"Obsequiousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the following day, in the little flat in the Boulevard Saint-Michel. He was not in the habit of going thither. He did not particularly care to meet Madame Nanteuil; she bored him and embarrassed him, although she was extremely polite to him, even to obsequiousness. ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... is Attic. Petulance is not wit, although a few grains of wit may be found in petulance: quartz is not gold, although a few grains of gold may be found in quartz. Voltaire is a monkey in mischief, and a spaniel in obsequiousness. He declaims against the cruel and tyrannical; and he kisses the hands of adulteresses who murder their husbands, and of robbers who ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... The obsequiousness of Coke to his Royal mistress was in perfect keeping with his character. Nothing exceeds his abject servility while in the sunshine, save his fixed malignity when dismissed to the shade. In 1594 the office of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... hardly less wretched; but Germany has differed from Italy in the successful bravery with which she repelled the invader. Tacitus says of her people, that, "surrounded by numerous and very powerful nations, they are safe, not by obsequiousness, but by battles and braving danger"; [Footnote: "Plurimis ac valentissimis nationibus cincti, non per obsequium, sed prutiis et periclitando tuti sunt."—Germania, Cap. XL.] and this same character, thus epigrammatically presented, has continued ever since. Yet this ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... mysticism and practical judgment; his utterance of political sentiments which, as he truly said in one of his letters, if spoken by any one but an American would elicit instant reproof; his total lack of obsequiousness united to entire submission to lawful authority, all helped to make for himself and his ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... of soul and intrepid courage, a writer for the masses, in whom the acme of moral gravity appeared felicitously blended with an always present and all refreshing humor, a fervent patriot and accomplished courtier, though far from every courtly flattery and obsequiousness. ...
— Eingeschneit - Eine Studentengeschichte • Emil Frommel
... France! their life of love was before them! He could hardly take his eyes off the delicious girl; and soon two or three waiters attended at her first meal, her first acquaintance with French food and wine! Owen was known on the line, and the obsequiousness shown to him flattered her, and it was thrilling to read his name on the window of their carriage. Her foot was on the footboard, and seeing the empty carriage the thought struck her, "We shall be alone; he'll be able to kiss me." And, her heart beating with fear and delight, she ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... and twitted Santerre on his obsequiousness towards women. Valentine, mollified by the compliment, soon recovered her birdlike gayety, and such free and easy conversation ensued between the trio that Mathieu felt both stupefied and embarrassed. In fact, he would have gone off at once had it not been for his desire to obtain from ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... not to agree with the natives in asserting that British prestige and protection in those regions were mere myths; that Tibetan influence alone was dominant and prevailing, and Tibetan law enforced and feared. The natives invariably showed abject obsequiousness and servile submission to Tibetans, being at the same time compelled to display actual disrespect to British officials. They were driven to bring the greater number of civil and criminal cases before Tibetan magistrates in preference to having ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... eccentric greeting, brother of the open road, but I wanted you to give ear to my obsequious query as to how's chances on gettin' a lift? I have learned that obsequiousness is best appreciated when it is backed up by prayer ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... being obsequiously addressed by so exquisite a person, stated the object of their visit. He looked surprised, and, losing his obsequiousness, replied that he was not aware that an assistant had been advertised for. She explained that they had seen no advertisement, but had merely come in to inquire, as her friend wished to get a situation in a shop. He smiled at her innocence—he ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... courtesy and politeness he regarded as sincere. He believed in the studied respect shown him by Jean; and the almost servile obsequiousness of Chanlouineau did not surprise him in ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... party stood on the quay, puffing their segars with all the gravity and silence that was becoming their rank and birth as officers of his Catholic Majesty and natives of old Spain, a subaltern officer approached, and, with abundance of parade and obsequiousness, informed the governor that there was a ship in the offing, becalmed at that time, but apparently bound in. The officer proceeded to inform him farther, that there were two American ships at St. Josef, one at Monteny, and that a fourth had been seen the day before at sea, standing to the southward. