"Decent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... adventures enliven your journals, are dressed 'in the height of fashion,' and enjoy 'a mild prepossessing demeanour.' Even the Cholera does not menace 'a gentleman of the better ranks;' and no bodies are burked with a decent suit of clothes on their backs. Wealth in all countries is the highest possible morality; but you carry the doctrine to so great an excess, that you scarcely suffer the poor man to exist at all. If he take a walk in the country, there's the Vagrant Act; and if he has not a penny to hire a cellar ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... betray us, because in Mazowsze every one of them deserves to be hanged. Only we must give them decent clothes so that they will be taken for Jurand's servants; and we must get the principal thing: a ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... together. Let us allow, then, frugality itself to be another and fourth virtue; for its peculiar property seems to be, to govern and appease all tendencies to too eager a desire after anything, to restrain lust, and to preserve a decent steadiness in everything. The vice in contrast to this is called prodigality (nequitia). Frugality, I imagine, is derived from the word fruge, the best thing which the earth produces; nequitia is derived (though this is perhaps rather more strained; still, let us try it; we shall only ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... striking twelve he appeared slightly agitated, but he soon recovered, walked twice or thrice along the coach house, stopped to bark, staggered, and exclaimed 'Halloa, old girl!' (his favorite expression) and died. He behaved throughout with decent fortitude, equanimity and self-possession. I deeply regret that, being in ignorance of his danger, I did not attend to receive ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... adorns my face whenever I neglect the razor for a few days, when an auto came tooting and roaring down the narrow street, and a moment later three staff officers took the stairs at a run. So far, good; that was unofficial, good-natured, human and entirely decent. The three of them burst through the bed room door, all grins, and took turns pumping with Jeremy's right arm—glad to see him—proud to know him—pleased to see him looking fit and well, and all that kind of thing. Even men who had fought all through the war had forgotten some of its red tape ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... I, almost struck dumb by my success, but letting no hint of my complacency escape me. "And I did not mean they should. You are a decent woman, Mrs. Boppert, ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... to say, but maybe it was this, that the world hasn't changed so much as folks often think. I get to watching young people sometimes—it seems as if they were like the young people in my day, and I think any young man that's steady and decent and has a good situation—what I mean is this, that he—well, it depends on the ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... his shaggy head and turned a shade yellower. "It is no place for decent folk," he growled. "I myself once passed within a mile of its outskirts at dusk, and saw the unholy little people's lanterned processions starting for the shrine of Queen Yang, who, tradition says, killed herself and a thousand babies with her ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... were completely turned upon the tormentors, and they were only too glad to drop their airs and treat Becky with the respect that pluck and superior power invariably command. But while thus constrained to decent behavior before Becky's eyes, behind her back they gave way to the resentment that they felt against her for her triumph over them, and let no opportunity slip to say slighting things of her. Good-natured Lizzie would laugh when they said these things to her,—when they told her ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... of the rain, the bo'sun called us all together, that we might make a decent burial of the unfortunate lad, whose remains had lain during the night upon one of the bottom-boards of the boat. After a little discussion, it was decided to bury him in the beach; for the only part where there was soft earth was in the valley, and ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... satisfied the crowd, already sated with eloquence. I wondered if the unfortunate man could feel the chill settling down upon the house as he spoke his random and undignified sentences, whether he could see the first stragglers slipping down the aisles. What did his decent record, his honest purpose, avail him in an hour like this? He tried to lash himself to vigour, but it was spurring a broken-winded horse. The stragglers increased into a flying squadron, the house was emptying fast, when the chairman in sheer desperation made a sign to the ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... his bruises would hardly have time to disappear. His family were staying for the summer at Scarborough, and his sisters wrote him enthusiastic accounts of the lawn-tennis parties there. How could he present himself in decent society, with one of his eyes in mourning? But he saw something comic in his own annoyance, and it did not affect him sufficiently to interfere with his studies or amusements. He neither feared the contest nor desired it. He had no wish to quarrel with ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... twenty-five dollars. Bargaining with him stood the negro-driver, a tattooed African, armed with a whip. All within the court swarmed the black bees of the hive,—the men with little clothing, the small children naked, the women decent. All had their little charcoal fires, with pots boiling over them; the rooms within looked dismally dark, close, and dirty; there are no windows, no air and light save through the ever-open door. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... saw, And built a stage, found out a decent dress, Brought vizards in (a civiler disguise), And taught men how to speak and how ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... know," the other said. "I think it's pretty decent of her, and she may manage it. ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... cake up to Mis' Cass's. Some folks in this town think a storekeeper ain't got nothing to do but chase out 'phone-orders. . . . Hello, Carrie. That dress you got on looks kind of low in the neck to me. May be decent and modest—I suppose I'm old-fashioned—but I never thought much of showing the whole town a woman's bust! Hee, hee, hee! . . . Afternoon, Mrs. Hicks. Sage? Just out of it. Lemme sell you some other spices. Heh?" Uncle Whittier was nasally ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... let on. Two of 'em acted as if they thought I was nuts. The other guy-I think he was Air Force Intelligence—acted decent. He said not to get steamed up about the Aero-Medical boys; it was their job to screen ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... resident within a district of more enlightened views and higher character than his fellows. A good many thousand pounds were contributed and expended for this purpose. Absolutely no stipulation was made by the contributors to this fund, except that the aim should be for honest and decent government. The funds were placed unreservedly in the hands of well-known and highly respected men who were themselves burghers of the State, and the Uitlanders laid themselves out for one more effort to effect the reforms by peaceful means and pressure from ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... not. You look like an exceptionally decent young man. Have you had breakfast? Alexina, go and ask Maggie, if she has recovered herself, to make ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... bead industry of Venice is but a poorly-paid one; only the most skilful among the hands can manage to make a decent livelihood. Not very many of the women can earn more than about 4-1/2d. a day, so that for them all the fast-days decreed by their Church are quite superfluous; their fasts last from Ash Wednesday to Ash Wednesday. Even polenta, that very frugal Italian national dish, is for ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... "We found it fairly comfortable travelling through Wayne County. The roads are decent enough and the settlers are numerous. It was after we left Madison County that we encountered hardships. We travelled for a while with a party of emigrants who were heading for the settlement at Strawtown. There were three families of them, including a dozen children. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... which he never got a direct reply from them, but by degrees he picked up many missing details from other sources. What he learned in this way indicated merely that they had been very poor at times, and poverty had forced them to earn a living by work that was quite honest and decent, but not "socially respectable." At one time, before her daughter was old enough to assume a share of the burden, Granny had actually had to fall back on the coarsest and humblest menial work—scrubbing and washing ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... in meeting Louis Devoe. That was easily accomplished, for the foreign colony in Mojada numbered scarce a dozen; and they gathered daily at a half-decent hotel kept by a Turk, where they managed to patch together the fluttering rags of country and civilization that were left them. I sought Devoe before I did my pearl of the doorway, because I had learned a little of the game of war, and knew better than to strike for a prize ...
— Options • O. Henry
... her son was a fool and worse because he had neither the consideration nor the silly sense of a fool's solicitude for a hard-worked mother. She appealed to the sleeping Lumai, who awoke heavily and fatly, who muttered and mumbled easy terms of Somo dialect to the effect that it was a most decent world, that all puppy dogs and eldest-born sons were right delightful things to possess, that he had never yet starved to death, and that peace and sleep were the finest things that ever befell the lot of mortal ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... taking of her part, B. A woman as has a husband as finds her with her wittels regular, and with what's decent and comfortable beside, ought to be contented. I've never said no other than that. I ain't no patience with your saucy madames as can't remember as they're eating an honest man's bread. Drat 'em all; what is it they wants? They don't know what they ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... guard the doors and keep off the inquisitive. This done, thoroughly tired out, the boys sought the hotel. Like most towns of its size and importance Meadville only boasted one hostelry worthy of the name. This place, the Fountain House, as it was called, was a decent enough looking hotel and the young aviators were warmly welcomed. After supper, for in Meadville nobody "dined," Miss Prescott and the girls sauntered out with The Wren to obtain some clothing for the waif who had so strangely ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... in too readily, and young Paul was glad enough to be set free from his unhappy home. There may be some excuse in this for the licentious living to which he now gave himself up. He was heir to a decent fortune, and of course thought himself justified in spending it before-hand. Then, in spite of his quaint little figure, he had something attractive about him, for his merry face was good-looking, if not positively ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Bert found himself standing in front of a rather shabby three-story house, in a decent, but not fashionable, street. The name Stubbs ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... are decent to the evening star. I will go at once and find your brother. When shall ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... excellent husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a degree of wealth; all above it he bestowed in secret bounties many years after the sum he aimed at for his own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken his industry, but to a decent old age spent the life and fortune which was superfluous to himself, in the service of his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... had heard it soon, and thought not good To venture more of royal Harding's blood; To be immortal he was not of age, And did e'en now the Indian Prize presage; And judged it safe and decent, cost what cost, To lose the day, since his dear brother's lost. With his whole squadron straight away he bore, And, like good boy, promised ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... of the popular novels which preceded "Evelina" were such as no lady would have written; and many of them were such as no lady could without confusion own that she had read. The very name of novel was held in horror among religious people. In decent families, which did not profess extraordinary sanctity, there was a strong feeling against all ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... "because I rather like you, Spider. I think you could be quite a decent fellow if you tried very hard! Come, shake your grouch and let's ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... our plans," he went on, pleased with our discomfiture and our despising of him. "Next day some chap came to see me, pretending he was my brother. And I carried out my part of it by cursing him at first and then begging him to give me decent burial. So he went away, and, I suppose, received permission to get me right after I ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... like a set of grinning imbeciles!" complained Lennie Chapman, "with Sausage for the arch-lunatic of us all. I wish to goodness we had a decent English teacher! I don't ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... what, young gemman," said another watchman, who was a more potent, grave, and reverend senior than his comrades, "if you do not move on instantly, and let those decent young omen alone, I'll take you all up ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... them damned acting dogs," growled the baggageman to his mate. "There ought to be a law against dog-acts. It ain't decent." ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Paddy Dorman, a humpbacked dancing master, who was there to keep order. ''Tis a pity,' said he, 'if we'd let the piper run dry after such music; 'twould be a disgrace to Iveragh, that didn't come on it since the week of the three Sundays.' So, as well became him, for he was always a decent man, says ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... the beloved name on the smooth rind of the tree makes it sweet to one who is in real touch and living fellowship with Jesus Christ to speak about Him. O brother! there is a very sharp test for us. I know that there are hundreds of professing Christians—decent, respectable sort of people, with a tepid, average amount of Christian faith and principle in them—who never felt that overmastering desire, 'I must let this thing out through my lips.' Why? Why do they not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... "A decent, sensible lad," said the Laird of Monkbarns to himself, when these particulars of Lovel had been reported to him. "He scorns to enter into the fooleries and nonsense of these idiot people at Fairport. I must do something for him—I must give him ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... things I don't want. I'm going to stop accepting invitations, and meeting people I don't like and don't want to know. I've tried your game—I've tried it hard, and I don't like it; and I'm going to get out before it's too late. I'm going to find some decent and simple place to live in; and I'm going down town to find out if there isn't some way in New York for a man to ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... I went on, "as to show me what has been subscribed so far and what you have spent. Then inform me daily of every fresh subscription in money or kind, and of every fresh outlay. You will also give me, Natalie, the list of your helpers. Perhaps they are quite decent people; I don't doubt it; but, still, it is ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... said Wilmot, "I will consent to anything. Any decent man would give his life for a woman—why not his legs? Is Dr. ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... when the mate of a ship brought up a squad of his crew, burst into one of their dens, and beat and battered up the whole gang within an inch of their lives. But, in most cases, the reckless infamy of these dregs of city vice gave them an immense advantage over a decent citizen; for they could not be defiled nor made ridiculous, and ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... which are inevitable in such a state, and when no circumstance seemed to indicate the approach of any uncommon effort towards improvement, we are told that there appeared on the banks of the lake Titicaca, a man and woman of majestic form, and clothed in decent garments. They declared themselves to be children of the sun, sent by their beneficent parent, who beheld with pity the miseries of the human race, and who had commanded them to instruct and reclaim them. At their persuasion, enforced by reverence for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... seen a decent petticoat since we took leave of Mynheer Van Winkle and his daughter, on board the good sloop St. Nicholas, I should think so ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... puzzled; then understood. "You mean to give me time to change my clothes? Thanks; but I'm used to these. And besides," with spirit, "I never could see why women couldn't wear what they choose, so long as it is decent." ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... was wasted utterly on the terrasse of the Cafe de l'Univers, with the chateau ever in view, wishing it were convenable to make one's duty call without more delay. But it wasn't; not to wait a decent interval would be self-betraying, since Duchemin had no longer any immediate intention of moving on from Nant; finally, he rather hoped to get news at Millau that would strengthen a prayer to Eve de Montalais to be sensible and remove her jewels to a place of safe-keeping ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... sent to countermand their birth-day clothes; two of them burnt all their collections of novels and romances, and sent to a bookseller's in Pall-Mall to buy each of them a Bible, and Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying." But I must do all of them the justice to acknowledge, that they shewed a very decent behaviour in the drawing-room, and restrained themselves from those innocent freedoms, and little levities, so commonly incident to young ladies of their profession. So many birth-day suits were countermanded the next day, that most of the tailors and mantua makers discharged all their ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... a beaver hat was a valuable asset which might be handed down to the second or even the third generation. A decent broadcloth suit would cost a man as much as he could earn in three months at the current rate of wages, after paying his board; consequently the early settler did not often indulge in the luxury of a new suit. Leather breeches were commonly worn, and from their lasting qualities ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... the harem, or even worse. Poor Bob, meaning to be honorable, offered to buy me in the regular way at St. George's, Hanover Square, before we came to live here; but, of course, I refused, as any decent woman in my circumstances would. Understand me now, Doctor: I dont want to give myself any virtuous airs, or to boast of behaving better than your sister. I know the world; and I know that she will ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... not forced on Rome. She had no good motive for it; not even a decent excuse. It was simply that she was accustomed to do the next thing; and Carthage presented itself as the next thing to fight,—Sicily, the next thing to be conquered. The war lasted from 264 to 241; and at the end of it Rome found herself out of Italy; mistress ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... the last melancholy duties to the bodies of their unfortunate companions with all decent observances which circumstances would allow. Their return was then commenced. Boone and his brother, with some others, did not wish to forsake the undertaking upon which they had set out; but the majority against them was so great, and the feeling ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... the notion that he was improving my mind by useful information, or impressing his dogmas upon me and reforming my errors of judgment, or perhaps that he was talking down to my level, and amusing me with entertaining discourse. Yet he was a decent man enough in the main, I daresay; and if he had kept his distance, I never would have hated him. As it was, it was almost impossible to help it, for he not only bothered me with the infliction of his own presence, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... motley population. It is for the sake of their children, who ought to be, at least equally with those of the English labouring classes, since they cannot get it from their parents, provided with means of decent Christian education, that Mr. George Smith has brought this subject under public notice. The Gipsies, so long as they refrain from picking and stealing, and do not obstruct the highways, should not be persecuted; for they are a less active ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... has fixed upon the first day of the week for the exercise of his hospitality, because some of his guests could not enjoy it on any other, for reasons that I need not explain. I was civilly received in a plain, yet decent habitation, which opened backwards into a very pleasant garden, kept in excellent order; and, indeed, I saw none of the outward signs of authorship either in the house or the landlord, who is one of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... woman in a raincoat came out in the back yard and held the streaming lantern while the man arranged some sacks underneath the porch and closed and bolted the back gate. He heard them go up the back steps, heard them moving about in the house. Like a decent old fellow he licked the rain from his silken coat, smoothed out the matted strands, then curled up comfortably in his dry bed and slept ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... 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, ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... hushing the children. 'Semyon Zaharovitch is tired with his work at the office, he is resting, shh!' They made me coffee before I went to work and boiled cream for me! They began to get real cream for me, do you hear that? And how they managed to get together the money for a decent outfit—eleven roubles, fifty copecks, I can't guess. Boots, cotton shirt-fronts—most magnificent, a uniform, they got up all in splendid style, for eleven roubles and a half. The first morning I came back from the office I found Katerina ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and very soon after I received from Judge Alphonso Taft, of Cincinnati, a letter informing me that he had been appointed Secretary of War, and should insist on my immediate return to Washington. I answered that I was ready to go to Washington, or anywhere, if assured of decent treatment. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... admired and run after before her marriage; and the London world to which she had belonged pitied poor Fanny Evelyn when she married the young clergyman, and went to settle in that smoky hole Turley; a very nest of Chartism and Atheism, in a part of the country which all the decent families had had to leave for years. However, somehow or other she didn't seem to care. If her husband's living had been amongst green fields and near pleasant neighbours she would have liked it better—that she never pretended to deny. ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... said, bitter-like. 'As soon as a poor man's got a chance of a decent crop, the season turns against him or prices go down, so that he never ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... of the Students be neat and decent is highly proper; but that it should be very ornamental and expensive is ever needless, and oftentimes pernicious: Nor will any Student, who is solicitous to acquire knowledge, and sincerely disposed to improve his time to the best advantage, in obtaining such degrees of it, as may enable him to ...
— The Olden Time Series: Vol. 2: The Days of the Spinning-Wheel in New England • Various
... heard of her, but he hadn't known that she was listed for this voyage. "A real beauty, so I've heard. Accursed shame for a decent girl to have ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... said Gerald, "I call this jolly decent of her. You know, governesses never have more than the meanest pittance, just enough to sustain life, and here she is spending her little all on us. Supposing we just don't go out today, but play with her instead. I expect she's most awfully bored ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... the model's consent is so seldom asked. I'm bound to say, if I were a woman, I shouldn't thank a man for telling the world ... (Sharply.) In decent society we call that ... ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... 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 for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... midnight, and sleeps in the glass-house across the way because he cannot get into the house. Zorzi! Zorzi! The master cannot move without Zorzi! And where is Zorzi at night? At home and in bed, like a decent young man? No. Zorzi is away in Venice, heaven knows where, doing heaven knows what! Do you wonder that he is so pale and tired in the morning? It seems to me quite natural. Eh? What do you ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... it, too. It was fair capping to listen to them. There was some women present, slatterns all, and I told them to go home and red up their houses and comb up their hair, and try to look like decent cotton-spinners' wives. And when this advice was cheered, the women began to get excited, and I thought I would be safer in Hatton ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... boy sickened at his comments and the loud laughter. Yet a few hours earlier these same half-drunken jesters had laid the man to rest with decent humanity. The boy was taking his first dose of Arizona. By no means was everybody looking at his jig. They had seen tenderfeet so often. There was a Mexican game of cards; there was the concertina; and over in the corner sat Specimen Jones, with his back to the ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... being in the whole congregation who appeared thoroughly to feel the humble and prostrate piety of a true Christian was a poor decrepit old woman, bending under the weight of years and infirmities. She bore the traces of something better than abject poverty. The lingerings of decent pride were visible in her appearance. Her dress, though humble in the extreme, was scrupulously clean. Some trivial respect, too, had been awarded her, for she did not take her seat among the village poor, but sat alone on the steps of the altar. She seemed to have survived all love, all friendship, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... out of window, shook his head. He was in one of his perverse moods—and they had been growing frequent of late— in which nothing I could say or do seemed to content him; and for this I chiefly accused the cordwainer's daughter, who in fact was a decent merry girl, fond of strawberries, with no more notion of falling in love with Nat than of running off with her father's apprentice. Whatever the cause of it, a cloud had been creeping over our friendship of late. He sought companions—some of them serious ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... share the feeling common to most Eastern countries that women should be kept in subjection and as far as possible in seclusion. Though the morality which the Heian literature reveals is anything but strait-laced, the language is uniformly refined and decent, in this respect resembling ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... not be as this financial monarch? Who would not say: "I, too, can do these things?" (That is to say, which of us would not gladly take every cent the good FISK possesses, and let him beg his bread from door to door, if we only got a decent chance?) If it were not for such shining examples of the power of wealth and the glories that it is capable of placing before our eyes, the souls of ordinary men would much less frequently be moved ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... Savonarola's preaching, between them, have taken, in few years, all the carnality out of Sandro, supposing him to have come already, by seventy-eight, to that state in which the sight of her delighted him, without provoking ulterior feelings? All decent men accustomed to draw from the nude tell us they get ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... Virgin is a close red tunic, with long sleeves;[1] and over this a blue robe or mantle. In the early pictures, the colours are pale and delicate. Her head ought to be veiled. The fathers of the primeval Church, particularly Tertullian, attach great importance to the decent veil worn by Christian maidens; and in all the early pictures the Virgin is veiled. The enthroned Virgin, unveiled, with long tresses falling down on either side, was an innovation introduced about the end of the fifteenth century; ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... said he, "to keep off the general public, who soon would ruin all the fishing here as they have almost everywhere else, but I have no desire to keep off decent fishermen like yourselves; and I know the young men who ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... Demon was the Surveillant. I have already described the Surveillant. I wish to say, however, that in my opinion the Surveillant was the most decent official at La Ferte. I pay him this tribute gladly and honestly. To me, at least, he was kind: to the majority he was inclined to be lenient. I honestly and gladly believe that the Surveillant was incapable of that quality whose ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... the possibility of her marrying one of those ingratiating, cold-hearted, and seemingly ardent noblemen." Then, as though to qualify his general statement, he continued, "My sister-in-law married a decent sort of a man, and I imagine they are happy—but she'd have done much better if she had married your uncle. He never cared for any one else, and I hoped it would be a match. But Alessandro Sansevero came along and swept her off her feet. She was a great beauty, and I believe ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... the party left Durbelliere, and Adolphe Denot joined his friend on the gravelled ring before the house; and Agatha, who had been with her brother in his room, looking from the widow saw her unmanageable lover mount his horse in a quiet, decent way, like the ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... useful word that is! It has such a decent sound, almost respectable. We are a refined people, even in our sins, and I know no word in the English language we strive harder to avoid using in any of its forms than that word of ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... has attempted to conceive of his characters as he would if they had been his own contemporaries and equals, acting, speaking in his company; and he has therefore thought himself bound to act toward them by those rules of charity and courtesy, common alike to Christian morals, English law, and decent society; namely, to hold every man innocent till he is proved guilty; where a doubt exists, to give the prisoner at the bar the benefit of it; not to excite the minds of the public against him by those insinuative or vituperative ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... dropped it into her lap; then she smoothed the bills neatly one upon another, and built little pyramids of the dimes and quarters. Fifteen dollars! It must be five years now that she had been saving that money, and she did so need a new dress! She needed it to be—why—even decent!—looking sourly at the frayed folds ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... were filled with indignation, seeing the majesty of the state overturned, its ordinances annihilated, its laws annulled, and every decent regulation set at naught; for men unaccustomed to royal pomp could not endure to see this man surrounded with his armed satellites on foot and on horseback; and having now a closer view of their disgrace, they were compelled to honor ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... to counteract somewhat the misery of this crowd of helpless women, so-called "Bettinen houses" were instituted in many cities, and placed under municipal supervision. Sheltered in these establishments, the women were held to the observance of a decent life. But neither these establishments, nor the numerous nunneries, were able to receive all that ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... also has its Index Prohibitorius and will not permit indecent books nor indecent pictures to be sold. Enough: let us again clear our minds of cant. There is a limit with regard to publications in every decent State and every decent house: it is only a question where the line is drawn. It is obvious that the Church must be permitted at least as much privilege in this matter as is claimed by every respectable ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... anxieties and schemes all cast aside, in companionship with kindred spirits similarly divested of that which troubles and makes afraid, all engaged in recreative sports, would do more to make us physically well, morally strong, and civilly decent than all the pills of the doctors, all the texts of the preachers, and all ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... householders," to whom reference must be made, the names of the most deserving applicants are to numbers of people perfectly well known. The members have now got before them a plain statement of fact as to these charges; and it is for them to say whether they are justifiable, becoming, or decent. I beg most earnestly and respectfully to put it to those gentlemen who belong to this institution, that must now decide, and cannot help deciding, what the Literary Fund is for, and what it is not for. The question raised by the ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... written laws to be administered. The place of these was taken by public opinion and tradition, that is, by the ideas handed down from one generation to another and constantly discussed around the camp-fire and the council-fire. Every decent Indian was singularly obedient to this unwritten code. He wanted always to do what he was told his fathers had been accustomed to do, and what was expected of him. Thus there was a ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... and his legs absolutely scaly with dirt, starvation, and hard living of all sorts. He might well be one of those outcasts who are in disfavor with their savage brethren, lead a precarious existence outside of the tribal organization, and are to the Apaches what the Texas Smiths are to decent Americans. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... consideration of the real merit of that inimitable master, thought it proper that his effigy should preside there, where his harmony has so often charmed even the greatest crowds into the profoundest calm and most decent behaviour." ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... any human judge or potentate in the manner provided for approaching the Lord God. It is an etiquette that involves loss of self-respect, and hence it cannot be pleasing to its object, for one cannot think of the Lord God as sacrificing decent feelings to mere vanity. This notion of abasement, like most of the other ideas that are general in the world, is obviously the invention of small and ignoble men. It is the pollution of theology by ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... indeed the trade in the article, except towards China, has altogether greatly declined, probably (says Mr. Hodgson) because its repute as a medicine is becoming fast exploded. In Sicily it is still so used, but apparently only as a sort of decent medical viaticum, for when it is said "the Doctors have given him musk," it is as much as to say that they have given ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... unaware of the fact. How numerous are those who leave out the minutia; mechanics learn a trade in a short time at least well enough to make a living by it. Many farmers have spent their whole lives upon farms and are still scarcely able to make a decent living; and the reason of it is because they have left undone those parts which would, if performed, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... in a scandalized voice, as she rose and faced her sister, "ain't you goin' to put on somethin' over your chest? That ain't decent the way you've got ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... power as hallucination, and every one of you knows it—it's an old wives' tale. I wouldn't touch this little lady with a ten-foot pole if I really thought she had the Stigma. I have a living to make around this town—and you can't handle Stigma business and get any decent ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... 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
... disorder among divine and eternal things, as that they should sometimes move quicker and sometimes slower, and sometimes stand still; for no one would tolerate such anomaly in the movements even of a man, who was decent and orderly. The occasions of life, however, are often reasons for men going quicker or slower; but in the incorruptible nature of the stars, it is not possible that any cause can be alleged of quickness or slowness." It is seeking an argument ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... "Seem decent sort of fellows," said the water-bearer, as he turned off towards the door with his companion; and the dogs rose to follow them, sniffing at ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... ruther she'd be dead 'n married to Sandy. But that ain't sayin' a honest squatter airn't better'n a high born pup.... I wish Tess loved a decent chap." ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... himself, "oh, for a decent bench of inquisitors and a couple of bold executioners!... What a time we ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... long ago understood what she meant to convey, and finding that she had no idea how to express herself in a decent manner, she readily interrupted her with a smile. "You needn't mention anything," she observed, "I'm well aware of how things stand;" and addressing herself to Mrs. Chou, she inquired, "Has this old lady had breakfast, yes ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... words to bear on his unfitness for death, and judg'd them very decent and properly spoken: and took occasion to hint this in my attempts to ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... stand off: I'le do it, We bid ye welcom three wayes; first for your person, Which is a promising person, next for your quality, Which is a decent, and a gentle quality, Last for the frequent means you have to feed us, You can steal ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... matters were not so high as those of the present day. 'If gold ruste, what shal iren do?' The highest ecclesiastical authorities were unable to check a nominally celibate priesthood from maintaining women-housekeepers who bore them families of children and were in many cases decent and respectable wives to them in all but name; indeed in Friesland the laity for obvious reasons insisted upon this violation of clerical vows. A letter from Zwingli, the Reformer, written in 1518 when he was ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... seemed to be a reputable member of society. "Embezzle a large sum of money under singularly distressing circumstances!" I exclaimed to myself, "and ask me to go and stay with him! I shall do nothing of the sort—compromise myself at the very outset in the eyes of all decent people, and give the death-blow to my chances of either converting them if they are the lost tribes of Israel, or making money out of them if they are not! No. I will do anything rather than that." And when I next ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... gold and silver in his hand, Horses and mules, and acres of wheat-land, And him whose all is decent food to eat, Clothes to his back and shoes upon his feet, And a young wife and child, since so 'twill be, And no more years than ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... decent, honest I have. But I'm tired of being amused and 'tended to like a ten-year-old boy. I don't want flowers and jellies and candies brought in to me. I don't want to read and play solitaire and checkers week in and week out. I want to be over there, doing a man's work. Look ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... the stout man. "A typical touch that black tie! A decent-minded person would have felt this appalling tragedy far too much to think of such a trifle. I hope I shall ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... said in my papa's memoirs—although my mamma went to visit her in the country. I have no pride (as I showed by complying with my mother's request, and marrying a gentleman who was but the younger son of a Suffolk Baronet), yet I own to A DECENT RESPECT for my name, and wonder how one who ever bore it, should change it for that of Mrs. THOMAS TUSHER. I pass over as odious and unworthy of credit those reports (which I heard in Europe and was then too young to understand), how this person, having LEFT HER FAMILY and ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the letter from herself at the end of a week's time greatly relieved him, and he went off as soon as possible to see her. He found her living in the house where she was engaged, apparently with decent people, and moderately contented; more than this could never be said of the girl. Since then, he had seen her at least once every week. Sometimes he visited her at the shop; when the weather was fine, they spent the Sunday afternoon in walking together. Harriet's health ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... read than done; and all came to pass as the note predicted. Gallowsworthy and Pickles grumbled, but were compelled to pay. Fitzflam and Fitzfunk became inseparable. Fitzflam was even heard to say, he thought in time Fitzfunk would make a decent walking gentleman; and Fitzfunk was always impressed with an opinion that he was the man of talent, and that Fitzflam would never have been able to succeed in "starring it" where he had been ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... not look so scandalised, cousin," he retorted. "In the first place you are quite wrong to call it idolatrous, images of every kind being strictly forbidden by the Alcoran. In the second place it is a very decent, respectable religion, as religions go, and extremely convenient for seafaring men who sometimes need an excuse for ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... his steady twenty-five per on a big paper, and was on such terms with his boss that he might get other chances. Gee! but he was a fellow that luck just seemed to chase, anyhow! Look at the other chaps, lots of 'em, who knew twice as much as he did, and had lived in decent homes and gone to school and done their darned best, too, and then hadn't been able to get there! It didn't seem fair somehow that he should run into such ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... evil report to make, supposing him so disposed; but, perhaps, the crafty Frenchman would have been equally complaisant, had I been in the habit of indulging worse feelings than those of indolence and aversion to mercantile business. As it was, while I gave a decent portion of my time to the commercial studies he recommended, he was by no means envious of the hours which I dedicated to other and more classical attainments, nor did he ever find fault with me for dwelling upon Corneille and Boileau, in preference to Postlethwayte ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... in the daylight. For instance, when he uses your mouth to advance his arguments. Bickley, but this is another matter. However, if I do not appear again you will know that I died in a good cause, and, I hope, try to recover my remains and give them decent burial. Also, you might inform the Bishop of how I came to my end, that is, if you ever get an opportunity, which is ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... his taking ten pounds on account of his salary, as I told him that he must have warm clothes and make a decent figure in Canterbury. You are to deduct ten shillings a week from his pay till it is made up. The poor fellow fairly broke down when I offered it to him. There is no doubt that he is almost starved, and ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... this benevolence apparently as a matter of course. They were quiet enough; some of them looked like decent men out of work, as indeed all professed to be going somewhere in search of employment. But many of them had the air of confirmed loafers, and some I should not have liked to meet alone on the road ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... some cunning ancestor and looked after by his executors? What has become of your horses, and why are you always put to sleep in the billiard-room of an hotel, or in the pantry, when other fellows get a decent bed provided for them? Why do they give you a room over the stables when country houses are full, where the coachman's wife asks you if you would like a little hot water in the morning, and regrets that the chimney doesn't draw very ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan |
