"Respectably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was not discreet reading for a dyspeptic man of letters, alone in a two-roomed gunyah in the midst of virgin bush, in a land where the respectably old dates back a score of years, the historic, say, fifty years, and 'the mists of antiquity' a bare century. One recollection inevitably aroused by such a passage brought to mind words comparatively recent, spoken by ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... one that he is an "Oxford man," at once implies that he is a gentleman, and when a well-looking, well-mannered, and even moderately endowed young gentleman has passed respectably through his curriculum at Christchurch or Magdalen, Balliol, Oriel, University, or any other of the correct colleges, it rests with himself whether he runs the race of public life in England on equal terms with the ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... their Collects and Catechism very respectably, all but John, who had not learned the Collect at all, and was sent into another room to finish it, to which he made no resistance; he had had enough of actual fighting ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the holy offices, at the request of the deceased, who had died in so catholic a frame of mind, that great hopes might be entertained of his salvation. Although he possessed no property, yet his burial had been conducted very respectably. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... it, of course," Lady Maria summed them up afterwards, "but they have made up their minds to lump it as respectably as possible." ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in that high strain about principle because it sounds well, and is respectable—and even these things are better than your cold way of looking out for a wife, just as you would do for a carpet, to add to your comforts, and settle you respectably. But I won't be that wife. You shall see something of me which shall make you not acquiesce so quietly in the arrangements of the firm." She cried too vehemently to go on thinking or speaking. Then she stopped, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... every two months for a solemn house-cleaning, and Mrs. Buck from Pleasant River came every Saturday and Monday for baking and washing. Between times Davy and his uncle did the housework together; and although it was respectably done, there was no pink-and-white daintiness about ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Niebuhr, though often impeded by illness, was immense. Languages, philosophy, history, natural science, all took their turn. His number of languages was not short of twenty at this time, and in some he was profoundly versed—in most, very respectably. But the most remarkable thing through life was his memory, and its wonderful combination of retentiveness and readiness. This, rather than the imaginative power, it was that made his descriptions so graphic. Seeing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... position is very great, and the greater still because they are not allowed to tell naughty love-stories unless they force upon them a moral ending, and they are very rarely permitted to indulge in a love-story which does not end in a wedding or the reconciliation of respectably wedded citizens. No wonder that as a body they seem to be getting bankrupt in imagination; they appear to be in the position of a cook who is never allowed to handle anything ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... he couldn't be an accessory either after or before the fact. Those that never went home—who had nothing to go to perhaps—he interjected, hurriedly, could do as they liked. He couldn't. He had a wife, a family, a little house—paid for—with difficulty. He followed the sea respectably out and home, all regular, not vagabonding here and there, chumming with the first nigger that came along and laying traps ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... kind. In it are violins, a double-bass, a clarionet, a French horn, a bassoon, a brace of tambours, and the indispensable nutmeg-grater, performed upon with a piece of wire exactly as the actual grater is by the nutmeg. The musicians, who are all respectably dressed blacks, hired for the occasion, play the everlasting 'Danza Cubana.' This is Cuba's national dance, impossible to be described as it is impossible to be correctly played by those who have never heard it as executed by the native. In a country where carnivals are ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... Paris, displayed genuine fear lest France should rush blindly into war with Prussia; and he charged Metternich tactfully to warn the French Government against such a course of action, which would "be contrary to all that we have agreed upon. . . . Even if we wished, we could not suddenly equip a respectably large force. . . . Our services are gained to a certain extent [by France]; but we shall not go further unless events carry us on; and we do not dream of plunging into war because it might suit ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... wrote to Therese, advising her to accept the engagement for Naples, where she might expect me to join her in the month of July, or after my return from Constantinople. I cautioned her to engage an honest-looking waiting-woman, so as to appear respectably in the world, and, to lead such a life as would permit me to make her my wife, on my return, without being ashamed of myself. I foresaw that her success would be insured by her beauty even more than by her talent, and, with my nature, I knew that I could never assume the character of an easy-going ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... gristmill at "Mill Hollow," a mile west of the village, the other a substantial farmer, with their corduroy coats and knee-breeches, blue woolen hose and steel shoe buckles, are the most socially considerable and respectably attired persons present. ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... October 6, 1885, in the office of the Inspector of Police of the second division of S—— District, there appeared a respectably dressed young man, who announced that his master, Marcus Ivanovitch Klausoff, a retired officer of the Horse Guards, separated from his wife, had been murdered. While making this announcement the young man was white and ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... the entire Mohawk tribe, with other loyalist Indians, under their chief, Joseph Brant, followed the fortunes of their white loyalist brethren, and settled on their reservation on the Grand River. Brant had been educated in a Christian school in Philadelphia; had a comfortable home, and lived respectably on the Mohawk river before the American revolution; had entertained missionaries, and had assisted one of them in translating a part of the New Testament and Prayer Book into the Mohawk language. Colonel Stone, in his "Life of Brant" and the "History of the Border Wars ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... Robert," says she. "You'll be married quite respectably and sanely, as other people are. Anyway, you'll just have to. Mrs. Pulsifer and I ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... attitude towards a woman whom you are fond of and who is not your sister, and to be purely sisterly in your attitude towards a man whom you are fond of and who is not your brother, are ideals of spiritual emotion very difficult to attain in this respectably organised ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... respectably for a day or two; but the house was rather dull, she missed Nelly, wanted to run in the street, and longed to see mamma. She amused herself as well as she could with picture-books, patchwork, and the old cat; but, not being a quiet, proper, little Rosamond ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... one farm the lands that once formed fourteen farms, bringing up respectably fourteen families. The capitalist farmer came in like the capitalist employer. His gangs of poor and ignorant labourers were the counterpart of the swarm of factory hands. The business of farming was worked more scientifically, with better tools and greater success; but after the middle of the ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... English grammarians; and he who begins with saying, that "little can be expected" from the office he assumes, must be wrongfully contradicted, when he is held to have done much. Neither the ordinary power of speech, nor even the ability to write respectably on common topics, makes a man a critic among critics, or enables him to judge of literary merit. And if, by virtue of these qualifications alone, a man will become a grammarian or a connoisseur, he can hold the rank only by courtesy—a courtesy which is content to degrade the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... fix upon one. They have already told you that they get no money; and they have told me that they can get no money although they were to ask for it. Now, a girl in the south may dress very well, and servants there do dress very respectably; but I know servants in the south who don't make more money in the course of a year than a woman makes here by knitting, and yet they have considerable sums the bank, while that is not ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... ordered all the doors to be carefully secured. La Couteau was standing there with a sturdy young person of five-and-twenty, who carried a superb-looking infant in her arms. She had dark hair, a low forehead, and a broad face, and was very respectably dressed. And she made a little courtesy like a well-trained nurse, who has already served with gentlefolks and knows how to behave. But Valentine's embarrassment remained extreme; she looked at the nurse and at the babe like an ignorant woman who, though her elder children had been brought ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... on Henry Clay, Lincoln said: "His example teaches us that one can scarcely be so poor but that, if he will, he can acquire sufficient education to get through the world respectably." ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... made a coffin for it, and buried it decently. After that he took us out to a little spot of fresh earth, covered with leaves and twigs, and, digging down, we came to a rough pine box made as well as the poor fellow knew how to put it together. Opening it, we found all that was left of poor Hunt, respectably clad in a coarse, clean white garment which Sam's wife had made as nicely as she could out of her one pair of sheets. 'It wa'n't much,' said the good soul, with tears in her eyes, 'it wa'n't much we's could do for him, but I washed him, and dressed him, peart as I could, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... nowadays no Vice President is ever elected President), and because of the dignity of the position I had held, not to be permitted to go on with my profession, and therefore with nothing left for me to do save to ornament my lot in the cemetery tastefully, and get into it gracefully and respectably, as a Vice President ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... some of my forefathers, North and South, served respectably, but without distinction, in the army, and others rendered similar service in the Continental Congress or in various local legislatures. By that time those who dwelt in the North were for the most part merchants, and those who ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... the snowy ice and blowing on our fingers as we went. The thermometer must have shown ten degrees of frost or more, but I only know that I was very glad to reach our little house at last (having passed it already once half a mile before) and get in between the sheets of an ancient but respectably clean bed, covered by all the mackintoshes, blankets, and rugs I could ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... get her respectably married," said Irene, nippingly, her small face resolute, "I won't worry about what she tells or doesn't tell. It's been hard enough on me, I can tell you!" She went briskly upstairs and they heard her ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... man offered me money. Offered me all I asked, offered to make me his mistress. Do you hear? Do you? or has your soul gone deaf as mine has? His mistress! I meet it everywhere. Yet why? Because I am respectably poor. To-morrow the roof tumbles about my ears. The mortgage closes. You and I alike are homeless. I went to him, my father's friend, to whom, in dying, he entrusted me for guidance. I begged of him that guidance, or, at the least, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... the window at the end of the corridor. It seemed as though a fierce chase had begun after the fugitive Englishman, for yet another man, a thin, respectably-dressed mechanic, had run along and slipped out of the window with ease as ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... to neutralize its effects a national convention of its adherents, North and South, planned by Thurlow Weed and Secretary Seward, was to serve as the principal means. This "National Union Convention" met in Philadelphia on August 14th. It was respectably attended in point of character as well as of numbers. It opened its proceedings with a spectacular performance which under different conditions might have struck the popular imagination favorably. The delegates marched into the Convention Hall in pairs, one ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... the murder of so many innocent children on their heads. Sir, we Brahmins and other respectable Hindoos feel honoured in having daughters; and never feel secure of a happy life hereafter till we see them respectably married. This, sir, is a duty the Deity demands from us, and the neglect of which we do not believe he can ever excuse. When the bridegroom comes sir, to fetch our daughter, the priest reads over the marriage-service, and the parents of the girl wash her feet and those of her bridegroom; ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... other kind of information, and they both were to be punish'd as spies. However, they not only got off with their lives, but were afterwards, well rewarded by our Government. The former was appointed French-Translator to the Government Offices, and something more, which enabled him to live respectably; and Davis, who had been a grenadier-soldier, got a pension of twenty five pounds a year: they both lived a long time ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... to make on my first visit to Rome. I had then found it so far from such a frightfully precipitous height as I had led myself to expect that I came away and rather mocked it in print. But now, possibly because the years had moderated all my expectations in life, I thought the Tarpeian Rock very respectably steep and quite impressively lofty; either the houses at its foot had sunk with their chimneys and balconies, or the rock had risen, so that one could no longer be hurled from it with impunity. We looked at it from an arbor of the lovely little garden ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... like! Th' moor some fowk have an th' moor they want. Ther wor noa sich stinkin pride when aw wor young; but young folk nah dooant know what ails em. When aw wor a lass it wor thowt to be quite enuff if one wor plainly an respectably donned, an if they had onny pride, it wor to know at ther underclooas wor cleean an sweet an fit to be seen, but nah it's all top finery an fluff they think abaat; but if they'd darn ther stockins an wesh ther shifts a bit ofter, asteead o' wantin to spooart new gaons an hats ivvery few ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... players playing impossible parts; to Miss HENRIETTA WATSON struggling pluckily and skilfully with her Mrs. John; or to Mr. COWLEY WRIGHT or Miss ROSA LYND, so perfectly appalling did Ernest and Helen seem to me and so anxious was I to get them off to Paris respectably or otherwise. They never, by the way, gave me the faintest impression that they could ever have done work of any value ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... this came in, and congratulating ourselves that we were not doomed to struggle and fight for space in such a huddle, when suddenly we heard a shrill scream. It was a woman's voice crying, 'Air! Air! Give me air!' In another instant the crowd pushed back a step, and quite a respectably-dressed young person staggered weakly through the line to the curb, as if to get more breathing-space. Of course she could have got this in a much easier way by going in the other direction, but you see her plan was to get a better view of the procession, and she thought that was ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... as you are situated, there is another consideration with respect to your dress which must not be passed over in silence. The allowance you receive is expressly for the purpose of enabling you to dress properly, suitably, and respectably; and if you do not in the first place fulfil the purpose of the donor, you are surely guilty of a species of dishonesty. You have no right to indulge personal feeling, or gratify a mistaken sense of duty, ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... difficult to explain. Jasper had caught sight of a female figure walking under the trees at a considerable distance from the spot where he had pulled up. He knew that there were none but Indian women at Fort Erie at that time, and that, therefore, the only respectably dressed female at the place must needs be his own Marie Laroche. Overjoyed at the opportunity thus unexpectedly afforded him of meeting her alone, he hastened forward ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... and looked conscious when they strode past it was not for him to know at that stage of the game. He felt so small after the weary weeks of watching that he went and had himself weighed, devoutly certain that he shrunk respectably. He even went in for a savage system of training, calculated ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... came before her again and again; her father betting eagerly in the crowd of betters on the race course, and the same beloved figure handling the cards opposite to his friend the banker, at the hospitable mansion of the latter. Who should be her guaranty, that a taste once formed, though so respectably, might not be indulged in other ways and companies not so irreproachable? The more Dolly allowed herself to think of it, the more the pain at her heart bit her. And another fear came to help the former, its fit and appropriate ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... positively joyless a sense of it all, to be aware of most of it now but as dim confusion, as bewildered anxiety. There was interest always, certainly—but it strikes me to-day as interest in everything that wasn't supposedly or prescriptively of the question at all, and in nothing that was so respectably involved and accredited. Without some sharpness of interest I shouldn't now have the memories; but these stick to me somehow with none of the hard glue of recovered "spirits," recovered vivacities, assurances, successes. I can't have had, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... could not venture to oppose itself to the general sentiment; for in that great city there was scarcely one wealthy merchant who had not some kinsman or friend among the sufferers. Petitions numerously and respectably signed were presented to the Burgomasters, imploring them to make strong representations to Avaux. There were even suppliants who made their way into the Stadthouse, flung themselves on their knees, described with tears and sobs the lamentable condition of those whom they most loved, and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... crater, and a mile deep; when that thing blew out, ten or fifteen thousand years ago, it must have been something to see, preferably from a ship a thousand miles off-planet. It was so huge that it was hard to realize that the jumbled foothills around it were themselves respectably lofty mountains. ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... asked Mrs. Dunlee presently, when the child was once more respectably clad, and was walking down to dinner between herself and Aunt Vi, "but my little son, what could have possessed you to climb a roof? Was that a nice ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... by company, congregate in the remoter coves—where the shore is the shore of the open sea and there is no crowd to trouble—whence paths scramble over the hills to the Tickle settlement. My uncle's cottage sat respectably, even with some superiority, upon a narrow neck of rock by the Lost Soul, outlooking, westerly, to sea, but in the opposite direction dwelling in a way more intimate and fond upon the unruffled water of Old Wives' Cove, within the harbor, where rode ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... of his long life he lived respectably and much esteemed by all who became acquainted with him, but more especially by those who could fully appreciate his genius and the extent of his acquirements. Although his mode of life was regular and extremely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... man see that no persecuted Irishman ever talked in such a way since the world began? If he had a part to play, why in the name of common sense couldn't he play it respectably? ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... respectably provided for. Sir Everard's chaplain, an Oxonian, who had lost his fellowship for declining to take the oaths at the accession of George I, was not only an excellent classical scholar, but reasonably skilled ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... might rest upon their laurels in these higher fields, and turn their great energy and ingenuity to the study of essentials. To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably. We Americans in many things as yet have been a little inclined to begin making our shirt at the ruffle; but, nevertheless, when we set about it, we can make the shirt as nicely as anybody,—it needs only that we turn our attention to it, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... favourite lark with these 'xtr'or'nary critters," replied Bill, giving a turn to the quid of tobacco that invariably bulged out his left cheek. "Ye see, Ralph, them fellows take to the water as soon a'most as they can walk, an' long before they can do that anything respectably, so that they are as much at home in the sea as on the land. Well, ye see, I 'spose they found swimmin' for miles out to sea, and divin' fathoms deep, wasn't exciting enough, so they invented this game o' the surf. Each man and boy, as you see, has got a short board or plank, with which ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... her voice' thinking of jamroll, another thinking of her lover (when she has none), and most, no doubt, when they think of nothing. But no woman is likely to 'find herself' in an artistic sense because she has lost herself in another sense—not even if she has done so quite respectably." ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... present. The great industry of Derry is shirt making. Was over the largest factory, that of Mr. Tillie, whose branch factory I saw at Carndonagh. This factory employs about twelve hundred hands. These work people were more respectably dressed than any operatives I have seen in Ireland. They all wore bonnets or hats; the mill people at Gilford and Ballymena went bareheaded or with a shawl thrown over the head. In the present woeful depression of the linen trade, it is cheering to look at this busy ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... married, Lady Knollys; I thought everyone who knew me had heard of that. Very respectably married, for a person of my rank. I shall not need long the life of a governess. There is no ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... found. There was a grand interrogation, and at last it turned out to have been safely deposited in an empty dog-kennel in the back yard. It was very hard on Rachel that Fanny giggled like a school-girl, and even though ashamed of herself and her sons, could not find voice to scold them respectably. No wonder, after such encouragement, that Rachel found her mission no sinecure, and felt at the end of her morning's work much as if she had been driving pigs to market, though the repetition was imposing on the boys a sort of sense of fate and obedience, and there ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whose necessities or sense of the decencies had, unknown to himself and to the others, put them all in motion that day, swung round listening to the challenge to arms, as the puffy little man's delivery of the countess's message sounded. He was respectably clad, he thought, in the relief of his escape from the suit of clothes discarded, and he silently followed Sir Meeson's trot to the carriage. 'Should have mistaken you for a German to-day, sir,' the latter ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in themselves, but who came from large, well-kept, well-furnished houses on the right streets of La Chance; with presentable, card-playing, call-paying, reception-giving mothers, who hired caterers for their entertainments; and respectably absentee fathers with sizable pocketbooks and a habit of cash liberality. The social standing of the co-eds in State Universities was already precarious enough, without running the risk of acquiring dubious ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the destination of the members of the chaine, was respectably peopled when I visited it some years ago. It contained amongst others, Sarrazin, a famous general, who had deserted to us from Buonaparte, and whose works on the Spanish and other campaigns, are still read with interest. The general had caught the inexcusable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... recalled the good old days when the lord of the manor was lord of the souls and bodies of his tenants. Even old Mr. Lane had been mellowed by the influence of his new home, and before his death had come to play the part of Squire far more respectably than might be imagined. Eugene sustained the role with the graceful indolence and careless efficiency that marked ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... as John Loder. To-morrow the man who was known by that name will be found in his rooms; his body will be removed, and at the post-modern examination it will be stated that he died of an overdose of morphia. His charwoman will identify him as a solitary man who lived respectably for years and then suddenly went down-hill with remarkable speed. It will be quite a common case. Nothing of interest will be found in his rooms; no relation will claim his body; after the usual time he will be given the usual burial of his class. These ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Touchstone, "you're quite respectably off. Since you've been ill, you've come into money—more than enough to pay for everything. So don't let that ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... be followed out in remote localities, and under influences partaking, in no ordinary degree, of the taint of human frailty. In some parts of the country, the local committees have done their duty conscientiously and respectably; in others we are afraid they are not entitled to the same praise. Yet, on the whole, things have answered better than could have been expected; and undoubtedly the greatest benefit was derived from the able superintendence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... of replenishing a wardrobe,—certain it is that no sooner is a girl engaged to be married than there is a blind and distracting rush and pressure and haste to make up for her immediately a stock of articles, which, up to that hour, she has managed to live very comfortably and respectably without. It is astonishing to behold the number of inexpressible things with French names which unmarried young ladies never think of wanting, but which there is a desperate push to supply, and have ranged in order, the moment the matrimonial ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... did the part of Clytemnestre, and her sister, a young girl of seventeen, made her debut in the part of Iphigenie with great effect. The two sisters supported each other wonderfully well, and Lafond did Agamemnon very respectably. ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... sustained only a trifling loss by the fire. Another house was erected on the site of the old habitation, where he carried on his business as respectably and as profitably as before, until, in the course of nature, he was gathered to his fathers, and succeeded by his son Stephen, leaving an unblemished character behind him as a legacy to his family. Nor ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... ye, I don't say he would apply; it is most probable he would do no such thing. But at the cost of—how much? two hundred pounds annually—for five years—he has acquired about five-and-twenty guineas' worth of classical leeterature—enough, I dare say, to enable him to quote Horace respectably through life, and what more do ye want from a young man of his expectations? I think I should send him into the army, that's the best place for him—there's the least to do, and the handsomest clothes to wear. Acce segnum!" says the little wag, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rational judge or jury can doubt she stole the lace. It is my duty to make an example of her. This is not the first, nor the second time, we have been robbed by ladies in affluent circumstances, and respectably connected. It is a peculiar crime, and generally committed in a way which renders it both difficult and dangerous, even when we know the criminal, to attempt to fix the fact upon her. This time we have caught her in the very act. We ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... I'm just thinking ve shall vant a little porter to carry us home: for, by Jingo! I don't think as how either of us can toddle—that is respectably!" ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... on, "to do it as nicely and respectably as possible, and I thought to give you away in charity was better than gambling or anything of that sort. Not that I haven't been tempted; for you know, papa, I could quite easily lose you a hundred pounds at every tea-party I go to. But now, if I'm asked to a bridge-table, all I can say ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... blazing with gilt lamps; the curtains were down too, and you could not see the bars at the windows; and Mr. B., Mr. Lock the Brighton officer, Mr. Aminadab, and another rich gentleman of his trade and religious persuasion, were chirping as merrily, and looked as respectably, as ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... respectably, though not very elegantly, furnished. It was a dismal, rainy day yesterday, and we had a coal-fire in the sitting-room, beside which I sat last evening as twilight came on, and thought, rather sadly, how many times we have changed our home since ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is a foreigner and can't very well know that our men are just as bad as he is? Besides, isn't he a Socialist? We would have been willing to condone his relations with that woman if only he'd hid them respectably as our men do, but to come here with his free ideas—— Well, I'm willing to let the Russians have all the freedom they want, and I would have given my mite toward stirring up trouble over there, but we have all the freedom we want over here, and a little more, too, if ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... but little incident in a New-England village of the Deerfield style and size,—full of commonplace people, who live commonplace lives, in the same white and brown and red houses they were born in, and die respectably in their beds, and are quietly buried among the mulleins and dewberry-vines in the hill-side graveyard. Mary Scranton's life and death, though they possessed the elements of a tragedy, were divested of their tragic interest by this calm and pensive New-England atmosphere. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... the fortune which it brought him; for though, like all really fine works, it rewards effort and money bestowed upon it with corresponding and proportionate generosity, it does not depend for its effectiveness on extraordinary vocal outfit or scenic apparel. Fairly well sung and acted and respectably dressed, it always wins the sympathies and warms the enthusiasm of an audience the world over. It is seldom thought of as a conventional opera, and yet it is full of conventionalities which do not obtrude themselves simply because there is so much that ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... want of taste, must be admitted; but his works are allowed to breathe a spirit of piety; his candor, and desire to be accurate, are discernible in every part of his writings; and his learning, for the age in which he lived, was considerable. In Ribadeneira the line of ancient Agiographists respectably finishes. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... doomed to pass that day in viewing curiosities, and, smothering a yawn, I devoted myself once more to tread the well-known round. I fancy Uncle William must have begun the collection himself and tired of it, for the book (to my surprise) was quite respectably filled. There were the varying shades of the English penny, Russians with the coloured heart, old undecipherable Thurn-und-Taxis, obsolete triangular Cape of Good Hopes, Swan Rivers with the Swan, and Guianas with the sailing ship. Upon all these ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Wilkinson, who was so troubled in spirit that she hardly knew what to say. "That is, we never lived beyond our means at all, my lord. There were seven children; and they were all educated most respectably. The only boy was sent to college; and I don't think there was any imprudence—indeed I don't, my lord. And there was something saved; and the insurance was always ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... dissatisfied with Wolfgang. He certainly did not show any brilliancy at school, he did not belong to the top boys of his form by any means, but still he kept quite respectably in the middle of it. Well, there was no need for him ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... London I shall apply to some of my mother's old friends—friends of hers in the time when she was a musician. Every body tells me I have a voice—if I had only cultivated it. I will cultivate it! I can live, and live respectably, as a concert singer. I have saved money enough to support me, while I am learning—and my mother's friends will help me, ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... pistoles, that my farmer sent to me the day before I left Bragelonne; but out of that sum I ought to leave fifty for Raoul—a young man must live respectably. I have then about ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... redoubled ardor. It was my first and only love; the sufferings of our childhood had made it lasting. My very emotion rose to action as I saw the woman I knew took her away. My anxiety to know her fate had no bounds. Dressing myself up as respectably as it was possible with my means, I took advantage of a dark and stormy night in the month of November to call at the house in Mercer street, into which I had traced the lady. I rung the bell; a sumptuously-dressed ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... indeed, so largely as some representatives of other nations; for I neither propose nor desire that the American representative shall imitate the pomp of certain ambassadors of the greater European powers. But he ought to be enabled to live respectably, and to discharge his duties efficiently. There should be, in this respect, what Thomas Jefferson acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence as a duty,—"a decent regard for the opinions of mankind." ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... to Coblentz at once. I did so. I saw this lady. She seemed in affluent circumstances, yet young, but a confirmed invalid, confined the greater part of the day to her sofa by some malady of the spine. She told me very frankly her story. She had been a professional dancer on the stage, had married respectably, quitted the stage, become a widow, and shortly afterwards been seized with the complaint that would probably for life keep her a secluded prisoner in her room. Thus afflicted, and without tie, interest, or object in the world, she conceived ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in thinking what a windfall it was for his friend, and how far it would go in fitting him up respectably! ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gone out of good use, though in such compounded words as begotten and misbegotten it persists respectably. ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... of the gentlemen and others interested in the celebrated publications called the Waverley Novels, having been called by public advertisement, the same was respectably attended by various literary characters of eminence. And it being in the first place understood that individuals were to be denominated by the names assigned to them in the publications in question, the Eidolon, or image of the author, was unanimously ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... story for hard times. It is of a clergyman and cotton spinner of the Church of England, who, upon an income of twenty-four pounds a year, lived very comfortably to the age of ninety-four years, reared a family of eight children respectably, gave two of his sons a University education, and left an estate ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... and a subscription which finally amounted to one thousand two hundred pounds was raised for his family. The official biography, by Doctor Currie of Liverpool, doubled this sum, so that Jean was enabled to bring up the children respectably, and end her days in comfort. Scotland, having done little for Burns in his life, was stricken with remorse when he died, and has sought ever since to atone for her neglect by an idolatry of the poet and by a more than charitable view of ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... was not ostensibly a public day, yet so many of the pupils' friends claimed admittance to the hall on the occasion, that it became so in fact, and was usually very respectably attended. Many of the doctor's old pupils came, to recall their old feelings, by a sight of this most memorable exhibition. And on this day, Vernon Digby was present with a younger brother, not to witness Frank's triumph, for that young gentleman had none to boast ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... Luke ix, 62. Keep your eye on the mark, just as the ploughman looks at the staff he has fixed as his guide. Keep looking unto Jesus. Many a preacher, who could make hell tremble for its own, has, by looking back, become respectably commonplace. So the fine promise of his youth dies ignobly, and is laid in the grave of Demas! Whether it be a bag of gold, or a fair face, or a pillow of down, thou art called to look back upon, do as the Master did—set thy ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... means an ideal monk, but he was equally far from being a scandal. He was the shrewd man of business and manager of his fraternity, conducting the farming operations and making all the bargains, following his rule respectably according to the ordinary standard of his time, but not rising to any spirituality, and while duly observing the fast day, as to the quality of his food, eating with the appetite of a man who lived in the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the people is the voice of God"—the saying is so respectably old that it comes to us in the Latin. He is a strange, an unearthly politician who has not a score of times publicly and solemnly signified his faith in it But does anyone really believe it? Let us see. In the period between 1859 ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... Culkins to his second, "see me respectably buried and forward bill to Connaught. Believe me, it will be cashed." The arms (horse-pistols) were given to the men, and one of ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... unwitnessed for two men were standing outside, looking thro' one of the windows, from which the curtain had been partially drawn. Both these men were respectably dressed, and both were over sixty years of age; yet they viewed the unconscious and undressed ladies ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... slip of a girl, whereupon, without waiting to lengthen her frock, she rushed rapturously at her work-basket. "Not at all, miss," he cried ferociously; "you are here to look after this house, not to be preparing for another, and until you are respectably bespoken by some rash crittur of a man, into the drawers with your linen and down with those murderous shears." And she had obeyed; no scissors, the most relentless things in nature when in Grizel's hand, had ever cleaved their way through that snowy expanse; never a ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... the next day, and there was a wealth of raft material marking the high-water level of the spring flood. The migrations McNeil had reported were still in progress, and the three men hid twice to watch the passing of small family clans. Once a respectably sized tribe, including wounded men, marched across their route, seeking a ford ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... acknowledged, of some of the higher and gentler traits which might do him excellent service in maintaining his authority. The class has deteriorated of late years on account of the narrower field of selection, owing chiefly to the diminution of that excellent body of respectably educated New England seamen, from the flower of whom the officers used to be recruited. Yet I found them, in many cases, very agreeable and intelligent companions, with less nonsense about them than landsmen usually have, eschewers of fine-spun ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... story I can tell of a girl respectably connected in the country, who had been cast off in disgrace, and came to town to take a place, committing her infant to a good foster mother. When he was old enough to move about, and was just trying to walk, the mother was taken dangerously ill to the Adelaide Hospital. The foster mother thought ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... round us and fastening on to us, as the horrible things do with each other. What should we do then? They might drag us down and perhaps keep us there; but there's one thing, they'd never eat us, because we could keep closed up and die respectably together." ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... natural reason too. However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frock—which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety—and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and neat on the toilet table, I ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... circuit, had drawn near the side of the boat, and stood listlessly gazing over the railing. After a time, he saw the trader returning, with an alert step, in company with a colored woman, bearing in her arms a young child. She was dressed quite respectably, and a colored man followed her, bringing along a small trunk. The woman came cheerfully onward, talking, as she came, with the man who bore her trunk, and so passed up the plank into the boat. The bell rung, the steamer whizzed, the engine groaned and coughed, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was found to have known a great deal about their doings; but as she was not found guilty of any crime, she was allowed to go free, and advised by the magistrate to forsake her old companions, and endeavour to live honestly and respectably. A charitable lady afterwards took her into a home, being much touched by the account she gave of Duncan's illness, and the way she had done what she could ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Robert Breck; and that son-in-law of his—what's his name? And some other representatives of our oldest families,—Alec Pound. He's a reformer now, you know. They put him on the resolutions committee. Sam Ogilvy was there, he'd be classed as respectably conservative. And one of the Ewanses. I could name a few others, if you pressed me. That brother of Fowndes who looks like an up-state minister. A lot of women—Miller Gorse's sister, Mrs. Datchet, who never approved of Miller. Quite a genteel gathering, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Starlight, if he'd been going to be hung next week it would have been all one to him. He'd have put off thinking about it until about an hour before, and then would have made all his arrangements and done the whole business quietly and respectably, without humbug, but without any flashness either. You couldn't put him wrong, or make him do or say anything that was ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... He saw Cook put the account books on the small table, he heard her, he also comprehended her. And Feather at the window breathlessly watching the two cabs with the servants' trunks on top, and the servants respectably unprofessional in attire and going away quietly without an unpractical compunction—he saw these also and comprehended knowing exactly why compunctions had no part in latter-day ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... smiled back at him. "Wish," he said, "is right and all you others are wrong. I shall go. I shall get to the end of these passes, and as the last swish whistles through the air, Presto!—this hearthrug will be vacant, the room will be blank amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of fifteen stone will plump into the world of shades. I'm certain. So will you be. I decline to argue further. Let the thing ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... Joanna, smiling. "We'll spend our honeymoon in your village in the Vosges after we are well and duly and respectably married in Melford. Don't you think I am ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... your grandmother," said Anne, "and I know how hard she had to work to keep you two girls respectably dressed and cared for. I know you think I'm an interfering, peculiar woman and an old maid, but your grandmother was no old maid. She lost your mother who'd have worked and kept her when she was old, and instead of having an arm to lean on, she'd to work morning, noon, and night, to give you two ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... restored in 1763. And Phillip now found leisure to marry; and to settle at Lyndhurst, in the New Forest, where he amused himself with farming, and like other country gentlemen, discharged assiduously those provincial offices, which, however unimportant, occupy respectably the owners of land, who, in this island, require no office to make ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... contrary, when we examine the matter closely, nearly universal. Among ignorant and thoughtless parents, who are either unable or unwilling to look any further than the few short years of life, the training of their children to figure respectably and gracefully during it, may not perhaps excite much wonder;—but that such conduct should be followed by Christian parents, who know that both they and their children have souls, and that there ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... family will nearly ruin themselves, to testify their respect for some member of it in his coffin, whom they never much cared for when he was out of it; and how often it happens that a poor old woman will starve herself to death, in order that she may be respectably buried. ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... difficult to describe. It has an individuality, but an elusive one; yet not through any queerness or difficult shade of eccentricity; a subtly normal, an indefinably obvious personality. It is a healthy, cheerful city (by modern standards); a clean-shaven, pink-faced, respectably dressed, fairly energetic, unintellectual, passably sociable, well-to-do, public-school- and-'varsity sort of city. One knows in one's own life certain bright and pleasant figures; people who occupy the nearer middle distance, unobtrusive but not negligible; wardens of the ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... city men remember to have experienced during the first years after they had "come up to town." Occasionally the right sort of man and girl meet each other in these dance halls and the romance with such a tawdry beginning ends happily and respectably. But, unfortunately, mingled with the respectable young men seeking to form the acquaintance of young women through the only channel which is available to them, are many young fellows of evil purpose, and among ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... tea-tray; she and her sister then went into the kitchen to make some toast, and to see to the kettle boiling, while Mr Spikeman continued in conversation with the mother. Mrs James was the widow of a draper in the town, who had, at his death left her sufficient to live quietly and respectably with her daughters, who were both very good, amiable girls; and it must be acknowledged, neither of them unwilling to listen to the addresses of Mr Spikeman had he been so inclined; but they began to think that Mr Spikeman was not a marrying man, which, ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... forty a factory hand! a floor-walker! a banker! a college professor! a man about town or any other respectably successful, humdrum, square wooden peg-of-a-thing in a square tight hole! There is an evil, says the Preacher, which I have seen under the sun—the man of about forty who has become moderately successful ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... my theory be right—and I hope I've convinced you—I see no use in meddling. The girl is respectably married. It will cause her quite unnecessary trouble if we rip this affair open again. Her husband will have just ground for complaint, and it might—I need not point out—be a ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Instead, then, of requesting the favour of your retirement from the post, and dismissing your interests altogether, I will retain you as my steward still, on condition that you bring home your wife, and live with her respectably, in short, as if you loved her; you understand. I wish you to stay here if you grant that everything shall flow ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... dignity Mr. Thrush stepped into the room. He was most respectably dressed in a neat black suit, the coat of which looked rather like either a frock coat which was in course of diminishing gradually into what tailors call "a morning coat," or a morning coat which was in course of ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... hurriedly performed mass, and read the burial service over the deceased, who had belonged to rather a wealthy family, and therefore was respectably interred. Unfortunately, when they wanted to lower the corpse into its cold resting-place, the latter was found to be too short and too narrow, and the poor wretch was so tossed about, coffin and all, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... weather, he has no doubt that he could master him, and hand him over to the quarter sessions. He says that a hundred pounds would be no bad thing to be disbanded upon; for he wishes to take an inn at Swanton Morley, keep a cock-pit, and live respectably. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... and from Limerick, and strangers, apparently, to all the inhabitants and to each other. Shortly after nightfall, the hill of Kilteely was seen covered with men and horses, and within an old ruined house on the top of the hill a dim light was seen to occasionally flitter. This ruin was full of respectably dressed men, and at one end of it, on chairs, and at a table, provided for the occasion, sat twelve of the most respectable of them, and a portly important-looking gentleman on an elevated chair at the end of the table. Two or three candies were burning, and some ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... given him and his friends reason to understand that I would furnish in moderation what was necessary for providing him with a scholarly education, and launching him respectably. I am-therefore bound to fulfil the expectation so raised," said Mr. Casaubon, putting his conduct in the light of mere rectitude: a trait of delicacy which ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Westminster chimed midnight, that hour of picturesque ghostly tradition, when simple village maids shudder at the thought of traversing a dark lane or passing a churchyard, and when country folks of old-fashioned habits and principles are respectably in bed and for the most part sleeping. But so far as the fashionable "West End" was concerned, it might have