BACKSTAIRS • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Backstairs

"Backstairs" Quotes from Famous Books

... imprisonment would be entirely remitted and that the sentence of banishment would also be commuted. The individuals from whom this suggestion first came were of the class which habitually trades between the Government and the public—the gentlemen of the backstairs. For this reason some of the prisoners gave considerable credence to the reports, whilst others for the very same reason would have nothing whatever to do with them. Hence arose a condition of things very like a deadlock among the prisoners themselves. It was represented by these agents that ...

— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... I had, through the baize door to the back landing, with Raffles at my heels. I held the swing door for him, and heard him bang it in the face of the spluttering and blustering master of the house. Other feet were already in the lower flight of the backstairs; but the upper flight was the one for me, and in an instant we were racing along the upper corridor with the chuckle-headed pack at our heels. Here it was all but dark—they were the servants' bedrooms that we were passing now—but I knew what I was doing. ...

— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... believe in backstairs diplomacy any more than Dr. Hollweg. I believe the people of a nation are entitled to know what is going on. This German diplomacy may be all right in a monarchy of the most limited type but it will not go at all in a ...

— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... city crowded with Major Generals and Brigadier-Generals not in activity. When Mr. Lincoln is cornered, then he makes a Brigadier or a Major General, according to circumstances and in obedience to political or to backstairs influence. From the beginning of the war, no sound notions directed the nominations, either under Cameron, Scott, or McClellan, or now; at the beginning of the war they had Generals without troops, then troops without Generals, and now they have Generals who have not commanded, or cannot command, ...

— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... fellows coming off here when I'm awake; and, you bet, I'm always awake when there's any Muscovite backstairs ...

— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman

Words linked to "Backstairs" : plural, plural form, covert, stairway, staircase