"Decent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... says Lord Wychester. 'You're too fat for decent company. My friend the Dook,' says he, 'may be partial to fat ladies and ten-cent freaks; but my taste runs to ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... unfair. Ban," said Betty in her most seductive tones, "do call him down. Make him write something decent about ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... artistic expression, and began to hew and carve rough but spirited forms out of the Pisan and Carrara stones. The animals which they sculptured were, as Ruskin has said, "all alive: hungry and fierce, wild, with a life-like spring." The Byzantine work was quiescent: the designs formal, decent, and monumental. But the Lombards threw into their work their own restless energy, and some of their cruelty and relentlessness. Queen Theodolinda, in her palace at Monza, encouraged the arts; it ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... for the honor I had conferred on her. But as time went on I began to hunger for the sight of a real lady standing before me in a street-car. All I was staying in that land of bilk and money for was because I couldn't get away, and I thought it no more than decent to stay and ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... passed, this godly and decent order of the ancient Fathers hath been so altered, broken, and neglected, by planting in uncertain Stories, and Legends, with multitude of Responds, Verses, vain Repetitions, Commemorations, and Synodals; that commonly when ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... jessamine had been steeped, both to drink and to bathe my temples. As soon as I began to recover, I caressed the soft hand of the dear pagan lady, and implored her, partly in Siamese, partly in English, to intercede for me with her husband, that a decent home might be provided for us. She assured me, while she smoothed my hair and patted my cheek as though I were a helpless child, that she would do her best with him, begging me meanwhile to be patient. But that I could not be; and I spared no opportunity to expostulate with the premier ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... seemed to think what it might do; but she spoke for the instant of something else. "It does provoke me a bit, you know—for of course I'm a brute. And I had thought of all sorts of things. Yet it doesn't prevent the fact that we must be decent." ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... strictly heterodox. As a part of the bargain, this fellow came to church, and behaved as well as could be hoped of a man who had received his money. He sat by a pillar, and no more than crossed his legs at the worst thing that disagreed with him. And it might have done him good, and made a decent cobbler of him, if the parson had only held him when he got him on the hook. But this is the very thing which all great preachers are too benevolent to do. Dr. Upround looked at this sinner, who was ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... have something. I'm sorry I have no whisky to offer you, but I have some rather decent port," and disregarding my repeated protests, she rang the bell, whereupon the young man who had admitted me—whom I now found to my surprise to be a ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... were at least decent. Napoleon occasionally indulged himself in amours unworthy of his character and tormenting to his wife; but he never suffered any other female to possess influence over his mind, nor insulted public opinion by any approach to that system of unveiled debauchery ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... talk of the Court; and it would not be decent of me to record even a tenth part of the gossip he told me regarding the corruption that prevailed in Whitehall. Much of it was no doubt true; and a great deal more than he told me in some matters; but it came pouring out from him, and with such evident pleasure to himself, that it was all I ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... in terror at the idea that Peer was to be taken away. And then, as the doctor was going, he looked at her more closely, and said: "You'd do well to be a bit careful yourself, my good girl. You look as if you wanted a change to a decent room, with a little more light and ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... looked ruefully at the water, as if he thought it had already done enough for health. Then we were seated in barber chairs, our beards were taken off, and the officiating artists were ordered to give each man's hair "a decent cut." We found that according to the penitentiary code, the decent way of wearing the hair was to cut it all off—if the same rule had been adopted with regard to clothing, the Digger Indians would have been superfluously ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... forget, Bryce, that affair of Grant's defeat there at Fort Duquesne," said Willie. "In my opinion, that was a very decent, respectable piece of bloodshed; and quite as good as Braddock's disaster, ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... death of Christ reveals sin in its real significance, in its true perspective, outside the realm of accident and among the deepest things of God, "sub specie aeternitatia". Men count themselves very decent people; so thought the priests and the Pharisees, and they were. There is nothing about them that one cannot find in most religious communities and in all governing classes: the sense of the value of themselves, ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... roared old Powhatan, with the accumulated truculence of eighty quarrelsome years. Of course the General was intemperate; but, as the Judge observed facetiously, "it was refreshing, in these days when there was nothing for decent people to drink, to find that intemperance was still possible. With the General fuming over corruption and Benham preaching morality, there is no need," he added, "for us to despair ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... call it large? There is nothing to compare it with. It would be just as sensible to call it small. A man may say, "I like this vast cosmos, with its throng of stars and its crowd of varied creatures." But if it comes to that why should not a man say, "I like this cosy little cosmos, with its decent number of stars and as neat a provision of live stock as I wish to see"? One is as good as the other; they are both mere sentiments. It is mere sentiment to rejoice that the sun is larger than the earth; it is quite as sane a sentiment to rejoice that ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... little man we'd known, effaced, bleached, indistinct, like a poor "impression"—as unnoticeable as one of his own early finds, yet, like them, with a quality, if one had an eye for it. He told me he still lived in Rome, and had contrived, by fierce self-denial, to get a few decent bits together—"piecemeal, little by little, with fasting and prayer; and I mean the fasting literally!" ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... his knee, with one half of it killed his antagonist, and left him. The parents of the man killed, being present, laid him out on some mats, and appeared to regret their loss very much. They kept a continual drumming over the body of the deceased for two or three days; after which he received a decent burial on another Island at some distance from the ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... would do that, Myra," said Tony. "He seems an awfully decent sort of chap. If you'd heard his explanation, you would understand that he was really only paying us both a compliment by pretending to make love to you. I do hope you'll see him, my dear, and let him explain and apologise. ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... that our friend Valentin here—what am I saying?—I mean my Lord Marquis de Valentin—is in the possession of a secret for obtaining wealth. His wishes are fulfilled as soon as he knows them. He will make us all rich together, or he is a flunkey, and devoid of all decent feeling." ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... mind. Let him not be alone or idle (in any kind of melancholy), but still accompanied with such friends and familiars he most affects, neatly dressed, washed, and combed, according to his ability at least, in clean sweet linen, spruce, handsome, decent, and good apparel; for nothing sooner dejects a man than want, squalor, and nastiness, foul, or old clothes out of fashion. Concerning the medicinal part, he that will satisfy himself at large (in this precedent of diet) and see all at once the whole cure and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... coarsest materials, are patched, and threadbare, and valueless; hundreds of houses without anything in them deserving the name of furniture; hundreds of beds without clothing, and hundreds of children whose excuses for clothes are barely sufficient, with every contrivance decent poverty can suggest, to cover the body as civilized society demands. In the towns I have enumerated, in fact, if the least reliance may be placed in newspaper reports, in every town and village in the country the same want prevails to a much greater extent ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... in the fourth place, and finally, that he recognizes that this is a country of laws and not men, that it is his duty as an honest citizen to uphold the laws, to strive for honesty, to strive for a decent administration, and to do all that in him lies, by incessant, patient work in our government, municipal or national, to bring about the day when it shall be taken as a matter of course that every public official is to execute a law honestly, and that no capacity ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... would have been safe for a very child. Half the peasantry had come in from the outlying environs of Villette, and the decent burghers were all abroad and around, dressed in their best. My straw-hat passed amidst cap and jacket, short petticoat, and long calico mantle, without, perhaps, attracting a glance; I only took the precaution to bind down the broad leaf gipsy-wise, with a supplementary ribbon—and then I ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... in Calcutta at an hour which nobody can name, and endeavours to effect a sneaking entrance at the postern-gate[10] of the governor-general's palace, may be a decent man; but this we know, that he has cut the towing-rope which bound his own boat to the great ark of his country. It may be that, in leaving Paris or Naples, he was simply cutting the connection with creditors who showed signs of attachment not good for his health. But ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... What decent woman, if she knew his real character, would wish to throw herself into the arms of such a man. If she were a true women she would almost rather die than have such a man even touch her, to say nothing of being in his close embrace for the ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... and pine to set up a rival art-centre, skilled in all the methods of the Salon, in the murky north. Rose's uncle, originally a clerk in a warehouse, and a rough diamond enough, had more or less moved with the times, like his brother Richard; at any rate he had grown rich, had married a decent wife, and was glad enough to befriend his dead brother's children, who wanted nothing of him, and did their uncle a credit of which he was sensible, by their good manners and good looks. Music was the only point at which he touched ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... slowly and rather aimlessly, it seemed to me, along the street in the direction of Sixth Avenue. My curiosity was unbounded. I followed her at a decent interval to see what she was going to do. But she did not ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... Certainly nothing culpable. Some one had twisted his innocent remarks in such a way as to irritate the captain and had carried tales to the cabin. With decent officers such a thing never would have happened. Affairs had run a sad course since Captain Falk had read the burial service over Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas, both of whom had been strict, fair, honorable gentlemen. There was a sober ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... tall enough—five feet seven last month, and growing still; I should look almost a man. Then I would go round to every office in Edinburgh and ask if they wanted a clerk. I wouldn't mind taking anything to begin with. And I can write a decent hand, and I'm not bad at figures; as for my Latin ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... any sense in educating her like a boy," declared Elizabeth. "And she can't do a decent bit of hemming. She ought to work a sampler and learn the letters to mark her own clothes. We did it before we were her age. Chilian thinks you can hire people to do these things for you, but it seems so helpless not to be able to do them for yourself. Housekeeping ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Gaudisso would have been cast out a prey to dogs and vultures, had not Sherasmin, under the character of nephew of the deceased, been permitted to receive it, and give it decent burial, which he did, but not till he had taken possession of the beard and grinders, agreeably to ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... side street, and, looking up it, saw at the other end, a more brilliantly lighted thoroughfare. Arguing rightly that he would be safer there, Joe turned up, and soon was in a more decent neighborhood. His heart was beating rapidly, partly from the run, and partly through apprehension, for he had an underlying fear that it would not have been for his good to have gone into the room ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... anxiety and alarm lest there should be no election, and anarchy ensue, a wonderful effect was produced on the mass of federalists who had not before come over. Those who had before become sensible of their error in the former change, and only wanted a decent excuse for coming back, seized that occasion for doing so. Another body, and a large one it is, who from timidity of constitution had gone with those who wished for a strong executive, were induced by the same timidity to come over to us rather than risk anarchy: so that, according to the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... bounding to the middle of the floor. It set him wild with rage. Such a thing had never happened to him in his life before, for his home was a decent and clean one. This was the crowning infamy—that they should have taken him, helpless as he was, and shut him up in a filthy hole to be ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... can be a nursery-governess, or I can sing in a chorus; I should make a very decent figurante, or I could go round with baskets. Perhaps I can get writing. There's one comfort: I sha'n't have anything more to do with Arabic numerals till the latest day I live, and needn't know whether two and two make four ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... kinds of friendships," he said, "physical and mental. The physical is a thing of the moment. Of cauce you quite like the individual, you remain quite nice with them, and so on,—to keep the thing as decent as possible. It is quite decent, so long as you keep it so. But it is a thing of the moment. Which you know. It may last a week or two, or a month or two. But you know from the beginning it is going ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... with sentiment. But at least ten thousand modern writers, with Lord Macaulay at their head, have so ravaged and despoiled the region of fairy-stories and fables, that an allusion even to the "Arabian Nights" is no longer decent. The capacity of women to make unsuitable marriages must be considered as the corner-stone ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... polo, you match them in every game, your four-in-hand takes the prize at Olympia. I have even heard that you go the length of boxing with the young officers. What is the result? Nobody takes you seriously. You are a 'good old sport' 'quite a decent fellow for a German,' a hard-drinking, night-club, knock-about-town, devil-may-care young fellow. And all the time this quiet country house of yours is the centre of half the mischief in England, and the sporting squire ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... would do that. We work hard, and we live little if any better than Jasons, who have the County Trustee in three times a winter. I'm big and strong, you're almost a man, why don't we DO something? Why don't we have some decent clothes, some money for out work and"—Kate spoke at random—"a horse ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and again exhorted a reform; but his efforts were even slighter than Morton's, and in their results equally without fruit. The maintenance of his order in its political supremacy was of greater moment to him than its moral purity: a decent veil was cast over the clerical infirmities, and their vices were forgotten as soon as they ceased to be proclaimed.[95] Henry VIII., a mere boy on his accession, was borne away with the prevailing stream; and trained from his childhood by theologians, he entered upon his reign saturated with theological ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... her son were sad over the loss of the good meals, the two pets were even more so. They were reduced to beggary and had to go forth daily upon the streets in search of stray bones and refuse that decent dogs and cats turned ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... the laws of Nature and cowering under the vengeance of the flesh. Education contains much moonshine; but not of the sort that makes mere mooncalves and idiots the slaves of a silver magnet, the one eye of the world. In this decent arena there are fads, but not frenzies. Doubtless we shall often find a mare's nest; but it will not always be ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... friend, Squire Sleekface, and requested him to read it. My friend, who is almost as broad as long, has a jolly round countenance, and when he is merry he shakes the whole house with his laughter. The Squire read with decent composure till he came to the old horse at full charge, with the paniers dancing by its sides. Here he made a full stop; the letter fell upon his knee, and his sides were convulsed with laughter. He began again, and got tolerably well through ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... have any hard feelings toward me, Mr. McTavish,' said the jailer; and a decent man he wass, for all that there wass not a drop of Hielan' blood in him. 'I hope you will not think hard of me for not being hospitable to you, sir,' says he; 'but it's against the rules and regulations for the jailer to be offering the best he can command to the prisoners. ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... mastered a man, and laid its grip upon him so that all efforts to get away from the grasp are hopeless. Now, I dare say, that some of you are half consciously thinking that this is a piece of ordinary pulpit exaggeration, and has no kind of application to the respectable and decent lives that most of you live, and that you are ready to say, with as much promptitude and as much falsehood as the old Jews did, even whilst the Roman eagles, lifted above the walls of the castle, were giving them the lie: 'We were never in bondage to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... woman was the daughter, by a concubine, of Asad Khan, a Musalman of Arab decent settled in the town of Kutana in the Meerut district. She was born about the year A.D. 1753 [see post.] On the death of her father, she and her mother became subject to ill- treatment from her half-brother, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... decent. I am her affianced husband now, and he should leave us alone. Does he think I can ever forget that he used to court her once himself, and that the favors she now shows me were once given as freely, if not as honestly, to him? He knows I cannot ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... get a peep at her. The bride and her friends were distinguished by having a sort of brass nail-head driven through the right nostril of their noses. Good big boys were running about quite naked. But the conduct of the people, old and young, was quite decent. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... about that," he answered. "Were I master of this ship I should make all snug for it; but if I were to advise Gregson to do so, he'd only crack on more sail to show his superior seamanship. I've had a talk with the surgeon, McDow, a very decent sort of young fellow, and so I know the man ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... any great previous preparation, and even without adopting any too restraining mode of life. One could even dispense with any lofty standard of morality. In the last case, of course, ten to one the student would blossom into a very decent kind of sorcerer, and tumble down headlong into black magic. But what can this matter? The Voodoos and the Dugpas eat, drink and are merry over hecatombs of victims of their infernal arts. And ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... had, with some difficulty, quieted their clamours, and confined his interrogation to one person of a tolerably decent appearance, he learned, that Justice Gobble, whose father was a tailor, had for some time served as a journeyman hosier in London, where he had picked up some law terms, by conversing with hackney writers and attorneys' clerks ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... think we might have a decent towel," thought she. "Mother used to say it cost nothing to be clean;" then looking round to be sure that no one saw her, she caught up the skirt of her dress and drying her face with it, went back to ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... 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
... return to the spirit of the day when I had known him as a bustling, pompous man. "It is remarkable that he can be happy doing nothing. Look how restless I am with nothing to do but to play golf and read magazines. I can't understand him. And yet he seems a decent ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... state of things had not much improved twenty or thirty years later when Gibbon went up, but perhaps it had improved a little. He does not mention lawsuits as a favourite pastime of the Fellows. "The Fellows or monks of my time," he says, "were decent, easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder: their days were filled by a series of uniform employments—the chapel, the hall, the coffee-house, and the common room—till they retired weary and well satisfied ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... vicar of Elstow, prove that, like her husband, she did not, in the words of Bunyan's latest and most complete biographer, the Rev. Dr. Brown, "come of the very squalid poor, but of people who, though humble in station, were yet decent and worthy in their ways." John Bunyan's mother was his father's second wife. The Bunyans were given to marrying early, and speedily consoled themselves on the loss of one wife with the companionship of a successor. Bunyan's grandmother cannot have died before February 24, 1603, the date ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... of the room, and in less than a minute returned with the mother, carrying a babe in each arm. She was a very decent woman, the widow of a soldier, who died before his poor children were born; she now endeavoured to maintain herself and them by taking in washing, together with the pay of the parish, which, although small, she received very thankfully, and ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... seated near the table on which stood an electric lamp. He had the confession in his pocket, and smiled to think how glad Mrs. Octagon would be to read it. However, he had quite enough evidence to force her into decent behavior. He did not intend to leave that room till he had Mrs. Octagon's free consent to the marriage and a promise that she would go abroad for an indefinite period with her hopeful son, Basil. In this way Cuthbert hoped to get rid of these undesirable ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... Had he let me see it, I would first have analyzed it, and discovered its component parts. The man was mad, undoubtedly, and this may have been poison. But its effect is good. Poh! I will taste again, because of this weak, agued, miserable state of mine; though it is a shame in me, a man of decent skill in my way, to believe in a quack's nostrum. But it is ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a great deal of very vile nonsense talked upon both sides of the matter: tearing divines reducing life to the dimensions of a mere funeral procession, so short as to be hardly decent; and melancholy unbelievers yearning for the tomb as if it were a world too far away. Both sides must feel a little ashamed of their performances now and again when they draw in their chairs to dinner. Indeed, a good meal and a bottle of wine is an answer to most standard works upon the question. ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... destined flight, Inhabitant of deep disastrous night; Homeward with pious speed repass the main, To the pale shade funereal rites ordain, Plant the fair column o'er the vacant grave, A hero's honours let the hero have. With decent grief the royal dead deplored, For the chaste queen select an equal lord. Then let revenge your daring mind employ, By fraud or force the suitor train destroy, And starting into manhood, scorn the boy. Hast thou not ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... that limb to sleep in a cow-barn when he's got a decent bed in the house!" and then she started to come ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... character imprinted by genius on its works is also shown by it in its private life and manners. It is modest, because nature is always so; but it is not decent, because corruption alone is decent. It is intelligent, because nature cannot lack intelligence; but it is not cunning, because art only can be cunning. It is faithful to its character and inclinations, but this is not so much because it ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... tongue had the desired effect. The chief of the guard allowed it to persuade him to convey Paula to prison in the chariot, and to promise that she should find decent accommodation there, while he also granted old Betta the leave she insisted on with floods of tears, to share ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... be, my dear? sincerity is very trying. A decent hypocrisy is the secret of good society. Your good, frank people are very rude. If I am a wicked old woman, it is nobody's business to tell ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... thought?" he demanded indignantly. "Can't you think of what's brave and worth while—of what's decent for a big thing like a soul? A soul that's going on living to eternity—do you want to blacken that at the start? Can't you forget your little moods and your ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... constitute a considerable portion of the population. It is impossible to imagine the extreme ugliness of some of the sooty gentry; a decent ourang-outang might, without presumption, vie with many of these people, even of the fair sex, and an impartial judge should certainly decide that the said ourang-outang was the handsomer animal. Many of them are wealthy, and dress remarkably well. The females, when ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose at Goodman Brown's approach and walked onward ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... said the broken man, "it's no use. I've tried to be decent for your sake and the kid's, but it can't be done. I can't get honest work. They've put the mark of Cain on me. They can take the consequences. The kid's got to have some Christmas; you've got to have food and drink and clothes and fire. ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... occasioned him new anxiety. His sister wrote that Olga was bent on making a most undesirable marriage, having fallen in love with a penniless nondescript who called himself an artist; a man given, it was suspected, to drink, and without any decent connection that one could hear of. A wretched, squalid affair! Would the Doctor come at once and see Olga? Her father was away, as usual; of course the girl would not be influenced by him, in any case; she was altogether in a strange, wild, headstrong state, and one could not be ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... getting into the better surfaces again: 15.7 miles for January 28, "a fine day and a good march on very decent surface."[324] On January 29 Bowers wrote his last full day's diary: "Our record march to-day. With a good breeze and improving surface we were soon in among the double tracks where the supporting party left us. Then we picked up the memorable camp where ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... 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
... own danger, but whispered, "I'm glad enough Bruno is to home." They will eat dogs and dance their war dances, but I spoze I couldn't hender 'em, so didn't try to advise 'em. Some on 'em didn't have clothes enough on to be decent unless you call the tatooin' on their naked bodies, clothes. I see Josiah looked at 'em with interest, and he wondered if common ink and diamond dyes could be used, and if ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... fleet, With features indignantly red, A poor Clerk wrote of his linen in rags, And this is what he said:— "Stitch! Stitch! Stitch! Yet I can't keep a decent shirt! The thing has reached an unbearable pitch, So—as an appeal to the poor and the rich— I sing the new Song of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... timely forethought. But in the mean time the expenses of a long journey must be defrayed; and he found it impossible now to raise money on his house or household goods. All the ready cash he could command was barely sufficient to afford a decent burial to his daughter. He was discussing this serious difficulty with Virginia, whilst preparations for Salina's funeral and their own departure were going forward simultaneously, when Toby came trotting in, jubilant and breathless, and laid a little dirty ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... however, lounging about the house as he did, that Cleo was disliked by all the company, she and the stage manager being bracketed together as a pair of bullies. He was aware he himself was better liked, for he got on very well indeed with a couple of the men and thought them "very decent fellows." Though their poverty forced them to borrow occasional half-crowns of him, that only made him sympathise with them ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... the town has grown from a little settlement of one decent hotel and a few houses, to a prosperous city with seventeen thousand inhabitants, many industries, and one of the largest steel plants in the western hemisphere. My reason for choosing Sydney as a starting point was ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... she suspected of having intentions. Ariadne was in a state of grave apprehension, because she knew that much as the earl might love her, it would be difficult for them to marry on his income, which was literally too small to keep the roof over his head in decent repair. ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... born in the East, and the Orientals are very small eaters, and are particularly sparing in the use of meat. One wonders what such an unusual display of vulgar victuals has to do with the coming of the Saviour, who arrived among us in such poor estate that even a decent roof was denied to Him. Perhaps, though, the English people read their gospels in a way of their own, and understood that the wise men of the East, who are supposed to have brought the Divine Child symbolic gifts of gold, frankincense, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... use that for?" said he. "My trousers are all tobacco spit now, and grease won't hurt 'em any now. Halloo! Here waiter, bring me a decent fork, for Lord knows I can't eat with this here shovel and if I take my fingers Tempest'll ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... settled, let it now be remarked, that Herschel's resources enabled him to unmask many of these nebul: stars they were, and stars he forced them to own themselves. Why should any decent world wear an alias? There was nothing, you know, to be ashamed of in being an honest cluster of stars. Indeed, they seemed to be sensible of this themselves, and they now yielded to the force of Herschel's arguments so far as to show themselves ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... day's excursion from Biarritz is a matter to set one romancing. Everything helping—the admirable scenery, the charming day, my operatic coachman, and smooth-rolling carriage—I am afraid I romanced more than it is decent to tell of. You face toward the beautifully outlined mass of the Pyrenees, as if you were going to plunge straight into them, but in reality you travel beneath them and beside them; you pass between their expiring spurs and the sea. It is on proceeding beyond ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... had been a woman of fashion and an actress; and Master Rowland well disposed of elsewhere; Larks' Hall deserted by its master—the brave, generous, enamoured squire—heigho! Mistress Betty, for all her candour, good humour, and cordiality, had her decent pride, and would not have thrown herself at ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... knotted like a cord; and they were continually flickering in front of him in violent and expressive pantomime. As for Tabary, a broad, complacent, admiring imbecility breathed from his squash nose and slobbering lips; he had become a thief, just as he might have become the most decent of burgesses, by the imperious chance that rules the lives of human geese ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... up. "The son of Hereward knows how to keep his word, even when it has been passed to a Norman. But let me see thee use the dress and costume of thy English ancestry—no short cloaks, no gay bonnets, no fantastic plumage in my decent household. He that would be the son of Cedric, must show himself of English ancestry.—Thou art about to speak," he added, sternly, "and I guess the topic. The Lady Rowena must complete two years' mourning, as for a betrothed husband—all our Saxon ancestors would ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... bear to go half-dressed to the toilet-room as most men do, and stepped out of his berth fully appareled—in a natty business sack-suit of Scots-gray, a high turn-down collar, fine enamel shoes and a rather noticeable tie. Florian Amidon had always worn a decent buttoned-up frock and a polka-dot cravat of modest blue, which his haberdasher kept in stock especially for him. He felt as if, in getting lost, he had got into the clothes of some other man—and that other one of much less quiet and old-fashioned tastes in dress. It made ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... the beloved physician, throwing the rifle to the floor, disappeared amid the flame and smoke. But the body was not consumed, for a Chinese living in a neighbouring village said afterwards that he saw it lying in the ruins of the house several days later, and that he gave it decent burial in a field near by. But there are hundreds of unmarked mounds in that region, and when the foreign expedition arrived in October, he was unable to indicate the particular one which he had made ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... happen amiss? Are we to form our opinion of things by the romantic notions of a girl, who supposes that to be the greatest which is the slightest of evils? Have I not told thee our whole story? Has she not broken her promise? Did I not generously spare her, when in my power? I was decent, though I had her at such advantage.—Greater liberties have I taken with girls of character at a common romping 'bout, and all has been laughed off, and handkerchief and head-clothes adjusted, and petticoats shaken to rights, in my presence. Never man, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... breath, and with that strange cruel cunning of the shallow mind, which is the abortive twin of decent feminine intuition, she leapt at the difficulty she saw threatening, and ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... years ago would produce from twenty to twenty-five bales of cotton each year, and from 800 to 1000 bushels of corn. Now, these forty acres will not produce more than eight or nine bales of cotton and hardly enough corn to feed two horses. In fact, one small family cannot obtain a decent support from the land which twenty years ago supported three families in abundance. This farm is not on the hill-side, neither has it been worn away by erosion. It is situated in the lowlands, in the black prairie, ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... the complaints of the Belgian nation, to which his ministry had been sacrificed; for then, he said, he would be suspected of poisoning the very source of that power, whose outlets only he had hitherto been charged with corrupting. He therefore sent him to Burgundy, his native place, for which a decent pretext fortunately presented itself. The cardinal gave to his departure from Brussels the appearance of an unimportant journey, from which he would return in a few days. At the same time, however, all the state counsellors, who, under his administration, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... down there inter Mexico," wailed the woman. "No gal like her can't. 'Tain't fit. Why, them women down there don't even wear decent clo'es! I've seen pitchers of 'em with nothin' on but basket-work stuff around their ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... rent it from me, very decent people of the name of Braithwaite. The man is out all day, and won't bother you when he's in; he's not like other people, poor chap. But the woman 's all there, and would do her best for you in a humble, simple, wholesome ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... infernal larks! Thought we were on the Somme again! Ah! Mr. Lemmy, [Still rather dreamy] no end obliged to you; you're so decent. Now, why did you want to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that my father ordered the animal shot and carted away!" muttered young Ripley fiercely. "Of course the whole town knows of it by this time. Prescott's muckers and a few others will be in high glee over my misfortune, but, anyway, I'll have the sympathy of all the decent ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... is a dishonourable aim in politics; and a man who mingles in political development with no intention of taking on responsible tasks unless he gets all his particular formulae accepted is a pervert, a victim of Irish bad example, and unfit far decent democratic institutions ... ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... along in the dry ditch beside the railroad track till I get up to the station, and then trust to luck. I used to be able to do a hundred yards in pretty decent time in my Oxford days, and if I can get into the refreshment-room without being seen, I don't ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... lectured the Widow Tolmie, she bade her in all amity "Good-day," and started to reform Crazy, who had been gyrating furiously across her path, trying apparently to bite his tail out by the roots. Crazy was, it appeared, a useless, good-for-nothing beast, a disgrace to a decent Elder's house, and I was ordered to stone ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... changed from a vigorous, hopeful, kindly man to an embittered pessimist. As for herself, sound health and a good endowment of brains enabled her to make a way in the world. Luckily, she was a sole child: her father managed to give her a decent education till she was old enough to live by teaching. But teaching was not her vocation. Looking round for possibilities, Constance hit upon the idea of studying pharmaceutics and becoming a dispenser; ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... figure he made, with his decent portliness, his whiskers, the money in his purse, the excellent cigar that he now lighted, recurred to his mind in consolatory comparison with that of a certain maddened lad who, on a certain spring Sunday ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which first they do a little chaw in their owne mouths. The women haue their faces marked or painted ouer with small blewe spots: they haue blacke and long haire on their heads, and trimme the same in a decent order. The men haue but little haire on their faces, and very thinne beards. For their common drinke, they eate yce to quench their thirst withall. [Sidenote: The people eate grasse and shrubs.] Their earth yeeldeth no graine or fruit of sustenance for man, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... Master Robert. They say he does much smuggling—but I don't object to a decent bit of smuggling—and I fear that certain very fast vessels of his know more than a little about ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... England in time of profound peace in the company of a score of soldiers. If he did, he would feel that he had exposed the girl to the loss of her character. This is not merely admitted, but acted upon by all decent people who live in garrison towns or in the neighbourhood of barracks. Why, then, should they suppose that when the same men are released from all the restraints of civilisation, and sent forth to burn, ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... woman!—only a woman! It seemed incredible—impossible! For why should a woman think? Why should a woman dare to be a genius? It seemed very strange! How much more natural for her to marry some decent man of established position and be content with babies and plain needlework! Here was an abnormal prodigy in the ways of womanhood,—a feminine creature who ventured to give an opinion of her own on something else than ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... recluse of a man, furious just now at some unexpected litigation connected with his cargo and horribly inconvenienced by the loss of his stewardess. Two ladies waiting, literally, on the wharf, have been promised accommodation in the Stella by the owners, and there is not a decent, respectable woman to be found on the whole coast of South America, ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... Lu-don's power increased while that of Ja-don waned. Then followed a sortie from the temple which resulted in the defeat of the palace forces, and though they were able to withdraw in decent order withdraw they did, leaving the palace to Lu-don, who was now virtually ruler ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs |
