without mixture of madness, and what makes a man more mad in the head than wine? Qui bene vult [Greek: Pioein] debet ante [Greek: pinein]: He that will do well must drink well. Prome, prome, potum prome! Ho, butler, a fresh pot! Nunc est libendum, nunc pede libero terra pulsanda:[86] a pox on him that leaves his drink ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... went off to his room, as he explained airily, "to dash off a letter on his typewriter," a statement that was greeted with howls of derision from the others, who, for want of a better place, went into Butler's bookstore and aimlessly looked ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... pass after these things, that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker had offended their lord the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was wroth against two of his officers, and against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the bakers. And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... rattling, and varied by stifled cries apparently from the woodshed. The din seemed to come from the lower part of the house, and after one or two futile appeals to the man who served as valet, cook, and butler in his bachelor establishment, he decided that he was alone in his half of the house, and that the noise came from Miss Gould's side. He strolled down the beautiful winding staircase, and dragged his crimson dressing-gown to the top of the cellar stairs, the ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... pale green. The woodwork was daintily carved, the dining-room was panelled in oak with two handsome china-closets built in. We had eleven closets with an extra storeroom for trunks in the basement, and enough cabinets in the kitchen and butler's pantry to stock a hotel, and as a crowning glory the front door did not open opposite the bathroom or kitchen as is the case in most apartments, but was near the front like the home of a Christian, and the dining-room gave into the ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... entered Harvard College, then an institution with about two hundred students. The course of study in those days was narrow and dull, a pretty steady diet of Greek, Latin and Mathematics, with an occasional dessert of Paley's Evidences of Christianity or Butler's Analogy. Lowell was not distinguished for scholarship, but he read omnivorously and wrote copiously, often in smooth flowing verse, fashioned after the accepted English models of the period. He was an editor of Harvardiana, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... all, what was to be done? Jackeymo was much too proud to exhibit his person to the eyes of the squire's butler in habiliments discreditable to himself and the padrone. In the midst of his perplexity the bell rang, and he ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... are some infelicities. Such as 'like' for 'as,' and the addition of an 'at' where it isn't needed. I heard an educated gentleman say, 'Like the flag-officer did.' His cook or his butler would have said, 'Like the flag-officer done.' You hear gentlemen say, 'Where have you been at?' And here is the aggravated form—heard a ragged street Arab say it to a comrade: 'I was a-ask'n' Tom whah ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ordinary idler, for he haunted the Harvard Library, and we know that all his life he was a lover of books. In 1841 he was graduated from Harvard, and went home to Lowell to read law in his father's office, where Benjamin F. Butler was at that time a partner. The dilettante attitude which characterized his college years is now no longer in evidence. He writes to a friend, "I shall study law for the present to oblige father; ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... tone, as we proceeded to traverse the passage, on each side of which were the rooms occupied by the servants. We took off our shoes and advanced on tip-toe. At the far end of the passage we heard a sound like a trombone. That was the butler; we knew of his snoring propensities, and so were not alarmed. His door was open; so was his mouth—I could see that plainly, as I passed, by the dim light of a candle which he always burned at night. The butler was excessively fat. I merely mention this because ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... sharpening of his knife on his fork, but without making the least noise in doing it. My chequered neighbor having advertised the toughness of the beef, everybody murmurs a purpose of indulging in fowl, at which my neighbor observes aside to me that he is "rather jolly glad," and the butler takes the beef away. The dish next set before him proving a matter of spoons merely, his relief at not being obliged to carve finds vent in a whispered "Hooray!" for my exclusive amusement. One unfortunate individual ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... one o'clock, the hour appointed by the summons, the defendants attended in court, accompanied by their professional advisers and a number of friends, including Alderman Plunkett, Mr. Butler, T.C.; the Rev. P. Langan, P.P., Ardcath; A.M. Sullivan, T.C.; T.D. Sullivan, J.J. Lalor, &c. Mr. Dix and Mr. Allen, divisional magistrates, presided. Mr. James Murphy, Q.C., instructed by Mr. Anderson, represented the crown. ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... began. At it Amathel drank much of the sweet wine of Asi or Cyprus, commanding Rames, who stood behind him, to fill his cup again and again, though whether he did this because he was nearest to him, or to lower him to the rank of a butler, Tua did not know. At least, having no choice, Rames obeyed, though cup-filling was no fitting task for a Count of Egypt and an officer ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... again the next week and with a like result. Finally Madame De Berney resorted to heroic treatment. She locked herself in her rooms, and gave orders to the butler that Monsieur Balzac should not be allowed to enter the house, and that to him she ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard |
