"Keep open" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the responses to the litany of Our Lady, sung by a couple of hundred fresh female voices, ring agreeably through the still village. Towards the end of the festival the fun commences. The managers of the feast keep open houses, and dancing, drumming, tinkling of wire guitars, and unbridled drinking by both sexes, old and young, are kept up for a couple of days and a night with little intermission. The ways of the people at these ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... the seaboard of the Southern States, the fully prepared army should, by invincible columns, move down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, leaving a strong cordon of military posts behind it to keep open the stream, join hands with the blockade, and thus envelop the principal area of rebellion in a powerful military grasp which would paralyze and effectually kill the insurrection. Even while suggesting this plan, ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... see his relative, of whom any family might be proud, he would be unable to persevere in his resolution of treating as an outcast one so nearly connected with him in blood, and so interesting in person and disposition. He thought it his duty, therefore, to keep open the slender and oblique communication with the boy's maternal grandfather, as that which might, at some future period, lead to a closer connexion. Yet the correspondence could not, in other respects, be agreeable ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... Decent folk don't keep open house for your sort At any time. Your foot's not dirtied that doorstone A dozen times in your life: and then, to come, To-day, of all days, just when Jim ... ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... hating innovation, and continually losing numbers by death. The second class is selfish also, encroaching, bold, self-relying, always outnumbering the other, and recruiting its numbers every hour by births. It desires to keep open every avenue to the competition of all, and to multiply avenues;—the class of business men in America, in England, in France, and throughout Europe; the class of industry and skill. Napoleon is its representative. The instinct of active, brave, able men, throughout the ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... taxation imposed upon them, and pleading their impossibility to pay up arrears—in this irritable state of things—an order comes from Ahmed Effendi in The Mountains, to collect an additional contribution of 3,225 mahboubs, under the pretext of its being wanted to maintain troops in Fezzan, and keep open the communications of commerce. This intelligence has so completely astounded the few remaining merchants who have any money, that they nearly lost their senses, yesterday and to-day, being very ill, and unable to attend to their ordinary business. The money for the last four months is not yet ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... violence of the rioters, who contented themselves thenceforward with laughing and hissing, and forbore to inflict injury upon the furniture and fittings of the theatre. Mr. Beard, at last, finding it impossible to keep open the doors of his theatre to any purpose, submitted to the terms of the dictators; peace was restored, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... count nor weigh," said Mr Stratton; "we'll trust to every fellow's honour. Why, if we couldn't do that, do you suppose the shop would keep open a week?" ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... not black," said Frank, laughing, as he rose to quit the tent. "But I must leave you. I see that Eda's eyes are refusing to keep open any longer, so good-night to you all, and a ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mary, and she appeals to him, because the personality of each one is what it is. Love has grown up between the two as a result of this personality attraction. And love is the motive that will make both try to keep open the pathway ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... 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 of game, did not share it with all who happened to come along. ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... attack by three routes by Lake Ontario, by Lake Champlain, and by the St. Lawrence and the sea. It was vital to control the route to the West by Lake Ontario, vital to keep the English from invading Canada by way of Lake Champlain, vital to guard the St. Lawrence and keep open communications with France. Montcalm first directed his attention to Lake Ontario. Oswego, lying on the south shore, was a fort much prized by the English as a base from which they could attack the French Fort Frontenac on the north side of the lake ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... gamblers in the place nodded approval of this resolution. It was all right enough for Bert Ragstock to sneer at superstition, because he was not a real gambler. He merely came to Mellish's rooms in the evening because the Stock Exchange did not keep open all night. Strange to say Ragstock was a good business man as well as a cool gambler. He bemoaned the fate that made him so rich that gambling had not the exhilarating effect on him which it would have had if he had been ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... noise of a conflagration. He must see her! See her at once! Go now! To-night! He had the raging regret of the lost hour, of every passing moment. There was no thought of resistance now. Yet with the instinctive fear of the irrevocable, with the innate falseness of the human heart, he wanted to keep open the way of retreat. He had never absented himself during the night. What did Almayer know? What would Almayer think? Better ask him for the gun. A moonlight night. . . . Look for deer. . . . A colourable pretext. He would lie to Almayer. What did ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... little fleet of smaller craft; if he could not refrain from sending money in answer to begging letters, and pleased himself by giving away to his black man money enough to buy a very good house; and if he could not avoid adding wings and rooms to his spacious mansion at Marshfield, and must needs keep open house there and have a dozen, guests at a time,—why should the solvent and careful business men of Boston have been taxed, or have taxed themselves, to pay any part of ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... the Quaker stream flowed, like a liquid injected into a fissure in the rocks. Each Quaker home as it settled became a resting place for those who followed, for it was a cardinal principle of Quaker hospitality to keep open house for all ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... affairs of other nations, to keep a bright look-out, note down the items, and see where we could turn the go-ahead of our people to account. As most of our small disputes were with Mr. John Bull, who was prone to keep open any quantity of very vexatious questions, Mr. Pierce thought it good policy to make John Littlejohn a fellow voyager with me. It was not a bad idea, seeing that Mr. Pierce had an inward hatred of the Britishers, nor thought a war with them would be the most unpopular thing in the world, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open, this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... of the crack motorized units of the Arab Legion which occupied Tamanrasset, was fuming. His task was a double one. First, to hold Tamanrasset and its former French stronghold Fort Laperrine; second, to keep open his lines of communication with Ghademes and Ghat, in Arab Union dominated Libya. To hold them until further steps were decided upon by his superiors in Cairo and the Near East—whatever these steps might be. Colonel Midan Ibrahim ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... certain forms of stenosis in which the cicatrices do not seem very thick. The tube is a silver-plated brass one of large size (Fig. 110). A post which screws into the anterior surface of the tube prevents its expulsion. Over the post is slipped a block which serves to keep open the tracheal fistula. Detailed discussion of these operative treatments is outside the scope of this work, but mention is made for the sake of completeness. Before undertaking any of the foregoing procedures, a careful study of the complete descriptions in Peroral Endoscopy is necessary, ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... 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 general chit-chat ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... bright silver-piece as a reward of merit to the little girl, if she would be good, and go to sleep. Grandma ventured a little coaxing. But it was all of no avail: the sleepy eyes opened wide, as if they meant to keep open in spite ...
— The Nursery, February 1878, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... scoffers remarked that in his military dispositions he was not guided exclusively by military reasons, that he generally contrived to entrench himself in some place where the veal and the poultry were remarkably good, and that he was always solicitous to keep open such communications with the sea as might ensure him, from September to April, a regular ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... history is that the best way to diffuse banking in a community is to allow the banker to issue banknotes of small amount that can supersede the metal currency. This amounts to a subsidy to each banker to enable him to keep open a bank till depositors choose to come to it. The country where deposit banking is most diffused is Scotland, and there the original profits were entirely derived from the circulation. The note issue is now a most trifling part of the liabilities of the Scotch banks, but it was ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... starvation has been suffered in our own country within these few years, which, if our people had not been living abroad, might never have been felt! Where are the elite of our aristocracy? Where are our country gentlemen who used to keep open house at their estates, disseminating their wealth and producing happiness? All driven abroad— society disjointed—no leader of fashion to set the example, by luxurious entertainments, of disseminating that wealth which ultimately finds ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Ridge," between the La Fayette and the Dry Valley roads, about three miles and a half from Granger's headquarters. Pushing forward his troops rapidly, Granger moved past a detachment of the enemy some two miles out, and ordered Dan McCook forward to watch the movements of the rebels, to keep open the La Fayette road, and to cover the open fields on the right of the road intervening between this point and Thomas's position. McCook brought up his brigade as rapidly as possible, took and held his position until late that night. Granger moving to the front ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... 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
... dere was mischief up, an' I listen wid all my ears. She say to him, 'How awfully imprudent!' An' she put de light out in de hall, les' somebody see in. Den she say, 'Shell we go in de parlor?' He say, 'No, dere's two doahs here, each end de hall, an' a chance ter go out de winders, too. I mus' keep open ebery line ob retreat. Are dere any Yanks in de house?' She say, 'No,'—dat de Union cap'n very 'sid'rate. 'Curse him!' sed de reb; 'he spoil my ebenin' wid Miss S'wanee, but tell her I win her colors ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... the workmen's camp last night having a song service and seventy-five of them stayed there singing until midnight. Jacob had to put out his lights at eleven o'clock because there were not enough to pay to keep open. The chapel was full Sunday night and Jacob closed the Last Chance at six o'clock for the first time in its existence. The men passed it on to him to do it and he came and sat in a back pew himself. They all call Mr. Goodloe 'Parson,' and he walks in and around ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... colleagues, and it was hard to teach himself, the most liberal, the most hospitable and princely of entertainers, those habits of frugality which are never harder to learn than by a Scots gentleman of the ancient strain accustomed to keep open house. I do not think it has ever been acknowledged that there is in this desperate struggle to keep afloat a certain intoxication of its own. To foil your pursuers, your enemies, whether they take the form of ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... direction of Belmont, whilst a body of the 12th Lancers and a battery of artillery were dashing down from Modder River. The Australians, who are now 720 strong, the New South Wales Company of 125 men having joined Colonel Head's forces, remained at Enslin, and entrenched there in order to keep open the line of communication between General Methuen's army and Orange River; a section of Royal Horse Artillery and two guns is with them. On half a dozen occasions the Boers have threatened to sweep down upon them from the hilly country adjacent, but up ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... be no doubt that closing up all outlets and barring all openings to a faculty so deep-seated in the nature of man, and moreover so prized by him, creates an unnatural condition favourable to degenerate activity. It is not enough to keep open only the avenues to clerical employment in any comprehensive scheme of Imperial Government—if no road be left for adventurous daring the soul of man will pine for deliverance, and secret passages still be sought, of which the pathways are tortuous and the end unthinkable. ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... made, let the bottoms of them be covered with fresh-cut blackthorn bushes. Upon these, throw in a quantity of large refuse stones; over these let there be another covering of straw, and upon this, some of the earth, so as to make the surface level with the rest. These trenches will always keep open." ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... shops are all shut as on a Sunday; only taverns, toyshops, and other holiday magazines, keep open doors. Everyone looks for his handsel. The postmen and the lamplighters have left, at every house in their districts, a copy of vernacular verses, asking and thanking in a breath; and it is characteristic of Scotland that these verses ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is, I wish to give a fete at Fontainebleau—to keep open house for fifteen days, and I shall require—" and he stopped, glancing at Colbert. Fouquet waited without showing discomposure; and the king resumed, answering Colbert's icy smile, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... punished now all right. They say he looks like a ghost. Wonder if he'll have the good taste to close the store! Or will he keep open that day ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... and then you know I can help mother in the shop a bit; but I say, you don't mind waitin' a minute, while I go to the house over the way. There's only one or two places that keep open after twelve, because of our wanting tea, and ham, and rolls, and coffee, and all sorts o' things, to keep us going. It makes you precious faint to keep up night work without anything to eat, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... that his auditor appeared uninterested. "I'm to stay with him to-night. I was to send a telegram, but didn't think of it till it was almost train time. Guess it won't make much difference. The Clouds always used to keep open house. I suppose they have ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... of the concentric attack directed at them and fought with great bravery. They strove to keep open the road of their retreat toward Kovno as long as possible. However, the ring of the German troops closed swiftly. At Koslowa Ruda, in the southern part of the forest, they found at night a sleeping army; something ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... schoolmaster in a thousand can teach; teaching his whole school four better things than were ever printed in any school-book,—how to study, how to think, how to value knowledge, and to love one another and mankind. What you'd ought to have done was to agree that such a school should keep open, and such a teacher should stay, if jest one, one lone child should answer one single book-question right! But as I said before, a bargain's a bargain—Hold on there! Sit down! You sha'n't interrupt me again!" Men were standing up on every ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... beloved possessions forever his own. He will go to the ant, for she is an example, and consider her ways and be wise, and be content with what he has as soon as it is enough. He will not enter the field of public life, because it would mean the sacrifice of peace. He would have to keep open house, submit to the attentions of a body-guard of servants, keep horses and carriage and a coachman, and be the target for shafts of envy and malice; in a word, lose his freedom and become the slave ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... the passage of hundreds of thousands of troops from the Dominions to Europe, as well as the movement of tens of thousands of labourers from China and elsewhere? Or who, moreover, would have been believed had he stated that the Navy would be required to keep open the sea communications of huge armies in Macedonia, Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia and East Africa, against attack by surface vessels, submarines and mines, whilst at the same time protecting the merchant shipping of ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... white-valanced little bed, and the white-valanced little dressing-table all dim and misty save where a broad shaft of light gave a divine patch of illumination to undress by. She said her prayers on her knees by the window, where she could keep open but unsacrilegious eyes on God's handiwork outside—the divine miracle of everyday ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... with the connivance, perhaps, of the father; all of which was concluded by reading the letter just received, it was added, by a trusty messenger, who had gone in disguise to the enemy's camp to receive it, and who had now returned to keep open the important communication. ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... 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 ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... overseer of the public roads and highways, and was unremitted in his exertions and plans for the improvement of the country. Hunting, however, was his passion. When the sport was poor near home, he would take his hounds to a distant part of the country, establish himself at an inn, and keep open house and open table to every person of good character and respectable appearance who chose to join him in following ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... We keep open house on Xmas afternoon, and father makes a champagne punch, and somebody pours tea, although nobody drinks it, and there are little cakes from the Club, and the house is decorated with poin—(Memo: Not in the Dictionery and I cannot spell it, although ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... enough for the live pedigree of the high-born countess Roland! and as her relations will shortly be yours, I'll send express for some few dozens from Franconia who'll now have two strings to their bow; for if cousin Winifred Winbuttle don't keep open house for them, ecod! cousin baron Ravensburg must. And so, yours my lord, yours madam: and there—(whispering Oliver)—there's a Roland for your Oliver, my ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... been captured in the early German rush, were retaken one by one by the Belgians, French and British, slowly but surely, until the Germans were forced to act upon the defensive along a line of entrenchments prepared to enable them to keep open their communications through Belgium with their great ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... your mind the harrowing scene you have just passed through. Believe me, Alfred," he continued, "it will never do to pass your days in vain regrets at what is passed and vanished. It serves to irritate and keep open the wounds in our lives, while it never soothes the afflicted, nor gives us a moment of peace. Let the present and future alone occupy your thoughts. They will give you food for reflection, sufficient to bury all former unhappiness, ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... you must do things handsomely where there's last illness and a property. God knows, I don't grudge them every ham in the house—only, save the best for the funeral. Have some stuffed veal always, and a fine cheese in cut. You must expect to keep open house in these last illnesses," said liberal Mrs. Vincy, once more of cheerful ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the ease of her bows, the graceful boldness of her overhang—all were familiar enough to me. She was my boat, and once I was wont to enjoy her. And on board her now was the woman who had taken away from me all desire to keep a yacht in commission, to keep open a house in town, or an office, or to frequent my clubs, or to meet my friends. Was she there, this woman; and was she still?—but I dared not ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... rebellion was caused exclusively by slavery. (Cheers.) To extend, and perpetuate, and nationalize slavery, to demand of the American Congress the direct and explicit recognition of the right of property in man, to cover the whole vast territory of the Union with chattel servitude, to keep open the interstate slave-trade between the Border and the Cotton States, to give the institution absolute mastery over the Government and people, to carry it into every new State by fraud, and violence, and forgery, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... however, that fatal enemy to the negro chiefs, made them overreach themselves by exorbitant demands of taxes. Then followed contests for the right of appropriating the taxes, and the whole ended in the closing of the road, which both parties were equally anxious to keep open for their mutual gain. This foolish disruption having at first only lasted for a while, the road was again opened and again closed, for the merchants wanted an easy passage, and the native chiefs desired ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... monopolizing the most valuable of the public lands. It has tended to save the new States from a non-resident proprietorship, one of the greatest obstacles to the advancement of a new country and the prosperity of an old one. It has tended to keep open the public lands for entry by emigrants at Government prices instead of their being compelled to purchase of speculators at double or triple prices. And it is conveying into the interior large sums in silver and gold, there to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various |