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... of Abbas—who stood apart like a statue of obsequiousness, each hand stuck into the sleeve of the other—responded as best he might. In the meantime tea and candies were served by a black hat on bended knee, who also produced a pair of ornate pipes. The Father of Swords marvelled that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... dum tibi, a quo sacrae leges oriuntur et manant, quantamlibet eripit auctoritatem, omne jus et omnem legem dissolvit." It was "as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood." Nothing could surpass Louis's obsequiousness: "Sicut mandasti ... pellimus dejicimus stirpitusque abrogamus," etc. He pledges his royal word to overcome opposition: "Quod si forte obnitentur aliqui aut reclamabunt, nos in verbo regio pollicemur tuae Beatitudini atque promittimus exsequi facere tua mandata, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... at the disposal of her guests. It was an old-fashioned, not unpleasant feeling: like retrospect. But she had beautiful, big, smooth emeralds and sapphires on her fingers. Money! What a curious thing it is! Aaron noticed the deference of all the guests at table: a touch of obsequiousness: before the money! And the host and hostess accepted the deference, nay, expected it, as their due. Yet both Sir William and Lady Franks knew that it was only money and success. They had both a certain afterthought, knowing dimly that the ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... the American bosses, "hum-bray." The white man who said "please" to them, or even showed thanks in any way, such as giving them a cigarette, lost caste in their eyes as surely as with a butler one might attempt to treat as a man. I tried it on Bruno, and he almost instantly changed from obsequiousness to near-insolence. When I had put him in his place again, he said he was glad I spoke Spanish, for so many "jefes" had pulled his hair and ears and slapped him in the face because he did not understand their "strange talk." He did not mention this in any spirit of complaint, but merely as a curious ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... whom I used to watch at drills and target practice. Shall I ever forget the flash in his eye if there were a fraction of a second's delay in the firing after the breech had gone home! The way in which he made that enormous block obey his touch in oily obsequiousness suggested the apotheosis of the whole business of naval war. I don't know whether the plugman of H.M.S. Lion or the plugman of the U.S.S. Connecticut was the better. It would take a superman to ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... many and so satisfying, I never, for a moment, considered a return to my former estate. I was—I admit it—enamored of my rank and power; and, it may be, even of that very obsequiousness and flattery which I thought I despised. I know there was a supreme satisfaction when I passed through the saluting crowds in the Alta Avenue. It became almost elation when I rode upon the parade ground to take the Review and the ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... after all this obsequiousness on my part, and my aunt's repeated promises, that the old lady would at least make me a present of a score of guineas (of which she had a power in the drawer); and so convinced was I that some such present was intended for me, that a young lady by the name of Miss Mary Smith, with whom I had ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... modern with ancient manners, we are pleased to compliment ourselves upon the point of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness, or deferential respect, which we are supposed to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... well-varnished wainscot, and adorned with the grim portraits of Sir Robert Hazlewood's ancestry. The visitor, who had no internal consciousness of worth to balance that of meanness of birth, felt his inferiority, and by the depth of his bow and the obsequiousness of his demeanour, showed that the Laird of Ellangowan was sunk for the time in the old and submissive habits of the quondam retainer of the law. He would have persuaded himself, indeed, that he was only humouring ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... community toward the household of Greenwood. When the squire had departed in custody he apparently possessed not one friend in Brunswick, but within a month of his return the villagers, the parson excepted, were making bows to him, in the growing obsequiousness of which might be inferred the growing desperation of the Continental cause. Yet another indication was the appearance of certain of the," Invincibles," who came straggling sheepishly into town one by ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... of money. But, before these conditions had been fulfilled, the approach of the Syrian army induced Amaury to retreat in haste. Shirkuh and Saladin entered the capital in great state, and were received with honour by the caliph, and with obsequiousness by Shawir, who was contriving a plot which was fortunately discovered, and for which he paid with his life. Shirkuh was then appointed vizier by El-Adid, but, dying very shortly, he was succeeded in that dignity by his ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... of forming a coalition beneficial to the State, and honourable to all concerned, was suffered to escape, the fault was not with the Whig ministers. They behaved towards Pitt with an obsequiousness which, had it not been the effect of sincere admiration and of anxiety for the public interests, might have been justly called servile. They repeatedly gave him to understand that, if he chose to join their ranks, they were ready to receive him, not as an associate, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... father; but their petting admiration soon grew oppressive, after the more bracing air of Compton; and their idolatry of her little brother fretted and tried her all the more, because they thought he must be a comfort to her, and any slight from her might be misconstrued. Mr. Venn's obsequiousness, instead of rightful homage, seemed deprivation of support, and she saw no one, spoke to no one, without the sense of Raymond's vast superiority and her own insensibility to it, loving him a thousand times ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... going to have a party, and Jake told me you'd be able to fix me up with a little gin." In alarm, in obsequiousness, as Hanson's eyes grew more bored, "You telephone to Jake about ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... for thievery, cocks for jealousy. They are a perfect laughing-stock with their strivings after vile ends, their jostling of each other at rich men's doors, their attendance at crowded dinners, and their vulgar obsequiousness at table. They swill more than they should and would like to swill more than they do, they spoil the wine with unwelcome and untimely disquisitions, and they cannot carry their liquor. The ordinary people who are present naturally flout them, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... terrified with this rigorous inquisition carried on by Cromwell and his commissioners, surrendered their revenues into the king's hands; and the monks received small pensions as the reward of their obsequiousness. Orders were given to dismiss such nuns and friars as were below four and twenty, whose vows were, on that account, supposed not to be binding. The doors of the convents were opened, even to such as were above that age; and every one recovered his liberty who desired it. But as all these ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... exclaim "Pah!" at sight of the thin cheek and delicate oval face, failing utterly to notice the set of the ears on the head; just as, muscle bound through worship at the shrine of Sport, he will mistake the eastern courtesy and poetry of movement for obsequiousness and humility, ignoring the terrible root from which these delicate flowers spring; the root of patience; with its tentacles ever twining and twisting through the eastern mind, causing the very old to die placidly with a smile ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... scholars. In this intention, however, he was frustrated by Thady, who, as he thoroughly detested the knavish tyrant, resolved to caution the poor scholar against his dishonesty. Thady, indeed most heartily despised the mercenary pedagogue, not only for his obsequiousness to the rich, but on account of his severity to the children of the poor. About two o'clock the young wag went out for a few minutes, and immediately returned in great haste to inform the master, that Mr. Delaney, the parish priest, and two other gentlemen wished to see him over ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... German as a souvenir of a visit to some relatives in Berlin, and so was able to catch a few words. The Commandant was repeating every few minutes "peace" and "friends." A table neighbor, a commercial commissioner, offered his services as interpreter to Julio, with that obsequiousness which lives ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... miles of pavement, came in and rested herself while pricing goods she did not intend to buy. There was a seat for all such. The unoccupied saleswoman had been seeking relief from the strain upon her muscles by leaning back against the shelves, but on the entrance of a customer she must be all obsequiousness. While she might have rested, she was unfeelingly forbidden to do so. Now the customer must be waited on, no matter how completely she may be overcome by fatigue or prostrated by lassitude. Either was sufficient to destroy her spirits; the combination ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... amused the rest, Claggett Chew and his fine friend, had stopped some ten feet away at the first sound of mirth. Then into Claggett Chew's gray-white face came astonishment, for he was used to creating many impressions—fear, hatred, or cringing obsequiousness—but never before had he or any of his friends been laughed at. Furthermore, he, the dreaded Claggett Chew, and his gaudy friend Osterbridge Hawsey, were held as being of so little account that a boy dared to ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... public room as the behaviour of the young man breakfasting alone at the alcove table in the bay embrasure, and he became so absorbed in watching him that he permitted his own meal to grow cold, impatiently waving away the waiter who sought with obtrusive obsequiousness to recall his wandering attention by thrusting ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... moment appeared Leander and Scapin, who had heard of Zerbine's arrival from the servants, and came to pay their respects, soon followed by old Mme. Leonarde, who greeted the soubrette with as much obsequiousness as if she had-been a princess. Isabelle came also to welcome her, to the great delight of Zerbine, who was devotedly fond of her, and always trying to do something to please her. She now insisted upon presenting her with a piece of rich silk, which Isabelle accepted ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... repugnant to their feelings, and is thrust upon them by the dependent circumstances in which they are placed. This homage to rank and education is not sincere. Hatred and envy lie rankling at their heart, although hidden by outward obsequiousness. Necessity compels their obedience; they fawn, and cringe, and flatter the wealth on which they depend for bread. But let them once emigrate, the clog which fettered them is suddenly removed; they are free; and the dearest privilege of this freedom is to wreak upon their superiors the long-locked-up ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... I found she was a great heiress of Irish extraction and education, and that she had bestowed all her wealth upon this emigrant baron, who might easily merit it, when, besides his title, he gave her his patience and obsequiousness. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... flattery of courtship and the joys of triumph; but had danced the round of gaiety amidst the murmurs of envy and the congratulations of applause, had been attended from pleasure to pleasure by the great, the sprightly, and the vain, and had seen her regard solicited by the obsequiousness of gallantry, the gaiety of wit, and the timidity of love." Surely Sir John Falstaff himself did not wear his petticoats with a worse grace. The reader may well cry out, with honest Sir Hugh Evans, "I like not when a 'oman has a great peard: ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... of Esmond Thackeray dropped the satirical tone, and indulged very rarely indeed in the habit of pausing to moralise, as writer to reader, upon social hypocrisy, servile obsequiousness, and whited sepulchres generally. In The Virginians he is less attentive to dramatic propriety; he begins again to turn aside and lecture us, in the midst of his tale, upon the text of De te fabula narratur. ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... himself, while tramping directly behind his sister. Such a thing would be so daring an outrage that it seemed improbable. What excuse could he offer when coming into the presence of the two American visitors for so high-handed an interference with their rights? Hitherto he had shown a fulsome obsequiousness to both, and acted the part of a high-toned gentleman. How could he throw off that courtesy which seemed a part of his nature, and still forbid their going and ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... ever in his suave exterior and his manner of mingled obsequiousness and fatherliness, ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... spend the night. If his grumbling and swearing as he advanced was SOTTO VOCE, the assuagement was owing merely to his not being sufficiently awake to use more vigour. The laird left the lady and advanced to meet him, but he took no notice of him, regarding his welcome as the obsequiousness of a landlord, and turned shivering towards the fire, where Grizzie was hastening to set him ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... I am afraid I must not—" He hesitated, looked very uncomfortable, and said he would consult Mr. Appleton; then, suddenly puckering his face into obsequiousness, "Would your ladyship like to inspect some of our arrangements for ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... sent to Johnson in the same year (1775), at the recommendation of Lord North, at that time Chancellor of the University, and Prime Minister, was in some measure intended to be the reward of his obsequiousness. In this instrument, he is called, with an hyperbole of praise which the University would perhaps now he more cautious of applying to any individual, "In Literarum ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... Mariano. Did Senor de Renovales wish something? Did he want them to call the curator?" They spoke with oily obsequiousness, with the confusion of courtiers who see a foreign sovereign suddenly enter their palace, recognizing him ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... twinkle in his light blue eyes, and he had a habit of plucking at his scanty, wedge-shaped beard with his hand. He walked not rapidly, but with long strides, leaning lightly on a long thin staff. He addressed me more than once during the day, and he waited on me without, obsequiousness, but he looked after his master as if he were a child. When the unbearable heat drove us at mid-day to seek shelter, he took us to his beehouse in the very heart of the forest. There Kalinitch opened the little hut for us, which was hung round with bunches of dry scented herbs. He made us comfortable ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... on her shaking shoulder. It felt to him like a vibrating bone, so meagre it was. He bent over her and said something that the others did not hear, but her wild rejoinder gave them the key. She was fairly desperate; all her obsequiousness had disappeared. She was burning with her wrongs; she even took a certain pleasure in letting herself loose. She shook her shoulder free from his touch. She turned on him, her tearful, convulsed face uncovered, her frizzes tossing, as bold and ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ill and helpless in Zola's Debacle, most of us, if we are candid, will confess that the Second Empire, especially the Paris of Morny and Hausmann, of cynicism and splendour, of frivolity and chicane, of servile obsequiousness and haughty pretension, the France and the Paris that drew to themselves the eyes of all Europe and particularly the eyes of the watchful Bismarck, have for us a fascination almost as great as they had for the gay and audacious ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... was on; he was placed, as he had wished, without handicap; he closed his jaws and summoned all his will to take the consequences. The pity was that he had brought himself to make any concessions to the obsequiousness of the world. As he passed down Michigan Avenue he overtook a shabby laboring man, who begged of him. Sommers found out that he was a striker, a fireman on the Illinois Central, who had lost his job by being blacklisted after the strike. He had ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... at other halts below, the country-people came up to talk to us. The traitors could easily be distinguished by their insolence disguised as obsequiousness. The loyal men were still timid, but more hopeful at last. All were very lavish with the monosyllable, Sir. It was an odd coincidence, that the vanguard, halting off at a farm in the morning, found it deserted for the moment by its tenants, and protected only by an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... home of pashm shawls and exquisitely embroidered fabrics, and the land of Lalla Rookh. Its inhabitants, chiefly Moslems, infamously governed by Hindus, are a feeble race, attracting little interest, valuable to travellers as 'coolies' or porters, and repulsive to them from the mingled cunning and obsequiousness which have been fostered by ages of oppression. But even for them there is the dawn of hope, for the Church Missionary Society has a strong medical and educational mission at the capital, a hospital ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... not wholly justified in his conclusion that Joseph's manner to a poor and untitled Ivan would have lost the greater part of its obsequiousness. Joseph did care for his benefactor, honestly. But later in the afternoon there came a little incident which, in some measure, bore out the old musician's instinctive scepticism. Nearly every one in the room had gathered about one or another of the samovar-tables, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... the cure of a pimple or a rash. On occasions of the like importance, he is the most assiduous of all men living, in consulting and searching precedents from family to family; and then he speaks of his obsequiousness and diligence in the style of real services. If you sneer at him, and thank him for his great friendship, he bows, and says, "Madam, all the good offices in my power, while I have any knowledge or credit, shall ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... Startled into obsequiousness, Bodza produced ink and paper from some secret receptacle. He was humbly silent now. He felt himself in the presence of a man ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... which there is a Fishawk that catches Fishes, and suffers the Eagle to take them from her, although she is long-wing'd and a swift Flyer, and can make far better way in her Flight than the Eagle can. The bald Eagle attends the Gunners in Winter, with all the Obsequiousness imaginable, and when he shoots and kills any Fowl, the Eagle surely comes in for his Bird; and besides, those that are wounded, and escape the Fowler, fall to the Eagle's share. He is an excellent Artist at stealing young Pigs, which Prey he carries alive to his Nest, at which time the ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... such glorious Actions, if Singing was not a Delight of the Soul, or if any one had a Soul more sensible of its Charms. On which account, I think, I have a just Pretence to declare myself, with profound Obsequiousness, ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... the chambermaid or butler. The mere pride of an easy mastery over slaves is the taint of every society in which class differences are recognized as fixed. It attaches to all classes; whether it be called snobbery or obsequiousness, it is all one. The virtue of mastery, on the other hand, lies in the power and in ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... of Lucullus, people now and then studied the art of Horatian frugality. And I note that in club life, if the plutocrat sets the standard of expenditure, the aristocrat looks to the training of the servants. Their obsequiousness is almost painful. There is not the slightest trace of democratic equality in their dress, their ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... and their blankness of the nails on Marion's hands; pretty food, like the things to eat in Keat's St. Agnes' Eve, being carried about on gleaming dishes by waiters whose bodies seemed deformed with obsequiousness; jewel-coloured wines hanging suspended over the white cloths in glasses invisible save where they glittered; bottles with gold necks lolling in pails among lumps of ice like tipsy gnomes overcome by sleep on some Alpine ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... end was, but it must have been the object either of cloaking his own laziness or of giving the men a rest. On the other hand, whenever the contractor was present he, Ossip, bore himself with humble obsequiousness, and continued to assume a guise of simplicity which none the less did not prevent him, on the advent of each Saturday, from inducing his employer to bestow a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... Langobardi, [210] on the other hand, are ennobled by, the smallness of their numbers; since though surrounded by many powerful nations, they derive security, not from obsequiousness, but from their martial enterprise. The neighboring Reudigni, [211] and the Avions, [212] Angli, [213] Varini, Eudoses, Suardones, and Nuithones, [214] are defended by rivers or forests. Nothing remarkable occurs in any of these; except that they unite in the worship ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... them in some measures that may be desirable to adopt. If he were to attempt, by importunity or pressure of any kind, thus to interfere with other inspectors (as he could more easily, inasmuch as they would have to proceed with greater caution and obsequiousness), the result might be ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... says of Bishop Mew:—Though he knew very little of divinity, or of any other learning, and was weak to a childish degree, yet obsequiousness and zeal raised him through several steps to this great see [Bath and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... And the result was that next day he accompanied his uncle, Shams al-Din, to the Divan; and, after saluting the Sultan and doing him reverence in most ceremonious obeisance and with most courtly obsequiousness, he began ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... but he didn't lose his obsequiousness. "Oh, that's quite a way from here, sir—about the closest would be Mallard's, over on Fourteenth Street and Upper ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... my rights, sir, if yer honour would be plasin' to tell me?' asked Andy, with mock obsequiousness; 'for I donno of a single one this minit, barrin' to do ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... in a shapeless monotony of dingy blue, labeled on the back with their disgrace, stepping lightly or shuffling hastily to and fro, heads bent and eyes downcast, performing various offices, menial, clerical or industrial, with a certain obsequiousness and ostensible zeal that was yet inwardly repulsion and protest—these were men born under the great flag, Americans, my countrymen, and now my companions! What a change, what a degradation from the free American citizen of the streets and boundless ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... Cristiano carried in one pocket his rosary and in the other his knife. Outside his own class he recognised the higher social distinctions and, while preserving his own self-respect and never stooping to obsequiousness, felt for the galantuomini (that is for the townspeople) and for the signori (that is for the patricians) a real submission which he displayed both in acts and words by protecting their persons and their reputations; ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... It was Denmark's obsequiousness to Russia which led to the first of her unfortunate collisions with Great Britain. In 1800 the Danish government was persuaded by the tsar to accede to the second Armed Neutrality League, which Russia had just concluded with Prussia and Sweden. Great Britain retaliated by laying an embargo ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... admonishes the youth who is taking lessons from a comic actor in voice-production not to carry his precepts so far as to imitate the female falsetto, the senile tremolo, the obsequiousness of the slave, the stuttering accents of intoxication or the intonations of love, ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... fault of overstraining popular qualities, and, irregularly if you please, asserting popular privileges, has led to disqualification; the opposite fault never has produced the slightest punishment. Resistance to power has shut the door of the House of Commons to one man; obsequiousness and servility, ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... glass are beautifully bright, your bell quickly answered, and Thomas ready, neat, and good-humored, you are not to expect absolute truth from him. The very obsequiousness and perfection of his service prevents truth. He may be ever so unwell in mind or body, and he must go through his service—hand the shining plate, replenish the spotless glass, lay the glittering fork—never laugh ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... towards him had lost nothing of its ironical benevolence. There was even a touch of obsequiousness apparent in the ugly face, as the representative of the people approached the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... interest. In the whole of his public career, and with all the goodness of his disposition, he has not shewn "so small a drop of pity as a wren's eye." He seems to be on his guard against every thing liberal and humane as his weak side. Others relax in their obsequiousness either from satiety or disgust, or a hankering after popularity, or a wish to be thought above narrow prejudices. The Chancellor alone is fixed and immoveable. Is it want of understanding or of principle? No—it is want of imagination, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... into the family; when it is exposed that they receive the new master, or lady's hand, in a half kneeling posture, and kiss it, as women under the rank of Countess do the Queen of England's when presented at our court.—This obsequiousness, however, vanishes completely upon acquaintance, and the footman, if not very seriously admonished indeed, yawns, spits, and displays what one of our travel-writers emphatically terms his flag of abomination behind the chair of a woman of quality, without the slightest sensation of its impropriety. ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... mounted still higher when Mrs. Carkeek opened the door to us. I had looked for a Mrs. Gummidge, and I found a healthy middle-aged woman with a thoughtful but contented face, and a smile which, without a trace of obsequiousness, quite bore out the farmer's description of her. She was a comfortable woman; and while we walked through the rooms together (for Mr. Hosking waited outside) I 'took to' Mrs. Carkeek. Her speech was direct and practical; the rooms, in spite of their faded furniture, ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... patient, said he would return after dinner, and went his way. The society of friends or acquaintances was distasteful to him then; the thought even of seeing his own familiar dining-room and his familiar man in black, whose silent obsequiousness he felt would be a reproach, was disagreeable. All his thought, all his attention, all his faculties were drawn tight to this acute point—he must succeed; he must accomplish the task he had set himself: life at that hour was worth ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban |
