"Obsequious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he left the council chamber and strode gloomily through the Court of Lions and the outer halls of the Alhambra, without deigning to speak to the obsequious courtiers who attended in them. He repaired to his dwelling, armed himself at all points, mounted his favorite war-horse, and, issuing forth from the city by the gate of Elvira, was never seen or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... into his place, but he was a mild and not very intelligent young man, not long out of his articles, and very dependent upon Daireh, who knew all the details of his father's clients' business, and was so deferential and obsequious, that he made him think very often that he had originated the course of conduct which the wily Egyptian had suggested. As for the other partner, Fagan, he confined himself entirely, as he always had done, to the criminal and political part of ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... at this time at Monceaux. The Duke of Mayenne hastened to meet him. He found Henry riding on horseback in the beautiful park of that place with the fair Gabrielle, and accompanied by the Duke of Sully. Mayenne, in compliance with the obsequious etiquette of those days, kneeled humbly before the king, embraced his knees, and, assuring him of his entire devotion for the future, thanked the monarch for having delivered him "from the arrogance of the Spaniards and from the cunning of ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... between the heroic Don John and the lovely Queen of Scotland. "Money, more money, and Escovedo," became at length, in his perplexity and anguish, the importunate clamour of the governor of the Netherlands. Then it was, as Perez tells us, that Philip and his obsequious counsellors meditated on the course best fitted for what was evidently a serious conjecture. Then it was, we learn from the same authority, that the king determined ON THE DEATH ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... with difficulty, and the crowd from America too was deterred by the danger. Instead of the throngs at the great points of interest, the visitors counted by twos and threes. The guides and landlords were obsequious. We few strangers had the Alps to ourselves and they were as lavish of their splendours to the handful as to the multitude. At Geneva at last I found letters from home which caused me anxiety; I was referred for later news to letters ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... has never seemed to respect anything but organised force. In the sixteenth century it proclaimed Henry VIII the Supreme Head of the Church; in the seventeenth century it passionately upheld the 'right divine of kings to govern wrong'; in the eighteenth and nineteenth it was the obsequious supporter of the squirearchy and plutocracy; and now it grovels before the working-man, and supports every scheme of plundering the minority. In fact, we must distinguish sharply between ecclesiasticism, theology, and religion. The future of ecclesiasticism is a political question. In the ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... had already reached the convent of Butuan, and Dabao sent his Manobo Indians to the river Humayan with obsequious appearances of readiness to receive him, but with the peremptory order to kill him. God so arranged that the father visitor, Fray Juan de San Antonio, should pass to the convent of Cagayang without stopping to visit that of Linao. He left a letter for the father prior of Linao which he sent ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... keen sense of wickedness as we mounted the steps in the yellow flare of the flaming arc-light on the Broadway corner not far below us. A heavy, grated door swung open at the practised signal of my friend, and an obsequious negro servant stood bowing and pronouncing his name in the sombre mahogany portal beyond, with its green marble pillars and handsome decorations. A short parley followed, after which we entered, my ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... from hand to hand—tipping was still in style. The obsequious steward gave him further directions for finding the games and recreational rooms, and other points of ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... (Queen Anne's son), during their boyhood. My grandfather and the Duke were playfellows; and the Duke's tutor was Dr. Burnet. One day, when the Doctor went out of the room, the Duke having as usual courted him, and treated him with obsequious civility, young Bathurst expressed his surprise that his Royal Highness should treat a person, whom he disliked as much as he did the Doctor, with so much courtesy and kindness. The Duke replied, 'Do you think I have been so long a pupil of Dr. Burnet's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... fretting me. I was picturesque and beautiful; its successor, so stiff, so heavy, makes a mere mannikin of me. There was no want to which, its complaisance did not lend itself, for indigence is ever obsequious. Was a book covered with dust, one of the lappets offered itself to wipe the dust away. Did the thick ink refuse to flow from the pen, it offered a fold. You saw traced in the long black lines upon it ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... changed suddenly. From the impatient, slightly pompous official, conscious of her position, she became obsequious and even affectionate. Possibly she remembered that the girl was to become the wife of the most powerful man in Moscow, whose word was amply sufficient to send even Gregory Prodol to the execution yard, and Gregory's ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... at the switchboard. The rest of them sat down at the long conference-table. Laviola and Meyerstein and Buhrmann were especially obsequious in seating von Schlichten in Sid Harrington's old chair, and in getting a chair for Paula Quinton. After a while, the jumbled colors on the big screen resolved themselves into an image of Hideyoshi O'Leary, grinning like a pussy-cat ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... elected Podesta of Cadore as far back as 1321.[3] The name Tiziano would appear to have been a traditional one in the family. Among others we find a contemporary Tiziano Vecelli, who is a lawyer of note concerned in the administration of Cadore, keeping up a kind of obsequious friendship with his famous cousin at Venice. The Tizianello who, in 1622, dedicated to the Countess of Arundel an anonymous Life of Titian known as Tizianello's Anonimo, and died at Venice in 1650, ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... discovered. He it was who pooh-poohed the necessity of arming Kimberley, and we accordingly lost no time in setting him up in the game of Siege Aunt Sally as a popular target for our rancour. And pelted he was with right good will. The genial Mr. Quilp, when he found himself deserted by his obsequious flatterer, Sampson Brass, cried out in the seclusion of his apartment at the wharf: "Oh, Sampson, Sampson, if I only had you here!" and he was considerably consoled by his operations with a hammer on the desk in front of him. The feelings of Mr. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... with a setter bitch that accompanied him. Whilst stopping to water his horse, he remarked how amorous the mongrel continued, and how courteous the setter seemed to her admirer. Provoked to see a creature of Dido's high blood so obsequious to such mean addresses, the doctor drew one of his pistols and shot the dog; he then had the bitch carried on horseback for several miles. From that day, however, she lost her appetite, ate little or nothing, had no inclination to ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... saw it was impudently false, childish, sentimental. My head ached, the humidity sapped my strength, at heart I felt sick, sore, discouraged. I was down and out. And seeing this, Temptation, like an obsequious floorwalker, came hurrying forward. ...
— The Log of The "Jolly Polly" • Richard Harding Davis
... BUBB DODINGTON is a lesson in the philosophy of intrigue, or the art of imposing on our fellow men. It is addressed to Bubb Dodington[127] as to an ambitious, obsequious, unscrupulous, and only partially successful courtier; and undertakes to show that, being (more or less) a knave, his conduct also proclaimed him a fool, and lost him the rewards of knavery. Mr. Browning does not concern himself ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... table for you just at present," he was saying. "But perhaps you'll let me take your order,"—and he imitated the obsequious attitude of a waiter. "A little fresh caviar and a clear soup, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... presence was regarded. Now I knew the reason; I had come at the clerk's hour, and the keen eyes of discriminating shopmen had recognised my low estate. I came now under altered auspices. To shop at three in the afternoon is to give proof of leisure; behold, in the eyes of obsequious shopmen I had at once become a wealthy dilettante, nurturing the growth of an expensive library, and the rarest books were laid before me with an ingratiating smile. Let the man who would understand how much the estimates men take of us are based on wealth, or supposed ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... of art seated herself in the most important chair in the room; and when David, after carefully wiping the shoes he had already wiped three times on his way up, entered with a respectful but no wise obsequious bow, she ordered him, with the air of an empress, to shut the door. When he had obeyed, she ordered him, in a similar tone, to be seated; for she sought to mingle condescension ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... plentiful, was coarse; his liquors strong and bad; and more ale and whiskey were expended in his establishment than generous wine. He was loud and arrogant at his own table, and exacted a rich man's homage from his vulgar and obsequious guests. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... renominated John T. Hoffman. It was still the fashion to praise all he said and all he did. Before his arrival the Reformers claimed a majority, but as the up-State delegates crowded his rooms to bend the obsequious knee he reduced these claims to a count, finding only forty-two disobedient members. He was too tactful, however, to appear in the convention hall. His duty was to give orders, and like a soldier he pitched his headquarters near the scene of action, boasting that his friends were everywhere ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... fire-escape, sorr," said Officer Donahue, in a tone of obsequious respect which not only delighted, but astounded Archie, who hadn't known he could talk like that, "accordin' to instructions, when I heard a suspicious noise. I crope in, sorr, and found this duck—found the accused, sorr—in front ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... many nice and difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he wore suspended by a ribband from his buttonhole. The boys halloo'd, the dogs barked, Puss scampered, the hero, with his long train of obsequious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves very merry with the adventure, and in a short time settled into our former tranquillity, never probably to be thus interrupted more. I thought myself, however, happy in being ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... entertaining. It was not so much in what he said as his manner of saying it. He was a strange combination of sudden extremes, at one while on a tone of easy but not undignified familiarity with his visitors, as if their equal in position, their superior in years; then abruptly, humble, deprecating, almost obsequious, almost servile; and then again, jerked as it were into pride and stiffness, falling back, as if the effort were impossible, into meek dejection. Still the prevalent character of the man's mood and talk was social, quaint, cheerful. Evidently ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mistaken; this shaven, obsequious, suavely jovial innkeeper is a Neapolitan. He takes his stand in his mosaic-paved hall, and is at the service of all who wish for information about Lago Maggiore, the list of its sights; in a word, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... third expedition to Guiana, which he placed under the command of Captain Leonard Berrie. This navigator was absent until the summer of the following year, when he returned, not having penetrated to Manoa, but confirming with an almost obsequious report Raleigh's most golden dreams. It is at this time, after his return from Cadiz, that we find Sir Walter Raleigh's name mentioned most lavishly by the literary classes in their dedications and eulogistic addresses. Whether his popularity was at the same time ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... Guiche, who comes down from Roxane's box, and crosses the pit surrounded by obsequious noblemen, among them the Viscount de Valvert): He pays a fine court, ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... upon the object of its hatred, however blameless, and be rewarded for perjury by being allowed the use of our jails as places in which to satisfy its vengeance. Such a view of the law made Sarah Althea the magistrate at Stockton on the 14th of August, and Justice Swain her obsequious amanuensis. Such a view of the law would enable any convict who had just served a term in the penitentiary to treat himself to the luxury of dragging to jail the judge who sentenced him, and keeping him there without bail as long as the magistrate acting ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... with gates made of palm wood, and covered with sheets of iron. In his mansion, above the entrance of which is written "L'Entree de Sidi Laid," are clocks innumerable, musical boxes, tables, chairs, sofas, and even framed photographs. Negro servants bow before him, wives, brothers, children, and obsequious hangers-on of various nationalities, black, bronze, and cafe au lait in colour, offer him perpetual incense. Rich worshippers of the Prophet and the Prophet's priests send him presents from afar; camels ...
— Halima And The Scorpions - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... the clerk, looking superciliously at the modest attire of the poor widow, and mentally deciding that she was not entitled to much consideration. Had she been richly dressed, he would have been very obsequious, and insisted on sending home the smallest parcel. But there are many who have two rules of conduct, one for the rich, and quite a different one for the poor, and among these was the clerk who was attending upon ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the people at the close of the gorgeous ceremony, he claimed for himself the surname of Felix, as he attributed his success in life to the favor of the gods. All ranks in Rome bowed in awe before their master; and among other marks of distinction which were voted to him by the obsequious Senate, a gilt equestrian statue was erected to his honor before the Rostra, bearing the inscription "Cornelio Sullae ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... certainly, to laugh at Joinville's admiral's flag floating at his foremast, in yonder black ship, with its two thundering great guns at the bows and stern, its busy crew swarming on the deck, and a crowd of obsequious shore-boats bustling round the vessel—and to sneer at the Mogador warrior, and vow that we English, had we been inclined to do the business, would have performed ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The use or the abuse It matters not. Let them all go together, As empty phrases and frivolities, And common as gold-lace upon the collar Of an obsequious lackey. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... afforded no protection to the subject against the civil and ecclesiastical tyranny of that period. The judges of the common law, holding their situations during the pleasure of the King, were scandalously obsequious. Yet, obsequious as they were, they were less ready and less efficient instruments of arbitrary power than a class of courts, the memory of which is still, after the lapse of more than two centuries, held in deep abhorrence by ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... insubstantial background faces came and went all day long, faces solemn and obsequious, faces glazed and feverish with emotion; Robert's face with red-rimmed eyes hiding Robert's unutterable sympathy under a thin mask of fright; Kitty's face with an entirely new expression on it; and her own face met them with an incomprehensible and tearless calm. For she was not even sure ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... pleasant dream, and one in which the self-deceived Regent was eagerly encouraged by those around her. The halls and galleries of the Louvre were crowded with animated and obsequious courtiers, and the apartments of Marie herself thronged by the greatest and proudest in the land; all of whom appeared, upon so joyous an occasion, to have laid aside their personal animosities and to live only to obey her behests. Madame had also formed her separate Court, in the midst ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... condition and probable chances of life, in a manner utterly revolting to me. I caught many a glance of disgust bent upon them by the poor fellows who were thus treated as if they were stocks or stones. These women were, while under the eye of the surgeon, obsequious and eager to please, but I thought I saw the "lurking devil in their eyes," and felt ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... the moment of departure. The three machines stood like weird night monsters at the gravelled foot of the wide stairway under the unlighted porte-cochere. It was a dark night, and the lights of the motor-cars cut as sharply through the blackness as knives would cut through solid substance. The obsequious lackey—the automatic genie of the house which belonged to none of the three men,—stood like a graven statue after having helped them in. The fur-coated chauffeurs bulked dimly in their seats. One after the other, like spurred steeds, the cars leaped into the blackness, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... to the Undertaker's Apprentice, a grim, saturnine figure with his grey face, protuberant eyes, and obsequious solemnity, in which lurked a callous smile. The burial of the great, the execution of the wicked, were alike to him. In him Fate seemed to personify life's revenges, its futilities, its calculating ironies. The flag-draped coffin was just about to pass, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... valet and maid to bring the luggage, which an obsequious customs officer cleared at once, he ushered his wife into a ramshackle victoria and told the man to drive to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... she experienced a sensation of anger that he had not complied with her wish. It was a new experience to have gentlemen, especially Van Dam, so long her obsequious slave, think of anything contrary to her wishes. She also feared that Edith might be right, and that Van Dam designed evil against her. She would not openly admit, even to herself, that this was his purpose, and yet ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... merely waited for the opportunity to get a court that would so pronounce it. The vacancy of the archbishopric of Canterbury enabled him to appoint to it Thomas Cranmer, [Sidenote: Cranmer] the obsequious divine who had first suggested his present plan. Cranmer was a Lutheran, so far committed to the new faith that he had married; he was intelligent, learned, a wonderful master of language, and capable at last of dying for his belief. But that he showed himself pliable to his master's ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... humble ambition to be great men in a small way—who thirst after a little brief authority, that shall render them the terror of the almshouse and the bridewell—that shall enable them to lord it over obsequious poverty, vagrant vice, outcast prostitution, and hunger-driven dishonesty—that shall give to their beck a hound-like pack of catshpolls and bumbailiffs—tenfold greater rogues than the culprits they hunt down! My readers will excuse this sudden warmth, which I confess ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... distance I keep him at; and thinks himself entitled now to call in question my value for him; strengthening his doubts by my former declared readiness to give him up to a reconciliation with my friends; and yet has himself fallen off from that obsequious tenderness, if I may couple the words, which drew from me the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... been the great object of his policy. He had placed himself above the control of the law. By the grant of a subsidy for life he was relieved from the necessity of meeting his parliament; with the aid of his committee, the members of which proved the obsequious ministers of his will, he could issue what new ordinances he pleased; and a former declaration by the two houses, that he was as free as any of his predecessors, was conveniently interpreted to release ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Abel exclaimed one day to the large boys assembled in solemn conclave in the school-room, "that takes all the boorishness and brutishness out of the English character? What is it that prevents the Britishers from being servile and obsequious—traits, I tell you, boys, unknown in England—but this splendid system of fagging? Did you ever hear of an insolent Englishman, a despotic Englishman, a surly Englishman, a selfish Englishman, an obstinate ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... entertaining at his country house at Stillbrook. He was a very useful and pleasant personage in a country house. He entertained the young men with queer little anecdotes and grivoises stories on their shooting parties, or in their smoking-room, where they laughed at him and with him. He was obsequious with the ladies of a morning, in the rooms dedicated to them. He walked the new arrivals about the park and gardens, and showed them the carte du pays, and where there was the best view of the mansion, and where the most favorable point to look at the lake: ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the only being who saw Christ face to face and spoke to Him, yet never heard His voice. For penitent sinners, weeping women, prattling children, for the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the rabbis, for the perjured high priest and his obsequious and insolent underling, and for Pilate the pagan, Christ had words—of comfort or instruction, of warning or rebuke, of protest or denunciation—yet for Herod the fox He had but disdainful and kingly ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... now he is austere and haughty and cannot abide familiarity. Once his family were his sole thought, but now he goes about thinking of his fish-hooks all the time. And his wealth makes everybody cringing and obsequious to him. Formerly nobody laughed at his jokes, they being always stale and far-fetched and poor, and destitute of the one element that can really justify a joke—the element of humour; but now everybody laughs and cackles ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... design'd; For 'twas his very nature to be kind: Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me: And I who was before decreed by fate, To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obey'd him, Till trusted with his all, and then ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... room and the boy trailed after her with the organ. Both had been brought in from the street. Svidrigailov had not been a week in Petersburg, but everything about him was already, so to speak, on a patriarchal footing; the waiter, Philip, was by now an old friend and very obsequious. ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... noiselessly after him in the shadow of the gallery, lest you should see me; for I knew you would prevent my going with the man. We descended the stairs, but it was not until we reached the bottom that I saw we had not come down by the way I had ascended. Selim was most obsequious, and seemed ready to do everything for my comfort. As we walked down a narrow street, he presented me with a new fez, and made signs to me to put it on instead of my hat, which he then carefully wrapped in a handkerchief and carried in his hand. At a place near the bridge several caiques were lying ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... sightseeing by this time. Churches, picture galleries, museums were our daily diet. While in Berlin we returned from a drive one day to the hotel and found ourselves the objects of unusual solicitude and attention from the hotel proprietor and his servants. With many obsequious bows we were informed that the Russian Ambassador had called upon us in our absence, and had informed the hotel people that he had a special package from the Czar to deliver to me. He left word that he would be at the hotel at 2 p.m. the following ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... life of me, I didn't know whether that was something nice to eat or to wear; but I have since learned that it is something French, and spelt, b-o-u-d-o-i-r,) and was waited upon by handsome pages, and took her airing on a dappled-gray palfrey, attended by trusty and obsequious grooms; when Sir Knight, followed by his sturdy henchmen, rode forth in gay and gaudy attire, with glittering helmet and cuirass, and entered the lists, and bravely fought for his fair lady's fame. She spoke with fervid eloquence, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... visited many a foreign port with the officers of the ship; he packed a hundred note-books with trite and superfluous observations; he posed, in brief, as the captain of the ship without responsibility. Arrived at Port Jackson, he was acclaimed a hero, and received with obsequious solicitude by the Governor, who promised that his 'future situation should be such as would render his banishment from England as little irksome as possible.' Forthwith he was appointed high constable of Paramatta, and, like Vautrin, who might have taken the youthful Barrington ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... back somewhere. There were eyes; the round inhuman orbs of the dwarf chaks, the faceted stare of the prism eyes of the Toys. The workroom wasn't a hundred feet long, but it felt longer than a good many miles I've walked. Here and there the dwarfs murmured an obsequious greeting to Miellyn, and she made ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... As those do that forerun the wheels of fate, Not take their dust—that force the virgin hours, Hew life into the likeness of themselves And wrest the stars from their concurrences. So firm his mould; but mine the ductile soul That wears the livery of circumstance And hangs obsequious on its suzerain's eye. For who rules now? The twilight-flitting monk, Or I, that took the morning like an Alp? He held his own, I let mine slip from me, The birthright that no sovereign can restore; And so ironic Time beholds us now Master ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... Alison was missed to-day, having a very valuable head for business. Shaw, the owner of the shop; was standing near the doorway. He felt cross and dispirited. He did not recognize Mrs. Reed when she came in. He thought she was a customer, and bowed in an obsequious way. ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... into a fairly wide, well-lighted hall, and an obsequious attendant showed us up a stair, and opening a door, pointed out the place she asked for. Imagine my utter astonishment when we stood together within the gaming room at Bertrand's. What an infernal ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... alleged grandson of his grandfather. A perpetual breeder of trouble; never did a decent day's work the whole trip. Insolent, mutinous, and overbearing, till I went for him with intent to do bodily mischief; then he became extremely obsequious. Like the rest of the foregoing, he resigned ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... pause, Fluttered with fancies in my breast; Obsequious to all decent laws, I felt exceedingly distressed. I knew it rude to enter there With Mrs. V. in such a state; And, 'neath a magisterial air, Felt actually indelicate. I knew the nurse began to grin; I turned to greet my Love. Said she— "Confound your modesty, come in! —What shall ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... in favour of Popery (and not likely to do it much service, I should think) written by the King, his brother, and found in his strong-box; and his open display of himself attending mass—the Parliament was very obsequious, and granted him a large sum of money, he began his reign with a belief that he could do what he pleased, and with a determination ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... A waiter of the hotel was strutting across the floor and sputtering out protests against this unseemly use of the sitting-room. The person was the same who the night before had haunted Davy's elbow with his obsequious "Yes, sirs," "No, sirs," and "Beg pardon, sirs"; but the morning had brought him knowledge of Davy's penury, and with that wisdom had come ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... he wished to know who I was, where I came from and what was my business here. Towards the Russians, whether strangers or natives of Siberia, the Yakuts are always on their guard and excessively obsequious. Every Russian, however poorly dressed, is always the 'tojan', the master. Their behaviour towards the Poles, on the other hand, is very friendly. No Yakut ever took the information that I was not a Russian ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... liberty they could wish. Here I imagined the stripping was to stop, but I reckon short; my spark, at the desire of the rest, tenderly begged, that I would not suffer the small remains of a covering to rob them of a full view of my whole person; and for me, who was too flexibly obsequious to dispute any point with them, and who considered the little more that remained as very immaterial, I readily assented to whatever he pleased-In an instant, then, my under petticoat was untied and at my feet, and my shift drawn over my head, so ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... from Southern France, and has been cultivated in England since 1570. It is a Composite plant, and bears the name Calendula from the Latin calendoe, the first days of each month, because it flowers all the year round. Whittier styles it "the grateful and [327] obsequious Marigold." The leaves are somewhat thick and sapid; when chewed, they communicate straightway a viscid sweetness, which is followed by a sharp, penetrating taste, very persistent in the mouth, and not ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... the night and gets up, Inger sleeping fine and sound after her long tramp, and out he goes to the cowshed. Now it must not be thought that he talked to Cow in any obsequious and disgustful flattery; no, he patted her decently, and looked her over once more in every part, to see if there should, by chance, be any sign, any mark of her belonging to strange owners. No mark, no sign, ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... picture. Some think it must be Carrots, some say the Brick. The Colonel is produced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr. Snagsby and his conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from its squalid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr. Bucket. Whenever they move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away and flits about them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the other's manoeuvres with eyes that did not disguise their amusement. He was always ready for a chat in which Monkey liberally be-larded him with sirs, was obsequious and deferential; but he would never cross the door of a public-house, and never, as the little man ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... burning desires her present company did greatly inforce mee, which I esteemed to yeelde mee more comfort, then the North starre in a tempestuous night to the troubled Marriner: more acceptable then that of Melicta to Adonis, or to Phrodites, the obsequious Nymph Peristera: and more delightfull then Dittander to the daughter of Dydo, with the Purple flowre for the wounde of Pius [Ae]neas: And finding my heart strooken and inwardly pricking, secretly filled and compressiuely stuft; recording and gathering together ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... bofe waitin' for you, sah," said that obsequious darky, preceding me through the dark passage. I followed, mounted the old-fashioned wooden steps, and fell into the outstretched arms of the colonel before I could ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... for his grandfather was dead, and he was heir to the property. He was, if possible, more haughty than before; but students are not, as a class, ready to respond to claims of superiority upon such grounds as he possessed, and, except by a few who were naturally obsequious, he continued to be called Beauchamp, and by that name I ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... marking shoals, Thelismer Thornton stood at the head of the broad granite steps that led up to the convention hall. An unlighted cigar was set hard between his teeth. Men flocked past him with obsequious greetings, but he merely grunted replies. He was watching for some one. He swore under his breath when he saw his man. General Waymouth and Harlan came up the steps together. He swung between them, and went along ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... Let me send you in a few dozen." He offered Mr. Punch an elaborate price-list as he concluded his self-condemnatory verse with an obsequious bow. ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... perfectly decorous, and, as our author was assured, would never "dream of violating the laws of decency and good temper." For the Hindu, on the other hand, as an entirely conventional and artificial creature, obsequious, hypocritical, inhospitable, disdainful of the race on whom he fawns and before whom he trembles as "unclean," Mr. Hornaday has no other feeling than aversion and contempt. He gives an amusing account of his indignation on finding ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... broad-brimmed felt hat over his eyes, twirled his large moustache, and said in an obsequious voice: ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... been the familiar intercourse between the Bishop and his boys, not only the advanced scholars, but the last and newest comers. The kindly and friendly disposition of the Melanesians leads to a great deal of free and equal familiarity even where there are chiefs, and the obsequious familiarity of which one hears in India is here quite unknown. Nevertheless, I doubt very much whether other Melanesians live in the same familiarity with their missionaries—e.g., Carry, wife of Wadrokala, writes ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boys. Beth went with her mother to see the old lady off at the station. On account of their connections the little party attracted attention, and Mrs. Caldwell, feeling her importance, expected the officials to be obsequious, which they were; and, in return, she also expected Aunt Victoria to make proper acknowledgment of their attentions. She considered that sixpence at least was necessary to uphold the dignity of the family on such occasions; but, to her ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... for these silly reports, but, if any special formalities were prescribed, Mr. Chamberlain brushed them aside, and simply conducted himself with quiet, easy grace, always calm and self-possessed, and never fussy or needlessly obsequious. ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... bedchamber, so as to have him constantly about his person. Such was his favour that every one pressed around him to obtain their suits with the King. He received rich presents; the ladies courted his attention; the greatest lords did him the most obsequious and disgusting homage."[61] He afterwards formed that connection with Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, which resulted in her divorce from her husband, and, subsequently, on his marrying Lady Essex, the King made him Earl of Somerset, that the lady might not lose in rank. On the circumstances ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... associated the idea of punishment, vindictiveness, revenge. I remembered again suddenly my odd notion that she sought to keep her present mistress here, a prisoner in this bleak and comfortless house, and that really, in spite of her obsequious silence, she was intensely opposed to the change of thought that had reclaimed Mabel to a happier ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... came, and never spoke; but the landlord saw one evening the tip of a bushy white tail protruding from beneath the stranger's rags. The sight aroused strange surmises and weird hopes. From that night he began to treat the mysterious visitor with obsequious kindness. But another month passed before the latter spoke. Then what he ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... Mrs. Day?" hastily interposes an obsequious Mr. Gibbon. He was assiduous in his attentions on the ladies, ever anxiously polite and kind. That he found his happiness among them and was eager to gain and to retain their favour he plainly showed. If he sometimes jarred on their fastidiousness he ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... "Grand March" had been inaugurated with full pomp. Sid Waters, as president, was sitting in the go-cart, his head ornamented with a huge smothering three-cornered hat, made out of a New York daily. Rick Grimes, as governor, was walking behind the go-cart, now and then giving the "chariot" an obsequious push, but impatiently awaiting his turn for a ride. Billy Grimes and Pip Peckham were serving as horses, and soldiers also, pulling along the president and sharing the broom-handle between them. Whether that handle might be a "musket" or a "spear," no one ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... The court was obsequious to the Proconsul, afraid of Rome; jealous that the mob should have been more forward than the magistracy. Had the city moved sooner, as soon as the edict came, there would have been no rising, no riot. Already ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... because in childhood circumstance and the black art of education alike conspire to make the worker humble in heart and to take the crown and sceptre from his spirit, and his elders are already tamed and obsequious. ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... be disappointed. Maggie's rather silly, obsequious smile concealed but for a moment the ineffable tragedy that had lain ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... woman," the obsequious attendant said, "and her room the best in the house; she would not remain much longer, and when she was gone the young lady could have it alone, or share it with her companions. It contained two beds, of course, besides a few ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... won from loveless hearts (12) are felt to be devoid of grace, and embraces forcibly procured are sweet no longer, so the obsequious cringings of alarm are hardly honours. Since how shall we assert that people who are forced to rise from their seats do really rise to honour those whom they regard as malefactors? or that these others who step aside to let their betters pass them in the street, desire thus ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... as matter of interest to the public, for whose presence the "world" had postponed its fetes, might now travel hundreds of miles without observation or inquiry. He upon whose steps had waited a crowd of obsequious attendants, now found himself with one follower, whose tone of independence hardly permitted him to call him servant. In cities, where he would still have been surrounded by those conventional distinctions of which he had himself been deprived, the sense of a great loss would have been ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... sir, you have ever found them obsequious and slavish and ready to abet you in many acts which I regret that you ever committed. There is the case of that unfortunate man, Trailcudgel, and many similar ones; were they not as active and cheerful! in bearing out your very harsh orders ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... windows, a whole secret hell of cruelty and darkness, such as our Christian land knows nothing of, which we can never understand, but which for ever lies waiting for the moment to burst forth, under the obsequious and servile behaviour of the natives of India. Since that time, I confess, I have never regarded, nor can regard, them as my fellow-beings; I look upon all faith or mercy shown to them as wasted, and were it possible for ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... Russia has ever been our friend, England our foe. The sympathies of Russia are with Republican France, with Republican America—the hand of England has ever been against the world. She has ruthlessly despoiled wherever and whenever she possessed the power, while slavishly obsequious when confronted by equal force. "Human liberty," your gran-dam! How long has it been since England repealed the Test Act?—since she granted political equality to Jews?—to Catholics? In this respect she even legged behind ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... aptly to his folk and region as Puck to the fays and mortals of a wood near Athens. In the days of divine sovereignty, the jester, we see, was by all odds the wise man of the palace; the real fools were those he made his butt—the foppish pages, the obsequious courtiers, the swaggering guardsmen, the insolent nobles, and not seldom majesty itself. And thus it is that painters and romancers have loved to draw him. Who would not rather be Yorick than Osric, or ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... great nuisance as a rule, but that she had a pet friend, a "dear docile creature, so useful with the dogs," and he was coming back by the 6.30 train. You would have laughed, if you could have seen him when he did arrive! A fair humble thing, with a squeaky voice and obsequious manners. He had been up to town to get the dogs new muzzles, as the muzzling order has just been put in force in this county. It appears Lady Theodosia has him always here, and he attends to the dogs for a home, but I would rather be ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... who had asked some friends into their balcony to see the carriages go to the levee. Nothing daunted, Mr. Streatfield questioned and questioned again. What was the old gentleman's name?—Dimsdale.—Could he see Mr. Dimsdale's servant?—The obsequious shopkeeper had no doubt that he could: Mr. Dimsdale's servant should be ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... in, a footman in livery and the major-domo. Your average Carioca servant is either fawning or covertly insolent. These two were obsequious. The footman carried a tray with a bottle, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... by incidents of rather a suspicious kind. Gifford, the manager of Goodman's Fields Theatre, professing to have received from some anonymous writer a play of singular scurrility, carried the work to the prime minister. The obsequious manager was rewarded with one thousand pounds for his patriotic conduct, and the libellous nature of the play he had surrendered was made the excuse for the legislation that ensued. It was freely observed at the time, however, that Gifford had profited ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... servile race, Who, in mere want of fault, all merit place; Who blind obedience pay to ancient schools, Bigots to Greece, and slaves to musty rules; With solemn consequence declared that none Could judge that cause but Sophocles alone. Dupes to their fancied excellence, the crowd, Obsequious to the sacred dictate, bow'd. 190 When, from amidst the throng, a youth stood forth,[20] Unknown his person, not unknown his worth; His look bespoke applause; alone he stood, Alone he stemm'd the mighty ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... distance from the school, and explained that he would guide him by a short cut, leaving the driver to take the dog-cart to a farm where it could be put up. The unsuspecting inspector agreed, and they set off, the obsequious dominie carrying his bag. He led his victim into another glen, the hills round which had hidden their heads in mist, and then slyly remarked that he was afraid they had lost their way. The minister, who liked to attend the examination, reproved the dominie for ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... down close to the rostrum whence she could watch the sale, and mayhap make a bid for a purchase on her own account; the rich Roman matrons with large private fortunes and households of their own, imperious and independent, were the object of grave deference and of obsequious courtesy—not altogether unmixed with irony, on the part of the young ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Cassel-Nassau were always awed and stiff in her society; their minds were harassed by the fear lest they should be guilty of some appalling breach of etiquette. The manner of the Twins, therefore, was a pleasant change for her. They were polite, but quite unconstrained; and the obsequious people by whom she had always been surrounded had never displayed that engaging quality, save when, like the baroness, they were safely ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... prosperity is too deeply rooted to be overturned by the malignant fury of vengeful despots. It must be evident that the power of the governor of this colony is sufficiently leviathan, uncontrolled as he is by a council, and possessed as he is of an incontrovertible right to nominate the most obsequious of his creatures as jurymen on all trials, whether of a civil or criminal nature, to endanger the property and life of every individual under his government. Nor should it here be forgotten that there has been a governor who, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... and if Laura had spoken as Helen hoped, who knows what temptations Arthur Pendennis might have been spared, or what different trials he would have had to undergo? He might have remained at Fairoaks all his days, and died a country gentleman. But would he have escaped then? Temptation is an obsequious servant that has no objection to the country, and we know that it takes up its lodging in hermitages as well as in cities; and that in the most remote and inaccessible desert it keeps company ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... obsequious gravity, and waved me to the visitor's seat on a raised platform. "You will be asked to speak," he said, "and I beg that you will tell the boys of the wonderful chemical discoveries that won you the ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... chief of the captors, when the prisoners have been placed in obsequious attitudes before the lesser mandarins, "thus the matter chanced: The honourable Wang, although disguised under the semblance of an applewoman, had discreetly concealed himself by the roadside, all but his head being underneath a stream of stagnant water, when, at the eighth hour of ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... correspondence. In the generation before his birth, a French lady, Madame de Sevigne, had, with an affectionate industry, found her chief occupation and pleasure in keeping her daughters in the provinces fully acquainted with every event which interested or entertained Louis XIV. and his obsequious Court; and in the first years of the eighteenth century a noble English lady, whom we have already mentioned, did in like manner devote no small portion of her time to recording, for the amusement and information of her daughter, her sister, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... pursuing his own way, conscious that the task before him involved difficulty and danger. He was aware that Haight, notwithstanding his obsequious politeness, was one of his worst enemies, and would injure him in every underhanded way within his power, as, beneath the smooth, smiling exterior, Houston could detect a deep, subtle malignity toward himself; and he rightly judged that Jim Maverick, the ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... good deal older and graver, but almost as handsome as ever; only somewhat changed in mind. He had become a zealous clergyman, and his soul appeared to be in his work. He was distant and very respectful to Lady Bassett; I might say obsequious. Seemed almost ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... "but I in my service must be more pointedly obsequious, than thou in thy plainness art bound to ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... charms, Triumphs o'er reason: in her look she bears A paradise of ever-blooming sweets; Fair as the first idea beauty prints In the young lover's soul; a winning grace Guides every gesture, and obsequious love Attends on all ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... his wife came, and looked remarkably calm for a couple leading a flock of fellow humans to perdition. Captain Elkanah Wingate and Mrs. Wingate came last of all and marched majestically to the seats reserved for them by the obsequious Mr. Tidditt. The hall lights were dimmed. The curtain rose. And George Kent, very handsome and manly as "March Gale," was seen ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... marshes, alive with wild fowl, at the distant green of waving corn, the flower-embowered great house, the white quarters from which arose many little spirals of savory smoke, and a bland and childlike content took possession of their souls. With eager and obsequious "Yes, Mas'rs" they obeyed the overseer's objurgatory indications as ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... he may help me in procuring pardon for Ruperto. Luckily my good looks, if I have any, never received notice from the grand colonel, who has eyes only for you; so he's not jealous of Ruperto. As the obsequious servant of his master, hostile to him no doubt; but that might be overcome by your doing ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... box to open the door. He was conscious of a small grill with a yellow face peeping out, backed by flickering lantern light, of a rainy, windswept compound, with a shaft of light from an open door flooding the courtyard. Then he was inside a warm, bright anteroom, with an obsequious China-boy relieving him of overcoat and muffler, and he became aware of many big, fur-lined overcoats, hanging on pegs on the wall. Beyond, in the adjoining room, were two long tables, the players seated with their backs to him, absorbed. Only a few people were present, for the night was ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... character had come with his misfortunes. So long as he had money to spend and could ride, arrogant and high-handed, over the obsequious shopkeepers who benefited by his prodigality, and the poor ranchers who had not the means, or often the spirit, to oppose him, he continued to appear to her in the light in which she had first seen him. She adored his imperious ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... upon his second term with new courage and invigorated authority. Twice certified, who should dare doubt his competency? Even Joshua was civil, and lesser louts of course obsequious; though the girls took more liberties, for they feel even at that early age, that influence is ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... successive imitations of successive actions, and why may not the second imitation represent an action that happened years after the first; if it be so connected with it, that nothing but time can be supposed to intervene? Time is, of all modes of existence, most obsequious to the imagination; a lapse of years is as easily conceived as a passage of hours. In contemplation we easily contract the time of real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when we only see ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... judge for ourselves as to the evils of Monte Carlo, we followed the stream of people through the gilded and handsome suite of ante-rooms, to the gambling-saloons. The obsequious lacqueys opened the doors to all who wished to pass, and no questions were asked, though I believe you are supposed to have your private visiting ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... and the fare he may pass days on board, and, every day, and sometimes every hour, will be of profit to the ship. He oscillates between the cabin, where he is entertained with strange meats, and the trade-room, where he enjoys the pleasures of shopping on a scale to match his person. A few obsequious attendants squat by the house door, awaiting his least signal. In the boat, which has been suffered to drop astern, one or two of his wives lie covered from the sun under mats, tossed by the short sea of the lagoon, and enduring agonies of heat and tedium. This severity ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his master's palace neither saluted nor welcomed by the once obsequious slaves in the outer lodge. Neither harps nor singing-boys, neither woman's ringing laughter nor man's bacchanalian glee, now woke the echoes in the lonely halls. The pulse of pleasure seemed to have throbbed its last ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... instance, coming along the road. He used to pass you with a jaunty, gallant, curious look as if you were seventeen and he were saying, "There's a girl who ought to be married. Why isn't she?" He had just sidled past them, abashed and obsequious, a little afraid of the big man. Even Mrs. Belk ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... nearly thirty years of life that was worse than death, the sun shone again for her. One day her dungeon door flew open, and to the bowing of obsequious courtiers, the prisoner was conducted to a sumptuous apartment. "The walls were hung with splendid stuffs; the table was covered with gold-plate; ten thousand roubles awaited her in a casket. Courtiers stood ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... article—no, not the genuine article at all, we must go to Africa for that—but the sort of creatures generations of slavery have made them: obsequious, trickish, lazy and ignorant, yet kind-hearted, merry-tempered, quick to feel and accept the least token of the brotherly love which is slowly teaching the white hand to grasp the black, in this great struggle for the ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... thick-set, healthy peasant, of middle height, with a rather fat face. His expression was severe and uncompromising, especially with the peasants of Mokroe, but he had the power of assuming the most obsequious countenance, when he had an inkling that it was to his interest. He dressed in Russian style, with a shirt buttoning down on one side, and a full-skirted coat. He had saved a good sum of money, but was for ever dreaming of improving ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... bows, our old friend, who had been so obsequious to Admiral Bell, entered the room, and begged to know what orders the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... schooling is chiefly seen by the activity with which the young persons emigrate, and the success attending it; and at home, by a general orderliness and gravity, with habits of independence and self-respect: nothing obsequious or fawning is ever to be ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... fame, As man's sole joys, shall find no joy in him; Yet of far nobler kind His silent pleasures prove. For not unmarked by him the ways of men; Nor yet to him the ample page unknown, Where, traced by Nature's hand, Is many a pleasing line. Oh! when the world's dull children bend the knee, Meanly obsequious, to some mortal god, It yields no vulgar joy Alone to stand aloof; Or when they jostle on wealth's crowded road, And swells the tumult on the breeze, 'tis sweet, Thoughtful, at length reclined, To list the wrathful hum. What though the weakly gay affect to scorn The loitering dreamer of ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... The obsequious Mr Pecksniff proffered his arm. The old man took it. Turning at the door, he said to Martin, waving ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... followed him into a small, dimly lighted room, and noted that the landlord came to wait on them with obsequious attention. Two peons were drinking in a corner, but they went out when the landlord made a sign. Jake thought this curious, but Don Sebastian filled his glass and gave him ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... O'erturning every purpose; then at last Sit down dismay'd, and leave the entangled scene For Scorn to sport with. Such then is the abode Of Folly in the mind; and such the shapes In which she governs her obsequious ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... power will be in the hands of those who have acquired wealth and influence through a great position in industry or finance. Such men are in the habit, in private life, of finding their will seldom questioned; they are surrounded by obsequious satellites and are not infrequently engaged in conflicts with Trade Unions. Among their friends and acquaintances are included those who hold high positions in government or administration, and these men equally are liable ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... ill-omened blood, nor even the royal crown which now, for the first time, was set upon his huge, round head, could hide from those who watched that this bridegroom was ill at ease. Even as he stood there, bowing in answer to the obsequious shouts of the multitude, the sceptre in his fat hand shook, and his red lips blanched and trembled. Still he smiled and bowed on, till at length the shouting died away, and quiet ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... the obsequious senators who met to decide the fate of the memorable turbot. His fourth satire frequently reminds us of the great political poem of Dryden; but it was not written till Domitian had fallen: and it wants something of the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... shaken, their spirits cowed, their hopes shattered—the Egyptian subjects of Cambyses made up their minds to submission. The Oriental will generally kiss the hand that smites him, if it only smite hard enough. Egypt became now for a full generation the obsequious slave of Persia, and gave no more trouble to her subjugator than the weakest or the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... one approached the marquis, who received them with very unequal courtesy. To the common herd he was sharp, dry, and bitter; to the great he was obsequious, yet with a certain grace and manliness of bearing that elevated even the character of servility; and all the while, as he bowed low to a Medina or a Guzman, there was a half imperceptible mockery lurking in the corners of his mouth, which seemed to imply that while his policy cringed his heart ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which now approach'd, Ulysses in wing'd accents thus remark'd. Eumaeus! certain, either friend of thine Is nigh at hand, or one whom well thou know'st; 10 Thy dogs bark not, but fawn on his approach Obsequious, and the sound of feet I hear. Scarce had he ceased, when his own son himself Stood in the vestibule. Upsprang at once Eumaeus wonder-struck, and from his hand Let fall the cups with which he was employ'd Mingling rich wine; to his young Lord he ran, His forehead kiss'd, kiss'd ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... day; and here the night was spent, the two white men being housed in a capacious tent, most luxuriously furnished and adorned, in which, shortly after their arrival, a meal of so elaborate a description, that it might almost be termed a banquet, was served to them by a staff of reverentially obsequious servants, and in which they subsequently slept the sleep of the just, on great piles of soft rugs spread upon ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... Women's Christian Association," he commanded the obsequious young Valentine who drove the big Chambers. Mr. Vandeford was never sufficiently unoccupied of mind to pilot a car in and out of New York traffic. For half a second the young ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... is the most objectionable, because it is the most demoralizing of all. Where such discrimination obtains, every shipper is in the power of the railroad corporation. It makes of independent citizens of a free country fawning parasites and obsequious sycophants who accept favors from railroad managers and in return do their bidding, however humiliating this may be. The shipper, realizing that the manager's displeasure or good will toward him finds practical expression in his daily freight bills, finally loses, like the serf, all self-esteem ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... ourselves across the spine of Italy, from the plains of Eridanus to the seashore of Etruscan Luna. I had secured a carriage and extra post-horses the night before; therefore we found no obstacles upon the road, but eager drivers, quick relays, obsequious postmasters, change, speed, perpetual movement. The road itself is a noble one, and nobly entertained in all things but accommodation for travellers. At Berceto, near the summit of the pass, we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldy hen and six ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds |
