"Servility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of him? What did you make of him?' she panted. I was too taken aback for the moment to reply. Her voice broke as she stooped to the dog at her knees. 'O Harvey, Harvey! You utterly worthless old devil!' she cried, and the dog cringed and abased himself in servility that one could scarcely bear to look ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... Excellency—Some of our comrades have been removed from us. United to them in our studies, united, too, in our sentiments, we protest against a punishment so unjust and so partial. When adulation and servility suggested to some amongst us the utterance of a falsehood which insulted the Pontiff, while it did no service to the Sovereign, we all rose in union to denounce those who, without our consent, constituted themselves the interpreters of our wishes. This act was not the ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... Grace to bestow a morsel of tunny upon her." Wolsey made her presents also at times of a more valuable character, as we find her acknowledging in language of exaggerated gratitude;[188] and, perhaps the most painful feature in all her earlier history lies in the contrast between the servility with which she addressed the cardinal so long as he was in power, and the bitterness with which the Bishop of Bayonne (and, in fact, all contemporary witnesses) tells us, that she pressed upon his decline. Wolsey himself spoke of her under the title of "the night-crow,"[189] as the person to ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... in the field of battle, to guard the fighting hero from disgrace, than in the private commerce of the world, to ward off that littleness of soul which leads, by steps imperceptible, to all the base train of the inferior passions, and by which the too timid mind is betrayed into a servility derogatory to the dignity of human nature! yet is it a virtue of no necessity in a situation such as mine; a situation which removes, even from cowardice itself, the sting of ignominy;-for surely that courage may easily be dispensed with, which would rather ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... shocking servility with which alike the senate and the people had welcomed him back to the city with shouts of triumph, Nero felt that the air of Rome was heavy with curses against his name. He withdrew to Naples, and was at supper there on March 19, A.D. 68, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... acquired accomplishments at least equalled his own; and whose connexion with him was of such a nature as raised an almost insurmountable bar to his design; because, with what face could he commence rival to the person whose family had raised him from want and servility, and whose own generosity had rescued him from the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... wishes and aims but become simple, and we walk steadily and surely in the light. In the complexity of our desires we were slaves; but in their simplicity we become free. Complexity strives perpetually after reputation, and is always advancing either in the direction of servility or of arrogance, according as self-esteem or the love of admiration predominate in the mind of the individual; and advancing years find it ever deteriorating in all the best elements of Character. ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... appearance and manners are externally the same, a closer acquaintance soon discovers that in disposition they are widely different. Those who are better pleased with a blunt sincerity bordering on rudeness than a studied complaisance approaching to servility; who may think it better to be robbed openly than cheated civilly, will be apt to give the preference to the Tartar character. Yet those Tartars of distinction, who fill some of the higher situations in the state, soon lose their native roughness ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... one great general cause for the world's ulcer," the younger one kept on. "You have said it—servility to the past, prejudice which prevents us from doing things differently, according to reason and morality. The spirit of tradition infects humanity, and its ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... and week after week and month after month. It does not lampoon anyone who pays it. In each of these papers the editorial room is utterly and thoroughly dominated by the counting room. It gets its order day by day from the business counter and it obeys them with a slavish servility. The merchant with a display advertisement in their columns is safe from attack, no matter what his crime. From end to end it is one man journalism, and each of the papers is run for the benefit of the one man ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... "Ah!" "Zounds!" and so forth, while the sow exhibited a familiarity with her superiors only to be acquired by mixing in the best society. There was a respectful deference which, while it betrayed no sign of servility, was in pleasing contrast with the boisterous and somewhat unbecoming levity of the other inhabitants of the stye. These people were the last progeny of this illustrious Chichester, and numbered in all eleven—seven sons and four daughters—honourables all. It was impossible ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... know the shocking wickedness of mankind." Swift, from his peculiar relation to two successive ministries, was in a position to know all that they knew, and perhaps, as a recognized place-broker, even more than they knew, of the selfish servility of men. He had seen the men who figure so imposingly in the stage-processions of history too nearly. He knew the real Jacks and Toms as they were over a pot of ale after the scenic illusion was done with. He saw the destinies of a kingdom controlled by men ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... ever with me: how earnestly shall I strive to pass my life with you, and what a life will it be!!! Whereas now!! without you!! and persecuted by the kindness of others, which I neither deserve nor try to deserve! The servility of man towards his fellow-man pains me, and when I regard myself as a component part of the universe, what am I, what is he who is called the greatest?—and yet herein are displayed the godlike ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... sign. It must be so in the nature of things, for the symbol represents the object as it appears or is fancied to appear, and not as it is thought. Furthermore, the constant learning by heart infallibly leads to slavish repetition and mental servility. ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... Forces has recently made public his belief, that never, till within the last twenty years, did he see so many young men with pale faces and emaciated figures, and he attributes the existence of the evil to the use of Cigars. The unreflecting servility with which men adopt new and foreign practices, is fully exemplified in the present case; for it is notorious that the practice of cigar-smoking, the modern foppery from Regent-street to Cheapside and Cornhill, was an importation of the Peninsular War; the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... is and what is not disreputable in this conventional world. It is not considered disreputable to cringe to the vices of a court, or to accept a pension wrung from the industry of the nation, in return for base servility. It is not considered disreputable to take tithes, intended for the service of God, and lavish them away at watering-places or elsewhere, seeking pleasure instead of doing God service. It is not considered disreputable to take fee after fee to uphold injustice, ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat
... introduced him to the acquaintance of Mr. Dryden. But amongst the Men of quality he was most affectionately caressed by William Earl of Kingston, who made him an offer of becoming his chaplain; but he declined an employment, to which servility and dependence are so necessarily connected. The writer of his life observes, that our author in his satire addressed to a friend, who was about to quit the university, and came abroad into the world, lets his friend know, that he was frighted from the thought ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... comrade," is the daily greeting of his Lordship to the lift-boy, who replies with the same greeting, untarnished by servility. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... mourning one ought to rejoice that the latest display of disgusting servility has completely thrown off the mantle of liberty and independence of Dame Columbia, now exposed before the civilized world in all ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... chief of his own bald head. The sacrifice was not always voluntary, adds an informant.[1] Philip forced compliance with this new fashion upon all who seemed reluctant to be unnecessarily shorn of what beauty was theirs by nature's gift. This servility may have consoled Philip for the deprivation of his hair. In his depressed condition any solace ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... Germany is in demand throughout the world. The very countries that are trying to resist our arms copy our methods in their universities and admire our theories, even those which do not attain success in Germany. Oftentimes we laugh among ourselves, like the Roman augurs, upon seeing the servility with which they follow us! . . . And yet they will not ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and native tenacity of attachment. I have fallen into one of the pits of a well-meaning but idle man. The world discredits the existence of pure platonism in love. I myself can barely look back on those twenty years of amatory servility with a full comprehension of the part I have been playing in them. And yet I would not willingly forfeit the exalted admiration of Louise for my constancy: as little willingly as I would have imperilled her purity. I cling to the past as to something in which I have deserved well, though I am ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... glad to possess the jewels of my country, chose two bracelets and a necklace of them, paying but twenty dollars for fifteen or sixteen cat's-eyes, and resolved to give them a setting worthy of their beauty. The diary continues with moral reflections upon the servility of our taste before anything European, and the handwriting is clear and deliberate. It abruptly becomes hurried, and at length well-nigh illegible. It is best, I think, that you should have this portion as it comes, unpolished, unamended, ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... enterprise!" Golushkin exclaimed, winking at the servant, as much as to say, "One must be careful in the presence of strangers." The proselyte Vasia continued silent, and though he sat on the very edge of his chair and conducted himself generally with a servility quite out of keeping with the convictions to which, according to his master, he was devoted body and soul, yet gulped down the wine with an amazing greediness. The others made up for his silence, however, that is, Golushkin and Paklin, especially ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... she and her children will never forgive those who blame him to them. Further on in his lengthy epistle, he gives instructions in deportment, and tells his relations that in their intercourse with Madame Hanska they must not show servility, haughtiness, sensitiveness, or obsequiousness; but must be natural, simple, and affectionate. It was no wonder that the Balzac family disliked Madame Hanska! And the poor woman cannot be considered ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... miss!" he said, touching his cap with the unashamed servility at which the American girl never ceased to wonder. "I'll look after her meself, and if the dirt is washed out of the sores at once, she'll come to no harm. Likely as not there'll be nothing for the vet to do by the time he arrives. At the worst it'll be only ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to the letter; he overlays the poetry with a verbal literalness; he deprives himself of scope to give a billowy motion, a heightened color, a girded vigor, to choice passages. The rhythmical languor consequent on this verbal conformity, this lineal servility, is increased by a frequent looseness in the endings of lines, some of which on every page, and many on some pages, have—contrary to all good usage—the superfluous eleventh syllable. Milton never allows himself this liberty, nor Mr. Tennyson in epic verse so little pretentious as "Idyls of the ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... Edward, the Confessor, it ceased to be cultivated; and after the Conqueror, it became more barbarous and vulgar, as it was then the sign of servility, and the badge of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... regal power,—the independence, enterprise, and social advancement of the nation, would account and afford excuse for this: but were he absolute as Louis XIV.,—obeyed and imitated with the same implicit servility,—the higher purposes of intellectual being were beyond his range. With the fine arts his relations were more close and personal. The progress of architecture was sudden and astonishing, during the epoch which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... gallery at random, and saw the king passing along, leaning with one arm on the shoulder of M. d'Argenson. "Oh, base servility!" I thought to myself. "How can a man make up his mind thus to bear the yoke, and how can a man believe himself so much above all others as to take such ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the Swedes are from having a just conception of rational equality. They are not termed slaves; yet a man may strike a man with impunity because he pays him wages, though these wages are so low that necessity must teach them to pilfer, whilst servility renders them false and boorish. Still the men stand up for the dignity of man by oppressing the women. The most menial, and even laborious offices, are therefore left to these poor drudges. Much of this I have seen. In the winter, ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... the midflow of his figures; and unaccustomed arrogance struggled with habitual servility. "Gentleman," he repeated, "in a corposity of souls high above all ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... rage against a dead emperor, whom the senate had flattered when alive with the most abject servility, betrayed a just ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... mind, you have equalled the learning of Winckelman, and the plastic poetry of Goethe, in the intimate comprehension of the antique. Each work of yours, rightly studied, is in itself a CRITICISM, illustrating the sublime secrets of the Grecian Art, which, without the servility of plagiarism, you have contributed to revive amongst us; in you we behold its three great and long-undetected principles,—simplicity, calm, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... fear, the laziness of lust, gross appetites, These are the ladders, and the grov'ling footstool From whence the tyrant rises— Secure and scepter'd in the soul's servility, He has debauched the genius of our country, And rides triumphant, while her captive sons Await his nod, the silken slaves of pleasure, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... said that "the power of slavery lies in the ignorance, the degradation, the servility of the slaves, and of the non-slaveholding whites of the South, and of the corresponding classes in the Free States. It is through this ignorance and servility that the slaveholders manage to dictate to ecclesiastical bodies, to have power to control ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin
... entirety will find it in "The Three Trials for Blasphemy." For those, however, who are not so curious or so painstaking, I give here the peroration only, to show what sentiments I appealed to in the breasts of the jury, and how far my defence was from boastfulness or servility: ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... superficial, but cordial and sincere. In the hour of popularity it is not intoxicated, or insolent; in the hour of unpopularity, it is not desponding or morose; unshaken in constancy, unwearied in benevolence, firm without roughness, and assiduous without servility. ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... consent of a faction, cannot maintain himself in it except by force and bribery. He must coerce and corrupt. Moreover, to rule without a rival, he must surround himself with men vastly inferior to him both in talent and in virtue: men who, in return for their obsequious servility, must be humoured and satisfied. Whenever such a usurpation occurs, all the maxims upon which the welfare and freedom of a community normally rest are annihilated, and the reign of profligacy and of tyranny inevitably supervenes: a regime born ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... serious commercial and industrial problems to reckon with; but no measure of relief can be considered which looks to legislation admitting Chinese and restricting them by statute to field labor and domestic service. The status of servility can never again be tolerated on American soil. We cannot concede that the proper solution of its problems is special legislation admitting to Hawaii a class of laborers denied admission to the other States and Territories. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... tradesman the balance is adjusted; between man and man there is an account which money will not settle. It is not indeed to be desired, that any class of men should be possessed With such a spirit of venal servility, as to be really insensible to the folly and oppression which enters into the exactions of fashionable caprice; or that, however compelled to be obsequious in manner, they should altogether lose their perception of what is due to common sense and to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... place among the trees. He did not expect her to exhibit surprise or confusion and he was not disappointed. She was as cool as a brisk spring morning. He did not offer his hand, but, with a fine smile of contentment, bowed low and with mock servility. ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... those who flatter the people, or to those who flatter the monarch: they are equally base, and moved by personal and low interests; and under the mask of liberality or that of servility, seek alike, only to rear their proud and precarious fortunes on the ruins of their country. The times in which we live are full of melancholy warnings. Let us use the catastrophes of ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... having a visitor. He sat in his chair while that visitor ranged excitedly up and down the room, a short stout man, well dressed and with a mixture of servility and importance. The valet's first words, as he stood inside the door, ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the advantages of those systems which Europe is learning to despise! This system, moreover, is only kept up by a flourish of weapons. We have here what you may call an armed aristocracy. The class over which these instruments of main force are held is chosen for its servility, ignorance, and cowardice; hence, indolence in the ruling class. When a man's social or civil standing is not dependent on his knowing how to read, he is not likely ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... Farm." At that time, the term "servant" had no derogatory sense connected with it. It merely implied the relations between an employer and the employed, without the least tint of the feeling which we associate with the condition of servility. Here was a youth, who, by his father's will, was the owner of a valuable estate of seventy-five acres in the immediate neighborhood, voluntarily seeking the privilege of entering the service of his father's friend, because he thereby would be better qualified, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... This induced the easily worried Congress to instruct Livingston, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to write a letter censuring the commissioners; but, although Jay and Adams were hotly indignant at such servility, the matter ended then and there. Vergennes's displeasure was momentary, and the French policy continued as before. The European war was, in fact, wearing to its end. Already, in April, 1782, Admiral Rodney had inflicted ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... had withdrawn to the extreme left of the deserted edge of the room, talking behind his hand to two colleagues in servility, their faces listening ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... say that there was no dishonesty, but it was comparatively rare, invariably petty, and much less formidable than, I believe, it is necessary to guard against in other mints in other countries. There was considerable skill and ready docility. So far from there being any servility, there was extreme frankness, and I should say that where there is confidence without fear, frankness is one of the most universal features in the Indian character. Let the people feel sure of the temper and good-will of their ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... to inscribe to you the following pages, I am fearless of having applied to me Johnson's definition of a dedicator, "one who inscribes his work to a patron with compliment and servility." Adulation, Sir, from any quarter, you would resent as an indignity, and the tenor of my own life and writings will secure me from the imputation of servile deference to others, with whatever reverence I may contemplate their rank, their ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... The abject servility of those magnificent savages was terrifying. How could it be? What was the secret of his rule? More and more I puzzled as the days went by, and though I observed perpetual examples of his undisputed sovereignty, never a clew was there as ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... necessarily be of a very different kind, in quite a different manner. The forger of the Annals had much too acute a discernment not to know this;—he was also well aware that he had a very strong forte. We know the department in which he excelled,—dealing with despotism, servility and bloodshed. But then, if he was to do this, he would do that, which would be a very strong proof that his work was a forgery; for if he was to do this, he could not take up the continuance of history as Tacitus intended to go on with it namely, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... have bowed down in shame a spirit even less proud and sensitive than Hoelderlin's. The French emissaries conducted themselves like lords of Germany, while the German princes vied with each other in acts of servility and submission to the arrogant Frenchmen. And it was the apathy of the average German, as Hoelderlin conceived it, toward these and other national indignities, that caused him to put such bitter words of contumely into the mouth of Hyperion: "Barbaren von Alters her, durch ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... bring myself to a narration of the humiliation which I experienced that night as I stood behind my black master in silent servility, now pouring his wine, now cutting up his meats for him, now fanning him with a large, plumed ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... on the question whether Middletons motion should be put. The Noes were ordered by the Speaker to go forth into the lobby. They resented this much, and complained loudly of his servility and partiality: for they conceived that, according to the intricate and subtle rule which was then in force, and which, in our time, was superseded by a more rational and convenient practice, they were entitled to keep their seats; and it was held by all the Parliamentary ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... obedience in coming into the senate than servility in the sentiments expressed by them, as we have learned. It is recorded that, after Appius's stating the subject of the meeting, and before the opinions were demanded in order, Lucius Valerius Potitus excited ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... his master, and the poor hypnotized wretch, after one questioning glance at the conceivable alternatives, made his last gesture of servility, and then stood out against the sky, swayed, and with a convulsion of resolve, leapt and shot headlong down through the ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... I think not. I have great hopes of finding him quite the reverse. There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter, which promises well. I ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Rembrandt, by Bramer, Eckhout, and Flink. All these, to whom may be added a much longer list of painters, whose works among the ignorant pass for those of their masters, are justly to be censured for barrenness and servility. ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... with servility. But the cattleman carried away with him a conviction that the man had yielded too easily, that his restless brain would go on planning destruction for young ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... false witnesses were suborned, upon whose perjuries and the envy and malice of the judges, the accusers wholly relied. They were not disappointed. The judges expected from Socrates that abject submission, that meanness of behaviour, and that servility of defence which they were accustomed to receive from ordinary criminals. In this they were deceived; and his firmness and uncomplying integrity is supposed to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... some Versailles,[482] or Paphos,[483] or Ctesiphon.[484] Indeed, it is the magical lights of the horizon, and the blue sky for the background, which save all our works of art, which were otherwise baubles. When the rich tax the poor with servility and obsequiousness, they should consider the effect of man reputed to be the possessors of nature, on imaginative minds. Ah! if the rich were rich as the poor fancy riches! A boy hears a military band play on the field at night, and he has kings and queens, and famous ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... about among the poorer tenants of the estate, like any laird's wife, in an unpretending, neighborly way; and they, thanks to their good Scotch sense and Highland pride, never take advantage of the uncondescending condescension, to offend her by too great familiarity, or shock her by servility. Taking up her "Journal," I have chanced upon an account given by Her Majesty of a round of visits to the cottages of certain "poor old women," and here is an entry ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... communings were soon visible in his daily conduct, and after his term of punishment had expired, the meekness of his bearing, and the gentle lowliness of his demeanor, often disarmed the most severe and unpitying of his youthful judges. There was no servility in his manner, for he neither courted nor shunned observation; nor, though he was as willing as ever to do a kind action for any one, did he allow himself to be persuaded to give up all his time to his ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... and the conquest of Mesopotamia, were the immediate fruits of this signal victory. Such are the circumstances of this ostentatious and improbable relation, dictated, as it too plainly appears, by the vanity of the monarch, adorned by the unblushing servility of his flatterers, and received without contradiction by a distant and obsequious senate. [50] Far from being inclined to believe that the arms of Alexander obtained any memorable advantage over the Persians, we are induced ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... distinction is wealth, and thus the desire of wealth becomes the ruling passion of the whole body, and there is no passion so demoralising. The other is, that where the people, or, more properly speaking, the mob govern, they must be conciliated by flattery and servility on the part of those who would become their idols. Now flattery is lying, and a habit equally demoralising to the party who gives and to the party who receives it. Depend upon it, there is no government ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... reply, but very composedly drew from his pocket a handful of silver and gold; at the sight of the money, the landlady's eyes and mouth opened in astonishment—and her manner, from being most insufferably insolent, changed to the most abject servility. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... entered and salaamed low, then put his hand upon his turban. There was submission, but no cringing or servility in his manner. His blue eyes looked fearlessly before him. His face was not paler than its wont. He waited for Kaid ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... those rendered homeless by the raid, who had fled to the Netherlands where he had met them. Briefly the raid was undertaken on the pretended plea of an invitation from the "King's men" or adherents of the infant James; but in reality to chastise Scotland and reduce it to servility. Sussex and Lord Hunsdon in the east, Lord Scrope on the west, had harried, burnt, and destroyed in the whole countryside about the Borders. Especially had Tiviotdale suffered. Altogether it was calculated that Sussex had burned three hundred villages and blown up fifty castles, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... and completeness of such a policy as this brings home to us more than any other of his plans the genius of Cromwell. But its success depended wholly on the absolute servility of Parliament to the will of the Crown, and Cromwell's own action made the continuance of such a servility impossible. The part which the Houses were to play in after years shows the importance of clinging to the forms of constitutional ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... affected American writers in two ways. Some it stung into violent hatred or sullen antagonism, others it coerced into timid imitation and servility. Upon Dennie and his associates it had the latter effect, and the Port Folio vigorously resisted all "Americanisms" in politics and in letters, and sought to conciliate England and to win the coveted stamp of English approbation by unlimited adulation of the favorites of the ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... they rewarded sculptors and painters, if they prostituted art to their vanity or passions. They had no reverence for religion, and ridiculed the gods. Their distinguishing vices were meanness and servility, the pursuit of money by every artifice, the absence of ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... reason to pity him, and, indeed, thought him well punished, I took the opportunity of saying a word to him before I mounted; which, though it was only a hint that he should deal gently with the woman of the house, was received with servility equal to the arrogance he had before displayed; and I doubt not it had all the effect I desired. For the strollers, I did not forget them, but bade them hasten to Vitre, where I would see a performance. They did so, and hitting the fancy of Zamet, ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... inclined to pity her, she could not reconcile herself to the idea of making her the companion of her voyage. She could not convince herself that Hannah was worthy of the sympathy manifested on her behalf. A certain fawning, servility of manner, led her to imagine that she was deceitful; and she was reluctant to entail upon herself the trouble and responsibility which must arise from her situation, and the scandal it might involve. But her objections were borne ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Rome. Peasant men and women slept, when they slept, in and beneath carts and huge wine-wagons camped and parked in stone forests of imperial ruins. Artisan, mechanic, and merchant Rome lightened toil and went upon the hunt for pleasure, dropping servility in the first ditch. Foreigners, artists, men from everywhere, roved, gazed, and listened, shared. The great made displays, some with beauty, some of a perverted and monstrous taste. The lords of the Church nodded, looked sleepily or alertly benevolent. At times all alike turned ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... the surrender of all the bishops' castles to the crown. Gustavus must have been bewildered by his own audacity. Within four days the diet that had come together puffed up by a consciousness of its own magnificence, had sunk into a position of absolute servility. Things had been granted by the delegates which, when the diet opened, Gustavus had not even dared to ask. The very mode in which the votes were taken and the acts were passed, shows how completely everybody answered to the ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... indifference of Miss Guile herself was sufficient proof to the contrary. Therefore, when Mrs. Gaston nosed him out shortly after breakfast and began to talk about the beautiful day in a manner so thoroughly respectful that it savoured of servility, he was taken-aback, flabbergasted. She seemed to be on the point of dropping her knee every time she spoke to him, and there was an unmistakable tremor of excitement in her voice even when she confided to him that ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... decline of the School, and will not create a new one which would soon become as fastidious as the other. It will only appear, to those who will thoroughly understand it, as a precious repertory of notes, and the young generation honours it intelligently by not imitating it with servility. ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... that universal humanity acted under the influence of two opposing Principles, the Good and the Evil: of which the Good urged men toward Truth, Independence, and Devotedness; and the Evil toward Falsehood, Servility, and Selfishness. Masonry represents the Good Principle and constantly wars against the evil one. It is the Hercules, the Osiris, the Apollo, the Mithras, and the Ormuzd, at everlasting and deadly feud with the demons ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... is a female slave, full of servility and sluggishness acquired in front of the kitchen fire, and stuffed full of morality and religion that are meant to serve her at once as cloak and scapegoat. Her church-going has for its purpose to bring her quick and easy riddance of all responsibility ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... all,—more in one hour than the Legislature in thirty years,—to extend the Slave Power. Indeed, he had solemnly decided all and more than all that President Buchanan, closing his long political life of servility in imbecility, in December, 1860, asked to have adopted as an "explanatory amendment" of the Constitution, to fully satisfy the Slave Power. Well would it have been for that Power, for a while at least, had its members recollected that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... or ecclesiastical. It is with persons of condition that sovereigns chiefly come into contact. It is from them that they generally experience opposition to their will. It is with their pride and impracticability that princes are most hurt. It is with their servility and baseness that they are most commonly disgusted. It is from their humors and cabals that they find their affairs most frequently troubled and distracted. But of the common people, in pure monarchical governments, kings ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... for laborers, and enable the producer to reach the pocketbook of the rich man; but the "fashions" have become so fixed, so thoroughly a national feature, that they affect rich and poor, and we have the spectacle of every woman studying these guides and conforming to them with a servility beyond belief. I once said to a lady, "The Chinese lady dresses richer than the American, but her styles have been very much the same for thousands of years," but I believe she doubted it. It would be futile, indeed impossible, ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... statement seems to leave out of count the career of the mighty Napoleon. But it does not. The great Emperor unconsciously called into vigorous life the forces of Democracy and Nationality both in Germany and in Italy, where there had been naught but servility and disunion. His career, if viewed from our present standpoint, falls into two portions: first, that in which he figured as the champion of Revolutionary France and the liberator of Italy from foreign and domestic tyrants; and secondly, as imperial autocrat who conquered and ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... learning?'—'Few, or in reality none.'—'Beside numerous offices, are not exhibitions, fellowships, professors' chairs, and presentations bestowed?'—'Yes, on those who have municipal or political influence; or who by servility and effrontery can court patronage.'—'Surely you have some men of worth and genius, who meet their due reward?'—'Few; very few, indeed. Sloth, inanity, and bloated pride are here too often the characteristics of office. Fastidiousness ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... than the choice of a foreign subject did the pretense of foreign authorship prove the servility of feeling prevailing at that time among the educated classes. This was in the first place, to be sure, the result of the freak that led Cooper originally to begin writing a novel; but it was a freak that would never have been carried out, after publication had been ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... programme of ends to be pursued, or losses to be redeemed. He prized life more than most. He had so much to do with a life. Half his work still, as he reckoned, was incomplete. The world was young, and abounded in possibilities. To save himself for life and work was worth playing at servility. He could hardly see the pettiness in a James, in his parasites, in his Ministers, for absorption in their one essential quality, their ability, as holding headsman and gaolers in a leash, to keep alive or kill, to bind or let loose. To this age James is an awkward, ludicrous ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... does not know, to see what he does not see, to think what he does not think, to believe what he does not believe. And he lives, from hour to hour, under the dark shadow of severity and distrust,—severity which is too often answered by servility, and distrust which is too often answered by deceit. When he goes out into the world, he finds that though there are many sins for which there is forgiveness, there is one for which there is no forgiveness,—the sin of being found ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... had recourse to false accusation, and not only charged them with seditious designs, to which their tender years were ill adapted, but with vices of a nature the most scandalous. By a sentence of the senate, which manifested the extreme servility of that assembly, he procured them both to be declared open enemies to their country. Nero he banished to the island of Pontia, where, like his unfortunate mother, he miserably perished by famine; and Drusus was doomed to the same fate, in the lower part of ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... of her own limitations has something to do with it. A girl who has been flattered, adored, placed upon a pedestal and worshipped, naturally comes to the conclusion that she belongs there. She issues her commands from that height and conveys to man various delicate reminders of his servility. ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... feet were gouty; his nose was justly celebrated as the largest nose and the reddest nose in that part of Scotland. The mild wisdom of years was expressed mysteriously in his mellow smile. In contact with this wicked world, his manner revealed that happy mixture of two extremes—the servility which just touches independence, and the independence which just touches servility—attained by no men in existence but Scotchmen. Enormous native impudence, which amused but never offended; immeasurable cunning, masquerading habitually under the double disguise of quaint ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... was at first a vague discussion about self-sacrifice. They quoted instances from ancient History, such as Judith and Holophern, then, without any reason Lucretia with Sextus, Cleopatra who admitted to her intimacy all the enemy generals and reduced them to slavish servility. Then a fancy History was propounded, originating in the imagination of those ignorant millionaires, and according to which Roman matrons used to go to Capua and lull Hannibal in their arms, and with him, his lieutenants ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... what drugs and witchcraft have you persuaded Crassus to plunge his army into a boundless wilderness and an abyss, and to pursue a path more fit for a nomadic chief of robbers than for a Roman Imperator?" But the barbarian, who was a cunning follow, with abject servility, prayed him to endure a little longer; and, while running along with the soldiers and giving them his help, he would jeer at them in a laughing mood, and say, "I suppose you think that you are marching through Campania, and you long for the fountains, and streams, and shades, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... pernicious prejudices which have too long tyrannised over the world. He acknowledges himself to be not a moralist, but an 'immoralist,' and he bids us break in pieces the ancient tables of the Decalogue. Christianity is the most debasing form of slave-morality. It has made a merit of weakness and servility, and given the name of virtue to such imbecilities as meekness and self-sacrifice. He calls upon the individual to exalt himself. The man of {110} the future is to be the man of self-mastery and virile force, ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... packed nor terrorised to any great extent, the harmony which prevailed between it and the King has naturally led to the charge of servility. Insomuch as it was servile at all, Parliament faithfully represented its constituents; but the mere coincidence between the wishes of Henry and those of Parliament is no proof of servility.[733] That ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... your hair short; to be truly manly you must never wear it long. To be truly womanly you must dress as daintily as possible, however uncomfortably; to be truly manly you must wear the most hideous gear ever invented by the servility of tailors—a strange succession of cylinders from head to heel; cylinder on head, cylinder round your body, cylinders on arms and cylinders on legs. To be truly womanly you must be shrinking and clinging in manner and trivial in conversation; you must have no ideas, and rejoice that you wish ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... "And then the inexpressible servility of those below them! The fools would not recognize Socrates if they fell over him in the street; but they can perceive Crœsus a mile off; they can smell him a block away; and they will dislocate their vertebrae abasing themselves before him. It ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... general estimate of its value, as well on every particular occasion, as a mere scene for the exercise of the mind, and the engagements of the heart. "I will try and attempt every thing," says Brutus; "I will never cease to recal my country from this state of servility. If the event be favourable, it will prove matter of joy to us all; if not, yet I, notwithstanding, shall rejoice." Why rejoice in a disappointment? Why not be dejected, when his country was overwhelmed? Because sorrow, perhaps, and dejection, can do no good. Nay, but ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... learned shortly was applied to all Ids attached to Markovians. It had a connotation somewhere between servant and companion. Sal Karone remained in the background, but there was no servility in his manner. His eyes remained respectfully—almost fondly; that was the right ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... harangue with bulging eyes and tongue rolling over his teeth. But Roldan never failed to carry the day. He was a born leader. Adan's was the will that bent; but his talent for good comradeship and his quiet self-respect saved him from servility. ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... distributed from a common stock as among children at the father's table. It was impossible for a man any longer to use his fellow-men as tools for his own profit. His esteem was the only sort of gain he could thenceforth make out of him. There was no more either arrogance or servility in the relations of human beings to one another. For the first time since the creation every man stood up straight before God. The fear of want and the lust of gain became extinct motives when abundance was assured to all and immoderate possessions made impossible of attainment. ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... had undertaken, of the horror of seeing her bright career blotted out with darkness and tears, of the joy and elation that would fill the breast of all their adversaries at this illustrious, consummate proof of the fickleness, the futility, the predestined servility, of women. A man had only to whistle for her, and she who had pretended most was delighted to come and kneel at his feet. Olive's most passionate protest was summed up in her saying that if Verena were to forsake them it would put ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... reaction by any means occasioned by a burst of German patriotism against the tyranny of France, for the treaty of Basel speedily reconciled the self-same newspaper editors with France. It was mere servility; and the hatred which, it may easily be conceived, was naturally excited against the French as a nation, was vented in this mode upon the patient Germans,[16] who were, unfortunately, ever doomed, whenever their neighbors were visited ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... such a gain To buy with such a loss was vain; For better man than he ne'er died, And the king's gain was small beside. In truth no man I ever knew Was, in all ways, so firm and true; Free from servility and pride, Honoured by ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions ...
— The Republic • Plato
... practicable. At first Fan was naturally stared at, a little rudely at times, and addressed in that profoundly respectful manner the poor sometimes use to uninvited visitors of a class higher than themselves, in which the words border on servility while the tone suggests resentment. How inappropriate and even unnatural this seemed to her! For these were her own people—the very poor, and all the privations and sufferings peculiar to their condition were known to her, and ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... consists in baffling the importunity of expectation. I do not so much find fault with this when it is done as a punishment and oblique satire on servility and selfishness. It is in that case Diamond cut Diamond—a trial of skill between the legacy-hunter and the legacy-maker, which shall fool the other. The cringing toad-eater, the officious tale-bearer, is perhaps well paid for years of obsequious attendance with a bare mention and a mourning-ring; ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... dingy row of small houses, uniformly depressing, in a street that ran into the Commercial Road, and rang the bell, which tinkled aggressively. A slatternly woman, with a bandage round her head and an air of drunken servility, responded to his inquiry for "Mrs. Crichton" by ushering him into a small back parlour, in which a pale girl in black sat with her head bent over a typewriter. She rose, as he came in, a little nervously, and stood, her thin ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... classes of people appears to be very absolute. Many instances of this occurred daily during our stay amongst them, and have been already related. The people, on the other hand, pay them the most implicit obedience; and this state of servility has manifestly had a great effect in debasing both their minds and bodies. It is, however, remarkable, that the chiefs were never guilty, as far at least as came within my knowledge, of any acts of cruelty or injustice, or even ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... fixedly at me with her too-eager eyes, though otherwise presenting an agreeable appearance and speaking neither with boldness nor servility, "I have taken a great liberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... during the months between May and October, you may yet meet Bill and his companions. Trotter still wears tights, but he is thinner and much more wholesome to see; but the Signor has added a kind of shiny servility ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... and his children there was no persecution, no fluctuation of religion: their Ministers shifted their faith four times, and were sincere honest men! There was no servility, no flattery, no contempt of the nation abroad, under James I. No tyranny under Charles I. and Laud; no factions, no civil war! Charles II., however, brought back all the virtues and morality, which, somehow or other, were missing! His brother's was a still more blessed reign, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... be acquired properly if his mind has taken a vicious and unprincipled bias: it will either indicate his pride or his dastardly humility, his haughty self-sufficiency, or his mean truckling to the opinion of others, his honest independence, or his cringing servility. But he who has been blessed with the full use of his muscular powers, in proportion as he is virtuous, will, with a very little attention, indicate by his bearing, step, and carriage, ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... body bent, his calves thin and spindly, his feet dragging and limping. His clothing was a mixture of dirt and rags long over-familiar to me. As I passed him he touched his hat with some real goodwill and courtesy, and much servility. ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... case before his sister, and complained of the signs of servility with which he met at every turn. He said they spoilt ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... spiritual than her own—with piquant, eager features, laughing, restless gray eyes, and light hair which escaped from her coquettish bonnet in airy ringlets. If they had met three years earlier Selma would certainly have regarded her as an incarnation of volatility and servility to foreign fashions. Now, though she classed her promptly as a frivolous person, she regarded her with a keen curiosity not unmixed with self-distress, and the reflection came to her that a little of the New York manner might perhaps be desirable ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... was governed by empresses. The last of them, Catharine II, was one of the ablest and most successful rulers in modern times. For the machine which Peter created was strong enough to endure. It still exists as he made it, an amalgam of power and servility, never leading, but often supplying the deciding force in the history of the world. It was the empire of Peter the Great that ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... one's hat or cap. To cap the quadrangle; a lesson of humility, or rather servility, taught undergraduates at the university, where they are obliged to cross the area of the college cap in hand, in reverence to the fellows who sometimes walk there. The same ceremony is observed on coming on the quarter deck of ships of war, although ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... that Zillah could never bear to be separated from one who so humored all her whims, and bore her most ungovernable fits of passion with such unvarying sweetness. Hilda had evidently taken her lesson from the General himself; and thus Zillah was treated with equal servility by her ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... south coast with the Riviera, for the spending money of the American Trusts. What is all this growing love of pageantry, this effusive loyalty, this officious rising and uncovering at a wave from a flag or a blast from a brass band? Imperialism: Not a bit of it. Obsequiousness, servility, cupidity roused by the prevailing smell of money. When Mr Carnegie rattled his millions in his pockets all England became one rapacious cringe. Only, when Rhodes (who had probably been reading my Socialism for Millionaires) left word that no idler was to inherit his estate, the bent backs ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... born a woman, with what gusto would you have peddled your flaccid flesh upon the city streets and offered your miserable dogsbody to the reluctant use of undiscriminating customers. You are the paradigmatic whore, Weener, and I weep for the physiological accident which condemns you to sell your servility rather than your vulva. Ah, Weener, it restores my faith in human depravity to have you around to attempt your petty confidence tricks on me once more; I rejoice to find I had not overestimated mankind ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... honestly expressing one's admiration, esteem, or affection in a public manner, and in thus contributing to the happiness of another by making him better pleased with himself.' London Mag. for 1782, p. 454. His dedications were dedications of friendship, not of flattery or servility. He dedicated his Tour to Corsica to Paoli, his Tour to the Hebrides to Malone, and his Life of Johnson to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Goldsmith, in like manner, distrest though he so often was, dedicated his Traveller to his brother, the Deserted Village to Sir Joshua, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... Journal is dry, colourless, passionless, without insight and without art; but it is a well-informed and an exact chronicle, extending over the years from 1684 to 1720. Saint-Simon found it "d'une fadeur a faire vomir"; its servility towards the King and Madame de Maintenon enraged him; but it exhibited facts in an orderly sequence; it might serve as a guide and a clue among his own reminiscences; on the basis of Dangeau's literal transcript of occurrences he might weave his own brilliant recitals and passionate ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... brought to the surface, but in no way originated. We are told that the principate 'created around itself the quiet of the graveyard, since all independence was compelled under threat of death to hypocritical silence or subterfuge; servility alone was allowed to speak; the rest submitted to what was inevitable, nay, even endeavoured to accommodate their minds to it as much as possible.' Even if this highly coloured statement were true, the influence of such tyrannical suppression of free thinking ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... the see of Worcester. If the power of deposition was quietly abandoned by Elizabeth, the abandonment was due, not so much to any deference for the religious instincts of the nation as to the fact that the steady servility of the bishops ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... October Mountain, upon Mr. Whitney's extensive game-preserve. He had been hanging about the mountain all summer and had given two belated pedestrians a lively sprint only the night before his Waterloo. Being emboldened by the seeming servility of the neighborhood, bruin finally went to a farmhouse and, forcing the kitchen door, marched boldly into the well-ordered room to see what they were going to have for dinner. While waiting for this meal, he amused himself by tumbling the pots and pans about. This enraged ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... remnant of something antecedent: and that this something antecedent was humiliating may be inferred from the phrase, "scraping an acquaintance;" which, being used to denote the gaining of favour by obsequiousness, implies that the scrape was considered a mark of servility—that is, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... with an atmosphere of romance bordering on the fabulous. Even her bitterest foes admire her beauty and rare gifts of intellect. Her character, on the contrary, presents one of the most difficult problems of psychology. The servility of Roman poets and authors, who were unwilling frankly to acknowledge the light emanating so brilliantly from the foe of the state and the Imperator, solved it to her disadvantage. Everything that bore the name of Egyptian was hateful or suspicious to the Roman, and it was hard to forgive this woman, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the counter, or with what degree of softness and dexterity he received and accommodated the ladies, as he probably took no delight in telling it, is not known. The report is, that he was soon weary of either the restraint or servility of his occupation, and easily persuaded his master ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... ascendency which Greece had over Rome. French was fast becoming the universal language, the language of fashionable society, the language of diplomacy. At several courts princes and nobles spoke it more accurately and politely than their mother tongue. In our island there was less of this servility than on the Continent. Neither our good nor our bad qualities were those of imitators. Yet even here homage was paid, awkwardly indeed and sullenly, to the literary supremacy of our neighbours. The melodious Tuscan, so familiar to the gallants and ladies of the court of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of Essex is sustained with greater accuracy:—the fiery quality of his temper; his alternate pride and humility, daring and servility, in presence of his royal mistress; with all his boisterous vows of loyalty to her; and tender oaths of ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... Hellene's girdle—a sign for prompt decapitation. Only the good nature of the king prevented a catastrophe, and Xerxes was moved by two motives, pleasure at meeting a fellow-mortal who could look him in the eye without servility or fear, delight at the beautiful features and figure of the Athenian. For an instant monarch and fugitive looked face to face, then Xerxes stretched out, not his hand, but the gold tip of his ivory baton. Glaucon had wisdom enough ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Val could be rather exasperating when she chose. She always could be sure of making Manley silently furious when she adopted that tone of respectful servility—as employed by butlers and footmen upon the stage. Her mimicry, be it said, was ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... first, under the title of Notices of the Press. These, I have been given to understand, are procurable at certain established rates, payment being made either in money or advertising patronage by the publisher, or by an adequate outlay of servility on the part of the author. Considering these things with myself, and also that such notices are neither intended, nor generally believed, to convey any real opinions, being a purely ceremonial accompaniment ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... heaven (which in the depths of its wisdom tolerates all sorts of things) that is more truly odious and disgusting than an impotent, helpless creature, without civil wisdom or military skill, without a consciousness of any other qualification for power but his servility to it, bloated with pride and arrogance, calling for battles which he is not to fight, contending for a violent dominion which he can never exercise, and satisfied to be himself mean and miserable, in order to render others ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... illustrious descent, allied to the noblest families, witty, well-informed, and beautiful; there is a power of social domination. To enter into any struggle whatever with a woman in whom so much influence centers is—I tell you this in confidence—an act of insanity. Let there be neither servility, nor sullen pride, nor susceptibility, nor too much compliance; nothing but good natural affection. This is the line of conduct prescribed by good sense towards such ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... Irishmen of my acquaintance one by one to converse with James Kelly as a salutary discipline. He was perfectly courteous, but through his courtesy there pierced a kind of toleration that carried home to one's mind a profound conviction of ignorance. People talk about the servility of the Irish peasant. Here was a man who professed his inability to read or write, but stood perfectly secure in his sense of superior education. His respect for me grew evidently when he found me ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... prevent the despotism or the servility of a single assembly, it was necessary to place somewhere a power to check or defend it. The division of the legislative body into two councils, which had the same origin, the same duration, and only differed in functions, attained the twofold ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... reply that we should prefer to wait till the sun was a little higher, we were yet weary with our journey, &c., &c. It is always well, when dealing with uncivilised people, not to be in too great a hurry. They are apt to mistake politeness for awe or servility. So, although we were quite as anxious to see Twala as Twala could be to see us, we sat down and waited for an hour, employing the interval in preparing such presents as our slender stock of goods permitted—namely, the Winchester rifle which had been used by poor ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... it in the light of the consistent wisdom and high-mindedness that seemed to guide his whole life we can hope that his reasons for the self-imposed coventry on that occasion were sufficient unto himself, and that they fully excluded every element of servility. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... other race, with an amiability of temper which submits without resistance to this control. We find him, too, without moral, social, or political aspirations, contented and happy in the condition of servility to this superior intelligence, and rising in the scale of humanity to a condition which under any other circumstances his race had never attained. I may be answered that this labor can be had from the black as a freeman as well as in the condition ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... and bowed very low, with pretended servility, resuming his usual manner before he said, ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... of an illustrious family, his father being only a collector of the tax called quadragesima. Nor was his conduct, previous to his accession to the imperial throne, calculated to do him honour, as he was guilty of the meanest flattery and servility to ingratiate himself with men in power. Yet, as a general, he was indefatigable in his duties, and of unquestionable valour; abstemious in his diet, and plain in his dress. On attaining to the imperial dignity he appears to have laid aside every vice except avarice. His elevation ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... should I know?" he answered. "I've done everything with blind servility since I came into this house. I never asked for any reason—it never would have done any good. I suppose she thought that you were well on the road to recovery, and she knew that Lindy was an old hand. And then the doctor is to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Bernois, thro' the means of the French Revolution, they are grateful to that nation and receive with hospitality those who are proscribed by the present French Government; their behaviour thus forming a noble contrast to the servility of the Genevese. The Government of the Canton de Vaud is wholly democratic and is composed of a Landamman and grand and petty council, all bourgeois, or of the most intelligent among the agricultural class, who know the interests of their country right ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... her deep sorrow and anxiety her broad sweet mouth could not forget its trick of smiling. "Come this ways in, Joy," she said to Elizabeth, at the same moment dropping a courtesy to Phyllis, an old-fashioned token of respect, which had no particle of servility in it. ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... part debased by wear and wrongly uttered, and what do they declare, but, by no light indication, that the inhabitants of that country are an indolent, idly-yawning race, with minds already long prepared for any amount of servility? On the other hand, we have never heard that any empire, any state, did not at least flourish in a middling degree as long as its own liking and care for ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... hope in the faces of some of the women; and a few of the more stalwart and courageous among the men wore a fierce, determined aspect which told of manhood not yet absolutely prostrated in the dust of abject servility, while, in regard to some of the children, surprise at the peculiar circumstances of their surroundings had not yet been swallowed up in ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... camp-fire in groups, whispering and plotting, grumbling and undecided; but I felt safe enough, as they were evidently divided into two parties, one faithful and the other mutinous, and the former seemed rather more influential. They proved their goodwill to me by delightful servility, and took excellent care ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... manner with women was a gentle manly deference; his begging showed no trace of servility, but he was always polite. He accepted failure with good grace, and did not resent scorn, abuse, or even violence from intended victims. He was rarely combative. Fighting was not his special gift; he met misfortune with patient ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... gladly she would die if she might first have the pleasure of killing him! That pompous old man of seventy-one with the blotched face, who had issued orders that wherever he passed in his magnificent motor he was to be saluted with Eastern servility, who boasted of his "tender heart," so that he issued placards about this time punishing severely all who split the tongues of finches to make them sing better. Edith Cavell—she did not pause to consider the fate of patriotic Belgian women—but Edith ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... great deal of time by himself; but, as if to make up for his coldness in one way, he was most indulgent in every other, and seemed to have made it a rule never to discountenance any thing which could amuse her. His behavior to her, in Mercy's eyes, seemed to resemble servility; "it was that of the most attentive courtier," and was carried so far as to treat with marked distinction persons whose character he was known to disapprove, solely because she regarded ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... alive to that mysterious glance which had built the national house and insured it afterwards—foe to cynicism, pessimism, and anything French or Russian; parent of all the national virtues, and all the national vices; of idealism and muddle-headedness, of independence and servility; fosterer of conduct, murderer of speculation; looking up, and looking down, but never straight at anything; most high, most deep, most queer; and ever bubbling-up from ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... years ago there was a fine storm of protest from Northern Negroes to the effect that Booker Washington was endeavoring to limit the Negro to menial service—that is, thrust him back into servility. The first ambition of the Negro was to get an education so that he might become a Baptist preacher. To him, education meant freedom from toil, and of course we do not have to look far to see where he got the idea. Then ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... Sandwich Islanders have a peculiar tattooed mark indicative of their tribe or district. Among the Uapes, one tribe, the Tucanoes, have three vertical blue lines. Among other people tattooed marks indicated servility, and Boyle says the Kyans, Pakatans, and Kermowits alone, among the Borneo people, practised tattooing, and adds that these races are the least esteemed for bravery. Of the Fijians the women alone are tattooed, possibly as ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... careful of class-distinctions, of a place in fashionable society, of factitious rank which parodies the aristocracy of the Old World. There is in the Anglo-Saxon character a strange mixture of independence and servility. In that long course of concessions by which your politicians strove—happily for the world and for yourselves they strove in vain—to conciliate the slave owning aristocracy of the South, did not something of social ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... Election, and a Tragedy, called the Life and Death of Common Sense," the satire was chiefly aimed at the electoral corruptions of the age, the abuses prevailing in the learned professions, and the servility of place-men who derided public virtue, and denied the existence of political honesty. "Pasquin," it may be noted, was received with extraordinary favour, enjoyed a run of fifty nights, and proved a source of both fame and profit to its author. But the play of "The Historical ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook |
