"Respectable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... interest, and vanity, are always willing to leap over their information, or to fancy they can counteract it: but I have no occasion to probe that delusion, nor to gainsay your random opinion, that a court life may be eligible for women. Yes, for the idle ones you specify, perhaps so;-for respectable women I think much less than even for men. I do not mean with regard to what is called their character; as if there were but one virtue with which women have any concern-I speak of their understanding, and consequential employment of their time. In a court there must be much idleness, even without ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... and children smoke, and many at a large expense." He says, that "the free negro of Cuba appropriates a bit (i.e. 12-1/2 cents) of his daily wages, to increase the cloud of smoke that rises from the city and country." This, in thirty years, would amount to $7,058 72, a respectable estate for a negro, or ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey
... voices, the rattling of dominoes, and the sounds of strident music. The orchestra was rather smaller than the one that performed at Schomberg's hotel, had the air more of a family party than of an enlisted band, and, I must confess, seemed rather more respectable than the Zangiacomo musical enterprise. It was less pretentious also, more homely and familiar, so to speak, insomuch that in the intervals when all the performers left the platform one of them went amongst the marble tables collecting offerings of sous and francs in a battered ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Miss Linderham, that was just what I thought myself, and I told the respectable Spink so, too. I told him I had had an offer of two thousand a year in his own line of business. He said that no firm in London could afford the money. 'Why,' he cried, waxing angry, 'I could get a Duke ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... rather, this somewhat remarkable person, and, I think, missionary teacher of the Wesleyan Methodists, attained a share of notoriety in England a few years ago, by marrying a young English woman of respectable connections, and passed with most people in wonder-loving London as a great Indian Chief, and a remarkable instance of the development of the Indian mind. He was, or rather is, for I believe he is living, a clever fellow, ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... his fate. One possession after another was wrested from him, and he finally retired to Aix in Provence, where he devoted himself to literature and the fine arts, or, as Miss Cassandra expresses it, "He amused himself by writing verses and pottering about his garden. And a very much more respectable way of spending his time, it was, than quarreling with his neighbors, which was the chief occupation of Louis XI and most of the other ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... have no sectional feelings in the matter, though Lewis has labored hard to impress the public with a contrary belief; and he has even brought false charges of the basest kind against our more respectable citizens, all to draw the attention of the public from the ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... flesh and blood of life; it was too polite to face realities, too elevated to tread the common ground of fact and detail; it would touch nothing but generalities, for they alone are safe, harmless, and respectable; and, if they are also empty, how can that he helped? Starving, it shrank into itself, muttering old incantations; and it continued to mutter them, automatically, some time after it ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... the painful humiliation and mortification which attend this abject condition of total disfranchisement, and how anxiously and earnestly women desire to be taken out of the list of idiots, criminals and imbeciles, where they do not belong, and placed in the respectable company of men who choose their lawmakers, and give an intelligent consent to the legal power ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... simply. He was an inland man, the son of highly respectable parents, and brought up with a single eye to the ministry; and the sight suggested nothing beyond the fact ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... risking his life—which he had actually ruled over—he being still visible and so the front just now in London, must surely be better worthy the sympathy of Englishmen than some great, big, bullying State, which, even when it had a highly respectable Emperor, had not the good sense to hold possession ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... the house I was bound for. But as I came nearer I noticed by the preparations and the movements of the people that there was some connection between the funeral procession and the gardener's house. At the gate stood a respectable looking man, somewhat advanced in years, but still vigorous. In his high top-boots, yellow leather breeches, and long coat, he looked like a country butcher. He was giving orders, but in the intervals conversed rather indifferently with ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... infamous overseer was still living in Spain,—or at least, he says, "his family was living in Seville when I last heard about him." What a disgraceful attack upon an individual! how it must have hurt the feelings of a respectable family!—"How malignant!" cried the hidalgos; "How coarse!" the women; and "How ill-judged!" the clergy. He speaks of Corts with contempt: why should he not? for he was only the burglar of a kingdom. But we read these sincere pages of Las Casas with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... seem surprising, and even incredible, to the modern critic, that men in this position should find any occasion to conceal their relation to those quite respectable contributions to the literature of the time, which they found themselves impelled to make. The fact that they did so, is one that we must accept, however, on uncontradicted cotemporary testimony, and account for it as we can. The critic ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... very far from being one, had the advantage of looking like a respectable man. There was a certain plump, well-fed rosiness about him, which, aided by a bright-coloured dress, joined to a continual fumble in the pockets of his drab trousers, gave him the air of a 'well-to-do-in-the-world' sort of man. Moreover, he sported a velvet collar to ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... other hand, our regiment is made up partly of young men from respectable families, reared under the influences of a pure morality; but they find that the highest standard of morality presented here is much lower than they were wont to have at home, and they soon begin to waver. Thus having lost their first moorings of character, they start downward, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... do my very, very best. You'll see when I get to Middleton School what a proper, respectable sort of ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... mediation-theology, whose business was to compromise between the results of learning and the principles of orthodoxy, is necessarily in a state of decay. Its occupation is gone. This school of theologians, which numbers in its ranks some of the most respectable names in Germany, and which traces its origin to Schleiermacher, can scarcely be said now to make head against the sweeping current of Pharisaical orthodoxy. Some of its older representatives have ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... agitated, and as it has gone so far, that the bill could die an easy death; because I think it will be productive of more quiet to the State, than by enacting it into a law, which in my opinion would be impolitic, admitting there is a decided majority for it, to the disquiet of a respectable minority. In the former case, the matter will soon subside; in the latter, it will rankle and perhaps convulse ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... these towns were indeed known in the seventeenth century as respectable seats of industry. Nay, their rapid progress and their vast opulence were then sometimes described in language which seems ludicrous to a man who has seen their present grandeur. One of the most populous and prosperous among them was Manchester. Manchester had been required by the Protector ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... which made her the guide and guardian, not the companion and fellow-server, of her servants. In abandoning them to their own discretion, she lays upon them a burden which, either from ignorance or habit, they are probably unequal to endure, since it is certain that many truly respectable persons in this class have been only so while they were under the controlling eye or leading mind of their superiors. Besides, all uncommon levity of manners, like all unbecoming freedom in conversation, more frequently arises from weakness or idleness in the ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... ordinary three-inch nail had been hammered and bent and scraped down to a very respectable substitute for a hook; while the other three seamen had each contrived to spin up about five fathoms of good strong line. Neither hook nor line, however, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... Pays Basque, which is perfectly lovely as to scenery, and, in fine weather, is worth a long journey to visit—so varied, rich, and agreeable is the country in all directions. Sauveterre is a neat, clear, respectable town, finely situated, well-enough paved, and having many attractions—particularly a magnificent ruin of a strong castle, which is called that of the Reine Jeanne, but is, evidently, originally of much more ancient ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... The highly respectable Americans who were to serve as the link between the soldiers and the ladies decidedly declined the office, objecting to the martial gentleman as being altogether too dangerous to bring into the dove-cot. So the poor dears sighed in vain, and the longing damsels never ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... but their own jargon, taught this jargon to those who wished to learn it; the academies came only a long time afterwards; they despised the foolishness of the schools, but did not always dare to rise against them, because there are foolishnesses that are respected provided that they concern respectable things. ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... Feast of the Assumption, in the year of our Lord 1654, at the town of Ischia, in the island of that name, belonging to the kingdom of Naples, of respectable parents, Joseph Calosirto and Laura Garguilo, and was upon the same day christened Charles Cajetan. He early discovered the seeds of those virtues that in a special manner enriched his soul, and sanctified his ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... every day, except Sundays and Thursdays, from ten to two, to everybody who chooses to enter. It is to the credit of the inhabitants of Rouen, that they avail themselves of the privilege; and the room usually contains a respectable assemblage of persons of all classes. The revenue of the library does not amount to more than three thousand francs per annum; but it is also occasionally assisted by government. The French ministers of state consider that it is the interest of the nation to promote the publication ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... elderly man of very respectable appearance, who was not pinioned like the rest. His hair was quite white, his complexion very pale, and he looked like one oppressed with deep sorrow and anxiety. He rose from his seat in the boat, and was assisted ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in former times appear to have been one of the most respectable nations in the colony, not only from their own tradition, but from that of the other nations, in whom their greatness and civilized customs raised no less jealousy than admiration. I could fill a volume with what relates to this people alone; but as I am now giving a concise account of the people ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... with many a patient; and James, with his little brown woman in his hand, was looking after the party of paupers for whom he had obtained a holiday; and Mr. Holdsworth was keeping guard over his village boys, whose respectable parents remained in two separate throngs, male and female; and Clara Frost was here, there, and everywhere—now setting Mrs. Richardson at ease, now carrying little Mercy to look at the band, now conveying away Salome when frightened, now finding a mother for a village child ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of some respectable lodging," she said. "I have enough for one night if the charges are moderate. And even after that—if Robin doesn't come—I have one or two little things I might sell. He is sure ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... without an exception are the firm support and backbone of the Copperhead Clique, and the same parties that caused the riots in New York last year. The arrest and punishment of these parties would cause rejoicing among respectable people. From my observation I can see that this class of men before the war were pickpockets, burglars, &c., but now resort to this last and easier means of stealing, i. e., "bounty jumping," at the same time they please the "Copperheads" by filling ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... on the stage (musical comedy), petite, piquant, and very lively; a true grasshopper, living only for the summer; a loud, reckless but respectable young woman, who, having but thirty shillings a week salary and to find her own "tights," was ever ready to accept motor drives, dinners, or a smart hat, or frock, from any of her "boys." Cossie, the stay-at-home, was round-faced and plump; a ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... crowded round. The object of interest and comment, not at all sympathetic or polite, was a stout, respectable tradesman, with a large, round, ghastly face, who saluted his ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... of the most respectable booksellers met on the occasion; and, on consulting together, agreed, that all the proprietors of copy-right in the various Poets should be summoned together; and when their opinions were given, to ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... money are better workmen; if they do not the work better, they behave better and are more respectable; and I would sooner have in my trade a hundred men who save money than two hundred who would spend every shilling they get. In proportion as individuals save a little money their morals are much better; they husband ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... awake in the dark and weep for their sins. Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... that he had been a member of a club, a West-end club he called it, a respectable but quite inferior affair, probably in the City: agents belonged to it, fire insurance mostly, but life insurance and motor-agents too, it was in fact a touts' club. It seems that a few of them one evening, forgetting for a moment their encyclopedias and non-stop tyres, were ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... well-meaning parents (and others not so respectable) seek gently to guide their daughters into safe matrimonial harbors where they barter themselves for a respectable meal-ticket, or an income, presumably, for life? They would be shocked beyond measure if you told them that ...
— Women As Sex Vendors - or, Why Women Are Conservative (Being a View of the Economic - Status of Woman) • R. B. Tobias
... from whom she inherited the intellectual greatness which distinguished her, but which characterized neither of her parents. Her paternal grandfather was a manufacturer in Spitalfields, of whom little is known, except that he was of Irish extraction and that he himself was respectable and prosperous. To his son, Edward John, Mary's father, he left a fortune of ten thousand pounds, no inconsiderable sum in those days for a man of his social position. Her mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Dixon, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... life, and you know it too, Pierpont Pumpelly!" she retorted hotly. "I'm a respectable, law-abidin' woman, I am. I never broke a law in all ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... other means of livelihood seeming to be within their reach. Lowest of all are those whose esurient vanity, acting on a frivolous levity of mind, urges them to make Literature a plaything for display. To write for a livelihood, even on a complete misapprehension of our powers, is at least a respectable impulse. To play at Literature is altogether inexcusable: the motive is vanity, the ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... had been very grievous to him to prefer a doubtful Lady Anna to a most indubitable Lady Fitzwarren. He liked the old-established things,—things which had always been unsuspected, which were not only respectable but firm-rooted. For twenty years he had been certain that the Countess was a false countess; and he, too, had lamented with deep inward lamentation over the loss of the wealth which ought to have gone to support the family earldom. It was monstrous to ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... necessary our troops should repose when their enterprises could lead to no results. In this state of things Massena was recalled, because his health was so materially injured as to render it impossible for him to exert sufficient activity to restore the army to a respectable footing. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... successful, and should have seen the finger of God in the new evolution of Hellas—all this is not incompatible with an attitude during the Persian war that those who see the end and do not understand the beginning may not consider respectable.] ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... apparent necessities, temporal or spiritual—I say, if in the providence of God, you have been accustomed to see almost the whole time and labor of a family, with the avails of a handsome, or at least respectable property, used up year after year by that family, in eating, and drinking, and sleeping, and dressing comfortably—in mere passive enjoyment, in one word—while the blessedness of active enjoyment, ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... a little put out by the serious air of the captain, replied, that "that was a very respectable reason, but that the customs of the house were respectable likewise; and that, in consequence, he begged the bearer to call again next day." D'Artagnan asked if he could not see M. Fouquet. The clerk replied that M. le Surintendant did not interfere with such details; and rudely closed the outer ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... fence to Pattie Hoover and he had a Turner and two Pratts in the wagon with him coming in from the field last night. But you can't do nothing about it—she have got the marrying habit. They are other widows in this town that have mourned respectable to say nothing of Miss Prissy Pike, that have never had no husband at all and had oughter be gave a chanct. Mr. Hoover are a nice man and I don't want to see him made noticeable in no ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Mamma, and how male creatures' instincts will break out sometimes even in a country like this, where sex does not "amount to much." We are told that now and then the most respectable father of a family will "side track," and go off on a jaunt with a glaringly golden-haired chorus lady! But one thing is better than with us, the eldest sons don't defy fate and marry them! When he gets to fifteen I shall begin to have nightmares in case Hurstbridge ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... Honolulu Gazette, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Ka Nupepa Kuokoa (the "Independent Press"), and a lately started spasmodic sheet, partly in English and partly in Hawaiian, the Nuhou (News). {270} The two first are moral and respectable, but indulge in the American sins of personalities and mutual vituperation. The Nuhou is scurrilous and diverting, and appears "run" with a special object, which I have not as yet succeeded in unravelling from its pungent but not always intelligible pages. I think perhaps the writing in each paper ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... of the school door, and some little distance from it, in the midst of a clump of maples, stood an old beech-tree with a dead top, and half-way down where a limb had once been and had rotted off, a hole. Inside this hole two very respectable but thoroughly impudent red squirrels had made their nest. The hole led into the dead heart of the tree, which had been hollowed out with pains so as to make a roomy, cosy home, which the squirrels had lined with fur and moss, and which was well stored with beechnuts ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... for a man who is about to write a book. Like the disciple of Mary McLane who stole a horse in order to get the emotions of a police court, he may delve deeply not only into life, but into that under-stratum which is not spoken of, where respectable journals circulate. ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... questions, Eveley, I am so nervous anyhow I hardly know what I am saying. You remember my laundress, don't you? She is so nice and motherly and a Methodist and respectable and all that,—only old and hard up. She is coming to live with us,—she will have the den for her room, and is closing her cottage. She is to keep house and look after the babies while I am at work. She only charges twenty-five a month, so I can manage. ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... with his hands behind him and his legs a little apart, he swayed slightly to and fro, inclined toward her as if rising on his toes. It had an effect of conscientious deliberation. "No. I haven't. I couldn't. I wouldn't." It was so respectable, a show that she felt afresh, and with the memory of their old despair, the despair at home, how little his appearance ever by any chance told about him. His plausibility had been the heaviest of her mother's ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... somebody that was teachin' music and languages at a boardin' school. Lorenzo was dark complected, you remember, and this child is, too. Well, I don't know as Spanish blood is any real disgrace, not if it's a good ways back and the woman was respectable." ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... respectable miller returned along the Basset lanes rather more puzzled than before as to ways and means, but still with the sense of a danger escaped. It had come across his mind that if he were hard upon his sister, it might somehow tend to make Tom hard upon Maggie at some ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... sewing-class, that a girl of notoriously bad character, named Pinky Swett, pays the baby's board. There's a mystery about the child, and I am of the opinion that it has been stolen, or is known to be the offcast of some respectable family. The woman who has the care of it was suspicious, and seemed annoyed at ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... much in those days, as queens were scarcely considered dignified or respectable if they did not wear crowns of gold inlaid with bright jewels on all public occasions, but Queen Isabella cared far more to send the gospel of Christ over to the heathen than how she might look, or what other people ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... his own heart. Even his family did not share his belief. When he married, as he did when he was nearly fifty, his wife was impatient with his Faith—indeed, fearful of it, and with persistent, nagging reasonableness urged his return to the respectable paths of Presbyterianism. To his pain, when his girl, his Philippa, grew up she shrank from the emotion of his creed; she and her mother went to the brick church under the locust-trees of Lower Ripple; and when her mother died Philippa went there alone, for Henry ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... Greek history were not surprised by it. Indeed these students threw themselves into the orgy as shamelessly as the illiterate. The Christian priest, joining in the war dance without even throwing off his cassock first, and the respectable school governor expelling the German professor with insult and bodily violence, and declaring that no English child should ever again be taught the language of Luther and Goethe, were kept in countenance by the most impudent repudiations of every decency of civilization and every ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... trunks that stand like skeletons, never fail to give to these primeval woods a character of solemnity, absent in those of countries long civilised. Shortly after sunset we bivouacked for the night. Our female companion, who was rather good-looking, belonged to one of the most respectable families in Castro: she rode, however, astride, and without shoes or stockings. I was surprised at the total want of pride shown by her and her brother. They brought food with them, but at all our meals sat watching Mr. King and myself whilst eating, till ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... them rogues exactly," I ventured. "Some of 'em were a pretty respectable lot. There was Apollo and old ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... my oxy-acetylene blow-pipe, given away my anaesthetics, and am going to turn over a new leaf, and settle down as a respectable citizen." ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... and her manner is against her, but, Ethel, I have never found a fault in her; that is, one I could criticise. She is very quick to learn and seems ambitious. She came to me and asked if she might join. They are poor but her people are respectable. Now Honora Casey's parents are the wealthiest people here. They came into their wealth suddenly. The father is a builder and contractor. The mother is hurting the girl by her method of trying to get into society. She fairly pushes everything before ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... the league of nations." And he said to Smuts, "It would be splendid if you could go, but, of course, you have got the other job," which was going down to Hungary. Afterwards he said he thought the most desirable man to send was the Marquis of Salisbury, Lord Robert Cecil's brother; that he would be respectable enough and well known enough so that when he came back and made the same report it would go down with British public opinion. Mr. Lloyd George then urged me to make public my report. He said it was absolutely necessary to have publicity given to the actual conditions ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt
... by anything. He said one day, "It was not the sensual or the timid or the ill-tempered boys who used to make me anxious. Those were definite faults and brought definite punishment; it was the hard-hearted, virtuous, ambitious, sensible boys, who were good-humoured and respectable and selfish, who bothered me; one wanted to shake them as a terrier shakes a rat—but there was nothing to get hold of. They were a credit to themselves and to their parents and to the school; and yet they went downhill with ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... osteological structure, hardly any in their habits. Why dwell, then, on minutiae of external appearances, if time presses, and there be much of more importance to be learned? So, also, is the Cirrhopode one idea of the author of nature. You may find a very respectable quarto account of the family, tracing them in all their varieties; but a page might inform you of all that is essential about the barnacle, curious as its history has been, and you need not ponder on the quarto unless you have some particular curiosity to gratify. The ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... however, have now happily to a considerable extent been removed; and provided with an order, easily obtained from the Vatican librarian, or from the Prefect of the sacred palaces, in reply to a polite note, any respectable person is permitted to ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... possibly a family man, cannot bring himself to give details; he just states the fact, merely adding the significant comment that "the usual reserve of the Bank is rapidly disappearing." The effect of this example is appearing in the most respectable quarters. "All attempts are now failing," he reports, for example, "to keep the Fiduciary Issue within limits." Reluctantly he mentions a "considerably freer ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... correction of an error into which we had fallen in copying the account of a toast in the Highland form, which had been kindly contributed by the respected minister of Moulin, in the octavo edition at page 70. To Lowland conceptions, the whole proceeding has somewhat the appearance of a respectable company at once becoming insane; still it ought to be correct, and the printer had, by mistake, inserted a word that has no existence in the Gaelic language. ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... took refuge in an adroit misconstruction of Keith's language. "I lay down no conditions. I'm much too anxious about you. I want to see you in a house of your own, settled down and married to some good girl who'll keep you steady and respectable. It's a simple straightforward offer, and you take ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... elms and round-topped maples. It was not until you had climbed the hill from the clump of houses and shops which had grown up around the railway station,—a place of prosperous ugliness and unabashed modernity,—that you perceived the respectable evidences of what is called in America "an ancient town." The village green, and perhaps a half dozen of the white wooden houses which fronted it with their prim porticoes, were possibly a little more than a hundred years old. The low ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... called Sigurd, and his mother's name was Thora. Olaf was the name of a third son, who was much younger than the two first mentioned, and whose mother was Sigrid, a daughter of Saxe of Vik, who was a respectable man in the Throndhjem country; she was the king's concubine. People say that when King Magnus came home from his viking cruise to the Western countries, he and many of his people brought with them a great deal of ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... religious duty, to strip off all his beliefs and reduce himself to a state of intellectual nakedness, until such time as he could satisfy himself which were fit to be worn. He thought a bare skin healthier than the most respectable and well-cut clothing of what might, ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... and respectable,—very good people, in fact, so far as that goes. But then you must see ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... am staying at the 'Exchange,' but there's no privacy there. Do you know of a quiet, respectable place?" ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... ten minutes fully occupied in trying to keep a respectable distance from a number of dogs of all sizes and breeds, which had the usual appetite for fresh meat and tweed trowsering, and, at the same time, endeavouring in vain to find solid ground upon which to stand, for the place at the entrance ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... usually left in the ports, and the number who are ordinarily sick in the hospital, there will be barely enough to defend the capitana and almiranta, two galleys, and a patache (or another galley in its place), if they are also accompanied by some respectable citizens and persons who are anxious to serve and merit reward. There are not yet here, however, the usual number of unpaid soldiers—who are here called "irregulars" [extravagantes] because nearly all ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... lumber were removed from the chamber, which the ladies arranged with care, and which when completed presented quite a respectable appearance. But Maggie had no idea of putting her guest, as she considered him, in the kitchen chamber; and when, as the party entered the house, Mrs. Jeffrey, from the head of the stairs, called out, "This way, Maggie; ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... at first of those that were assistants to Lycurgus in his great enterprise. Afterwards, to fill up any vacancy that might happen, he ordered the most worthy men to be selected, of those that were full threescore years old. This was the most respectable dispute in the world, and the contest was truly glorious; for it was not who should be swiftest among the swift, or strongest of the strong, but who was the wisest and best among the good and wise. He who had the preference was to bear this mark of superior excellence through ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... Zoologique" are both very remarkable productions, and are still worthy of attentive study, but they fell upon evil times. The vast authority of Cuvier was employed in support of the traditionally respectable hypotheses of special creation and of catastrophism; and the wild speculations of the "Discours sur les Revolutions de la Surface du Globe" were held to be models of sound scientific thinking, while the really much more sober and philosophical hypotheses ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... entered into the service of Great Britain; the rest embarked on board their ships, which were restored as soon as the peace was ratified, and set out on their return for Batavia. After all, perhaps, the Dutch company meant nothing more than to put their factory of Chinchura on a more respectable footing; and, by acquiring greater weight and consequence among the people of the country than they formerly possessed, the more easily extend their commerce in that part of the world. At any rate, it ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... wealthiest men in the state, and could afford beautiful things for his little daughter, while my father was poor, or at least not rich, and my mother had to puzzle her brains a good deal to contrive to keep her little romping, heedless, try-patience of a daughter looking respectable. ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... Adele. Why shouldn't Pierrette take care of the house and cook? If there was too much work at any time Mademoiselle Rogron could easily employ the colonel's woman-of-all-work, an excellent cook and a most respectable person. Pierrette ought to learn how to cook, and rub floors, and sweep, said the lawyer; every girl should be taught to keep house properly and go to market and know the price of things. The poor little ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... expensive luxury. She was not, therefore, surprised at being accompanied in her next walk along the beach by quite a little party of wreckers, who, joyfully seizing every chip which the waves tossed within their reach, accumulated at last a very respectable pile of drift-wood. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... spent a considerable part of his fortune upon the continent. With a narrow understanding and a contracted heart, he had been able by habitual cunning and invincible effrontery, to acquire the reputation of a man of parts. Courage was the only respectable quality, his possession of which could not be questioned. He was a debauchee and a gamester. There was no meanness he had not practised, there was no villainy of which he could not boast. With this character, he was universally respected ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... (glaring at her). Is it not a nice thing for the wife of a respectable City stockbroker to sit at the breakfast-table making a noise like that of a cow that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... me to observe that, for once, you may think yourselves fortunate in having been placed in my very respectable company!" ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... say, Capt. Wallingford," this person commenced "that I have a writ to arrest you, for a sum that will require very respectable bail—no ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... ordered the king, "and then seat yourself at the foot of the table, and pay attention to what Von Pollnitz is about to explain. It is worth the trouble to learn how an income of four hundred thousand dollars can be spent in a respectable manner. You shall dictate, and I will be your secretary. Woe to you, however, if you do not keep your word, if you expend less! For every thousand which you fail to account for, you shall drink ten glasses of beer, and smoke a ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... wish to plead for them a little, in tender retrospect—as if they had been also respectable. "It was bad enough, I thought, to have no sympathy in your heart when you HAD a position. But it was worse to be sublime about it—as I was so afraid, as I'm in fact still afraid of being—when it ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... operations, that, though I was very fond of them in my college days, I have long ceased to occupy myself with these processes. I would add, by way of redeeming my dream-intelligence from a deserved charge of silliness, that I once performed a respectable intellectual feat when asleep. I put together the riddle, "What might a wooden ship say when her side was stove in? Tremendous!" (Tree-mend-us). I was aware of having tried to improve on the form of ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... eighteenth century; M. Necker managed to turn it to account. He had married, in 1764, Mdlle. Suzanne Curchod, a Swiss pastor's daughter, pretty, well informed, and passionately devoted to her husband, his successes and his fame. The respectable talents, the liberality, the large scale of living of M. and Madame Necker attracted round them the literary and philosophical circle; the religious principles, the somewhat stiff propriety of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... respectability is offended more than his love of virtue, though he characteristically gives his jealous anger the illusion of morality. This, I say, is the average social view. There are few things more cruel than affronted respectability. The elder brother is an eminently respectable person, totally unacquainted with wayward passions, and his only feeling for ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... the East, Mr. Young oftentimes told this story. I made no record of it in my notebook and never intended to write a word about it; but after a miserable, sensational caricature of the story had appeared in a respectable magazine, I thought it but fair to my brave companion that it should be told ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... ridden quite a distance ahead of the party, and had just entered into the pass of a canon which seemed to broaden out into a respectable valley farther on, when he was brought to a halt by the scream of a rifle ball close ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... to superintend them; while the single men were also in a division by themselves. They were all under the care of a surgeon. There was a schoolmaster, to teach those who wished to learn during the voyage, and to act as chaplain. Constables were selected from amongst the most respectable of the married men, whose duty it was to keep order, and to see that the rules and regulations were properly observed. Of course, with so many people crowded together, it is highly necessary that cleanliness should be attended to. The ship was getting under weigh, and the people who had come ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... no member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his brethren of the quill, as the humble Novelist; nor is his fate less hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers, perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are more numerous but less respectable. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... quoth the highwayman. "Let a man s' much as whisper an' I blow that man's face off. Ah, an' by hookey, I would, whether or no, if I was th' bloody rogue ye tell me for, 'stead of an 'ighly respectable genelman o' the road with a eye to business. So now turn out your pockets all—an' ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... by. "His mother's in trouble about him this morning," she said. "She's such a nice, respectable woman, and has all her milk and eggs and butter off of us. She was here this morning while you were out, sir, and, what I could make of it that 'Arrison boy had been chasing her boy ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... and stealing where they can, and quarrelling like dogs over the entrails of the beeves that are slaughtered for them. Still other tribes, once warlike and powerful, have, by a fortunate turn of character and circumstance, become so rich and respectable as not only to deprive them of all romantic interest, but practically to take them out of the scope of the Indian question. Other tribes, still having among them men whose grandfathers besieged Detroit under Pontiac, are now resolved into ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... At this point a respectable man came up, and earnestly warned us against proceeding, saying that if we did we should find to our sorrow what the T'ung-chau militia were like. We thanked him for his kindly counsel, but could not act upon it, ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... extraordinary hollow, is a circular lake of two acres, reported to be unfathomable. The descriptions which I have read of the craters of exhausted volcanoes leave very little doubt of this being one; and the conical regularity of the summit of Galtymore speaks the same language. East of this respectable hill, to use Sir William Hamilton's language, is a declivity of about one-quarter of a mile, and there Galtybeg rises in a yet more regular cone; and between the two hills is another lake, which from its position seems to have been ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... Lord his God, who guided him and trained him through all the struggles and storms of early life; and so to become vainly confident, worldly and hard-hearted: undevout and ungodly, even though he may keep himself respectable enough, and fall into no ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... 'cept the pink rose in 'er button-'ole. I never 'eard tell of a farm 'and with a pink rose in 'is shirt before. Maybe such carryings on is all right for they grooms an' kerridge-'orses, but it ain't 'ardly decent for a respectable farm 'orse. So when this 'ere woman come along I up and 'as a grab at it. D'ye think she'd 'it me? I never 'ad such a shock in me life, not since I went backwards when the coal-cart tipped! Lor, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... trust were filled by free Negroes and mulattoes, who had been in respectable circumstances under the old Government; but others were occupied by Negroes, and even by Africans, who had recently emerged from the lowest ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... Jess, Bessie will take Mooifontein, and that is worth having. Not that I want more land; I have enough. Yes, I will marry her. It would serve her right if I didn't; but, after all, marriage is more respectable; also one has more hold of a wife. Nobody will interfere for her. Then, she will be of use to me by-and-by, for a beautiful woman is a power even among these fellow-countrymen of mine, if only a man knows how to bait his lines with her. Yes, I shall ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... than has been known to date. Only a more closely integrated economic and political system can provide the greatly increased economic strength needed to maintain both necessary military readiness and respectable living standards. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... contemptuously; 'I should like to know what harm he can do us, now that I've turned so d—d respectable. Though it is a bit hard on a man to have to keep so in order to spite ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is a matter of knowledge that if Robert had applied to him in the first instance he would have been forbidden the house without a moment's scruple; and if in the last (as my sisters thought best as a respectable form), I should have been incapacitated from any after-exertion by the horrible scenes to which, as a thing of course, I should have been exposed. Papa will not bear some subjects, it is a thing known; his peculiarity takes that ground to the largest. Not one of his children will ever marry ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... of that staid, opulent, intensely respectable city—not even if the imputation of dullness, cast upon her by the more mercurial South, be a slander; for the few hours of my stay there were spent almost entirely with my Asiatic friend, whose invitations and inducements ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... to as moral benefactors of their race; and almost as martyrs, also, when it is remembered how much misunderstanding, obloquy, and plausible folly they had to endure from well-meaning fanatics like Fairholme or Granville Penn, and the respectable mob at their heels who tried (as is the fashion in such cases) to make a hollow compromise between fact and the Bible, by twisting facts just enough to make them fit the fancied meaning of the Bible, and the Bible ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... illimitable freedom of the valley rises before me, as we again bear down into sunlit space. Can this be "Chu Chu," staid and respectable filly of American pedigree—Chu Chu, forgetful of plank roads and cobblestones, wild with excitement, twinkling her small white feet beneath me? George laughs out of a cloud of dust. "Give her her head; don't you see she likes it?" and Chu Chu seems to like ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... they had established with the Indians during their brief possession of the country. In 1633 Champlain was reappointed governor of New France, and on his departure for the colony took with him many respectable settlers: several Protestants were anxious to join him; this, however, was not permitted. Two Jesuits, Fathers de Brebeuf and Enemond Masse, accompanied the governor: they purposed to devote themselves to the conversion of the Indians to Christianity, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... exercise was drawing to a close, and a large ring of respectable members of society were violently sitting down and rising up in a manner which would have scandalized Miss Wilhelmina Carolina Amelia S. Keggs to the last degree, when Mr. Bopp was seen to grow very pale, and drop in a manner which it was evident ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... meeting, with his gloves crumpled up in one hand, and a large red book under the other arm. As to the churchwardens and overseers, we exclude them altogether, because all we know of them is, that they are usually respectable tradesmen, who wear hats with brims inclined to flatness, and who occasionally testify in gilt letters on a blue ground, in some conspicuous part of the church, to the important fact of a gallery having being enlarged and beautified, or an ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... of this burgher class, and indeed its very existence, is a most remarkable phenomenon; for this respectable class, occupying a position almost on a level with that of the nobility, was several centuries later in making its appearance in the Occident. The burgher who struck a nobleman lost his hand, while the nobleman who struck a burgher lost his horse, and must pay one hundred sols. Later, however, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... advice had been heeded, as the sequel will show; but it was not. Some of our best declaimers urged that there was power in mere numbers; and the strength of an harmonious union was yielded to this idea. The vote was in favor of permitting the recruits to be received; but a very respectable minority voted against it. Bob cheerfully surrendered the point, and Poodles and his companions were invited to land. When they came on shore, Vallington questioned them in regard to their intentions. They all made fair promises, and assured the general they would ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... of the National Federation of Fish Friers, wants the trade to be a respectable one. On the other hand it is just that smack which it has of Oriental debauchery that makes it appeal so strongly to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... making a living and paying interest, without sufficient capital for the best management, makes the life of the farmer too often a grinding one. If he is skilful and industrious and prudent, he may hope with certainty to free himself from debt, and to accumulate a respectable ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... the spot where ten years ago an agricultural population had led bovine and unilluminated lives in their cottages of grey stone or brick and timber. Before that, while her husband was amassing a fortune, comfortable in amount and respectable in origin, at the Bar, she had merely held up a small dim lamp of culture in Onslow Gardens. But both her ambition and his had been to bask and be busy in artistic realms of their own when the materialistic ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... plebeian origin, and a mere commoner, but thought that she had done enough in that direction when she contented herself with the name and title of Baroness Kirchbach, which she now bears. Of late years she has become a convert to socialism, much to the dismay and distress of her eminently respectable husband, and at the last Socialist Congress held at Breslau, took a very prominent part in the proceedings, arrayed in a blouse ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... test here is the manner in which people use the wealth they have acquired. "Almost any man may quarry marble or stone," but how few can build a Rheims or "create an Apollo." When one thinks of the gambling, quackery, and other vocations far less respectable upon which vast fortunes are spent he thinks how dreadful the results of all of this spending. "What if all this wealth that is spent foolishly were used to advance the common interests of mankind? What if all this indulgence could be used to promote helpful and healthful ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... year, preparing still My conduct home, and with illustrious gifts Enriching me the while, ev'n that request Should please me well; the wealthier I return'd, The happier my condition; welcome more And more respectable I should appear In ev'ry eye to Ithaca restored. To whom Alcinoues answer thus return'd. 440 Ulysses! viewing thee, no fears we feel Lest thou, at length, some false pretender prove, Or subtle hypocrite, of whom no few Disseminated o'er its face the earth Sustains, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... better things about children. I've collected a great, great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl of five who was hated by her father and mother, 'most worthy and respectable people, of good education and breeding.' You see, I must repeat again, it is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love of torturing children, and children only. To all other types of humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and had a talk with my mother. All her ideas were capsized too. Here was her eldest son, the quiet, studious, respectable elder son, out of employment, while her harum-scarum disobedient Frank was getting three hundred a year and with good prospects. She was all bewildered by it. You can't blame her. She looked at me when I told her what I was ...
— Aliens • William McFee |
