"Open house" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bears, they made but little attempt at trying to dry or preserve some of the meat for future use. Very rarely, a little deer-pemmican would be made out of some of the venison; but this was an exceptional case. The general plan, was to keep open house after a successful hunt, with the pot boiling continually, everybody welcomed and told to eat heartily while the supply lasted. He was considered a mean man indeed, who, being fortunate in killing a large quantity ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... coaches, with a murrain to 'em, whilst poor madam sits sighing and wishing, and has not a spare half-crown to buy her a Practice of Piety. Miss Hoyd. Oh, but for that, don't deceive yourself, nurse; for this I must say of my lord, he's as free as an open house at Christmas; for this very morning he told me I should have six hundred a year to buy pins. Now if he gives me six hundred a year to buy pins, what do you think he'll give me to buy petticoats? Nurse. Ay, my dearest, he deceives thee foully, and he's no better ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... wedding is a very serious expense to Malays of any rank. The bridegroom has to make settlements on the bride, and the bride's father has to keep open house for weeks, besides fees to the hadjis, and gunpowder ad libitum. The religious part of the ceremony is enacted some days before the marriage. One day papa was calling at a Malay house, where a wedding was about to take place, and found the bridegroom learning a passage ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... my door,' Mrs. Ede answered, and after speaking about open house and late hours she asked Kate suddenly what was going to be done about ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... is well enough," he used to say, to the loafers who gathered about him at Willard's, "well enough for a man on a salary, but God bless my soul, I should like him to see a little old-fashioned hospitality—open house, you know. A person seeing me at home might think I paid no attention to what was in the house, just let things flow in and out. He'd be mistaken. What I look to is quality, sir. The President has variety enough, but the quality! Vegetables of course ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... of his neighbours, Don Benigno keeps 'open house' in more than one way. The huge street-door of his habitation remains unclosed at all hours of the day and evening, and anyone who pleases may walk in and ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... brigantine Harrison, brought the news. We set all the bells to ringing, fired cannon, and tossed up our hats. The rich people opened their purses and paid the debts of everybody in jail. We hung lanterns on the tree in the evening, set off rockets, and kindled bonfires. John Hancock kept open house, with ladies and gentlemen feasting in his parlors, and pipes of wine on tap in ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... that Ingjald had made up his mind not to cross the river, they first wring their clothes and then make ready to go on. They went on all that day, and came in the evening to Sheepfell. They were well received there, for it was an open house for all guests; and forthwith that same evening Asgaut went to see Thorolf Rednose, and told him all the matters concerning their errand, "how Vigdis, his kinswoman, had sent him this man to keep in safety." ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... fell into an Account of the Diversions which had passed in his House during the Holidays; for Sir ROGER, after the laudable Custom of his Ancestors, always keeps open House at Christmas. I learned from him that he had killed eight fat Hogs for the Season, that he had dealt about his Chines very liberally amongst his Neighbours, and that in particular he had sent a string of Hogs-puddings with a pack of Cards to every poor Family in the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... which, as was his wont, he never refused point-blank. Two good Normandy horses were dying of their own fat in the stables of the big house; Madame Guillaume never used them but to drag her on Sundays to high Mass at the parish church. Three times a week the worthy couple kept open house. By the influence of his son-in-law Sommervieux, Monsieur Guillaume had been named a member of the consulting board for the clothing of the Army. Since her husband had stood so high in office, Madame Guillaume had decided that she must receive; her rooms were ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... her whole Family! I am come to keep open House; very fine, her whole Family! she's Plague enough to mortify any good Christian,—Tell her, my Lady and I am gone forth; tell her any thing ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... the first open house I can find; and beg protection till I can get a coach, or a lodging in some ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... He's a north-country man by birth, and has been out in New Zealand all his life. This little Devonshire farm is all he has now. He had a large "station" in the North Island, and was much looked up to, kept open house, did everything, as one would guess, in a narrow-minded, large-handed way. He came to grief suddenly; I don't quite know how. I believe his only son lost money on the turf, and then, unable to face his father, shot himself; if you had seen John Ford, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the day after to-morrow will be a great bustle in the city for a Lord Mayor,(130) and all the winter in Westminster, where Lord Mahon and Humphrey Cotes oppose the court. Lady Powis is saving her money at Ludlow and Powis Castles by keeping open house day and night against Sir Watkin Williams, and fears she shall be kept there till the general election. It has rained this whole month, and we have got another inundation. The Thames is as broad as your Danube, and all my ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... open house; people were not invited for one evening only, but for every evening, and Paul, with enthusiasm, came every evening! His dream was at last realized; he ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... whose impetuous and frank temper ill fitted him to work with so cautious and non-committal a statesman as his powerful rival. He passed the evening of his days in rural pursuits and agricultural experiments, keeping open house, devoting himself to his family and friends, never hankering after the power he had lost, never even revisiting London, and finding his richest solace in literature and simple agricultural pleasures—the pattern of a lofty ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... The heart of the idea lies in its name. The modern bearers of good tidings instead of handing down principles and instructions at intervals from pulpit or desk settle among those who need them. They keep open house the year around for all, and to all who will, give whatever they have learned of the art of life. They are neighbors and comrades, learners ...
— Sight to the Blind • Lucy Furman
... task entrusted to them. The superiors of most of the monasteries and convents situated within the Pale or in the territories dominated by the Ormond faction surrendered their houses at the first summons. Not even the Abbey of St. Mary's, which petitioned for mercy on the ground that it kept open house for poor men, scholars, and orphans, was spared,[37] nor the priory of Conall, which boasted that though it lay among the wild Irish it had never any brethren unless they belonged to the "very English nation."[38] During the years 1539, 1540, and 1541 nearly all the monasteries ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... impossible to think of her travelling under several days. And in any case, I doubt if she will come with us, unless my father come to fetch her. She says that she will not be a burden to our family. Ah! now it is a pleasure to open house and heart to her. She is so changed! And her child is—a little angel! For the Assessor it might be necessary, on account of his leg, that he go to the city; but he will not leave Sara, who requires his help so greatly (his ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... a rich man, his disposition remarkably benevolent: he was very good to the poor, and constantly relieving them. He made it a rule never to let a day pass without doing good to some person. On one particular day in the week, he kept open house, and invited only those who were reduced and had lived well. He always presided himself, and did all in his power to render his guests comfortable; the rich and the great were not invited. The servants were all happy, and greatly attached to their master and mistress. Your father, though ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... the box," said the old woman to Montes. "This is not an open house like a tavern. I ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... keenness—straight into our arms, so that our success was undoubted. In order to silence all accusations of bribery, of feasting the voters, and so forth, Countess Diodora, Siegfried's aunt, was ready to keep open house in Vernoecze for our political friends, and so there would be no need of engaging any public restaurants or wine-shops. Siegfried told me that Countess Diodora was a very active champion of our party, and very influential, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... timid, the infirm, the old, the day was a trying one; but there was an excitement and a life about the affair one misses now that the ballot has come into play, and has made the voter less of a man than ever. Of course the shops were shut up. All who could afford to do so kept open house, and at every available window were the bright, beaming faces of the Suffolk fair—oh, they were jolly, those election days of old! Well, in East Anglia, as elsewhere, spite of the parsons, spite of the landlords, spite of the slavery of old custom, spite ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... from losing hundreds of pounds, which, if what everybody says is true, must be found somewhere else than out of Mr. Vincy the father's pocket. For they say he's been losing money for years, though nobody would think so, to see him go coursing and keeping open house as they do. And I've heard say Mr. Bulstrode condemns Mrs. Vincy beyond anything for her flightiness, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... deal of trouble they gave; that they had better give up going to Canada altogether, and hire their old lodgings again; that it was no joke, having his rest broken at his time of life; that he could not afford to keep open house at all hours, for people who were in no ways ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... walls were covered with the names of men and regiments, and there were many penciled suggestions as to the best place to go for a basin of "coffay oh lay," as Tommy called it. Every roadside cottage was, in fact, Tommy's tavern. The thrifty French peasant women kept open house for soldiers. They served us with delicious coffee and thick slices of French bread, for the very reasonable sum of twopence. They were always friendly and hospitable, and the men, in turn, treated them with courteous and kindly respect. ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... which were not at all unacceptable to any of us in that time of small things. I afterwards, as I have pleasure in recording, received the hospitalities of the great commission-maker in his generously open house ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... often, has no real inside, as being sufficiently under the dominion of a passion to care to please his lady by offering up you, who have, after all, been to him a source of a good many pleasures, with your open house, invitations to dinner, and so on. I don't quite ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... was very desirous to gratify him, and offered to divorce his wife. Mahomet pretended to dissuade him from it, but Zaid easily perceiving how little he was in earnest, actually divorced her. Mahomet thereupon took her to wife, and celebrated the nuptials with extraordinary magnificence, keeping open house upon the occasion. Notwithstanding, this step gave great offence to many who could not bring themselves to brook that a prophet should marry his son's wife; for he had before adopted Zaid for his son. To salve the affair, therefore, he had recourse to his usual expedient: Gabriel ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... been pollenized during the night it remains open a while in the morning. Bumblebees now hurry in, and an occasional humming bird takes a sip of nectar. Toward the end of summer, when so much seed has been set that the flower can afford to be generous, it distinctly changes its habit and keeps open house ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... rural, cry out for men to solve their problems. There is room and to spare for the man of any bent. The old Romans looked forward, on coming to the age of retirement, which was definitely fixed by rule, to a rural life, when they hied themselves to a little home in the country, had open house for their friends, and "kept bees." While bee-keeping is unquestionably interesting, there are today other and more vital ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... of material aids. The outer world, from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle, habitable place; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God keeps an open house. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... overflowed its boundaries, broke down that side of the building where the log was placed, and carried it away. It floated many miles, and reached, at length, a city in which there lived a person who kept open house. Arising early in the morning, he perceived the trunk of a tree in the water, and thinking it would be of use to him, he brought it home. He was a liberal, kind-hearted man; and a great benefactor to the poor. It one day chanced that he entertained some pilgrims in ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... every one, for she was a clever dressmaker. She had a talent for it. She gave her services freely without asking for payment, but if any one offered her payment, she didn't refuse. The colonel, of course, was a very different matter. He was one of the chief personages in the district. He kept open house, entertained the whole town, gave suppers and dances. At the time I arrived and joined the battalion, all the town was talking of the expected return of the colonel's second daughter, a great beauty, who had just ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of brick and timbered plaster, set in the midst of its thousand acres of woodland in the heart of the hills. Lent found it full of people and its gayety was reflected in other houses of the neighborhood whose owners, like the Hammonds, kept open house. There was much to do. March went out like a lion and the snow which kept the more timid indoors at the cards made wonderful coasting and sledding, of which latter these wearied children of fortune were not slow to take advantage. The ponds were frozen, too, ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... encountered silence and desolation. No one had the slightest knowledge of where the cheery Hicks could be; they missed his singing and banjo strumming, his pestersome ways, his cheerful good nature, his cozy quarters always open house to all, and his Hicks' Personally Conducted tours downtown to Jerry's for those celebrated ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... regular series of observations for determining the places of the fixed stars, and for improving the tables of the sun, moon, and planets. Though almost wholly devoted to these noble pursuits, yet he kept an open house, and received, with unbounded hospitality, the crowds of philosophers, nobles, and princes who came to be introduced to the first astronomer of the age, and to admire the splendid temple which the Danish ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... department was stocked for a month, and everything was ready to harness in and move. Lovell's headquarters was a stag ranch, and as fast as the engaged cooks reported, they were assigned to wagons, and kept open house in relieving the home cocinero. In the absence of our employer, Flood was virtually at the head of affairs, and artfully postponed the division of horses until the last moment. My outfit had all ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... house, more commodious and better furnished than many of its neighbours, which had providentially fallen into the temporary grasp of one of the married officers of the patrol flotilla, who generously kept open house for his less ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... open house to me from that time as long as Lord Radnor lived, I cannot take leave of the dear old man without an affectionate word at parting. Creevey has an ill- natured fling at him, as he has at everybody else, but a kinder-hearted and more perfect ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... went into partnership with the Neapolitan's. Everywhere corricoli were to be seen galloping along carrying clusters of merry sailors. Our ambassador, the Duc de Montebello, who kept great state and the most open house at the Rothschild palace, introduced our officers into the most delightful society of Naples, and there was a succession of parties and merry-makings. By way of response, the admiral gave a very pretty afternoon party on board his three-decker, the Ocean, and I ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... upright in all his transactions, and a strict adherent to the tenets of his religion. He was of a very kind and sociable disposition, which prompted him to keep open house for his friends and visitors, whom he always received with the most generous hospitality. He was first married to Fanny, a daughter of Joseph Diamantschleifer of Amsterdam, by whom he had three children: two sons, Solomon and ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... the Duke of Burgundy, who remained passionately attached to him, and might hope for a return of prosperity. He remained in the silence and retirement of his diocese, with the character of an able and saintly bishop, keeping open house, grandly and simply, careful of the welfare of the soldiery who passed through Cambrai, adored by his clergy and the people. "Never a word about the court, or about public affairs of any sort that could be found fault with, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... considerably more young people than that present in the billiard-room last night, she gathered from the conversation that was going on round her that, during the holidays at least, Mrs. Danvers kept a sort of open house for all the friends of her ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... night the police arrested a woman who kept a very open house. She colored it by going under a fancy French name, and they say only entertained the best of society. She kept a diary which fell into the ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... and sensuous, have feasted and flirted throughout the hours of daylight, and certain prim moths, sonorous of flight, find subtly scented blossoms keeping open house ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... machine politics and interlocking interests and air-tight methods until the people are growling about the close corporation they say we've got. So we're going to show 'em a thing or two. Nothing like frankness and open house." ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... conditions of which we had not heard—that we were to be away, either at home, or travelling wherever he chose to send us, for three months in the year, and that he supplied the funds if necessary. Moreover, for one month in the summer he kept open house. Half of us were to go away for the first fortnight in July, and the other half were to stay and entertain his guests, or even our own, if we wished to invite them; then the other half of the men returned, and had their guests to entertain, while the first half went away; and ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... that house was called Finnward Keelfarer, and his wife Aud the Light-Minded; and they had a son Eyolf, a likely boy, and a daughter Asdis, a slip of a maid. Finnward was well-to-do in his affairs, he kept open house and had good friends. But Aud his wife was not so much considered: her mind was set on trifles, on bright clothing, and the admiration of men, and the envy of women; and it was thought she was not always so ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the dancing, the women's gowns, and the men's faces, had worn out, Hermione had regarded the whole thing as an inexpressible bore, and had returned with delight to the quiet life at Carvel Place, glad that her father's position and tastes did not lead him to keep open house, as some of his neighbors did, and that she was allowed to read and to be quiet, and to do ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... you shall keep open house; I desire that you should keep a liberal table; I desire that my captain of ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not wrecked. The victims were, as usual, women and children. The houses destroyed were the small and peaceful houses of noncombatants. Only two men were killed. They were in a side street when the first bomb dropped, and they tried to find an unlocked door, an open house, anything for shelter. It was impossible. Built like all French towns, without arcades or sheltering archways, the flat facades of the closed and barricaded houses refused them sanctuary. The second bomb killed ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Chekalinsky, who had passed all his life at the card-table and had amassed millions, accepting bills of exchange for his winnings and paying his losses in ready money. His long experience secured for him the confidence of his companions, and his open house, his famous cook, and his agreeable and fascinating manners gained for him the respect of the public. He came to St. Petersburg. The young men of the capital flocked to his rooms, forgetting balls for cards, and preferring the emotions of faro to ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... Quai Malaquais, is the rendezvous of all the English of any taste—who have respectable letters of introduction; and I must do him the justice to say, that, never did a man endure the inconveniences which must frequently result from keeping such open house, with greater adroitness and good humour than does the Baron Denon. I have sometimes found his principal rooms entirely filled by my countrymen and countrywomen; and I once, from the purest accident, headed a ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... "fantastic visions" and "sweetmeats" of popular literature. The main purpose was to give instruction by showing things as they really are. The plan of the book is very simple. The Fairbornes, with a large "progeny of children, boys and girls," kept a sort of open house for friends and relatives. Many of these visitors, accustomed to writing, would frequently produce a fable, a story, or a dialogue, adapted to the age and understanding of the young people. These papers were dropped into a box until the children should all be assembled at holidays. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... chicken, and vegetables were constantly being sent to all their friends, where there was any sickness in the family; and as, even at the high prices prevailing, they were able to purchase supplies of wine, and such other luxuries as were obtainable, they kept almost open house and, twice a week, had regular gatherings with music; and the suppers were vastly more appreciated, by their guests, than is usually the case ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... billiards. He had first rate English horses in his stables, and his turnout was perfect in all respects. He kept a few horses for the races, and was present at every ball and entertainment. At Bithoor he kept almost open house. There was a billiard room and racquet courts, and once or twice a week there were luncheon parties, at which from twelve to twenty officers were generally present. In all India there was no Rajah with more pronounced English tastes or greater affection for English people. The one regret of his ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... was equally ready for any of these diversions, though never intemperate in either meat or drink, but, like every magistrate, he kept open house, and enjoyed it more than some whose austerity was greater, and there are many hints that Mistress Bradstreet provided good cheer with a freedom born of her early training, and made stronger by her husband's tastes and wishes. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... kill. Half the pleasure was in tracking the quarry to its hiding-place. He himself ordered but seldom from catalogues, and went regularly to and fro among the dealers in books, seeking the volume which his heart desired. He enjoyed those shops where the book-seller kept open house, where the stock was large and surprises were common, where the proprietor was prodigiously well-informed on some points and correspondingly ill-informed on others. He bought freely, never disputed a price, and laid down his cash with the air of a man who believes that unspent money is the ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... memory like barnacles, and any man in those parts with a knack of invention has only to foist his stories upon Dermod to ensure a ready credence. There are, however, definite facts. He practised an ancient and tyrannous hospitality, keeping open house upon the road to Letterkenny, and forcing bed and board even upon strangers, as Durrance had once discovered. He was a man of another century, who looked out with a glowering, angry eye upon a topsy-turvy world, and would not be reconciled to it except after much ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... Morris in the strength of early manhood and in all the exuberance of his rich vigorous nature, surrounded by friends for whom he kept open house, in high contentment with life, eager to respond to all the claims upon his energy. Here came artists and poets, in the pleasant summer days, jesting, dreaming, discussing, indulging in bouts of single-stick or game of bowls in the garden, walking through the country-side, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... running risk of offending them by our seeming haughtiness. That they should think us uncongenial and distant would have been an obstacle to our success among them. So we made a virtue of necessity, and kept open house in the literal sense of the word. At our meals, our devotions, our ablutions, there they were—much amused and interested, of course. It was sometimes annoying to have them so much and so constantly about, ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... At Kingston Hall open house was kept, and numerous visitors and entertainments made life gay for the children, who grew up in an atmosphere of ease and hospitality, little anticipating the vicissitudes of the future and ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... Her husband, who had been educated at Eton, was English in all his tastes and at Cowes he was an illustrious character, on account of the many victories of his racing yacht Kriemhilda. From the Cowes Week till the middle of September he kept open house at Eaglehurst, where for ten days or a fortnight I had many times been his guest. All kinds and degrees of ornamental and agreeable people, from archdukes downward, flocked to Eaglehurst from The Island, ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... not act professionally, for I never sent in my bills; my patients paid me when and how they could. To their honour, I am bound to say that I rarely had to complain of forgetfulness. Besides, my appointments permitted me to live sumptuously, to have eight horses in my stables, and to keep open house to my friends and the strangers who visited Manilla. Soon, however, what my friends designated a coup-de-tete caused me to ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... will of her, whilst she in like manner fufilled her desire of him and enjoyed his beauty and grace; and they clipped each other till the morning. On the morrow, the King made a banquet and spreading the tables with the richest meats, kept open house a whole month to all comers from the Islands of the Inner and the Outer Seas. Now, when Kemerezzeman had thus attained his desire and had tarried awhile with the princess Budour, he bethought him of his father and saw him in a dream, saying, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... of rational, happy life. Mr. Greg is quite a gentleman; his daughters have the delightful simplicity of people who are perfectly satisfied in their place, and never trying to get out of it. He is rich, and he spends just as people do not generally spend their money, keeping a sort of open house, without pretension. If he has more guests than the old butler can manage, he has his maid-servants in to wait. He seldom goes out, except on journeys, so that with the almost certainty of finding a family party at home, a large ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... companies on the range, whose headquarters were far removed from the scene of active operations, saw fit to give orders that the common custom of feeding all comers and letting them wear their own welcome out must be stopped. This was hard on those that kept open house the year round. There was always a surplus of men on the range in the winter. Sometimes there might be ten men at a camp, and only two on the pay-roll. These extra men were called "chuck-line riders." Probably eight months in the year they all had employment. At many ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... little tea," said Psmith, "to restore our tissues after our journey. Come in and join us. We keep open house, we Psmiths. Let me introduce you to Comrade Jackson. A stout fellow. Homely in appearance, perhaps, but one of us. I am Psmith. Your own name will doubtless come up in the course of ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... of what I saw during those months, when, lean as a bone, and brown as a hazelnut, I tracked the course of the great rivers. The roads were rough, where roads there were, but the land smiled under the sun, and the Virginians, high and low, kept open house for the chance traveller. One night I would eat pork and hominy with a rough fellow who was carving a farm out of the forest; and the next I would sit in a fine panelled hall and listen to gentlefolks' ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... was two o'clock. The gates were still thronged, although to the people already on the stands it was a puzzle where the newcomers were going to find seats. On the east side of the field Yates held open house. From end to end, and overflowing half way around both north and south stands, the blue of Yates fluttered in the little afternoon breeze till that portion of the field looked like a bank ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... felt a hand on his shoulder, and started, "Lost in a stud, as we say at home, boy," said the jester, resplendent in a bran new motley suit. "Wilt come in to the banquet? 'Tis open house, and I can find thee a seat without disclosing the kinship that sits so sore on thy brother. Where ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... day when Oliver came into the City. To this intent, the windows of their house without Ludgate were all taken out of their frames, and the casements themselves hung with rich cloths and tapestries, and decked with banners. And an open house was kept, literally; meats and wines and sweets being set out in every room, even to the bed-chambers, and all of the Turkey merchant's acquaintance being bidden to come in and help themselves, and ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... was in those good old days when Wyverns held open house here, and were beloved from far and near. Alas! those good old days are passed away; for our fortunes are fallen, and we have no longer the power to entertain in such bounteous fashion. And yet I have striven, as thou hast doubtless seen, that the poor, the aged, the sick, ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Cromwell.]—For the last of which, my Lord St. John is said to speak high. Great also is the dispute now in the House, in whose name the writs shall run for the next Parliament; and it is said that Mr. Prin, in open House, said, "In King Charles's." From Westminster Hall home. Spent the evening in my study, and so after some talk with my wife, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... The "open house," that is, the socialized house, depends upon this free mind to a degree only second to that spirit of "good will to man," upon which it certainly must, like all institutions in a democratic Christian nation, be based. This ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... Majesties are not at this particular Palace, so I see nothing of State dinners, receptions, and other functions, but although I do not see them, I hear very much; and it would seem that when they are here, the Palace is a sort of open house, and festivity is the order of the day. To all appearance the etiquette is not quite so rigid as at our Court, the Sovereign being more accessible to the people. Persons wishing to pay their respects call at the Palace about five days previous, write their name in a book kept ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... surpassed even the old Athenian traditions of the heroes of olden days; for though the city justly boasts that they taught the rest of the Greeks to sow corn, to discover springs of water, and to kindle fire, yet Kimon, by keeping open house for all his countrymen, and allowing them to share his crops in the country, and permitting his friends to partake of all the fruits of the earth with him in their season, seemed really to have brought back the golden age. If any scurrilous tongues hinted ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... on whom both house and estate were settled, with no very fortunate result. Between it and Castle Street the family oscillated as usual, when summer and winter, term and vacation, called them. At Abbotsford open house was always kept to a Noah's ark-full of visitors, invited and uninvited, high and low, and Castle Street saw more modest but equally cordial and constant hospitalities, in which the Lockharts were pretty frequent participators; while their country home at Chiefswood was ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... everywhere, and, in the cautious, tenfold guarded Eastern way, kept open house. The women reveled in her free ideas and in the wit with which she heaped scorn on the priest-made fashions that have kept all India in chains for centuries, mocking the priests, as some thought, at the risk ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... that To' Gajah and his people pitched their camp, building a small open house with rude uprights, and thatching it with palm leaves cut in the neighbouring jungle. To' Gajah knew that Imam Bakar was the man with whom he really had to deal. Imam Prang Samah and Khatib Bujang he rated at their ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... less than fourteen days he wasted all the revenue of his castellany for three whole years. Yet he did not throw it away in building churches and founding monasteries, but spent it in a thousand little banquets and joyful festivals, keeping open house for all good fellows and pretty ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various |