been midday. Everybody assuming to be Anybody, was in town. The rumble of carriages passing to and fro was incessant,—the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... fellows, the conversation turned on their learning and education, and one of the company having delivered his thoughts on the subject very respectably, his neighbor, neither extremely wise nor witty, said, "Well, Jack, you are certainly not the greatest fool living." "No," answered he, "nor shall I ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... under the chandelier of the flat where Olive lived with her mother. After marriage came elation, and then, gradually, the growth of weariness. Responsibility descended upon Merlin, the responsibility of making his thirty dollars a week and her twenty suffice to keep them respectably fat and to hide with decent garments the ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... not know whether there be any populace in Florence, but I saw none that I recognized as such, on this occasion. All the people were respectably dressed and perfectly well behaved; and soldiers and priests were scattered abundantly among the throng. On my way home, I saw the Teatro Goldoni, which is in our own street, lighted up for a representation this Sunday evening. It shocked ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with my creditors. You see, if one has a cook like Mrs. Cosby, there is an element of chance in the matter of getting dinner at all; and another thing is it may be so bad you won't survive it; so it's not much use being miserable before dinner, is it, when perhaps you may be buried comfortably and respectably afterwards?' ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... it seriously damaged, was well known to Mr. Pierce and the world in general. Even this species of gentry was at times disposed to pay it compliment; but it was only on the ground of its relieving them of that onerous tax of now and then receiving their fellow-citizens respectably. Smooth is exceedingly delicate about mentioning here the onerousness of this tax, inasmuch as our parsimonious government has proved itself obstinately opposed to grant a sum requisite to the necessary respectability to be ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... claim discipleship. But if our definition of being a Christian is simply to enjoy the privileges of worship, be generous at no expense to ourselves, have a good, easy time surrounded by pleasant friends and by comfortable things, live respectably and at the same time avoid the world's great stress of sin and trouble because it is too much pain to bear it—if this is our definition of Christianity, surely we are a long way from following the steps ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... beleave this, Mister Gael. I am goin back to Pierre's ranch to work on his land an some day I will be hopin to see you come ridin in an I will keep on learnin as well as I can an mebbe you will not be ashamed of me. I feel awful bad to go but I would feel more bad to stay when it must hurt you so. Respectably ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... noways a moral institootion; and so I shouldn't have even a decent burying to look forward to for me and my wife (my poor daughters being widows, and a great expense to me), if he hadn't said he'd bury us himself if I'd give it up, and bury us respectably too, it stands to reason. Mr. John ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... the letter of his instructions. Finding himself in the possession of an assured livelihood, respectably dressed and engaged in steady employment, his appetite for drink loosened its cruel hold upon him, and he was once more in possession of himself. All the week long he was busy in visiting hospitals, alms-houses and lunatic asylums, and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... was his extravagance. Being always wide-awake and ready for business, he earned enough to have supported him comfortably and respectably. There were not a few young clerks who employed Dick from time to time in his professional capacity, who scarcely earned as much as he, greatly as their style and dress exceeded his. But Dick was careless of his earnings. Where they went he could hardly have told ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... that things are only property to the man who knows how to use them; as flutes, for instance, are property to the man who can pipe upon them respectably; but to one who knows not how to pipe, they are no property, unless he can get rid of them advantageously.... For if they are not sold, the flutes are no property (being serviceable for nothing); ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the only pair of shoes in the place that came near to fitting one of the ladies, a bolt of unbleached muslin which they, themselves, could fashion into underclothes, and four disreputable old hats. The latter we gave to a local milliner to remodel and trim, simply but respectably. Then we went to the store and purchased shoes and other necessary articles, including enough inexpensive but serviceable cloth for four gowns and jackets, and employed a ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... curse with it, I cannot say; but, at all events, he abandoned it to the notary's heirs, and set off with Le Bossu for Paris, where, I believe, the sign of 'Delessert et Fils, Ferblantiers,' still flourishes over the front of a respectably ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... served the good King, who is much to be pitied, for many years; and when I was wounded, the Queen, God bless her! set me up in the world, as I was made an invalid; and I have ever since been enabled to support my family respectably. D—— the Assembly! I shall never be a farthing the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... provinces, as chequers formerly were in our own country towns. I remember meeting with a curious adventure during my last residence in Paris. One morning, while leisurely walking in Rue Montmartre, I was accosted in French, by a respectably dressed man, apparently about fifty, who inquired of me the situation of —— street, (for at this moment I do not recollect the name). I replied that, being a foreigner, I could not afford him ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... remember what a beautiful sight it was when, after church on Sunday, the king and queen and their children used to walk up and down the stately terrace at Windsor Castle, with a band playing, and everyone who was respectably dressed allowed to come ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at this period, another writer says: "He lived simply, comfortably, and respectably, with neither expensive tastes nor habits. His wants were few and simple. He occupied a small unostentatious house in Springfield, and was in the habit of entertaining, in a very simple way, his friends ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... had reached half the summit of the hill, some respectably dressed females came running down to meet us. They were received with cheers, but they no sooner approached than they addressed me in the most fervent and supplicating manner to return, as the Scots Greys were drawn out with their carbines loaded, and they had heard ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... "—universities don't lead thought—they follow it. In Europe institutions of learning may be—indeed, they frequently are—hotbeds of radicalism; in America our colleges are merely featherbeds for conservatism to die in respectably." Then he added: "But what could you expect? You see, we are still intellectually nouveaux over here, and therefore self-consciously correct and imitative, like the nouveaux riches. So long as you have a broad a you need never worry ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... but Julia Cloud felt she would rather die than face a future like that. It was respectable, of course, and entirely reliable. She would be fed and clothed, and nursed when she was ill. She would be buried respectably when she died, and the neighbors would say the Robinsons had been kind and done the right thing by her; but Julia Cloud shuddered as she looked down the long, dull vista of that future which was offered her, and drew back for the first time in her life. Not that she had anything better in view, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... I come to town to settle, pray introduce me to these amiable and sensible bibliomaniacs. Now gratify a curiosity that I feel to know the name and character of yonder respectably-looking gentleman, in the dress of the old school, who is speaking in so gracious ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... a doubt that persons qualified for this profession would meet with very liberal encouragement, as the children are numerous, and there are but few parents who cannot afford to educate their offspring respectably. ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... the aisle of Notre Dame. Few way-farers passed us; those there were talked together as placidly as if love-trysts and melees existed not, and tunnels and countersigns were but the smoke of a dream. It was a street of shops, all shuttered, while, above, the burghers' families went respectably to bed. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... of her!" laughed Sylvie, "And so exceptional a thing to do, is it not? My dressmaker does the same thing,—she 'supports' her family; but respectably! And just think!—if ever your right hand loses its cunning as a painter, Angela will be able ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... of them! and hardly bread—barely bread! It's hard for the children of a clergyman, it's hard for one who has always done his duty respectably!' Not a word fell from her about herself; but the tears came running down her big coarse cheeks, on which the dust of the August road ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... spontaneous research and speculative thinking, but by the bedside of patients, the direct external calls on his judgment and sympathies brought the added impulse needed to draw him out of himself. It was not simply that beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectably and unhappy men to live calmly—it was a perpetual claim on the immediate fresh application of thought, and on the consideration of another's need and trial. Many of us looking back through life would say that the kindest man we have ever known has been a medical man, or perhaps that ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... which my progenitor took up when he came to Philadelphia, had in process of time been subdivided into many smaller ones. These had been successively improved as the new owners entered upon them, some very indifferently, some quite respectably,—many of them being devoted to gardening for the city markets. The occupants were not much of neighbors to us, though friendly enough in their way; among them, however, was a family by the name of Tetchy who claimed to have some acquaintance with us. This name, Tetchy, always struck me as a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... long distance, Gerrard was warned by the gathering darkness to retrace his steps. A white mass at the foot of a tree in one of the drier parts of the bog attracted his attention in the distance, and on coming near enough to see distinctly he found it was a respectably dressed elderly man sitting there motionless. As Gerrard approached, the old man rose and salaamed courteously, and disclosed himself as the scribe of the ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... anything favourable to the missionaries, I invariably intend to do so, which will account for the introduction of the following: A few days since, I paid a visit to one of their settlements, and noticed a remarkably fine native woman attending as a servant. She was respectably dressed, and in every respect (except complexion) she was similar to a European. She spoke English fluently. Upon expressing my admiration of her, I was informed that this woman had been a slave of Hongi's, and that about a year previous ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... another, who, unfortunately turned out to be only a worthless and degraded fellow. Clara, by her expertness at needlework, had procured a good situation in a millinery shop. Her brothers, all younger than herself, were also respectably employed. ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... thy neighbour, thou well-to-do reader, with a house in the country, would he not have been welcome to thy table? Wouldst thou have avoided him at his club, thou reader from the West-end? Has he not settled himself respectably, thou grey-haired, novel-reading paterfamilias, thou materfamilias, with daughters of thine own to be married? In life would he have been held to have disgraced himself,—except in the very moment in which he seemed to be ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... gratify'—neatly turned, is it not? 'I have now to propose to you, turn for turn, a like favour to myself, which is that you shall take into your service a young gentlewoman of Venice, who is but newly come to Ferrara'—What is the matter, Angioletto? You put me out. Where was I? Oh, yes—'She is respectably bred, very modest, very diligent, very pious, moderately handsome.'—My dear boy, if you want to sit down, by all means say so. We will sit together here.—'The name she goes by with those who know her is Bellaroba.'—Bellaroba, indeed! Well—'I am very sure that you ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... respectably—that is, to abbreviate despatches, and make extracts from speeches, to intersperse in due proportion epithets of praise and abhorrence, to draw up antithetical characters of great men, setting forth how many contradictory virtues ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and declaring that every one was going away and leaving her. Lucy assured her over and over again that she was never going to desert her, and as Mr. Kendal had made it a condition that Algernon should finish his Oxford career respectably, there was little chance that poor Mrs. Meadows would survive until ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... inward remarks. And I dare say you will give me some overt advice to the same effect; well, it will not be ill-timed; it will illustrate your friendship, and do you credit as a good man and a philosopher. If I render your part respectably for you, that will do, and we will pay our homage to the God of words; [Footnote: i.e. Hermes.] if I fail, you will fill in the deficiency for yourself. There, the stage is ready; I am to hold my tongue, and submit to any necessary carving and cauterizing ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... to all who have a regard for the instrument that extends beyond its outside, or even for their own ears. John Effingham executed brilliantly on the violin; and, as it appeared on inquiry, the two younger gentlemen performed respectably on the flute, flageolet, and one or two other wind instruments. We shall leave them doing great justice to Beethoven, Rossini, and Mayerbeer, whose compositions Mr. Dodge did not fail to sneer at in the outer ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... straight to the maiden aunt, with whom Miss Jones resided, and, after most vehement badgering, got her consent to a private marriage within three days. The poor spinster, though much flustered, knowing his attentions to Lesbia had been a good deal talked about, felt almost relieved to have it settled respectably, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... enjoyed the spectacle of a marriage party returning from the chapel, at the further end of the street, or still more boisterous funeral procession; when, of course, as Pat Brady observed, "It 'ud be showing small honour to the decased if all the mourners weren't respectably drunk, barring the praist, and bad luck to him if he could not stand up steady at the end of the grave. Sure he couldn't have ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... the steps of the great cross in the centre, garnished with all the emblems of the passion, knelt a respectably dressed group, apparently father, mother, and daughter, absorbed in a rapture of devotion. The lamps were lighted before the fourteen shrines, which Benedict the Fourteenth erected around the arena, and flung a dusky light upon the successive stagioni of our Saviour's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... had his usual effect upon me. When I said to him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he answered respectfully (and of course respectably), that they were tolerably well, he thanked me, and had sent their compliments. This was all, and yet he seemed to me to say as plainly as a man could say: 'You are very young, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... it read like this: He comes to His own, and they who are His own open the door a crack, maybe a fairly respectably wide crack. We all like the word Saviour. Yes, we cling tenaciously to that. Selfishly, would you say? We want to be saved from a certain place we think of as down, that we've been taught about, and don't want to go to—if it's there; the way men talk ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... enemy in detail? And yet we were badly beaten in this fight. Now, if loyalty to Hooker requires us to believe that his conduct of this campaign was even respectable, it follows that the Army of the Potomac, respectably led, could be defeated by the Army of Northern Virginia, two to one. Will the soldiers of the ever-faithful army accept this as an explanation ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge |
