"Decorous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Michael were chiefly at the expense of the conversation, Eustace meanwhile doing the honours with grave courtesy, taking care to keep his nephew by his side. There was no one who did not feel as if on the eve of a storm; but all was grave and decorous; and at length Brother Michael and the monks of Glastonbury, rejoicing that they, at least, had escaped a turmoil, took their leave, mounted their mules, and rode off, in all correctness of civility toward the house of Lynwood, which, as Eustace could ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who dared to draw Mankind the mixture that he saw; Not wholly good nor ill, but both, With fine intricacies of growth. He pulled the wraps of flesh apart, And showed the working human heart; He scorned to drape the truthful nude With smooth, decorous platitude! ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... was lighted by three candles, a kerosene lamp, and a blazing fire of pitch pine. Two violins were in lively operation, one being played by Lyman Hamblin, a son of Old Jacob, and there was a refreshing air of decorous gaiety about the whole assemblage. Dancing is a regular amusement among the Mormons and is encouraged by the authorities as a harmless and beneficial recreation. At that time the dances were always opened with prayer. Two sets could occupy the floor at one ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... that she could not longer consume the smoke of her own fire: it overspread her daily life—to the renewed embarrassment of her schoolfellows. Was it then impossible, they asked themselves, for Laura Rambotham to do anything in a decorous and ladylike way. Must she at every step put them out of countenance? It was not respectable to be so fervent. Religion, felt they, should be practised with modesty; be worn like an indispensable but private garment. Whereas she committed the gross error in taste ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... Besides, there was nothing in the Doctor's appearance or behavior that seemed to warrant any of these idle stories. It is the way with many hopeful widowers (as everybody knows) to become, after an interval of decorous sadness, more brisk and gay than even in their youthful days; bestowing unusual care upon their attire and the adornment of their persons, and endeavoring, by a courteous and gallant demeanor towards every unmarried lady, to signify the great esteem in which they hold the female sex. But these signs, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... run a wedding down to the one o'clock train, and for me to pull out a little. I have seen enough of disobeying orders, and I told him a funeral in the hand was worth two weddings in the bush, and as far as I was concerned, this funeral was going to be conducted in a decorous manner, if we didn't get back till the next day. Well, the minister said, in his regular Sunday school way, 'My little man, let me take hold of the lines,' and like a darn fool I gave them to him. ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... was not likely to rest in peace, and but a night or two after the earth had been heaped over his grave, he was up and out and rushing through the dark streets where his decorous footsteps had so often fallen solidly by day, so often slunk ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... thoughts were dancing through Molly's head, and when she left her cats, after a general romp in which even decorous Granny allowed her family to play leap-frog over her respectable back, she had made up her mind not to have yellow ribbons on her summer hat if she got a pink muslin as she had planned, but to finish off Boo's last shirt before ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... was actually on the way, but in a "varlet's budget—a mere Italian common knave, no better than myself," quoth Quipsome Hal, whereat his nephew trembled standing behind his chair, forgetting that the decorous solid man in the sad-coloured gown and well-crimped ruff, neatest of Perronel's performances, was no such base comparison for any varlet. Hal went on to describe, however, how my Lord of York had instantly sent to ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... home it was not merely Sunday morning; it was Sabbath morning. Throughout the house a subdued bustling, decorous and solemn; a hushed, religious hurry of preparation for church. In the bathroom Judge Penniman shaved his marbled countenance with tender solicitude, fitting himself to adorn a sanctuary. In other rooms Mrs. Penniman and ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... assume, however, that the architect is always conscientious—always willing, the moment he has done what is strictly necessary for the safety and decorous aspect of the building, to abandon his income, and declare his farther services unnecessary. Let us presume, also, that every one of the two or three hundred workmen who must be employed under him is equally conscientious, and, during the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... there is no pretence of balancing that mordant saying with any decorous platitude of Christian Deism, we are led finally to the admission that Shakspere sounded a further depth of philosophy than Montaigne's unembittered "cosmopolitan view of things." Instead of reacting against Montaigne's "scepticism," as Herr Stedefeld supposes, he produced yet other tragedies in ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... the child of habit—and decorous habit—than himself. It was not the first time that Gleg had had to deal with his master's philanthropic activities. Much as he disapproved of them, he could discriminate; and there was that about the newsboy which somehow disarmed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... show it as it has been exhibited where such example was last to have been looked for, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; not so much an example of human nature in its depravity and in its paroxisms of crime, as an infernal being, a fiend in the ordinary display and development of his character." ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... when B.-P. is in the house, though his hair begins to flourish less willingly on his brow, he is just like the boy of old, springing up the stairs three steps at a time, and whistling as he goes with a heartiness and a joyousness that astonishes the decorous ten-year-old sparrow Timothy as he flits about the house after ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... effect of fair hair and blue eyes in the soft, voluptuous decorous dance? Such a girl does not knock audaciously at your heart, like the dark-haired damsels that seem to say after the fashion of Spanish beggars, 'Your money or your life; give me five francs or take my contempt!' These insolent and somewhat dangerous beauties may find favor in ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... full of subdued bustle and decorous excitement; and all the bustle and all the excitement were caused by ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... devil-may-care, the bobolink, Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink. And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, 130 A decorous bird of business, who provides For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, And looks from right to left, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... should hazard a large wager, for instance, that he was not unacquainted with the works of Herbert Spencer; and yet where, in all the history books, shall we lay our hands on two more incongruous contemporaries? Mr. Spencer so decorous - I had almost said, so dandy - in dissent; and Whitman, like a large shaggy dog, just unchained, scouring the beaches of the world and baying at the moon. And when was an echo more curiously like a satire, than when Mr. ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they left the train, when a basket-carriage came dashing up to the platform, and a young lady sprang out, tossing her reins to a dainty little tiger, who sat behind, erect and decorous, knowing himself to be ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... Philadelphia in 1834, his sentiments in regard to Slavery were those held generally in the North—an easy-going wish to avoid direct issue with the South on a question supposed to be peculiarly theirs. But the winds of Heaven owned to no decorous limit in Mason and Dixon's line; and there were larger winds blowing than these—winds rising in the vast laboratories of the general human heart, and destined to sweep into all the vast spaces of human want and woe. The South was ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... who did); he did not habitually carry his forefinger extended before him at right angles with his body; nor did I ever hear him utter the mysterious sentence, "Ching a ring a ring chaw;" nor dance under any provocation. He was, on the whole, a rather grave, decorous, handsome gentleman. His complexion, which extended all over his head, except where his long pig-tail grew, was like a very nice piece of glazed brown paper-muslin. His eyes were black and bright, and his eyelids set at an angle of ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... usual hour of exercise passed away unperceived: we sallied forth hastily to take the air for half-an-hour before dinner. In the middle of Magdalen Bridge we met a woman with a child in her arms. Shelley was more attentive at that instant to our conduct in a life that was past, or to come, than to a decorous regulation of the present, according to the established usages of society, in that fleeting moment of eternal duration styled the nineteenth century. With abrupt dexterity he caught hold of the child. The mother, who might well fear that it was about to be thrown over the parapet of ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... dinner table it was very far removed from being a poor one. The linen, silver and glass were all of the best, the very best; the man-servant was decorous and swift of eye, foot and hand, and the menu was beyond any that had entered into John Brown's knowledge, before he came to Dene Hall. Yet he was out of love with ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... still with a chill of dread which deepened every moment as she realized what would be exacted of her, she seemed more self-possessed than Gregory. Indeed, in the sudden and awful emergencies of life, woman's fortitude is often superior to man's, and Annie's faith was no decorous and conventional profession for Sabbath uses, but a constant and living reality. She was like the maidens of martyr days, who tremblingly but unhesitatingly died for conscience' sake. While there was no wavering of purpose, there was an agony of fear and sorrow, as, after the momentary confusion ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... taste and feeling. People stripped the garments from things in these days. He laughed inwardly at himself and his unwitting "these days." Senile severity mouthed just such phrases. Were they not his own days and the outcome of a past which had considered itself so much more decorous? Had not boldly questionable attitudes been held in those other days? How long was it since the Prince Regent himself had flourished? It was only that these days brought it all close against one's eyes. But this exquisite ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... me a slice, and while I did not feel that it was just the place to indulge in melon, it looked so good that I ate some, with a mental reservation, however. It was all a new experience to me. I had never believed that in the presence of death, or at a funeral, people could be anything but decorous and solemn. I had never attended a funeral before, except where all present were friends of the deceased, and sorry, but here all seemed different. They all seemed to look upon the thing as a good joke. I had read that in New York and other large cities, those who attended funerals had a horse race ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... his aunts and uncles, who were still expecting him to bring home a rich and beautiful American heiress. Some of the Cavanaghs were drunkards and some were vixens, but they were on the whole rather decent, rather decorous and very dull, and to them this broken ex-convict and this slattern old barmaid would seem very far from the ideal they had formed of the family into which Ross ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... very next day, in the decorous Times (Great—Guns— How the headlines ran!) In spite of the kings and the wars and the crimes, There were five full columns ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... hither by the advice of his physician for the value to the lungs of the soft, healing air. He wore a brown derby hat, a fawn-colored suit, and a brown overcoat, with the collar upturned. He was blond and young, and so impassive was his sober, decorous aspect that the aptest detective could have discerned naught of significance as he stood, quite silent and composed, in the centre of the place where it was dry, exempt from the gusts of rain that the wind now and again flung in ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... decorous mansion I could not follow her; and my impulse to dash after her and knock at her door till she answered me, I was forced to put aside after ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... de Jeu and his difficult extrication from them by the brawny, but liveried officials was fast becoming one of the events of the day. Sometimes Tinker would make his bolt from the outermost portal; sometimes, with the decorous air of one going to church, he would join the throng filing into the concert room, and bolt from the midst of it. The process of expulsion was always conducted with the greatest courtesy on either side; for his bolt ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... Court' may lie dangerously close to 'Denzil Place'? Be easy, Leo; the cold remains of my ossified affection will lie in as decorous repose as the harmless ash heaps of some long buried damosel of the era of Lars Porsenna, dug out of Vulci or Chiusi. To make a safe and brilliant marriage is the acme of social success. What else does the world to which I belong, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... sitting in a decorous ring on their low chairs, seemed after the first surprise to approve of Phyllis. The librarian lingered for a little by way of keeping order if it should be necessary, watched the competent sweep with which Phyllis gathered the children around her, heard ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... still in favor of a distinguished family-tree. ESTO PERPETUA! To have had somebody for a great-grandfather that was somebody is exciting. To be able to look back on long lines of ancestry that were rich, but respectable, seems decorous and all right. The present Earl of Warwick, I think, must have an idea that strict justice has been done him in the way of being launched properly into the world. I saw the Duke of Newcastle once, and as the farmer in Conway described Mount Washington, I thought the Duke felt a propensity to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... changing; to the last, those tell-tale hands apart, she would be comely and cynical, and would die as she had lived, secure "in the high places of laughter"—a laughter that, for all its geniality, struck him at times as richly sardonic—in the decent drapery of her fictitious youth; in a decorous piety, yet a little complicated, in the very reception of the last rites, by the amiable arching of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... were tried to establish friendly relations with the islanders; and when people at home might fancy the Bishop preaching impressively to a decorous circle of listeners, he was really engaged in lively talk and barter, receiving yams and other articles of food in return for the produce of Birmingham and Sheffield, axe-heads which he presented to the old, and fish-hooks with which he won ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... and a clear, deep, voice gave weight and sincerity to his words. His clean-shaven face and olive complexion, his regular features and dark eyebrows, suggested a Spaniard to Westray as he spoke, and the impression was strengthened by the decorous and grave ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... came the Bishop, with due and decorous attendance of crosier and solemn procession. And there, amid a turmoil of joy and the ringing of every bell in the city, we, that had gone out to be together in death, were joined in the bonds ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... soul of a poet. He was the first to advocate the erection of a church, "grand, beautiful, magnificent, whose just proportions in height, breadth, and length should so harmonize with the details of the decoration as to make it decorous and solemn, and worthy of the worship of Christ in hymns and canticles, for the protection and glory of the city of Siena." So spoke the artists of that age, and their language was understood and felt by the multitudes. Their lives were made bright and cheerful ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... the ornament itself, it is to be observed that it is not to be what is properly called architectural decoration (that which is "decorous," becoming, or suitable to), namely, the combination of minor forms, which repeat the lines, and partake of the essence of the grand design, and carry out its meaning and life into its every member; but it is to be true sculpture; the presenting ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... held by those who did not know him and had the privilege of admiring him only in his writings and at a safe distance. "Yorick," he says, "although he sometimes brings an event, so to speak, to the brink of an indecorous issue, manages to turn it at once with the greatest delicacy to a decorous termination. Or he leaves it incomplete under such circumstances that the reader is impressed by the rare delicacy of mind of the author, and can never suspect that such a man, who never allows ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... would resist the temptation, and go home nervous, high-strung, excitable—the evening stretching endlessly before her—without him. Aunt Annie and Hendrick coming, Leslie and Acton coming, the prospect of the decorous family dinner would drive her almost to madness. She would dress in a feverish dream, answer old Mrs. Melrose absently or impatiently, speculating all the time about him. Where was he? When would ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... smart one, filled with Americans, we naturally had on rather good frocks, for it was Sunday, and we were to drive instead of taking the train. We had all been to the church in the morning, and felt at liberty to escape from the gossip of the piazzas, and to amuse ourselves in this decorous way. ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... briefly, to Mr. Irving's politics or religion, even if I had intimate knowledge of both, (which assuredly I had not,) would be, perhaps, to overstep decorous limits. It may, however, properly be mentioned, that, in the face of all inherent probabilities as to his comfortable conservatism, and his earnest instincts in favor of fraternal conciliation and justice, (which was as marked a quality in him as in the great ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... in a decorous manner, and with soothing speech, made his request, the prince on his part respectfully replied, in the following words, deep and heart-stirring: "Illustrious and world-renowned! Your words are not opposed to reason, descendant of a distinguished family—an Aryan—amongst men a true ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... intrinsic value, they often evaded the pawn-shop in those years of dire distress, when more negotiable articles passed irretrievably away from the family possession. And with them too, in stiff, decorous frames, are those certificates and testimonials which a master mariner always collects, together with photographs of ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... game very earnestly. Only Lois, waiting by the tray, ready to hand the cake, was silent. It was a peculiarity of Ashurst that even after childhood had passed young people were still expected to be seen, and not heard; so her silence would only have been thought decorous, had any one noticed it. By and by, when she saw she was not needed, she slipped out to the front porch, and sat down on the steps. Max followed her, and thrust his ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... about his arms and shaking his fists, with short ejaculations such as 'I'll expose the villains, all of them,' and I heard the words 'Cheats!' and I think 'Liars!''' This was a strange introduction to the then decorous British House of Commons, for this was before the active days of Parnell. I saw poor, blind Henry Fawcett[4] and others trying to calm the man. The lobby was immediately cleared of strangers, so I saw no more ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... that all eyes were upon him, Ascher showed himself most punctilious in the discharge of even the minutest of communal duties which devolved upon him as a denizen of the Ghetto, and his habits of life were almost ostentatiously regular and decorous. His business had prospered, and Gudule had borne ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... that overhangs the river, they came at length to the promontory itself. Here, beneath the huge State shamianah, gaily coloured Kashmir rugs were spread, for Govind Singh and his court: while curtained enclosures, set at duly decorous distance, concealed the women-folk, who had been conveyed thither under close cover ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... did not seem to be a separate thing—apart—as with most women. For there are women whose hair is one thing and whose face is another. The hair is beautiful, pure, refined. The face beautiful, merely. The hair decorous, quiet, unadorned and debauched not by powder and paint, stands aloof as Desdemona, Ophelia or Rosalind. The face, brazen, with a sharp-tongued, vulgar queen of a thing in its center, on a throne, surrounded by perfumed nymphs, under the sensual glare of two rose-colored lamps, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... and their brothers, and their relations; it would not be decorous to love any one else," said the ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... is a most intelligent and lovely, and also exceedingly gracious lady. Your Excellency and the illustrious Don Alfonso—so we were led to conclude—will be highly pleased with her. Besides being extremely graceful in every way, she is modest, lovable, and decorous. Moreover, she is a devout and God-fearing Christian. To-morrow she is going to confession, and during Christmas week she will receive the communion. She is very beautiful, but her charm of manner is still more striking. In short, her character is such that it is ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... were being waged in East and West, and that bulletins sometimes brought news of a general's defeat. Rome was accustomed to these things; and her efforts were still marked by their usual characteristics of steady expansion and decorous success. To predicate failure of her foreign activity for this period is to predicate it for all her history, for never was an empire more slowly won or more painfully preserved. It is true that at the commencement of this epoch an imperialist ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... townspeople whose turn it was to attend the annual function had assembled in ceremonial costumes. One man wore his hair tied up in the fashion of the old prints. The plaintive strains of old instruments made the strange appeal of all folk music. A decorous procession was headed by the piebald pony of the shrine. Youths and maidens carried aloft tubs of rice, vegetables, fish and sake. These were received by the chief priest. He carefully placed a strip of cloth before his mouth and nose[120] and addressed the chief deity, ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... suitable, seemly, condign, appertinent, conformable, consistent, apposite; decorous, conventional, formal, sedate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Thus our conversation ran—decorous and harmless enough, in all conscience. And if the thoughts masked by these words were all of a forbidden subject; if the very air about us was laden with sweet influences; if, when our eyes met, each read in the other's glance a whole ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... took place in the most solemn and decorous way. Father Paphuntius delivered a very impressive sermon on domestic virtues and the fear of God leading to earthly happiness and eternal bliss. Bride and groom kneeled down before the altar and exchanged their vows, whereupon the priest bound their ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... life upon't," observed James, who had not been heard from in some time but who had been observing the scene with decorous dignity. ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... And a decorous and seemly scene they stepped in upon. Uncle Tucker sat back of a small table, which was placed at one side of the wide open fireplace, in which crackled a bit of fragrant, spring fire. His Bible ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... one better to appreciate the motives which prompted the delegates to shroud their conversations and tentative decisions in a decorous veil of secrecy. ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... occasion, "I cannot be displeased to see these children of mine, which I have neglected, and almost exposed, brought from their wanderings in lanes and alleys, and safely lodged, in order to go forth into the world together in a more decorous garb." ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... already prejudiced in her favour by the extraordinary circumstances of their meeting, or whether really judging from what was actually the fact, that he had seldom seen a young person comport herself with more decorous propriety, mixed with ingenuous simplicity; while the consciousness of the peculiarity of her situation threw a singular colouring over her whole demeanour, which could be neither said to be formal, nor easy, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... von Lengefeld came to Weimar for the social season and Schiller saw her occasionally with steadily increasing interest. Their famous correspondence, beginning in February, 1788, is at first very reserved, very formal and decorous, but soon begins to bewray the beating of the heart. 'You will go, dearest Fraeulein', writes Schiller on the 5th of April, as Lotte was about to return to Rudolstadt, 'and I feel that you take away with you the best part of my present joys.' A ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... saved him from driving the indignant Titania desperate at that critical moment by any ill-advised rejoicings; and the sight of Nettie's agitation so far calmed Dr Rider that he made the most sober and decorous congratulations to the sister-in-law, whom for the first time he felt grateful to. Perhaps, had he been less absorbed in his own affairs, he could scarcely have failed to remember how, not yet a year ago, the shabby form of Fred lay on that ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... conversation by stating to our fellow citizens, that we have always lived in the most perfect harmony with Mr. Young, have had with him on all legislative business the most cordial co-operation and concert: that his uniform deportment towards us has been friendly and decorous, and that we never gave an intimation of any wish or opinion against his renomination to the Assembly.—HOWEL GARDNER, RICHARD KETCHUM, BENJAMIN ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... respective sexes did not reach the hardy mountaineers of Lacedaemon; the wife was the mother of men! Brought up in robust habits, accustomed to athletic exercises, her person exposed in public processions and dances, which, but for the custom that made decorous even indecency itself, would have been indeed licentious, the Spartan maiden, strong, hardy, and half a partaker in the ceremonies of public life, shared the habits, aided the emulation, imbibed the patriotism, of her future consort. And, by her ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sent their delegates to this congress, and fourteen strong resolutions were passed condemnatory of the bill; and three petitions were concocted—one to the king, another to the lords, and a third to the commons. From the decorous manner adopted in its proceedings little alarm was excited, but by it an important point was gained to the Americans—a closer connexion was established by the meeting among the leading men of the various colonies; and thus a way was prepared ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Temple was pointed to as the hospice most popular with rich men, the Middle Temple as the society frequented by Templars of narrow means, and Lincoln's Inn as the abode of gentlemen—is, of itself, a proof that the pervading manners of the last three institutions were outwardly decorous. Under the least favorable circumstances, a barrister's wife living in chambers, within or near Lincoln's Inn, or the Temple, during Charles II.'s reign, fared as well in this respect as she would have done had Fortune made her a lady-in-waiting ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... the sexual life. It is Till Eulenspiegel himself, the scurvy, comic rascal, the eternal dirty little boy with his witty and obscene gestures, who leers out of every measure of the tone-poem named for him, and twirls his fingers at his nose's end at all the decorous and respectable world. Here, for once, orchestral music is really wonderfully rascally and impudent, horns gleeful and windy and insolent, wood-wind puckish and obscene. Here a musical form reels hilariously and cuts capers ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... becomes more scientific in its methods and in its detection also. The revolver places a more hasty, less decorous weapon than the old-fashioned pistol in the hands of the determined burglar. The literature of crime, such as it is, becomes vulgar and prosaic. Peace has no charm about him, no gaiety, but he has the virtues ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... sleigh drive of any length that she would have before leaving Canada. Perhaps it was not right, considering what the object of their present journey was, that she should be at liberty to have any such thoughts; it might have been more decorous if she had been absorbed by the grave and sombre ideas which the occasion demanded; but Lucia was at heart too frank and natural to try to force upon herself the affectation of a grief she did not feel. It had come into her heart, while ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... resplendent with a carpet of red, yellow, and black stripes, while a towering pair of long-legged brass andirons, scoured to a silvery white, gave an air of magnificence to the chimney, which was materially increased by the tall brass-headed shovel and tongs, which, like a decorous, starched married couple, stood bolt upright in their places on either side. The sanctity of the place was still further maintained by keeping the window shutters always closed, admitting only so much light as could come in ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... (a home for foundlings, most likely) governed by nuns, or at least by women who went about in black stuff dresses and white caps, and whom one called ma soeur—for this was in southern France, she thought. The life was clean, decorous, and peaceful, and she might have grown up to wear a white cap herself, and herd little waifs into chapel; but when she was probably ten or eleven years old, the fat man came and took her away, and they had been wandering up and down the world ever since. He ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... arrival in London, I took it myself to the pillar-box. The fresh air reproached me for the unreasonable indoor life I had been leading, and invited me to remain outside. It was already dark. An early touch of frost in the November air rendered it exhilarating. I walked along the decorous, residential roads of St. John's Wood feeling less remote from my kind, more in sympathy with the humdrum dramas in progress behind the rows of lighted windows. Now and then a garden gate opened and a man in evening dress, and a woman, a vague, dainty mass of satin ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... which a too complaisant toleration of the errors of royalty might—and, as it happened, did compromise; while, on the other side, there were the obligations of filial duty, which, as in this instance of the India Bill, made desertion decorous, at a time when co- operation would have been most friendly and desirable. There was also the perpetual consciousness of being destined to a higher station, in which, while duty would perhaps demand an independence of all party whatever, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... the subject of constant and indignant complaint. It will be remembered by some of my readers, that, not long since, during a session of the House of Lords, he gave the lie direct to one of the peers,—an occurrence almost without precedent in that decorous body. Far different from this was the tone in which Lord Thurlow, while Lord-Chancellor, asserted his independence and vindicated his title to respect in his memorable rebuke addressed to the Duke of Grafton. If ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... The sky is grey. There is a cold, unpleasant wind that reminds one of Moscow. It is dull. I wait for the church bells and go to late Mass. In the cathedral it is all very charming, decorous, and not boring. The choir sings well, not at all in a plebeian style, and the congregation entirely consists of young ladies in ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... mistake my meaning. It is not for the selfish purpose of keeping you here near me that I advise you to defer your marriage for a time. It is because I think it is decorous that some months should elapse between the betrothal of a young pair and their wedding. Though, of course, there are some cases in which a short engagement and a speedy marriage become expedient or even necessary. As, ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... well for the Casa Cornaro: better perchance than this dazzling foreign marriage, and more fortune in it for the Cornari. For the estates of the Bernardini are princely; and it is well known in the Senate, though it be uttered in decorous whispers, that the dower of the charming bride hath left small remainder to her noble uncle. And Messer Andrea also, is large lender to a king—for war-debts and the like—Janus having nothing until he had regained his ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... on the singularity of his own situation, and the contrast betwixt the wild, furious gesticulations, loud cries, and fierce actions of Theodorick, when they first met him, and the demure, solemn, decorous assiduity with which he now performed the duties ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... basket, and into the beds went the conspirators, and nothing could have been more decorous than the appearance of the room when Betsey ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... admirably enacted by a Ferville, a Numa, and a Rose Cheri. To the latter theatre, the Parisian matrons conduct their daughters; the former they themselves hesitate to visit. The substance is not invariably more praiseworthy at the one than at the other, but the form is always more decorous. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... not blue blood, previous good character, wealth, nor the stamp of Harvard. A member held his place by virtue of courage, popularity, and ability. Arthur made no inquiries, but took everything as it came. All was novelty, all surprise, and to his decorous and orderly disposition, all ferment. The clan seemed to him to be rushing onward like a torrent night and day, from the dance to the ward-meeting, from business to church, interested and yet careless. The Senator informed him with pride that his debut would take place at the banquet on St. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... as Marjorie burst into the living-room, her cheeks pink from a brisk run up the drive. After leaving her schoolmates Marjorie had set off for home as fast as her light feet would carry her. She managed to keep to a decorous walk until she had swung the gate behind her, then she had sped up the ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... as was said, to think evils even to intending them in order that they may be removed by means of what is civil, moral and spiritual. This is done when he considers that they are contrary to what is just and equitable, to what is honest and decorous and to what is good and true, contrary therefore to the peace, joy and blessedness of life. By these three means the Lord heals the love of man's will, in fear at first, it is true, but with love later. Still the evils are not separated from the man and cast out, but only removed in ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... the second edition of the "Life of Johnson" he shows his delight in his fame. "There are some men, I believe, who have, or think they have, a very small share of vanity. Such may speak of their literary fame in a decorous state of diffidence. But I confess that I am so formed by nature and by habit, that to restrain the effusion of delight on having obtained such fame, to me would be truly painful. Why, then, should I suppress it? Why, 'out of the ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... is only too apparent to anyone who visits Johannesburg. It is to be hoped that the day will come when the legitimate pursuit of wealth will be followed in a less excitable, and a more calm and decorous manner, than ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... and late in the afternoon, the capable judge rode off homeward with his portfolio under his arm. No court could have been more equally and decently conducted; judge, parties, lawyers, and police were all decorous and competent; and but for the plaintiff, the business was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quieter society. Nevertheless, for a considerable time the place was most noted for its wild scenes of revelry, into which George frequently entered, though his home life with Mrs. Fitzherbert at the Pavilion was a decorous one. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... there is, dear Jos——friend!" He smiles with modest sweetness. "G. W. Tarbox doesn't run after money, and consequently he never runs past much without picking it up." They both laugh in decorous moderation. The horsemen are drawing near; they are Acadians. "I admit I love to make money. But that's not my chief pleasure. My chief pleasure is the study of ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... what Miss Ponsonby had intended to say, but there was something about the young man that touched her exceedingly; even when fresh from a very civil and decorous combat with his father, and a ripping-up of all the ancient grievances of the married life of their two relations, rendering wider than ever the breach between the ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... debate in Home Rule Parliament, proceedings interesting and instructive. Disposed of slanderous suggestions of disorder. Never, or hardly ever, was a more decorous debate. To it SWIFT MACNEILL, prospective first Speaker of a modern Irish Parliament, lent the dignity and authority of his patronage. Pretty to see him, as debate went forward, glancing aside at his wigged-and-gowned brother in the Chair, as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... admired the decorous and spiritual manner in which the Rev. Mr. Worden entered a building that had been consecrated to the services of the Deity. I know not how to describe it; but it proved how completely he had been drilled in the decencies of his profession. Off came his ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... record in serious language traits indicative of the real goodness of disposition of that fop and gambler. And the fine ladies and gentlemen, who lived in that atmosphere of scandal, and intrigue, and gambling, are also from time to time treated to a little decorous and respectful raillery. Who does not remember the famous laws of polite breeding written out by Mr. Nash—Goldsmith hints that neither Mr. Nash nor his fair correspondent at Blenheim, the Duchess of Marlborough, excelled in English ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... said Mrs. Blandford, who had regained her rigorous precision once more under the decorous security ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... to the world, combined with freedom on both sides. It's a more decorous system than the aggressive Free Union you once advocated; and it's much in vogue at my ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... shame by their unequaled courtesy, cordiality, and good-nature, and are not far below the grave and decorous Castilian in ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... in one tone and one spirit. Wherever in England, yesterday, two or three were gathered together, President Garfield's name was heard. Privately and publicly, simply as between man and man, or formally with the decorous solemnity and stately observance befitting bodies which bear a relation to the Government, a tribute of honest grief was offered to the President and his family, and of honest sympathy to his country. Steeple spoke to steeple, distant cities ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... influence on his religious convictions, he held fast by the pious principles of his forebears; read regularly to his household out of the Bible; and pronounced aloud, each day, the Morning and Evening Prayer. And this was, in his case, not merely an outward decorous bit of discipline, but in fact the faithful expression of his Christian conviction, that man's true worth and true happiness can alone be found in the fear of the Lord, and the moral purity of his heart ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... recollection of previous delights or eager expectation. Each time they sat listening to the music as if it were an evangel on which hung everlasting things. Each time there was the same growth in enthusiasm which began in decorous applause and ended in cheers and shouts as the artist came back after the performance of a herculean task, and added piece after piece to a programme which had been laid down on generous lines from the beginning. The careless saw the spectacle with simple amazement, but for the judicious ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... outrageous than a prowling cat. May her troubles always end as happily! Undoubtedly, had the full facts been there and then made public, a statue of the junior partner (completely clad) would have adorned that decorous garden. ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... some hours later, wondering what had disturbed him. There was no gravel rattling on his window, no violent ringing of bicycle bells, nor loud genial shouts outraging the decorous calm of Riseholme, but certainly he had heard something. Next moment, the repeated noise sent his heart leaping into his throat, for quite distinctly he heard a muffled sound in the room below, which he instantly diagnosed with fatal certainty as burglars. The first emotion that mingled itself ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... Battius (for we deem it decorous to give the good man the appellation he most preferred) sufficiently denoted the satisfaction with which he listened to this proposal. The exercise he had taken, and the sharpness of the wind, proved excellent stimulants; and Paul himself ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... side of his adopted mother, and retaining fast hold of her hand, assumed a grave and decorous demeanor, such as might befit a person of matured taste and understanding, who should find himself in a temple dedicated to some worship which he did not recognize, but felt himself bound to respect. The exercises ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... President very well, and had access to his presence when officials were kept cooling their heels in the Waiting-room. The President liked to hear the Colonel talk, his voluble ease was a refreshment after the decorous dullness of men who only talked business and government, and everlastingly expounded their notions of justice and the distribution of patronage. The Colonel was as much a lover of farming and of horses as Thomas Jefferson ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... I believe, who have, or think they have, a very small share of vanity. Such may speak of their literary fame in a decorous style of diffidence. But I confess, that I am so formed by nature and by habit, that to restrain the effusion of delight, on having obtained such fame, to me would be truly painful. Why then should I suppress it? Why 'out of the abundance of the heart' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... different devices of the architects on the occasion; nor would it be decorous so to do, seeing that there was a convocation of the society of the ancient and honorable fraternity of the Free and Accepted Masons, at the head of whom was Richard, in the capacity of master, doubtless to approve or reject such of the plans as, in their wisdom, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... observed by the courtiers, and they subsequently pronounced it decorous for a sovereign, cordial as became a relative, but most un-loverlike. Indeed, it was a strong point in the decision subsequently of general acceptance, by which His Majesty was relieved of the proposal ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... unequal merit, of which the best known is Drunken Barnaby's Four Journeys, which records his pilgrimages through England in rhymed Latin (said by Southey to be the best of modern times), and doggerel English verse. The English Gentleman (1631) and English Gentlewoman are in a much more decorous strain. Other works are The Golden Fleece (1611) (poems), The Poet's Willow, A Strappado for the Devil (a satire), and Art ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... S——— bore the chief part with real feeling and sadly decorous demeanor. After the funeral, I took a walk on the Williamstown road, towards the west. There had been a heavy shower in the afternoon, and clouds were brilliant all over the sky, around Graylock and everywhere else. Those over the hills of the west were the most splendid in purple and ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Character of the Apostles and Evangelists.' Its object was to prove they were wholly free from the errors of enthusiasts; that in their private conduct, and in the government of the Church, they were 'rational and sober, prudent and cautious, mild and decorous, zealous without violence, and steady without obstinacy; that their writings are plain, calm, and unexaggerated, ... natural and rational, ... without any trace of spiritual pride, any arrogant claims to full perfection of virtue; ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton |
