"Obsequious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... liberty they could wish. Here I imagined the stripping was to stop, but I reckon short; my spark, at the desire of the rest, tenderly begged, that I would not suffer the small remains of a covering to rob them of a full view of my whole person; and for me, who was too flexibly obsequious to dispute any point with them, and who considered the little more that remained as very immaterial, I readily assented to whatever he pleased-In an instant, then, my under petticoat was untied and at my feet, and my shift drawn over my head, so that my cap, slightly fastened, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... the door of his store while the doctor was talking. I should vainly try to describe this stately merchant of the olden time, if the reader were to confound him, ever so little in his mind's eye, with the bustling, smiling, obsequious, modern storekeeper. Even a royal customer would scarcely have presumed so far as to ask this imposing gentleman, in powdered wig, snuff-colored coat, waistcoat and short clothes, white silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes, to cut off a piece of cloth or wrap up a bundle for him. It may ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... thrive, Which to smooth-fronted peace is most proclive, So doth that mind, whose fair affections ranged By reason's rules, stand constant and unchanged, Else, if the power of reason be not such, Why do we attribute to him so much? Or why are we obsequious to his law, If he want spirit our affects to awe? Oh no, I argue weakly, he is strong, Albeit my son have done ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... mongrel, that was particularly eager to ingratiate himself with a setter bitch that accompanied him. Whilst stopping to water his horse, he remarked how amorous the mongrel continued, and how courteous the setter seemed to her admirer. Provoked to see a creature of Dido's high blood so obsequious to such mean addresses, the doctor drew one of his pistols and shot the dog; he then had the bitch carried on horseback for several miles. From that day, however, she lost her appetite, ate little or nothing, had no inclination to go abroad ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... may depend upon it," was the answer. And the obsequious anxiety of the hangman to seem polite and obliging, his apparent zeal to give satisfaction, though very natural seemed to me not a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... rich domains of the spiritual electors, went raging over the Rhine and through the passes of the Alps. Throughout the whole of the great war against Protestantism, Italy and Spain had been the base of the Catholic operations. Spain was now the obsequious vassal of the infidels. Italy was subjugated by them. To her ancient principalities succeeded the Cisalpine republic, and the Ligurian republic, and the Parthenopean republic. The shrine of Loretto was stripped ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... grill with a yellow face peeping out, backed by flickering lantern light, of a rainy, windswept compound, with a shaft of light from an open door flooding the courtyard. Then he was inside a warm, bright anteroom, with an obsequious China-boy relieving him of overcoat and muffler, and he became aware of many big, fur-lined overcoats, hanging on pegs on the wall. Beyond, in the adjoining room, were two long tables, the players seated with their backs to him, absorbed. Only a ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... stables, sat down on the bench for chopping wood which had been left in the place to which she had previously dragged it, and set to work. She was sitting under one of the arches out of the wind, and an obsequious yellow cat came out of the door of one of the nearest horse-boxes, in which wood was evidently stacked, and rubbed itself against her dress, with a reckless expenditure ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... agreed to pay an annual tribute to the piratical Dey, in consideration of his granting to American vessels the right of travel on the high seas. And when some slight delay occurred in making the first payment of tribute, the obsequious government presented the Barbary corsair with a frigate, to allay ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Ramee Durwan, you think, will be ready with profound and obsequious salaam. Not so; he draws himself up to the very last of his extraordinary inches, and touches his forehead lightly with the fingers of his right hand, only slightly inclining his head,—a not more than affable salute,—almost with a quality of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... The obsequious Mr Pecksniff proffered his arm. The old man took it. Turning at the door, he said to Martin, waving him off with ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... quite as much out of him by that development of his faculties as by any other which they could have been likely to receive; and that he repaid patronage in the coin of amusement and of bland lenitives, rather than in that of obsequious adulation. For we are not required nor permitted to suppose that there was the stuff of a hero in "little Tom Moore;" or that the lapdog of the drawing-room would under any circumstances have been the wolf-hound ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... note changed from hand to hand—tipping was still in style. The obsequious steward gave him further directions for finding the games and recreational rooms, and ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... with delegates: delegates from country districts, red-faced farmers in flapping linen coats and wide-brimmed hats; delegates from the cities, dapper, well-groomed, cordial-voiced; delegates of the true political type, shaven, obsequious, alert; delegates of the cast that belongs at home, outspoken, honest-eyed, remote; stout delegates, with half-bursting waistbands, thin delegates, with shrunken chests. In the animated throng there was but one condition held in common—they ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... and censure the delights, That, being enjoy'd, ask judgment; now we praise, As having parted: evenings crown the days. 10 And now, ye wanton Loves, and young Desires, Pied Vanity, the mint of strange attires, Ye lisping Flatteries, and obsequious Glances, Relentful Musics, and attractive Dances, And you detested Charms constraining love! Shun love's stoln sports by that these lovers prove. By this, the sovereign of heaven's golden fires, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... smiles for everybody. She was decidedly inclined to be munificent towards her companions, and bestow upon them some of the rich spoils that had fallen plentifully to her share—taking quite a new position among them—even the duenna treating her with a certain obsequious, wheedling consideration, which she had been far from ever showing her before. Scapin, whose keen observation nothing ever escaped, noticed that her box had suddenly doubled in weight, by some magic or other, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... grounded upon such, or any other pretence, could defeat the hereditary right of the heir to the crown, and that to propose any limitation upon the future administration of such heir was high treason. But the Protestant religion was to be secured; for those who were most obsequious to the court, and the most willing and forward instruments of its tyranny, were, nevertheless, zealous Protestants. A test was therefore framed for this purpose, which was imposed upon all persons exercising any civil or military functions ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... door was opened by an obsequious colored servant, Craig handed him the scrap of paper signed by the password, ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... Mr. Edwards, the overseer's countenance suddenly changed, and assumed an air of obsequious civility. The poor woman retired to the farther corner of the cottage, and continued to weep. Caesar never moved. "Nothing is the matter, sir," said Durant, "but that Caesar is going to be sold. That ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... walls, and we sat down, waiting till the maharajah should be advised of our arrival. Very soon a jemadar came in and informed us that "if the sahib log, who were the protectors of the poor, would deign to be led by him," we should be shown into the royal presence. So we rose and followed the obsequious official ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... perverse door-catch. Not that she really respected Thomas Batchgrew! She did not, but he was a member of the sacred governing class. The chauffeur—not John's Ernest, but a professional—flashed round the front of the car and opened the door with obsequious haste. For Thomas Batchgrew had to be appeased. Already a delay of twenty minutes—due to a defective tire and to the inexcusable absence of the spanner with which the spare wheel was ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... princess with her husband, the archduke Philip. The desolation which walks through palaces admits not the familiar sympathies and sweet consolations which alleviate the sorrows of common life. Isabella pined in state, amidst the obsequious homages of a court, surrounded by the trophies of a glorious and successful reign, and placed at the summit of earthly grandeur. A deep and incurable melancholy settled upon her, which undermined her constitution, and gave a fatal acuteness to her bodily maladies. After ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... that impossible, while I repeated them with redoubled force-he struck me!-Powers of earth and heaven, what was then the tempest of my soul!-I drew my sword-I would have laid him dead at my feet, had not my obsequious countrymen held my arm, and ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... prayers as if he had been a god, and he marvelled at the voices of a great multitude who cried that the Star of Salvation had dawned upon them in the East. This may doubtless have been no more than a fulsome compliment paid by an obsequious Oriental crowd to the Roman emperor. But it is also possible that the rising of a bright star regularly gave the signal for the festival, and that as chance would have it the star emerged above the rim of the eastern horizon at ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... ourselves by contemplating the Planter and his generous, simple life. It calms one to look at him. He is something placid, strong, and easeful. Without wishing to appear obsequious, I always feel disposed to borrow money when I meet a substantial Planter. He inspires confidence. I grasp his strong hand; I take him (figuratively) to my heart, while the desire to bank with him wells up mysteriously ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... intense vivacity in Arabic, at the same time shooting glances half-obsequious, half-impudent, wholly and even preternaturally keen and intelligent at Domini. Batouch replied with the dignified languor that seemed peculiar to him. The colloquy continued for two or three minutes. Domini thought it sounded like a quarrel, but she was not accustomed to Arabs' ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... the approaching boat was a plainly dressed man, whose appearance so bespoke the mercantile class that it hardly needed the doffing of the captain's cap and his obsequious "your servant, Mr. Cauldwell, and good health to you," as the man clambered on board, to announce the owner of the ship. To the emigrants this sudden deference was a revelation concerning the cruel and oath-using tyrant at whose ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... claimed for himself the surname of Felix, as he attributed his success in life to the favor of the gods. All ranks in Rome bowed in awe before their master; and among other marks of distinction which were voted to him by the obsequious Senate, a gilt equestrian statue was erected to his honor before the Rostra, bearing the inscription "Cornelio Sullae ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... Beatrix, who had pouted sufficiently, (and who, whenever a stranger appeared, began, from infancy almost, to play off little graces to catch his attention,) her brother being now gone to bed, was for taking her place upon Esmond's knee: for, though the Doctor was very obsequious to her, she did not like him, because he had thick boots and dirty hands (the pert young miss said), and because she hated learning ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... How imitative nature takes her course From the celestial mind and from its art: And where her laws the Stagyrite unfolds, Not many leaves scann'd o'er, observing well Thou shalt discover, that your art on her Obsequious follows, as the learner treads In his instructor's step, so that your art Deserves the name of second in descent From God. These two, if thou recall to mind Creation's holy book, from the beginning Were the right source of life and excellence To human kind. But in another path ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... darkness an endless, garrulous appeal for mercy. A sense of danger, of daring, had alone nerved Carthew to enter the forecastle; and here was the enemy crying and pleading like a frightened child. His obsequious "Here, sir," his horrid fluency of obtestation, made the murder tenfold more revolting. Twice Carthew raised the pistol, once he pressed the trigger (or thought he did) with all his might, but no explosion followed; and with that the lees of his courage ran quite out, and he turned and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... contribution is a child's portrait, posed and painted in a rather distant, if obsequious, imitation of the manner of Velasquez, the great difference being that whereas the Spaniard's work is most remarkable for supreme distinction, the present portrait is ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... and are habituated to it, and do not realize the oppression; because in childhood circumstance and the black art of education alike conspire to make the worker humble in heart and to take the crown and sceptre from his spirit, and his elders are already tamed and obsequious. ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... but that they come first to the house for dinner. So the guests did the best they could at improving their appearance at the bunkhouse after turning their horses over to the obsequious Ananias, who appeared with a large bandage, and a strong smell of turpentine, on ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... it seems, Such is its strange and virtuous property, It moves obsequious to the gentlest touch Of him whose breast is pure; but to a traitor, Though e'en a giant's prowess nerved his arm, It stands as ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... Purpose overflattered, are apt to practise this which one may call the preventing Aspect, and throw their Attention another Way, lest they should confer a Bow or a Curtsie upon a Person who might not appear to deserve that Dignity. Others you shall find so obsequious, and so very courteous, as there is no escaping their Favours of this Kind. Of this Sort may be a Man who is in the fifth or sixth Degree of Favour with a Minister; this good Creature is resolved to shew the World, that great Honours cannot at all change his Manners; he is the same ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... his well-oiled locks, and thus you have the "bar-keeper of the boat." His nether man need not be described. That is the unseen portion of his person, which is below the level of the bar. No cringing, smirking, obsequious counter-jumper he, but a dashing sprig, who, perhaps, owns his bar and all its contents, and who holds his head as high as either the clerk ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... Charles V. ascended the throne of Spain, he had no beard. It was not to be expected that the obsequious parasites who always surround a monarch, could presume to look more virile than their master. Immediately all the courtiers appeared beardless, with the exception of such few grave old men as had outgrown the influence of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Todd to which he led me, in the presence of the great man, he did not venture any airy presentation. Boller of '89 inside of the study door was quite a different person from the Boller without it. The bold manner fled. He was suppressed, obsequious; even his clothes seemed to shrink and grow humbly dun. We entered so quietly that the doctor, bending over his desk, did not hear us, and we had to cough apologetically to apprise ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... her husband," naming the man, and his father-in-law, then dead, and his mother, still alive; the truth of which the woman, upon examination, openly avowed. A similar circumstance happened in our time in Denmark. A certain unknown priest paid court to the archbishop, and, from his obsequious behaviour and discreet conduct, his general knowledge of letters and quick memory, soon contracted a great familiarity with him. Conversing one day with the archbishop about ancient histories and unknown events, on which topic he most frequently heard ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... resulted in resignations which according to the records did not exceed two hundred. To account for so small a number, we must suppose that the regulations were to a considerable extent evaded; if not, the clergy must have been singularly obsequious. ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... he, as they seated themselves at a table and an obsequious waiter began to put ice and then water into their glasses. "Now, what would ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... like this," said Mr.. Bryany, sitting down opposite Edward Henry at the centre table, and reaching with obsequious liveliness for the dispatch-box. ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... the ordinary world which she could not bridge. At one point the door opened, and Helen came in with a little dark man who had—it was the chief thing she noticed about him—very hairy hands. She was drowsy and intolerably hot, and as he seemed shy and obsequious she scarcely troubled to answer him, although she understood that he was a doctor. At another point the door opened and Terence came in very gently, smiling too steadily, as she realised, for it to be natural. He sat down and talked to her, stroking her hands until ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... cordial bow was returned coolly by Orchil, and apparently not observed at all by Mottly. He sat a second in his cab, motionless, the obsequious smile still stencilled on his flushed face; then the flush darkened; he got out of his cab and, bidding the man wait, rang ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... than active, and with a well-defined object. Now that an object was to be attained by action the lessons of patient endurance counted for naught. Instead of determined action against her open revolt, Pierre had been smilingly obsequious and non-resisting. ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... the obsequious Ounce, Who weighs full many a pound; At you he playfully would bounce, If you were walking round. Approach him and the Ounce you'll see Spring like a catapult; Just try it once, and you will ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... The use or the abuse It matters not. Let them all go together, As empty phrases and frivolities, And common as gold-lace upon the collar Of an obsequious lackey. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... prompt and obsequious obedience. The Fighting MacDonalds individually must ever be treated with respect, but the Fighting MacDonalds in a body! Surely not the most vivid Orangeman could blame him in his extremity. Perhaps ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... puissant, grandiose, calm, Held Asia's richest jewel in her palm; And with unnumbered isles barbaric, she The broad hem of her glistering robe impearl'd; Then, when she wound her arms about the world, And had for vassal the obsequious sea." ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... passed; the carriage drew up before the inn door, the host delivered his most obsequious bow, fair Rosa bade farewell to her lover, the prince and Gulielmo entered the stately vehicle, and, with a loud crack of the coachman's whip, the travellers ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... be crossed with difficulty, and the crowd from America too was deterred by the danger. Instead of the throngs at the great points of interest, the visitors counted by twos and threes. The guides and landlords were obsequious. We few strangers had the Alps to ourselves and they were as lavish of their splendours to the handful as to the multitude. At Geneva at last I found letters from home which caused me anxiety; I was ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... course, that she was obliged to devote to her husband, walking or driving or riding with him, in rather a ceremonial manner, almost as she might have done had she belonged to that charmed circle whose smallest walk or drive is recorded by obsequious chroniclers in every journal in the united kingdom. Then came six brilliant weeks in August and September, when Arden Court was filled with visitors, and Clarissa began to feel how onerous are the duties of a chatelaine. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... on some stone, nigh where the tide Of passers-by in thickest confluence flow'd: To whom with loud and passionate laments From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd. Nor wail'd to all in vain: some here and there, The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave. I meantime at his feet obsequious slept; Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear Prick'd up at his least motion, to receive At his kind hand my customary crumbs, And common portion in his feast of scraps; Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent With our long day and tedious beggary. These were my manners, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... trifles. Downward flies my lord, Nodding beside my lady in his carriage. Away! away! 'Fresh horses!' are the word, And changed as quickly as hearts after marriage; The obsequious landlord hath the change restored; The postboys have no reason to disparage Their fee; but ere the water'd wheels may hiss hence, The ostler ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... of the court just beyond the row of palms and oleanders that fringed the rail against which his Herald rested, that he might read as he ran, so to speak. He was the only person having dejeuner on the "terrace," as he named it to the obsequious waiter who always attended him. Charles was the magnet that drew Brock to the Chatham (that excellent French hotel with the excellent English name). It is beside the question to remark that one is obliged ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... would be a few house servants trained in all the intricacies of patriarchal hospitality and courtesy. The carriage driver and keeper of the stables, sometimes clad in the extra dignity of a special livery and a tall silk hat, a tyrant to all the little negroes, but an obsequious flatterer to those who were welcome at the master's house, was perhaps the most envied man of the estate. To see this matchless son of Africa mounted on the high seat of an old-fashioned English carriage, as he drove his prancing horses to the front door of the "great house" ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... the Pension Malfait they were kept waiting a few moments, but at last M. Malfait appeared in the hall. He received them with obsequious amiability. ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... grinding corn; and we were astonished to see how quickly our hostess reduced the grains to an impalpable meal. The only thing that looked like a bed was a stiff rawhide thrown over a series of round poles running lengthwise. This primitive couch, and likewise the whole house, the obsequious governor gave up to us, insisting upon sleeping with his wife and little ones outside, though the nights were cold and uncomfortable. Parents and children were of the earth, earthy—unwashed, uncombed, and disgustingly filthy. We found the governor one day taking ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... more men than girls. They danced and chatted with untiring energy, and between the dances they flirted on the stairs and in every possible nook and corner. Magdalena frolicked little, having her guests to look after; but whenever she rested for a moment there was an obsequious backbone before her. Tiny and Ila were besieged for ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the dominie met the inspector's trap some distance from the school, and explained that he would guide him by a short cut, leaving the driver to take the dog-cart to a farm where it could be put up. The unsuspecting inspector agreed, and they set off, the obsequious dominie carrying his bag. He led his victim into another glen, the hills round which had hidden their heads in mist, and then slyly remarked that he was afraid they had lost their way. The minister, who liked to attend the examination, ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... she had disappeared into a passage-way, the grated door of which and its bell still rattled and sounded. The young man walked back to the alley and saw the woman reach the farther end, where she began to mount—not without receiving the obsequious bow of an old portress—a winding staircase, the lower steps of which were strongly lighted; she went up buoyantly, ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... to be thus obsequious to my Friends, especially when they require nothing but what's reasonable. O ridiculous! Do you think I would refuse when offer'd me, that which I should have ask'd ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... a day since I've seen your honor at The Jolly Grig," murmured Marmaduke, with a certain obsequious familiarity that he reserved for ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... of all, the king himself, who sets an example of sin and iniquity, which is followed by all the nation. The peasantry are slaves, trodden in the dust, without hope and without spirit. The nobles are obsequious time-servers and place-hunters. The old sentiment of chivalry is dead. I will never go to such a country. Here, in this land, where I have lived the best part of my life, I intend to remain, to labor among these simple ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... descending the stairs, took their seats in the carriage which was in readiness at the door. A quarter of an hour's drive brought them to the superb mansion wherein the entertainment was to be given. Alighting from the carriage, they were conducted by an obsequious attendant to a small ante-room, where they deposited their cloaks, and adjusted over their faces the sort of half-mask used on such occasions. A beautiful boy, dressed as a page, then led the way up a broad marble stair case, and throwing open a door, they ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... in his former post, and of which he had not divested himself, should have made his helplessness laughable and pitiable. Nevertheless, during many months, his power seemed to stand firm. He was a favourite with the King, whom he resembled in narrowness of mind, and to whom he was more obsequious than Pitt had ever been. The nation was put into high good humour by a peace with France. The enthusiasm with which the upper and middle classes had rushed into the war had spent itself. Jacobinism was no longer formidable. Everywhere there was a strong reaction against what was called ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was as polite as to his father, and to both he was almost obsequious. It was rather difficult for father or son to realize that this was the man who had threatened to send his own brother to the fort as a soldier, to say nothing of the abusive language ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... before one of the popular cafes, now effervescing with sprightly life. He paused here a moment to listen to the music. A group of well-groomed men and women laughingly clambered out of a big touring car and passed in before the obsequious attendants. He watched them with some envy. Music, good food, good wines, laughter, and bright eyes—the flimsiest vanities of life to be sure—and yet there was something in his hungry heart that craved them all. Well, ten years from now perhaps,—his hand fell upon the vial. No. Not ten years ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... to be done? The court was obsequious to the Proconsul, afraid of Rome; jealous that the mob should have been more forward than the magistracy. Had the city moved sooner, as soon as the edict came, there would have been no rising, no riot. Already they had been called on for a report about that riot ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... vengeance of heaven set at defiance. Through this infamous channel the ministry had it in their power to thrust into parliament a set of venal beggars, who, as they depended upon their bounty, would always be obsequious to their will, and vote according to direction, without the least regard to the dictates of conscience, or to the advantage of their country. The mischiefs attending such a vile collusion, and in particular the undue influence which the crown must have acquired from the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... at; and thinks himself entitled now to call in question my value for him; strengthening his doubts by my former declared readiness to give him up to a reconciliation with my friends; and yet has himself fallen off from that obsequious tenderness, if I may couple the words, which drew from me the concessions ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... days. He had more than enough money to last him until he reached El Paso, and a plentiful stock of cigars. It was about nine o'clock next morning when he pulled up at Flores's 'dobe and dismounted stiffly. Flores was visibly surprised and fawningly obsequious. His chief was dressed for a long journey. It had been many years since The Spider had ridden so far from Showdown. Something portentous was about to happen, or ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Some sort of retort had apparently hovered on her lips, but had been checked, even before it was uttered, by a peremptory look from her husband. Simon the cobbler, snarling in speech but obsequious in manner, prepared to accompany the citizen ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... pedagogue would have cried out, or sworn profane oaths in his agony, had it been any other than the 'Heir- Apparent' who thus made him wince with torture,—but as matters stood, he merely smiled—and bore it. The young rascal of a prince smiled too,—taking note of his obsequious hypocrisy, which served an inquiring mind with quite as good a field for logical speculation as any problem in Euclid. And he went on with his questions,—questions, which if not puzzling, were at least irritating enough to have secured him a rap on the knuckles from his tutor's cane, had ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... presently and were sick in our little buggy berths. It was pleasant, certainly, to laugh at Joinville's admiral's flag floating at his foremast, in yonder black ship, with its two thundering great guns at the bows and stern, its busy crew swarming on the deck, and a crowd of obsequious shore-boats bustling round the vessel—and to sneer at the Mogador warrior, and vow that we English, had we been inclined to do the business, would have performed it ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... car over the hotel telephone. The hotel attachs were obsequious and would be waiting to escort him in state across the main office. The politicians would surround the car. And he was perfectly sure that some of the big men of an amazed State House lobby might step into that car along with him and seek to know what in the name o' mischief had happened ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... beauty, I had almost said the deliciousness of their place of abode, had effected a wondrous improvement in the health of Maria; yet her mother was not happy. She was not treated by her neighbours with the obsequious reverence which she believed to be due to persons possessed of twenty thousand pounds. The fashionable ladies in the neighbourhood, also, called her "a mean person"—"a nobody"—"an upstart of yesterday." In truth, there were not a few who so spoke, because they envied the wealth of the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... smiled deprecatingly. He had small, obsequious eyes and narrow shoulders. "If the gracious Herr would be so good," he said, shrugging them a little. "The people have assembled." He glanced back over the fast-filling church and raised his eyebrows a trifle to ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... it must be Carrots, some say the Brick. The Colonel is produced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr. Snagsby and his conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from its squalid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr. Bucket. Whenever they move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away and flits about them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... for this old cove being only too glad to get rid of our poor, and the fees into his pocket, is not very particular about names. If it were one of our 'first families,' the old fellow would be so obsequious about having the ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... surely never come here again," said Christina to her father, as he entered the room an hour after the incidents of the chess-board; for the obsequious minister had followed Ericson in his rapid retreat, and now returned radiant with joy, as if his guest had been ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... did obsequious wait For the kind dole divided at his gate. Laurus among the meagre crowd appeared, An old, revolted, unbelieving bard, Who thronged, and shoved, and pressed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... (Saturnia thus began) Who spread'st thy empire o'er each god and man; If e'er obsequious to thy Juno's will, O power of slumbers! hear, and favour still. Shed thy soft dews on Jove's immortal eyes, While sunk in love's entrancing joys he lies. A splendid footstool, and a throne, that shine With gold unfading, Somnus, shall be thine; The work of Vulcan; ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... furniture—satin and white-enameled woodwork until the gong should gather them; and my aunt is there, very marvelously wrapped about in a dust cloak and a cage-like veil, and there are hotel porters and under-porters very alert, and an obsequious manager; and the tall young lady in black from the office is surprised into admiration, and in the middle of the picture is my uncle, making his first appearance in that Esquimaux costume I have already mentioned, a short figure, compactly immense, hugely goggled, wearing a ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... his master's affections by means of servile compliance; these two species of subjects corresponding exactly to those which Iago describes,—the one, a duteous and knee-crooking knave, doting on his own obsequious bondage, wearing out his time much like his master's ass; the other trimm'd in forms and visages of duty, keeping yet his heart attending on himself. When a subject differed from his master, the loyal path for him to pursue was to use every available ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... touched his hat respectfully, and went up the gangway, followed by the obsequious porter. A moment later they reached the deck, and no sooner had the captain disappeared round a corner than both men approached the second mate, with whom they had a hurried and earnest conversation, followed by an interchange of something which that officer transferred to ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... less an individual than the celebrated philosopher Yen-tsz, a respected acquaintance of Confucius (though, of course, much his senior), and second only to Kwan-tsz amongst the great administrative statesmen of Ts'i. The half-barbarous King of Ts'u concocted with his obsequious courtiers a nice little scheme for humiliating the northern envoy by indicating to him the small door provided for his entry into the presence, such as the Grand Seigneurs in their hey-day used to provide for the Christian ambassadors ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... weeks' absence, Gualtier returned. Hilda, full of impatience, sent for him to the morning-room almost as soon as he had arrived, and went there to wait for his appearance. She did not have to wait long. In a few minutes Gualtier made his appearance, obsequious ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... with the psychology of rulership, and did not understand that when once, by fair means or foul, a certain member of a party has by her own unaided efforts elevated herself to the position of its queen, everything ostensibly witty that proceeds from her mouth is greeted with obsequious laughter by her ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... as to form symbols and mottoes, which the superior beast is supposed to decipher with ease. The floor of this splendid float is laid with gilt matting curiously woven, in the centre of which his four-footed lordship is installed in state, surrounded by an obsequious and enraptured crowd of mere bipeds, who bathe him, perfume him, fan him, feed him, sing and play to him, flatter him. His food consists of the finest herbs, the tenderest grass, the sweetest sugar-cane, the mellowest plantains, the brownest cakes ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... evidence that a sumptuous repast was in preparation. The bar was fully supplied with all kinds of sparkling liquors. As the new-comers arrived, they met a smiling host, an attentive and ready bar-tender, and obsequious waiters ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... I might have guessed," replied the farmer, bowing with an aged, obsequious dignity. "You have made an old man very happy; and I may say, indeed, that I have entertained an angel unawares. Sir, the great people of this world—and by that I mean those who are great in station—if they had only hearts like yours, how they would make ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of selection as I guessed it. "He forced his way into the F.O. and in an obsequious tone, which you and I, Geraldine, would be ashamed to adopt, begged for the favour of a bag to carry with him. If the KING had known about it he would rather have sent his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... rubbing his hands together with an air oppressively obsequious, "I'm sorry to hin-form you you've come to the wrong shop, sir; we don't stock no Calendars. We're in the 'ardware line, we are. You might try next door, or I dessay you'll find what you want at the stytioner's, round ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... "permit me to continue as I am. We now stand to each other in the proper relation of employe to employer. The former is excessively obsequious, and the latter is, in the eyes of the ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... Ben Zoof obeyed. The door was unfastened, and Isaac Hakkabut, enveloped in an old overcoat, shuffled into the gallery. In a few moments Servadac approached, and the Jew began to overwhelm him with the most obsequious epithets. Without vouchsafing any reply, the captain beckoned to the old man to follow him, and leading the way to the central hall, stopped, and turning so as to look him steadily in the face, said, "Now is your opportunity. Tell me what ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... full speed, but slackened its pace as it drew near. The functionaries formed a group, drawing themselves up, arranging their swords, adjusting their false collars, while Jansoulet walked along the track toward the train, the obsequious smile on his lips and his back already bent for the "Salem alek!" The train continued to move, very slowly. Jansoulet thought that it had stopped, and placed his hand on the door of the royal carriage glittering with gold under the black sky; but the headway was too great, doubtless, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the Rebel leaders. Several officers in "Secession gray" were lounging about this room, and one of them, a short, slightly-built, youthful-looking man, rose as we entered, and, in a half-pompous, half-obsequious way, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... the most objectionable, because it is the most demoralizing of all. Where such discrimination obtains, every shipper is in the power of the railroad corporation. It makes of independent citizens of a free country fawning parasites and obsequious sycophants who accept favors from railroad managers and in return do their bidding, however humiliating this may be. The shipper, realizing that the manager's displeasure or good will toward him finds practical expression in his daily freight bills, finally loses, like the serf, ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... have slipped away from the uniforms, the tawdry mockery of a puppet court, to find the pitiful comfort of rehearsing my heart-ache to you, who own my heart. In my life here every hour is mapped, and I seem to move from cell to cell. So many obsequious jailers who call themselves courtiers stand about and seem to watch me, that I feel as if I had to ask permission to draw my breath. Out in the narrow streets of this little picture town, I see dark-skinned, bare-footed girls. Some of them carry skins of wine on their heads. All of them are poor. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... rather than were truly so. But always my advancement he design'd; For 'twas his very nature to be kind: Large was his soul, his temper ever free; The best of masters and of men to me: And I who was before decreed by fate, To be made infamous as well as great, With an obsequious diligence obey'd him, Till trusted with his ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... attitude of hesitation; which she, interpreting to her advantage, repeated her request, and endeavoured to force a leer of invitation into her countenance. He took her arm, and they walked on to one of those obsequious taverns in the neighbourhood, where the dearness of the wine is a discharge in full for the character of the house. From what impulse he did this we do not mean to enquire; as it has ever been against our nature to search for motives where bad ones are to be found. They entered, and ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... kindness oozed from his every pore. In fact, he was always grumbling about the amount of work he had to do for nothing. He was a genial, generous host; unostentatiously conspicuous in the local religious life of his denomination; in court a model of obsequious urbanity, deferential to the judges before whom he appeared and courteous to all with whom he was thrown in contact. A good-natured, easy-going, simple-minded fat man; deliberate, slow of speech, well-meaning, with honesty sticking out all over him, you would have ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... taken her seat, however, than there was the dog close to the car, timid, obsequious, winning, with his wisp of a head cocked on one side. We drove on, and he followed pertinaciously. Mildly adjured by the Countess to "go home, little dog," he came on the faster. Many adventures he had, such as a ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... American tourist, and as he seated himself in a London restaurant he was immediately attended by an obsequious waiter. ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... long-tailed frock coat, shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty little slouch hat, tipped over his left eye, the small-fry roughs made room for his majesty; when he entered the restaurant, the waiters deserted bankers and merchants, to overwhelm him with obsequious attention; when he shouldered his way to the bar, the shouldered parties wheeled indignantly, recognized him, and—apologized. They got a look in reply, that made them tremble in their boots, and by this time, a gorgeous barkeeper was leaning over the counter, ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... things to progress along the platform with his genial, important tiptoe walk, and elbows squarely stuck out, to the carriage that was at once reserved for him, to touch the brim of his grey top-hat (if travelling up to town) to the obsequious guard, and to observe the heads of passengers who wondered why their express was arrested, thrust out of carriage windows to look at him. A livened footman, as well as a valet, followed him, bearing a coat and a rug and a morning or evening paper and a dispatch-box with a ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... presence of the two other men in the car. She sensed that it was only their being there that kept Dean from making a scene. There was nothing in his manner toward her now of the obsequious chauffeur. While she admitted to herself that there was no longer the necessity for his continuing in his fictitious character she strongly resented his loverlike jealousy for her welfare and welcomed the chief's return, for she ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... lean in the other—with the young to the old in the one, as the young to the old in the other—with head to body, as head to body; and nose to knee, as nose to knee, &c. &c., (and the critics have done a great deal)—then is the work oracularly pronounced one of 'High Art;' and the obsequious artist is pleased to consider ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... Cathedral bell-ringer, and the gaoler of Alice Benden. He obeyed the summons of the pompous voice with obsequious celerity, for it belonged to no less a person than the Lord Bishop of Dover. His Lordship, having caught sight of the bell-ringer as he crossed the precincts, had called him, and Perkins came up, his hat in one hand, and pulling his forelock with ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... you suppose he knew the use that would be made of the word?" asked Genifrede. "If he had foreseen its being a tide, he would have contented himself with the obsequious bows I remember so well, and ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... Ashurst's is smooth, and bland, and financial. And then their manner! Both are fussy; but Lady Georgina's is honest, open, ill-tempered fussiness; Mr. Ashurst's is concealed under an artificial mask of obsequious politeness. One's cantankerous; the other's only pernicketty. It's one tune, after all, in two ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... An obsequious valet assisted him to dress under the direction of a dignified chief attendant, a little man whose face proclaimed him Japanese, albeit he spoke English like an Englishman. From the latter he learnt something of the state of affairs. Already the revolution was an accepted fact; already business ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... have been different had they presented themselves in humble guise like the Asiatics and Africans to whom Egypt had opened her doors so freely after the XVIIIth dynasty, and if they had adopted the obsequious manners of the Phoenician and Hebrew merchants; but they landed from their ships fully equipped for war, and, proud of their own courage and ability, they vied with the natives of the ancient race, whether ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... of 20, from the Conservatoire, teacher of music. Wears a fringe, and is super-fashionably dressed. Obsequious, and gets easily confused. ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... are supinely good: thro' care and pain And various arts, the steep ascent we gain. This is the scene of combat, not of rest, Man's is laborious happiness at best; On this side death his dangers never cease, His joys are joys of conquest, not of peace. If then, obsequious to the will of fate, And bending to the terms of human state, When guilty joys invite us to their arms, When beauty smiles, or grandeur spreads her charms, The conscious soul would this great scene display, Call down th' immortal hosts in ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... know some Latin, and a deal of vice. I can make Chansons, ballades, lais, virelais, and roundels, and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a garret, and I shall not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my lord, that from this night forward I am your lordship's very obsequious ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... of Mr. Westmore at this moment was enough to awe even the most careless. His gigantic form was drawn to its fullest height. His flashing eyes, turned full upon Pete's face, caused that obsequious menial to fall back a step or two. Even a blow from the parson's clenched fist just then would not have been a surprise. His spirit at this moment was that of the prophets of old, and even of the Great Master Himself, upholding justice and defending the cause of the ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... to the subject against the civil and ecclesiastical tyranny of that period. The judges of the common law, holding their situations during the pleasure of the King, were scandalously obsequious. Yet, obsequious as they were, they were less ready and less efficient instruments of arbitrary power than a class of courts, the memory of which is still, after the lapse of more than two centuries, held in deep abhorrence by the nation. Foremost among ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... breakfasted in her room, went for a ramble over the house. It seemed solemnly vast and empty, and she would have lost herself many times had she not encountered now and then a courtesying house-maid or an obsequious footman, who answered her inquiries and told her into what ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... longer the only world to which all else in the firmament were obsequious attendants, but a mere insignificant speck among the host of heaven! Man no longer the centre and cynosure of creation, but, as it were, an insect crawling on the surface of this little speck! All this not set down in crabbed Latin in dry folios for ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... was magical. The man became obsequious directly; the horses were led to a rough kind of stable; barley was found for them, a sturdy fellow removed bridles and saddles, and carried them into a good-sized very bare-looking room in the house, which he informed them was to be their chamber ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... a Jesuit. Every body knows an infantry officer, with his "eyes right" physiognomy, his odious black-stock, and his habit of treading on his heels, and can distinguish him from the cavalry man, straddling like a gander at a pond side. Your medical doctor has an obsequious, mealy-mouthed, hope-I-see-you-better face, and carries his hands as if he had just taken his fingers from a poultice; while your lawyer is recognised at once by his perking, conceited, cross-examination phiz, the exact counterpart to the expression ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Cousin Bill, docile and obsequious, hurried off to execute her ladyship's commission. He found the pair chatting pleasantly together in a corner of the deserted ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... to his stately office and passed through his obsequious rows of clerks to his inner sanctum. Then he lit another cigar and gave orders that he was not to be disturbed for a quarter of an hour. He reposed in a comfortable chair and allowed himself to dream. All his plans were working; there must be no rush. Great emergencies ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... during the Emigration, and had never begged bread of a foreign hand. Louis-Philippe continued prudently the role he had played at the end of the first Restoration and during the Hundred Days. While professing an obsequious and enthusiastic respect for Charles X., he secretly flattered the Bonapartists and the Liberals. He sent his eldest son to the public school, as if to insinuate that he remained faithful to the ideas of ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... less than ever a gentleman at five o'clock in the morning, was another. Mannix retained, in spite of his sleepiness and his sensation of grime, a slight amount of self-control. He was moderately grateful to an obsequious sailor who relieved him of his kit bag. He carried, as he had the night before, his own gun-case and fishing-rod. The elderly gentleman, who carried nothing, had no self-control whatever. He swore at the overburdened sailor who took his things ashore ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... have already spoken of the custom of clothing the images of the gods as a classical tradition. The Greeks draped their statues in precious garments, often the spoils of subjugated nations, offerings from the conquerors, or obsequious tribute from the conquered. Newton (Appendix 1) tells us of inscriptions containing inventories of old clothes offered in the Greek Temples. Ezekiel (xvi.) speaks of silk and linen embroideries given for covering the idols. The images of the saints in Roman Catholic churches are, we ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... the honour of entertaining the strangers. At last, a tall old gentleman, by name Marharvai, with a bald head and white beard, took us each by the hand, and led us into his dwelling. Once inside, Marharvai, pointing about with his staff, was so obsequious in assuring us that his house was ours that Long Ghost suggested he might as well hand ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville |
