"Shoeblack" Quotes from Famous Books
... robe of the central figure, but the artist had declared them to be unpictorial, and clung to the majesty of the gentleman in the white beard. Around the latter's feet were gathered a motley crew—the fine lady in her ball dress, the shoeblack, the crowned king, the red Indian in Fenimore Cooper feathers, the half-naked negro, the wasted, ragged mother with her babe, the jockey, the Syrian leper, and a score of other types of humans, including in the background a hairy-faced creature, ... — Septimus • William J. Locke
... driven lower down by his devotion to the Muses: an artist who dies of starvation is simply a dead donkey. Rather than play a false note, he stops his music for ever. It is sublime—but silly. He had better black boots. There is no reason on earth why a shoeblack should not read Schiller, or moralise as he does in Bret Harte's parody of Bulwer Lytton. A bachelor artist might do worse than get locked up for some simple offence, and thus throw himself upon the nation. Remember what Sir Walter Raleigh did in prison. The poet can rise superior to the sordidness ... — Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... agreement in a Cabinet so composed, and therefore the probable evil to the country." His true feeling was shown by a remark made at that time by Lady John, that her husband would not mind being "shoeblack to Lord Aberdeen" if it would ... — Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell |