"Vis-a-vis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a time, and ate and drank what was set before him. He was conscious that his was scarcely a dinner-table manner. He was too eager, too deeply in earnest. People opposite were looking at them, Ernestine talked to her vis-a-vis. It was some time before he spoke again, when he did he took up the thread of their conversation ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that's my impinion," returned our vis-a-vis, with a judicious tipping of the head to one side as she soused her dripping paste-brush over the strips. "Not but what 'Woven on Fate's Loom' is a good story in its way, either, for them that likes that sort of story. But I think 'Little Rosebud's Lovers' is more ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... Monsieur Monsieur le Chevalier de St. Ives, Baronet Anglois, an Cafe Conti, vis-a-vis le Pont Neuf, Quai Conti, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... the soul of the young plotter, but while he was still shuddering the barkeeper entered with the candles and set them down on the table between the two men, who found themselves vis-a-vis ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... painters are standing in the doorway talking to a young woman who, beginning with newspaper work, has stepped suddenly into a niche of fiction. The tall, loose-jointed man at the left of the group, the editor of a conservative monthly, has for his vis-a-vis the artist who has had so much to do with the redemption of American architecture and decoration from the mongrel period of the middle century. Another night you may not see a single one of these faces, but ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... perfect cube of ice, better than to have my butter pawed into balls or cut into shavings, as they serve your butter in Europe. But I prefer having a small table to myself, with my hat and overcoat vis-a-vis on the chair opposite, as I have it at that good hotel. In those shining halls I am elbowed by three others at my polished marble table; but if there were more room I should never object to the company. It is ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... and many others of the contemporary textiles, display variations of the "tree of life" pattern. This consists of a little conventional shrub, sometimes hardly more than a "budding rod," with two birds or animals advancing vis-a-vis on either side. Sometimes these are two peacocks; often lions or leopards and frequently griffins and various smaller animals. Whenever one sees a little tree or a single stalk, no matter how conventionally treated, with ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... is to stay with Mrs. Crayford during the lieutenant's absence in the Arctic regions. She is now dancing, with the lieutenant himself for partner, and with Mrs. Crayford and Captain Helding (commanding officer of the Wanderer) for vis-a-vis—in ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... my vis-a-vis, bowed, looking scornfully at my partner, who was only a clerk, while hers was a law student. I immediately turned to Mr. Parker with affable smiles, and went into a kind of dumb-show of conversation, which made him warm and uncomfortable. Mrs. Judge Ryder sailed ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... his vis-a-vis a somewhat unsatisfactory companion. She drank several glasses of champagne, ate scarcely anything, and rushed him away before he had taken the edge off his appetite. He brought her to the Duchess and went back in a huff to finish his ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... make pathetic pantomime of hunger; the smaller tables were already laid with food, and we were gravely invited to be seated. The tables were set for two; each of us found ourselves placed vis-a-vis with one of our hosts, and each table had five other stalwarts nearby, unobtrusively watching. We had plenty of time to ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... Roehampton opened their houses to the general world at an unusually early period. Their entertainments rivalled those of Zenobia, who with unflagging gallantry, her radiant face prescient of triumph, stopped her bright vis-a-vis and her tall footmen in the midst of St. James' Street or Pall Mall, while she rapidly inquired from some friendly passer-by whom she had observed, "Tell me the names of the Radical members who want to turn out the government, and I ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... hint of something, he knew not what; yet he followed her back into the half-darkened room, and presently, seated near her, and wrapped in his own enthusiasms, forgot all but the bear chase, whose incidents he began eagerly to relate. His vis-a-vis sat looking at him with eyes which took in fully the careless strength of his tall and strong figure. For some time now her eyes had rested on this same figure, this man who had to do with work and the chase, with hardship and adventure, and never anything ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... conversation, the greatest care should be devoted to the selection of a topic, good taste demanding that one should sedulously avoid any subject of which one's vis-a-vis may be in ignorance. Nor are the mere words alone to be considered. In the art of conversation much depends upon manner. The true conversationalist must, in opening, invest himself with an atmosphere of interest and solicitude. ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... looked when she was dancing a quadrille as my vis-a-vis, with, as her partner, the loutish Prince Etienne! How charmingly she smiled when, en chaine, she accorded me her hand! How gracefully the curls, around her head nodded to the rhythm, and how naively she executed the jete ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... tied round her head, probably to serve as a nightcap during the drowsy length of the journey. Opposite to her was a middle-aged man of pale complexion, and a grave, pensive, studious expression of face; and vis-a-vis to Philip sat an overdressed, showy, very good-looking man of about two or three and forty. This gentleman wore auburn whiskers, which met at the chin; a foraging cap, with a gold tassel; a velvet ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... model of deportment, my glass of fashion. I see him now as we used to sit, vis-a-vis, at his study table. Samson's physical strength came from his hair. From the same source, it seemed to me, Mr. Pound derived that mental vigor with which he pulled down the temples of ignorance and slew the thousand ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... favor to tell the band to strike up a quadrille? Lord Vincent, I presume they expect us to open the ball. Bee, my dear, you are engaged to Mr. Worth for this set. Be sure when he returns to come to the same set with us and be our vis-a-vis," said Claudia, speaking rapidly. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the Print-room series—"It is always well to be well informed"—is a good instance. It reveals a ballroom with couples dancing a quadrille. A lady asks her partner: "Who's my sister's partner, vis-a-vis, with the star and riband?" He: "Oh, he—aw—he's Sir Somebody Something, who went somewhere or othaw to look after some scientific fellaw who was murdered, or something, by someone—!" The word othaw in this legend is itself pictorial. ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... these words: wise, wiseacre, wisdom, wizard, witch, wit, unwitting, to wit, outwit, twit, witticism, witness, evidence, providence, invidious, advice, vision, visit, vista, visage, visualize, envisage, invisible, vis-a-vis, visor, revise, supervise, improvise, proviso, provision, view, review, survey, vie, envy, clairvoyance. Perhaps the last six should be disregarded as too exceptional in form to be clearly recognized. And certainly ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... I wiped the glasses very deliberately, and put them on quite as deliberately; adjusting them so as not to hurt the bridge of my nose or get entangled in my short tufts of dun hair. I was sitting in the window-seat, with my back to the light, and I had him VIS-A-VIS; a position he would much rather have had reversed; for, at any time, he preferred scrutinizing to being scrutinized. Yes, it was HE, and no mistake, with his six feet of length arranged in a sitting attitude; with his dark travelling surtout with its velvet ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... reached the spot, and had no difficulty in placing himself vis-a-vis to the French officer; for so terrible was his skill, that others willingly turned aside to attack less dangerous opponents. In a moment ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... appeared on the floor of the House and gave each member a petition from his own State. Even Miss Anthony, always calm in the hour of danger, on finding herself suddenly whisked into those sacred enclosures, amid a crowd of stalwart men, spittoons and scrap-baskets, when brought vis-a-vis with our champion, Mr. Hoar, hastily apologized for the intrusion, to which the honorable gentleman promptly replied, 'I hope, madam, yet to see you on this floor in your own right and in ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... true that I refuse carpet and curtains. They only hold dust and make the room fusty. But the whole room is filled with books, and those pictures, and the Lionardo da Vinci over the fireplace, and Mr. Boxall's photograph over it, and his drawing vis-a-vis to it at the other end of the room, and by my window a splendid gloxinia with fine full flowers out in a very pretty porcelain pot, both Mr. Codrington's gift. On another glass stand (also his present) a Mota flower imported here, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sink, waddled behind, but was not allowed to take any part in the affair. The band were playing a galop, but that was stopped at once, to the great confusion of the dancers. In two minutes Miles Grendall had made up a set. He stood up with his aunt, the Duchess, as vis-a-vis to Marie and the Prince, till, about the middle of the quadrille, Legge Wilson was found and made to take his place. Lord Buntingford had gone away; but then there were still present two daughters of the Duchess who were rapidly caught. Sir Felix Carbury, being good-looking and ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Berkley. Not a line! This silence became inconvenient. Not only did I rely upon Berkley for my passport, the certificate of my character, but likewise for the revictualing of my purse. As I passed the small throne-room of Francine, where she sat vis-a-vis with all her keys and bells, a light, a presence, an amicable little nod informed me that a friend was there for me, and sent a bath of warm and comfortable emotion all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... Simpson was not a pleasant vis-a-vis. He wore the same picturesque ruffianliness of apparel as his fellows, but the resemblance stopped there. He lacked their dusky bloom, their clearness of eye, the suppleness and easy flow of muscle that is the hall-mark of these frontiersmen. He was fat and squat and had not the rich bronzing ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... in his pocket and turned to leave the room, with a nod to its only other occupant, an olive-skinned young man with lustrous eyes and a low collar, who sat on the other side of the table, perusing the Fanfulla di Domenica. This gentleman, his daily vis-a-vis, returned the nod with a Latin eloquence of gesture, and Wyant passed on to the ante-chamber, where he paused to light a cigarette. He was just restoring the case to his pocket when he heard a hurried step behind him, and the lustrous-eyed young ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... ready for the grand march!" cried Monte, who, with Mac, represented the "two Dromios." "We separate at the end of the hall, and when the columns line up again, you dance with your vis-a-vis." ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... philosophiques sur le Droit de Propriete et le Vol, may be considered. In medieval times, there are always a multitude of other titles to property besides production and saving. The title which is held in highest esteem for the time being is always because of this very extreme vis-a-vis of all other titles, strengthened and ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Elysian dispensation, the inside of a first-class saloon carriage, with a beautiful young lady in the last pattern of Parisian travelling dress, conversing, Daily news in hand, with a young officer—her fortunate vis-a-vis—on the subject of our military successes in Afghanistan ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... Sergeant-Major—and there was Harry Hetherington, Ralph Bell, De Barre, Jeb Browne, Pennycuik, and all them old-timers. Eyah! th' times that was! th' times that was! Force's all filled up now mostly with 'Smart Aleck' kids, like Reddy, here, an'"—he shot a glance of calculating invitation at his vis-a-vis, Hardy—"'old sweats' from the Old ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... to Marie Francoise Chartier, widow of the Sieur de Soulanges. Her seigniory included the larger portion of Gagetown parish in Queens county, the central point being opposite her old residence or, as the grant expresses it, "vis-a-vis ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... word, Dunny," I assured my vis-a-vis. "I was just wondering if Huns and pirates had quite a neutral sound. You know I have to go via Rome to spend a week with Jack Herriott. He has been pestering me for a good two years—ever since he's ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... that), licked his thin red lips, and in a feline fury, announced his indifference as to whether the management accepted his resignation or that of Miss Devereux. As long as she insisted on treating her vis-a-vis like a chorus-man, she'd perhaps be happier if a chorus-man were given the part; and he would he only too happy, in case the management agreed with her, to make the substitution possible. Whereupon Miss Devereux ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... dwarfed the features of either shore as we rattled past Cape Santa Clara, a venerable name, "'verted" to Joinville. The bold northern head, though not "very high land," makes some display, because we see it in a better light; and its environs are set off by a line of scattered villages. The vis-a-vis of Louis Philippe Peninsula on the starboard bow (Zuidhoeck), "Sandy Point" or Sandhoeck, by the natives called Pongara, and by the French Peninsule de Marie- Amelie, shows a mere fringe of dark bristle, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... beaucoup soin de moi; ce qui ne leur est point ordinaire vis-a-vis des chretiens. Il me tint fidele compagnie, et me mena le soir passer la nuit dans un de leurs camps, qui pouvoit avoir quatre-vingts et quelques tentes, rangees en forme de rues. Ces tentes sont faites ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... I'm real sorry." Miss Upton's hearty sincerity was a sort of consolation. After she had given her luncheon order she spoke again to her vis-a-vis who was valiantly swallowing. ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... two postoffices in Le Sueur, in upper town and lower town, about a mile and a half apart. As soon as the stage stopped at upper town, the deputy sheriff handed me the handbill through the window, announcing the theft and describing the thieves. I read it right in the face of my vis-a-vis, and after congratulating myself that I had no responsibility for the lost money, I remarked to the sheriff: "Of course, you don't expect to find these fellows on the main thoroughfare. They are probably now going down the Missouri in a canoe." Nothing more occurred until we arrived at the lower ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau |
