"Decent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has now the road to himself. Money is the clothing of a gentleman: he may wear it well or ill. Some, you will mark, carry great quantities of it gracefully: some, with a stinted supply, present a decent appearance: very few, I imagine, will bear inspection, who are absolutely stripped of it. All, save the shameless, are toiling to escape that trial. My gentleman, treading the white highway across the solitary heaths, that swell far and wide to the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... any one possessing a spark of humanity could perceive anything to excite his mirth in the circumstance of a fellow-creature's being forced out of his bed at such an hour! After exhibiting many contortions of the mouth, produced by a decent desire to maintain a gravity suitable to the occasion, he, at length, burst into a loud laugh; and exclaiming (with a want of feeling I shall never entirely forget) "Well, I wish you joy of your journey—you must be UP at four!"—away ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... deficiency out of the money I got for the Barlingford business, thinking I should be able to stand out and make a connection; but the connection gets more disconnected every year. I suppose people came to me at first for the novelty of the thing, for I had a sprinkling of decent patients for the first twelve months or so. But now I might as well throw my money into the gutter as spend it on circulars ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... companions' says the proverb, 'and I will tell you what the man is;' and this is, and must be true; because all men seek the society of those who think and act somewhat like themselves: sober men will not associate with drunkards, frugal men will not like spendthrifts, and the orderly and decent shun the noisy, the disorderly, and the debauched. It is for the very vulgar to herd together as singers, ringers, and smokers; but, there is a class rather higher still more blamable; I mean the tavern-haunters, the gay companions, who herd together ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... answered. "It's a poor place; but you'll find it neat and nice enough—thanks to your good master. He's helping the two women to begin life again out of this country; and, while they're waiting their turn to get a passage, they've taken an extra room and hired some decent furniture, by your master's own wish. Oh, here's the boy; he'll show you the way. One word before you go. What do you think ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... threshold of life into an eternity of punishment? Look me in the face, you father of six! No, of course you don't believe it. Nobody does. And the difference is not that religion has ceased to teach it—for it hasn't—but that men have grown decent and put it, with like doctrines, silently aside in disgust. So it has happened to Satan and his fork: they have become 'old hat.' So it will happen to all the old machinery of hell: the operating decency of human nature will grow ashamed ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... opening all of your minds, friend and foe alike, to each other, so that you may all see for yourselves what depths of rottenness exist there and just how unfit your world is to associate with the decent worlds of this or any other galaxy. It would take God Himself to do anything with such material, and I am not God. Therefore, when we have rid this world of atomics we will leave and you will start all over again. If you really try, you can not ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... the much-maligned Turk, proved to have decent possibilities if given a decent chance. Certainly he is no longer the Terrible Turk of tradition. Most of the Turks I encountered in Bulgaria were prisoners of war, evidently rather pleased to be in the hands of the Bulgarians who fed them decently, a task which their own commissariat had ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... skipper a safe run to a better harbor, and went back to the wharf, where the carpenter intercepted him. He was a rough, blunt-spoken man, but was evidently "good at his trade," as Ben had said, and did not despair of making the Culm huts decent and habitable; and after a long talk with him, Noll started for home, as the afternoon was fast giving way to a gray and lowery night. His heart was full of gratitude and love to Ned, and he stopped more than once on his homeward walk to read ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... in Italy for a few francs. He will not go far without finding matter quite as surprising as what I shall put down in this tale, though in all likelihood much more unsavoury to his modern taste. Moreover, there is proof that a good many of those accounts are quite as accurate as what a fairly decent newspaper gives us nowadays for truth; and they are not, as a whole, more nasty, though they are differently worded, because in those days Boileau was calling 'a cat a cat, and Rolet a rascal,' and even people who were not poets called a ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... you say here," he said bitterly. "Sure, we've been in the same classes. You know me, so you try to be decent. But what do you really think? And how about everyone else? You think they're being all nice and understanding about this?" ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... contracted from that scale which had been suitable when great kings and commonwealths were constant suitors within the gates of Delphi, still clung (like the Venice of modern centuries) to her old ancestral honors, and kept up that decent household of ministers which corresponded to the altered ministrations of her temple. In fact, the evidences on behalf of Delphi as a princely house, that had indeed partaken in the decaying fortunes of Greece, but naturally was all the prouder from ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... was a Hungarian baron in the automobile business, and two English sirs. The baron was quite a decent fellow: I had a talk with him in the smoking room one night. He didn't put on any airs at all. You would have thought he was an ordinary man. But the sirs kept to themselves. All they did the whole voyage was to write letters, wear their dress ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... turns, till I got some tip and bought some fresh ones—such jolly ones, all over acrobats and British flags; and after all, didn't I catch it? Wilmet was no end of disgusted to miss her little stupid speckotty ones, vowed these weren't decent for the Cathedral, and boned them all for Theodore! Now, hush! or I ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... really familiar, and what we come to find out about our own can be no more than what other people have shewn us. Upon ourselves they react but indirectly, through our imagination, which substitutes for our actual, primary motives other, secondary motives, less stark and therefore more decent. Never had Legrandin's snobbishness impelled him to make a habit of visiting a duchess as such. Instead, it would set his imagination to make that duchess appear, in Legrandin's eyes, endowed with all the graces. He would be drawn towards the duchess, assuring himself the while that he was yielding ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... as I was that Mrs. Van Dam knew his name, and that he would oppose the dance even more strongly than did Aunt; and I wished that I could go without him. But it was useless to think of this, with even the General suggesting a bodyguard. I resolved that he should at least consult a decent tailor. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... that could stand rereading. At the top of all I should place Fay Yauger's "Planter's Charm," published in a volume of the same title. With it belongs "The Hired Man on Horseback," by Eugene Manlove Rhodes, a long poem of passionate fidelity to his own decent kind of men, with power to ennoble the reader, and with the form necessary to all beautiful composition. This is the sole and solitary piece of poetry to be found in all the myriads of rhymes classed as "cowboy poetry." I'd want Stanley Vestal's "Fandango," in a volume of the same title. Margaret ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... said the host, "I fancy you have got nice since you were in England. These people are decent enough, I reckon, though rather down in their luck, like some others of us. I wish I had such a house to receive you in as that I built on the—Road. I had plenty rooms there; but you see it was not licensed, and I was ruined—at least brought down ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... past, all the hopes of the future. He must he a university of knowledges.... We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame.—The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant.—The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for any but the decorous ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... half-mediaevalized design of her—as she never looked. Copy in your own person; and even if you do not descend as low—or rise as high—as washing the household clothes, at least learn to play at ball; and sing, in the open air and sunshine, not in theatres and concert-rooms by gaslight; and take decent care of your own health; and dress not like a "Parisienne"—nor, of course, like Nausicaa of old, for that is to ask too much:—but somewhat more like an average Highland lassie; and try to look like her, and be like her, of whom ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... the rest of the servants, about twenty in number, who had assembled to await Cromwell's entrance, and do honour to their young lady by as numerous and well arranged a show as they could collect. They were all dressed in deep and decent mourning, except the women of Lady Frances, who walked behind her to the great entrance, where she and Constantia stood ready to receive his Highness. As he alighted, the advanced-guard formed a semicircle beside the carriage; and when his foot rested on the first step of the entrance-stairs, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... offering a prayer, and exhortation, suitable to make an impression upon the living, while they are yet in the very presence of the relics of him whom they have but lately seen such as they themselves, and who now is such as they must in their time become. But this decent and praiseworthy practice was not adopted at the time of which I am treating, or at least, Mr. Blattergowl did not act upon it, and the ceremony proceeded without any ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... in the Carolinas. Ramsay, the early historian of South Carolina, said that hospitality was such a virtue that innkeepers complained that their business was not worth carrying on. The doors of citizens were open to all decent travellers, and ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... jump the track, this train will land us in the city we are looking for," said Anguish, stretching out his legs comfortably. "I'll admit it has been a tiresome journey, and I'll be glad when we can step into a decent hotel, have a rub, and feel like white men once more. I am beginning to feel like these dirty Slavs and Huns ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the fumes, but there was nothing else I could do. The stuff was shallavan, outlawed on every planet in the Terran Empire and every halfway decent planet outside it. ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... about! Later, his work, wholly unsatisfactory to himself comes to you for criticism and you take your blue pencil or your pen with red ink and put in the marks if any are needed, indicate the misspelled words and sigh as you say, "Will Charlie ever learn to write a decent composition?" Certainly he will, when his writing becomes mechanical, when his hand makes the letters, puts in the marks, and his lower brain spells the words for him, without disturbing the higher cells which are ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... pleased Polly was. By George, it is strange what will please people. He remembered when he went down to Indiana buying horses, how tired he got of the look of corn-fields, and how the sight of the first decent sized wheat field just went to his heart, when he was coming back. Someway he could not laugh at anything that morning, for Polly was dead. And Polly was a willing thing for sure; he seemed to see her yet, how she ran after the colt the day it broke out of the ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... satisfaction to be had out of a good saddle horse!'" he quoted me. "'More excitement out of a polo pony, and as for the eternal matrimonial chase, give me instead a good stubble, a fox, some decent hounds and a hunter, and I'll show you the real ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... wind—like this. (If you don't do it better'n that, I'll stoush you.) Make your face a bit longer and keep your lips dry—don't lick them, you damned fool!-breathe on them; make 'em dry as chips. That's the only decent pair of breeks you've got, and the only shoon. You're a Presbyterian—not a U.P., the Auld Kirk. Your mate would have come up to the house only—well, you'll have to use the stuffing in your head a bit; you can't expect ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... boil over, or to burn," he remarked. "It's the only decent meal I get in the day, you see, miss. But it won't take a minute to show you where I found the pipe. Now—what's the idea, sir," he went on, turning to Neale, "about Mr. Horbury's disappearance? Is it known that he came out ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... visitation of the monasteries, and again exhorted a reform; but his efforts were even slighter than Morton's, and in their results equally without fruit. The maintenance of his order in its political supremacy was of greater moment to him than its moral purity: a decent veil was cast over the clerical infirmities, and their vices were forgotten as soon as they ceased to be proclaimed.[95] Henry VIII., a mere boy on his accession, was borne away with the prevailing stream; and trained from his childhood by theologians, he entered upon ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... decent of her," said Levine. He was dark, nervous and solemn-eyed, a lean man of his race, and handsome. Sophy Brodrick had not loved her husband when she married him. She adored him now, because of the beauty that had passed from him ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... doctor answered. "Swimming is a real athletic exercise and you've got to keep in shape to swim well. What's more, you've got to have a decent heart to start with. But if a youngster piles into cigarettes, it's a safe bet that he's going to cripple himself for athletics ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the year of our Lord 391, in a narrow street leading from the commercial harbor known as Kibotus, an old man was slinking along close to the houses. His clothes were plain but decent, and he walked with his head bent forward looking anxiously on all sides; when the patrol came by he shrank into the shadow; though he was no thief he had his reasons for keeping out of the way of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... large and larger. Their island, they told us, was called Syee. They appeared to be well satisfied with their condition, having an abundance of every thing absolutely needful for a comfortable subsistence, and decent clothing of their own manufacture. What surprised me not a little, was to find the people as white as the Arabs of Lower Egypt, whereas the inhabitants of Nubia are quite black, though their features are not those ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... the failure of his Coromandel scheme, he sought, without consulting his friends, to be examined at the College of Physicians for the humble situation of hospital mate. Even here poverty stood in his way. It was necessary to appear in a decent garb before the examining committee; but how was he to do so? He was literally out at elbows as well as out of cash. Here again the muse, so often jilted and neglected by him, came to his aid. In consideration of four articles furnished ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... there whaur it was used sae lang to be;—do that, an' it's my opinion ye'll hear nae mair o' sic unruly gangin's on." The auld gentleman tuik the advice, kennin' no better. But it was the richt advice, for frae that moment the romour was ower, they had nae mair o' 't. They laid the heid in a decent bit box i' the cellar, an' there it remaint, weel content there to abide the day o' that jeedgment that'll set mony anither jeedgment to the richt-aboot; though what pleesur could be intil that cellar mair nor intil a hole i' the earth, is a thing no for me to say! So wi' ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... looked for a lodging in Camden Town, attracted by the probable cheapness, and by the grass in the Regent's Park; and having found a decent place, took my things away while Charley was out. I had not got them, few as they were, in order in my new quarters before he made his appearance; and as long as I was there few days passed on which we ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... knaw the truth fust as last. Mr. Grimbal's writ you two straight, fair letters 'bout this job, so he've explained to me, an' you never so much as answered neither; so, seem' this here's a right Christian cross, ban't decent it should bide head down'ards for all time. An' Mr. Grimbal have brought up a flam-new granite post, hasp an' all complete—'t is in the cart theer—an' he called on me as a discreet, aged man to help un, an' so I did; an' Peter Bassett an' Sam Bonus here ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... particular districts, it aliens, its criminals and its vices—all these problems of social pathology arise from the fact that the conditions of modern industry have brought people together who have few interests in common, and who were compelled to arrange themselves in some kind of decent order within a limited area, without sufficient time being given to evolve a suitable environment, or to prepare themselves for the environment which they actually found on every side of them. London in the ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... isn't free love," he said; "they're decent enough. They believe in general love, not particular, I suppose.... 'Thalia, do you think it's worth while to wait over a train ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... and shaking hands with SIR RANDLE.] It might be that it 'ud be more decent and appropriate for me to write you a letter, Sir Randle; but I'm not much of a hand at letter-writing, and I've your daughter's permission to tell you by word of mouth that—that she—[to LADY FILSON] but perhaps you can ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... John, "I'm lookin' at you because I think you're real handsome, an' I think it's a terrible pity for ye to be traipsin' about like this. Why don't you leave your uncle and aunt and go to live with decent people—and put on shoes and stockings?" ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... Sunday school. But she threw plates occasionally at the landlord, and quickly retorted to the cheap witticisms of the guests, and created in the Sabbath school a sensation that was so inimical to the orthodox dulness and placidity of that institution, that, with a decent regard for the starched frocks and unblemished morals of the two pink-and-white-faced children of the first families, the reverend gentleman had her ignominiously expelled. Such were the antecedents, and such the character of M'liss, as she stood ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... asked again. 'Wha's that ye're conversin' wi' at the door, Robert? Gin it be ony decent laddie, tell him to come in, and no stan' at the door in ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... class, nor of any other class about her. "I don't know whether ye can or not," came the frank reply. "I'm thinkin' about it. You don't look as if ye were flat broke. If you're goin' to take me room, I don't want to be watchin' ye, and I won't! Once we know ye're clean and decent, ye can have the run of the place and welcome to it. We had one dead-beat here last month, and that's enough. Out with it now! How is it that a"—she hesitated an instant—"yes, a gentleman like you wants to live over ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... conscience; but in drawing out a system of rules he is obliged to go by logic, and follow the exact deduction of conclusion from conclusion, and must be sure that the whole system is coherent and one. You hear of even immoral or irreligious books being written by men of decent character; there is a late writer who says that David Hume's sceptical works are not at all the picture of the man. A priest might write a treatise which was really lax on the subject of lying, which might ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... more precious than rubies. On this account she is man's first and last solace. Suffering never appeals to woman in vain. "I never addressed myself," says Ledyard, "in the language of decency and friendship to woman, whether civilized or savage, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... to "understand easily," Father Pollen writes, "the new preachers were loudly claiming for themselves the property of the rivals whom they had displaced." {186} For themselves they were claiming a few merks, and a few bolls of meal, a decent subsistence. Mr. Taylor Innes points out that when, just before Darnley's murder, Mary offered "a considerable sum for the maintenance of the ministers," Knox and others said that, for their sustentation, they "craved of the auditors the things that were necessary, as of duty the pastors might ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... did not survive Mr. Combe long, for he dy'd in the Year 1616, the 53d of his Age. He lies buried on the North Side of the Chancel in the great Church at Stratford; where a Monument, decent enough for the Time, is erected to him, and plac'd against the Wall. He is represented under an Arch in a sitting posture, a Cushion spread before him, with a Pen in his Right Hand, and his Left rested on a Scrowl of Paper. The Latin Distich, which is placed under the Cushion, has been given ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... bitterly this false Charity often comes out in individual cases. We will just take an illustration. We will suppose here is a family of decent, respectable, professedly Christian people, who have been to church or chapel most of their lives. Or here is a Church, we will suppose, of the same character—nothing particular has happened; they fear the Lord, and go comfortably along, and are just ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... tidy houses of a well-to-do village in the cockney rural districts. I have no doubt the scene is a real one within some twenty miles from London, and painted mostly on the spot. The houses are entirely uninteresting, but decent, trim, as human dwellings should be, and on the whole inoffensive—not "cottages," mind you, in any sense, but respectable brick-walled and slated constructions, old-fashioned in the sense of "old" at, suppose, Bromley or Sevenoaks, and with a pretty little church belonging ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... extraneous succour, than upon their own exertions. The women and the children undoubtedly suffered great hardships, which they bore with praiseworthy resignation. The sailors, the soldiers of the line, and levies of peasants which formed the Mobiles, fought with decent courage. But the male population of Paris, although they boasted greatly of their "sublimity," their "endurance," and their "valour," hardly appeared to me to come up to their own estimation of themselves, while many of them seemed to consider that heroism was a ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... then I have a decent regard for her old father's wealth; and I am by no means insensible to her personal attractions. I group all that is desirable into one grand consideration—beauty, wealth, standing, mental endowments, ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... child of that marriage. He married agin when I was about two year old, an' how I ever got raised 's more 'n I c'n tell ye. My sister Polly was 'sponsible more 'n any one, I guess, an' the only one o' the whole lot that ever gin me a decent word. Small farmin' ain't cal'lated to fetch out the best traits of human nature—an' keep 'em out—an' it seems to me sometimes that when the old man wa'n't cuffin' my ears he was lickin' me with a rawhide or a strap. Fur 's that was concerned, all his boys used to ketch it putty reg'lar ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... not a Neapolitan, but an Englishman," she answered, "and can have no concern with the justice of your king. He would scarcely think it decent to interfere with the execution of the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... as Miss Sperrit observed, after the M.F.H. had said some things to him at a gate: 'It is a pity you don't know as much as your horse, but you will in time. It takes years and yee-ars. I've been at it for fifteen and I'm only just learning. But you've made a decent kick-off.' ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... then, that the Morgan fragment is a piece of the Parisinus, and that we may compare with Aldus's text the very words which he studied out, carefully collated, and treated with a decent respect. On the basis of the new information furnished us by the fragment, I shall endeavor, at some future time, to confirm my present judgement of Aldus by testing him in the entire text of Pliny's Letters. ...
— A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger • Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand
... now that they should seriously consider how they stood. Andrew had nothing to do, and the wages paid him in advance were nearly exhausted. They decided that they would move into cheaper lodgings. They had some difficulty in finding any that were decent but they obtained three miserable rooms at the top of a house occupied by a man who sold firewood and potatoes in one of the streets running out of the Blackfriars Road. They left Miss Tippit without bidding her good-bye, for she was still unwell, ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... as we do) considered a person accused to stand in such a doubtful situation that from the moment of accusation he assumed either a mourning or some squalid garb, although, by the nature of their constitution, accusations were brought forward by one of their lowest magistrates. The spirit of that decent usage has continued from the time of the Romans till this very day. No man was ever brought before your Lordships that did not carry the outward as well as inward demeanor of modesty, of fear, of apprehension, of a sense of his situation, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... his Uncle Osman and the dervishes. It has always been upon my mind that I was therein instrumental in furnishing a dervish recruit to the cause of furious anarchy, and I am relieved to think Mousa is not without compunction, if not a decent modicum of conscience. But your proper Hadendowa is ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... times the lot of us have to pack canoes and duffle from one creek to another. But Francois here is after saying we're getting near the end of our long voyage, and Tamasjo, the red Injun, backs him up. So let's try and forget our troubles, and settle down for a decent night's rest." ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... did not expect a tenant and would not welcome a visitor. Was there nothing but this forbidding house-front to make the place alive with some breathing memory? I saw crossing the street a middle-aged woman,—a decent body, who looked as if she might have come from the lower level of some not opulent but respectable household. She might have some recollection of an old man who was once her neighbor. I asked her if she remembered Mr. Carlyle. Indeed she did, she told us. She used to see him often, in front ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... flight, Inhabitant of deep disastrous night; Homeward with pious speed repass the main, To the pale shade funereal rites ordain, Plant the fair column o'er the vacant grave, A hero's honours let the hero have. With decent grief the royal dead deplored, For the chaste queen select an equal lord. Then let revenge your daring mind employ, By fraud or force the suitor train destroy, And starting into manhood, scorn the boy. Hast ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... their voices, and he did not even shrink from occasionally quizzing a little the national peculiarities of his own countrywomen; a sure piece of flattery to their American cousins. He would gladly have devoted himself to Mrs. Lee, but decent civility required that he should pay some attention to his hostess, and he was too good a diplomatist not to be attentive to a hostess who was the wife of a Senator, and that Senator the chairman of ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... said the leader of the little party. "You, Tom, we can manage him.—Get out, will you, dogs!—Here, take them with you. Run to the mine hut, and get some rope to tie him. Be as smart as you can. The master'll give us something decent for a ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... the time when Lombroso saw her first, Eusapia was just beginning to be known to scientists, but no one of special note had up to this time (1891) reported upon her. She was known as the wife of a small shop-keeper in Naples, and seemed a decent, matronly person, quite untouched by mysticism. Although not eager to sit for Lombroso and his party of scientists, she finally consented. Among those who took part in these celebrated experiments were Professor ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... fires. Every human being that has in it a living germ of spirit shall be liberated and helped toward the light, not by any so-called personal redeemer—that is not possible—but by the power of its own aspiring soul, and even moderately decent folk shall come to enjoy all that they have imagined and longed for, and all great souls shall find the peace they have dreamed of. All souls everywhere in the spirit world will have all they have truly earned in their ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... at length returned from the fiddler hunt, and being whisped over, and made tolerably decent, Mr. Watchorn, having exchanged the postilion saddle in which it had been ridden for a horn-cased hunting one, had mounted, and, opening the kennel-door, had liberated the pent-up pack, who came ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... of delirious suspicion, and the last morsels were snatched from the lips of the women and children. One is tempted to quote some of the stories of Josephus about this, but they are so awful that it would be scarcely decent to repeat them. ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... horrible little truth. Bridget-Mary had been deceived by both of them from the very beginning. Estimate the numbing, overwhelming weight of that blow, delivered by a hand so worshipped, upon so proud a heart. Those who saw her, and should have honoured her great grief with decent reticence, say that she was mad for a while; that she grovelled on the earth in her abandonment, calling upon God and man to be merciful and kill her. Pass over this. I cannot bear to think ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the other. 'She'd say, "you go on wearin' the coat and pants, but if you are in mournin' for me, show it by puttin' on a black vest, as is no more than decent."' ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... "blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus," in the prayer. The little Papist had been taught to repeat the salutation of the Angel Gabriel in Latin, so, at bedtime, he changed to "Benedictus fructus ventris tui" and the careful lady thought it sounded "more decent"! ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... proposal for a commander, who was ignorant of the amount of disaffection in his ranks, and who could not safely spare a single man from his force, already far too feeble for the undertaking. Yet, by insisting on the wants of the little colony of San Miguel, he afforded a decent pretext for the secession of the malecontents, and swept away the barrier of shame which might have still held them in the camp. Notwithstanding the fair opening thus afforded, there were but few, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... unavoidably fixed for some time at the house, she thought it proper and decent to attempt softening Lady Margaret in her favour. She exerted all her powers to please and to oblige her; but the exertion was necessarily vain, not only from the disposition, but the situation of her ladyship, ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... this thing to go on? Are you engaged to Kersley Battersby, or are you not? For if you're not, I don't think it's decent to keep him dangling on ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... to the plant and told Jack what had happened, sent a call to the Army that everything was settled, arranged with Cybernetics for a rewiring on three hundred assorted 5-Types. Then I went home to a pot of Rob's coffee—the first decent brew I'd had ...
— Robots of the World! Arise! • Mari Wolf
... party again pressed forward, and were speedily delighted to observe several flocks of ptarmigan busily feeding on the crests of the low hills which here and there crossed the route. These birds proved rather shy, though not so much so as to have prevented the sportsmen making a very decent bag had they been provided with fowling-pieces. As it was, however, the birds were, of course, permitted to go free and undisturbed. A mile further on a small drove of musk-oxen were seen grazing ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... say, these were women, with one or two exceptions in favour of men—like the Hatter—who perhaps might be called "old women of the male sex," save that the expression is a vile libel upon the sex that still contains the best of us.) Decent people expressed the belief that it would do Augustus a lot of good—much-needed good; and the crystallized male opinion was that the poisonous little beast was uncommon lucky, but Mrs. Pat Dearman would find him out sooner ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... result; he felt that he had grown larger in his own eyes—that the old Adam who had ruled over him so long had become suddenly dwarfed and insignificant. "To like a woman and yet not to make love to her," he repeated in his thoughts. "By Jove, it will be something decent, something really worth while." Then he remembered that he had never known intimately a woman of commanding intellect, and the novelty inspired him with the ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... bleeding and tattered, spatchcocked against barbed wire, and had to leave them sticking to it, their eyes haunt you, your blood gets up, you long for a hundred hands to shoot with, instead of only two. When you've seen the result of Prussian militarism on decent German soldiers, you know that it's your duty to destroy it, to give the German people, as well as the rest of the ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... whether this is considered a decent return for an investment of capital among the descendants of Israel; but I am convinced that at the conclusion of a purchase in Unyoro each party to the bargain thought that he had the best of it. This was ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... began to extend up the island, the Bowery commenced to lose caste. Decent people forsook it, and the poorer and more disreputable classes took possession. Finally, it became notorious. It was known all over the country for its roughs or "Bowery B'hoys," as they were called, its rowdy ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... flourishing in their native soil, and ripened by the benignity of an happier climate. In the one case they are considered as unnatural productions, whose beauty is surpassed by the Natives of the soil; in the other they are regarded as just and decent ornaments, whose real excellence is properly estimated. The same remark may be applied indiscriminately to all the other branches of this art. Though they are originally the offspring of one Parent, yet there ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... Chamber outnumber the Catholics is in no respect due to religious intolerance, which in this body is totally unknown. Anybody who pays a guinea a year may be elected a member, whatever his religion, whatever his circumstances, providing he is a decent member of society, which is the only qualification required. Members are certainly elected by ballot, but during the many years I have belonged to the Chamber not a single person has been black-balled. If the Protestants are more numerous, the fact simply demonstrates their ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... sad night,—that at the Commandant's hut, and a sad morning followed upon it. It must be remembered that they had there none of those appurtenances which are so necessary to make woe decent and misfortune comfortable. They sat through the night in the small hut, and in the morning they came forth with their clothes still wet and dirty, with their haggard faces, and weary stiff limbs, encumbered with the horrid ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope
... situation. The fountain of Domremy was on the brink of a boundless forest; and it was haunted to that degree by fairies, that the parish priest (cure) was obliged to read mass there once a year, in order to keep them in decent bounds. ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... equilibrium. At the same time that the executioner was dragging the bodies of his friends through the streets of the capital, he had sought to save the life of the blood-stained Fimbria, and, when the latter died by his own hand, had given orders for his decent burial. On landing in Italy he had earnestly offered to forgive and to forget, and no one who came to make his peace had been rejected. Even after the first successes he had negotiated in this spirit with Lucius Scipio; it was the revolutionary ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the same breath, and with that strange cruel cunning of the shallow mind, which is the abortive twin of decent feminine intuition, she leapt at the difficulty she saw threatening, ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... burdens in proportion as they increase ours. We saw the misery to which such despotism would reduce us. We, for ten years, incessantly and ineffectually, besieged the throne as supplicants; we reasoned, we remonstrated with parliament in the most mild and decent language." ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... faction or schism, as certainly as the itch is destroyed by butter and brimstone. In a word, it makes wise men fools, and fools wise men, and both knaves. The very colour of this precious balm is bright and dazzling. If it be properly applied to the fist, that is in a decent manner, and a competent dose, it infallibly performs all the cures which the evils of humanity crave.' Thus having spoken, he killed the six horses of Bradshaw's coach, and went contemptuously on ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... that if Edward does marry this young woman, I never will see him again.' That was what I said immediately. I was most uncommonly shocked, indeed! Poor Edward! he has done for himself completely,—shut himself out for ever from all decent society! but, as I directly said to my mother, I am not in the least surprised at it; from his style of education, it was always to be expected. My poor mother was ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... looked at that in incredulous delight. Why, here on Odin there hadn't been an election in the past six centuries that hadn't been utterly fraudulent. Nobody voted except the nonworkers, whose votes were bought and sold wholesale, by gangster bosses to pressure groups, and no decent person would be caught within a hundred yards of a polling place on an election day. He ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper
... Dessoubre, reaching St. Hippolyte at night, but with great reluctance we were now obliged to give up this round. From Morteau to St. Hippolyte is a day's journey, only to be made by starting at eight in the morning, and there are not even decent wayside inns. So we patiently waited till the storm was over, and as by that time it was past midday, there was nothing to do but drive leisurely back to Maiche. More fortunate travellers than ourselves, in the matter of weather, however, are particularly ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... after the embodying of a good dinner with ourselves, that doziness is most tempting. You have dined at four o'clock to-day. Well, that's a decent Sabbatical hour. After due potations of wine, coffee, &c. your gratitude is awakened; and, like a good Christian, you arrange your beaver, and walk off steadily to church. Now, remember, I give you full credit for your wish to exhibit your ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... working, even as he walked, and surrounded by messengers from every quarter. After the usual salutations, he inquired what paper I represented, and received the name of the Herald with satisfaction. 'It is a decent paper,' he said. 'It does not seek to obstruct a general in the exercise of his discretion.' He spoke hopefully of the west and east, and explained that the collapse of our centre was not so serious as might have been imagined. 'It is unfortunate,' he said, 'but if Green succeeds ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there are innumerable places where the careless step will be the last step; and a rock falling from the cliffs may crush without warning like lightning from the sky; but what then! Accidents in the mountains are less common than in the lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even divine, places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers of civilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... one thing that we're lovin' more than money, grub, or booze, Or even decent folks that speaks us fair; And that's the Grand Old Privilege to chuck our luck and choose, Any road at any ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... end to your capacity for wonder, Bunny. I took some sweet old rags with me on purpose, carefully packed inside a decent suit, and I had the luck to pick up a foul old German cap that some peasant had cast off in the woods. I only meant to leave it on them like a card; as it was—well, I was waiting for the best barber in the place to open his shop ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... beastly orderly sheets and say—'Haw, eh, well, Sergeant Morton, these men seem to have very good records; very good records, indeed. I can't be too hard on them; no, not too hard.'" Continued the sergeant: "I tell you, Flagler, the army is no place for a decent man." ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... severe winter of 1874 and '75, when the following autumn many of our orchards bore so profusely. The succeeding year the majority of the trees were as dead as smelts, and the balance never had vigor enough afterward to produce a decent crop. Once before," said he, "we had a similar experience in Illinois. Put your thumb down at this place and watch for results. Do not say anything about this in your Wayside Blusterings, at least as coming from me," and ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... darkness and dirtiness of the suite we had passed through. This total want of keeping, it may be mentioned, is quite in Oriental taste. They know tolerably well how to be magnificent on occasions; but they never learn how to be uniformly decent. The Asiatics, and even some other nations which might be named nearer home, can seldom afford to be taken by surprise. Indeed, I am not sure if more than one country can be alluded to, in which the people are at all hours ready to receive strangers, and have no occasion to make a fuss, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... failed of re-election in 1852, dropped into the American party in 1854, and supported Fillmore in 1856. Thurlow Weed thought he ought to have aided them in the formation of the Republican party, and Horace Greeley occasionally reminded him that a decent regard for consistency should impel him to act in accordance with his anti-slavery record; but when, in 1860, Hunt began the crusade that successfully fused the Douglas and Bell tickets in New York, thus seriously endangering the election ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... some stairs, across two rooms, into a gallery containing a switch-board, and in the room below saw the works, all very neat-looking, but, as I soon found, very dusty. I went down, and fixed upon a generating set—there were three—that would give a decent load, and then saw that the switch-gear belonging to this particular generator was in order. I then got some cloths and thoroughly cleaned the dust off the commutators; ran next—for I was in a strange fierce haste—and turned the water into the turbines, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... lax in "keeping his end up." Moreover, he employed a good tailor and was careful to keep up an appearance of sound financial standing. But his home, which he avoided as much as possible, had little share in his personal prosperity. Mary Hopkins's requests for new and decent gowns were more often refused than acceded to, and he constantly cautioned her to keep down expenses or she would drive them both to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... feathers would have been dull enough had not Mrs Forbes come to her aid with dresses of her own, which they remade between them; for it will easily be believed that no avoidable outlay remained unavoided by the Bruces. Indeed, but for the feeling that she must be decent on Sundays, they would have let her go yet shabbier than she was when Mrs Forbes thus partially adopted her. Now that she was warmly and neatly dressed, she began to feel and look more like the lady-child she really was. No doubt the contrast ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... his friend, after a pause, "it was very good of you, old boy, and I hope that I'll do credit to your recommendation. The old man seems a decent sort of chap, though ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... public demonstration of it, to the laws of the country: There shall be given, moreover, liberty, when any subjects or inhabitants of either party shall die in the territory of the other, to bury them in the usual burying-places, or in decent and convenient grounds to be appointed for that purpose, as occasion shall require; and the dead bodies of those who are buried shall not in any wise be molested. And the two contracting parties shall provide, each one in his jurisdiction, that their respective subjects and inhabitants ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... He steadied up when he got married and started on a small selection of his own; but within the year Clara was living in a back skillion of her father's house and Jack was up-country shearing. He was "ringer" of the shed at Piora Station one season and made a decent cheque; and within a fortnight after the shed "cut out" he turned up at home in a very bad state from drink and with about thirty shillings in his pockets. He had fallen from his horse in the creek near Southwick's, and altogether he was a nice sort of young husband ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... here. You know we have been uneasy ever since her husband died. Herbert's infatuation concerning her has been pitiable, and we have always believed it has been that alone which has caused him to refuse so obstinately to enter into our plans, or to pay even decent courtesy to the various excellent young women we have from time to time asked down here, and who were in every way suitable for the position of mistress of this house—women full of sense, and who, with right guidance, would have made him perfectly ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... this is true, the instinctive aversion with which this act of Nelson's has been regarded generally is well founded. It was not decent, for it was not necessary, that capture should be followed so rapidly by trial, and condemnation by execution. Neither time nor circumstances pressed. The insurrection was over. Except the siege of St. Elmo, hostilities near Naples were at an end. That Caracciolo's ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... "It ain't a half-decent outfit, either," complained Doc Tomlinson. "Hay wire ain't any good for croquet arches; and as for these here balls and mallets you bought sight-unseen by mail, ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... where they are furnished with what is called a bed, in a garret, for one creutzer, (equal to about one-third of a penny,) a-night; and for two creutzers a-night they get a place in a tolerably good bed in a decent room in ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... colonel up to his apartment when a servant from Mrs. James knocked hastily at the door. The lady, not meeting with her husband at her return home, began to despair of him, and performed everything which was decent on the occasion. An apothecary was presently called with hartshorn and sal volatile, a doctor was sent for, and messengers were despatched every way; amongst the rest, one was sent to enquire at the lodgings of ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Gods and Columns, without weighing well the consequences of his experiment. He who publishes a book, attended with a moderate success, passes a mighty barrier. He will often look back with a sigh of regret at the land he has left for ever. The beautiful and decent obscurity of hearth and home is gone. He can no longer feel the just indignation of manly pride when he finds himself ridiculed or reviled. He has parted with the shadow of his life. His motives may be misrepresented, his character belied; his manners, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... And that sober, honest, decent, Scot is going to take a wife. It was so good of him to tell me. We are all going to the wedding next week, and I'm sure I wish the dear ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... I begin to feel a little foggy. What was it we learned on the Trail, pardner?" But the Boy had turned away. "Wasn't it—didn't we learn how near a tolerable decent man is to bein' ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... without appearance of care. Of these tales there are only four. The Ladle; which is introduced by a preface, neither necessary nor pleasing, neither grave nor merry. Paulo Purganti; which has likewise a preface, but of more value than the tale. Hans Carvel, not over-decent; and Protogenes and Apelles, an old story, mingled, by an affectation not disagreeable, with modern images. The Young Gentleman in Love has hardly a just claim to the title of a tale. I know not whether he be the original author of any ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... their own fellow-citizens, Nicholas Upsall, and made him an exile from his home, for no greater crime than that of countenancing and befriending members of the Society of Friends. He kept the Dorchester hostelry, and was wont to entertain Quakers as he did any other decent people; but for this he was apprehended and tried by the court, and sentenced to pay a fine of L20 and be thrown into prison. Finally, finding it impossible to entirely prevent his friends from holding intercourse with him, he was banished from the settlement for the remainder of his life. That ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... note of curious pride crept into her voice. "So it's just like this, Beatrice—I can't live without position. I may not take poison, but I shall die all the same if I can't play a part in the world. All I ask is that you help me all you can. It's not much. I've been a pretty decent mother to you. You can't say that there was ever a time when I grudged you a pretty frock or a dance—" She stopped in her long speech, yielding to Beatrice's irrepressible ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... this suggestion, as indeed he did everything from her, in good part; and composed his visage into a decent gravity. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... disguises above," he said to the count. "The decent one of an apprentice I have placed with my own clothes, and will take them with me to any lodging that I may get among the carpenters, but that beggar suit I will take to Simon Bouclier's the next time I come. I suppose you would not wish me to come ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... the immigrants appear to alter soon after they reach the colony. Some people object to the independence of their manner, but I do not; on the contrary, I like to see the upright gait, the well-fed, healthy look, the decent clothes (even if no one touches his hat to you), instead of the half-starved, depressed appearance, and too often cringing servility of the mass of our English population. Scotchmen do particularly well out here; ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... fifty-nine thousand," said I, heartily, "a stranger is bound to meet decent people if ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... the slight tracts of grass which had sprung up where a stream rising among the rocks was losing itself in the dry soil, but which looked brighter and greener as it was nearer to the kopje, which was fairly furnished with thorn-bush and decent-sized trees. ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... spring of 1830 that "Abe" Lincoln, "wearing a jean jacket, shrunken buckskin trousers, a coonskin cap, and driving an ox-team," became a citizen of Illinois. He was physically and mentally equipped for pioneer work. His first desire was to obtain a new and decent suit of clothes, but, as he had no money, he was glad to arrange with Nancy Miller to make him a pair of trousers, he to split four hundred fence rails for each yard of cloth—fourteen hundred rails in all. "Abe" got ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... lest there be those who think that deeds are not to follow upon words, may I state that I take up my ministry in this church afresh today with the conviction that I am committed to a program, and you committed to its decent and friendly consideration. Nay more, I am persuaded that we are ready for unanimous action on some points. At the regular annual meeting of this Society, on Monday, January 13, I hope, and have every reason to expect that a resolution will be ...
— A Statement: On the Future of This Church • John Haynes Holmes |
