"Obsequious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He shook himself free from the obsequious native, who showed very clearly that he would have preferred to have kept on a watchful attendance, and began a languid, indifferent examination of the labyrinth-like passages and deserted halls. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... through all his Conversation. The military Part of his Life has furnished him with many Adventures, in the Relation of which he is very agreeable to the Company; for he is never over-bearing, though accustomed to command Men in the utmost Degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from an Habit of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... passed; the carriage drew up before the inn door, the host delivered his most obsequious bow, fair Rosa bade farewell to her lover, the prince and Gulielmo entered the stately vehicle, and, with a loud crack of the coachman's whip, the ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... amazement at the audacity of anyone boldly intruding into a bath room—the only place left in Germany for the self-respecting Naked Cult. His eyes fell upon another uniformed emissary from the Police. This one was very obsequious and bowed and scraped his excuses for the ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... two large books with him in his gig, and a considerable roll of papers. As soon as the obsequious Mr. Pugnose saw him at the door, he assisted him to alight, ushered him into the "best room," and desired the constable to attend "the Squire." The crowd immediately entered, and the Constable opened the court in ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Democratic gospel pure and undefiled; Janus-faced double; Good Lord, good devil; all things to all men; God-fearing patriots; come what may; all things are fair in love or war; the silken bowstring; the unwary voter; bait to catch gudgeons; to live by or to die by; these obsequious courtiers; Guttenburg; rubber stamp; at all hazards; the most ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... soul, ravished with ecstasies, Gone back, and now familiar in the skies, Thy former host, thy body, leaving quite, Which to obey thee always took delight,— Obsequious, ready,—now from motion free, Senseless, and as it were in apathy, Wouldst thou not issue forth for a short space, From that divine, eternal, heavenly place, To see the third part, in this earthy cell, Of the brave acts of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... word obsequious Trollio speeds, And to the secret hall the soldiers leads. The youth, resign'd, bow'd down his thoughtful head, And calmly silent follow'd where they led. "Such be the fate of all," the monarch cried, "Who, born to meanness, swell with worthless pride; Who, glad with nobler men to be preferr'd, Rise, ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... so cruel as slavery among the Romans. Great labors and responsibilities were imposed upon the steward. He was the first to rise in the morning, and the last to go to bed at night; but he was not doomed to constant labor, like the slaves whom he superintended. He also had few pleasures, and was obsequious to the landlord, who performed no work, except in the earlier ages. The small farmer worked himself with the slaves and his children. He more frequently cultivated flowers and vegetables for the market of Rome. Pastoral husbandry ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... years of bale, Throned above trembling, puissant, grandiose, calm, Held Asia's richest jewel in her palm; And with unnumbered isles barbaric, she The broad hem of her glistering robe impearl'd; Then, when she wound her arms about the world, And had for vassal the obsequious sea." ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... man serve law through all his life And with his whole heart worship, him all gods Praise; but who loves it only with his lips, And not in heart and deed desiring it Hides a perverse will with obsequious words, Him heaven infatuates and his twin-born fate Tracks, and gains on him, scenting sins far off, And the swift hounds of violent death devour. Be man at one with equal-minded gods, So shall he prosper; not through laws torn up, Violated rule ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... into a fairly wide, well-lighted hall, and an obsequious attendant showed us up a stair, and opening a door, pointed out the place she asked for. Imagine my utter astonishment when we stood together within the gaming room at Bertrand's. What an infernal fool I had been to be tempted back ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... obsequious to the enemies of their master, so that we may regard the respect and consideration shown to the Man in the Mask by the governor Saint-Mars, and the minister Louvois, as a testimony, not only to his high rank, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... by Leander and Andreas, rose from prayer, he was led by the obsequious clerics to a hall illumined by several lamps, where two brasiers gave forth a grateful glow in the chill of the autumn morning. Round about the walls, in niches, stood busts carved or cast of the ancestors of him who lay dead. Here, whilst voices of lamentation ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... has answered your end; but do not push the matter too far. To bring on a civil war for No Popery, is a very foolish proceeding in a man who has two courses and a remove! As you value your side-board of plate, your broad riband, your pier-glasses—if obsequious domestics and large rooms are dear to you—if you love ease and flattery, titles and coats of arms—if the labour of the French cook, the dedication of the expecting poet, can move you—if you hope for a long life of side-dishes—if you are not insensible ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... woman," the obsequious attendant said, "and her room the best in the house; she would not remain much longer, and when she was gone the young lady could have it alone, or share it with her companions. It contained two beds, of course, besides a few ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... of all this. He must accept their flattery and become ridiculous, or he must appear to treat with contumely the Senate which offered it. The sinister purpose started occasionally into sight. One obsequious senator proposed that every woman in Rome should be at his disposition, and filthy libels against him were set floating under the surface. The object, he perfectly understood, "was to draw him into a position more and more invidious, that he might the sooner ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... the servant became as obsequious as if he had just recognized in his visitor a millionaire that had dropped in to spend a part of his fortune ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... not taken the wife long to persuade the husband. Blangin's heavy steps were heard in the passage; and almost immediately, he entered, cap in hand, looking obsequious and restless. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... Heav'ns, and wonder how you made her! Reign, reign, ye monarchs, that divide the world; Busy rebellion ne'er will let you know Tranquillity and happiness like mine; Like gaudy ships, the obsequious billows fall, And rise again, to lift you in your pride; They wait but for a storm, ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... editorial staff, remarking on the total disappearance of the man whom they considered they had done their part to elect, "does monsieur think he can treat us scurvily? It is getting too much the habit of these lordly deputies to be very obsequious as long as they are candidates, and throw us away, after they have climbed the tree, like an ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... ancestress Clotilda, boast of France, but weeping turned From legends whispered by her Saxon nurse Of Loke, the Spirit accursed that slanders gods, And Sinna, Queen of Hell. The years went by; The last had brought King Oswy's embassage With suit obsequious, 'Let the princess share With me her father's crown.' To simple hearts Changes come gently. Soon, all trust, she stood Before God's altar with her destined lord: Adown her finger while the bride-ring ran So slid into her heart a true wife's love: ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... hidden; but one day he went to the Recogidas and asked to see Sister Chucha. He was obsequious, but impassioned, full of cajolery, but not for a moment did he try to impose upon his countrywoman by any assumption of omniscience. That was reserved for his master, and was indeed a kind of compliment to his needs. Sister Chucha heard him at ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping western world. The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with those domineering fortresses which guard the entrances to the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the Propontis. Unlike the Danes, these Orientals do not demand the obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from the endless procession of ships before the wind, which for centuries past, by night and by day, have passed between the islands of Sumatra and Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes of the east. But while they freely waive ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... advisers that it was also illegal, to inflict punishment without giving any opportunity for defence. He accordingly, in the humblest terms, represented his difficulties to the King, and privately requested Sharp not to appear in the pulpit for the present. Reasonable as were Compton's scruples, obsequious as were his apologies, James was greatly incensed. What insolence to plead either natural justice or positive law in opposition to an express command of the Sovereign Sharp was forgotten. The Bishop became a mark ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... go. He visited many a foreign port with the officers of the ship; he packed a hundred note-books with trite and superfluous observations; he posed, in brief, as the captain of the ship without responsibility. Arrived at Port Jackson, he was acclaimed a hero, and received with obsequious solicitude by the Governor, who promised that his 'future situation should be such as would render his banishment from England as little irksome as possible.' Forthwith he was appointed high constable of Paramatta, and, like Vautrin, who might ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... the parquette floor. The old lady began calling the dog to her in a coaxing voice. Mumu, who had never in her life been in such magnificent apartments, was very much frightened, and made a rush for the door, but, being driven back by the obsequious Stepan, she began trembling, and huddled close up ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... you please," she said. This time Dan detected just a trace of the sharpness with which she had dismissed the obsequious Jean. It gave him courage and a sense of protection from the fascination he knew that this strange woman was ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... led me, in the presence of the great man, he did not venture any airy presentation. Boller of '89 inside of the study door was quite a different person from the Boller without it. The bold manner fled. He was suppressed, obsequious; even his clothes seemed to shrink and grow humbly dun. We entered so quietly that the doctor, bending over his desk, did not hear us, and we had to cough apologetically to apprise him ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... porch, and through a portal wide, And I am in my Castle, Lord of all; My faithful groom is standing in the hall To doff my shining robe, while servitors, And cringing chamberlains beside the doors Waving their gilded wands, obsequious wait, And bow me on my way ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... admission; which, being steadily refused them, they obtained by the assistance of a file of soldiers, who forced the doors with pick-axes. Then entering, they saw Mrs. Fell in the lodgings, Dr. Fell being in prison at London, and ordered her to quit them, but found her not more obsequious than her husband. They repeated their orders with menaces, but were not able to prevail upon her to remove. They then retired, and left her exposed to the brutality of the soldiers, whom they commanded to keep ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... England since 1570. It is a Composite plant, and bears the name Calendula from the Latin calendoe, the first days of each month, because it flowers all the year round. Whittier styles it "the grateful and [327] obsequious Marigold." The leaves are somewhat thick and sapid; when chewed, they communicate straightway a viscid sweetness, which is followed by a sharp, penetrating taste, very persistent in the mouth, and not of the warm, aromatic kind, but of an acrid, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... brought the German population to heel and kept them there. Cap in hand, the German men came to him, and begged to be allowed to work for the conqueror; their carpenters' shops, the blacksmiths' forges were at the service of the high commander. No German on the footpaths; hats raised from obsequious Teuton heads whenever a Belgian officer passes. How the chivalry of Belgium heaped coals of fire upon the German heads! And had the Hun been of such, a fibre as to appreciate the lesson, of what great value we might hope that it would be? But decent treatment never ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... it would, among other things, "induce them to submit more tamely to the government of the Franks" (Ibid, p. 170). And we see missionaries among the savages usurping "a despotic dominion over their obsequious proselytes" (Ibid, p. 157); and "St. Boniface," the "apostle of Germany," often employing "violence and terror, and sometimes artifice and fraud, in order to multiply the number of Christians" (Ibid, p. 169). Thus do "villains" very often "teach honesty." Nor is it true that these apostles were ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... sitting-room and thence the two passed to their respective dressing-rooms. An obsequious valet offered Alban a cigarette while he made his bath, and served a glass of an American cocktail. The superb luxury of these apartments did not surprise the young English boy as much as they might have done, for he had already stayed one night ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... (Ib. i. 100-151. Weber, i. 11-50.) have pictured her, there within the royal tapestries, in bright boudoirs, baths, peignoirs, and the Grand and Little Toilette; with a whole brilliant world waiting obsequious on her glance: fair young daughter of Time, what things has Time in store for thee! Like Earth's brightest Appearance, she moves gracefully, environed with the grandeur of Earth: a reality, and yet a magic vision; ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Durwan, you think, will be ready with profound and obsequious salaam. Not so; he draws himself up to the very last of his extraordinary inches, and touches his forehead lightly with the fingers of his right hand, only slightly inclining his head,—a not more than affable salute,—almost with a quality of concession,—gracious as well as graceful; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the box to open the door. He was conscious of a small grill with a yellow face peeping out, backed by flickering lantern light, of a rainy, windswept compound, with a shaft of light from an open door flooding the courtyard. Then he was inside a warm, bright anteroom, with an obsequious China-boy relieving him of overcoat and muffler, and he became aware of many big, fur-lined overcoats, hanging on pegs on the wall. Beyond, in the adjoining room, were two long tables, the players seated ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... of Don Sebastian chafed because he was only one among many favourites. The court was full of flatterers as assiduous and as obsequious as himself; his proud Castilian blood could brook no companions.... But one day, as he was moodily waiting in the royal antechamber, thinking of these things, it occurred to him that a certain profession had always been ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... princess with her husband, the archduke Philip. The desolation which walks through palaces admits not the familiar sympathies and sweet consolations which alleviate the sorrows of common life. Isabella pined in state, amidst the obsequious homages of a court, surrounded by the trophies of a glorious and successful reign, and placed at the summit of earthly grandeur. A deep and incurable melancholy settled upon her, which undermined her constitution, and gave a fatal acuteness to her bodily maladies. After four months of illness, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... with obsequious inquiries. The princess suddenly shivered. "Ask them," she said, abruptly, "to bring up the temperature to ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... magic of love that can restore a man in an instant of time from being an obsequious wreck to a thing of fire and resolution. A moment before Steve's only immediate object in life had been to stay quiet and keep out of the way as much as possible. He had never been a man of ready speech in the presence ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... For, oddly enough, the effect of my entrance on the scene was like that on a noisy class-room at the teacher's return. The tumult stopped, rather sheepishly, and that earful of men instinctively slipped on their armor plate of over-obsequious sex gallantry. They knew I wasn't a low-brow. I went right up to them, though something about their funereal discomfiture made me smile. So Dinky-Dunk, mad as a wet hen though he was, had to introduce every man-jack of them to me! One was a member of ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... his form and features. Out of the flame and radiant mist he grew, and showed himself to me in the trim shape and semblance, with the small head and alert air of a youth; and such as he was, in the belted tunic and peaked cap of a telegraph messenger, he came smoothly down the lane formed by the obsequious throng, and stood in the midst of it and looked keenly, with his cold, clear eyes and fixed and inscrutable smile, from one expectant face to another. There was no mistaking him whom all those people so eagerly awaited; ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... imagination, is not so much the favourite of Elizabeth, the soldier and sailor; it is the baited prey of Coke and Popham, the browbeaten convict of Winchester, the attainted prisoner of the Tower. Against the Court of James and its obsequious lawyers he was struggling for bare life, for no sublime cause, for no impersonal ideal. Yet so high was his spirit, and his bearing so undaunted, that he has ever appeared to subsequent generations a martyr on ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... the obsequious dedication, the composer describes them as works "debolissimo Talento mio." As Bach's earliest published sonatas, they are, for our purpose, of special interest. Their order ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... confusion, very natural to a poor bhearer who had never before been taken by a Sahib in the very bosom of his family. There was something at once pitiful and comical in the subdued "fidget" with which, applying his joined palms to his forehead, and lowly louting, he made his most obsequious ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... unexperienc'd blood, and maids' sharp plights, Must now grow staid, and censure the delights, That, being enjoy'd, ask judgment; now we praise, As having parted: evenings crown the days. 10 And now, ye wanton Loves, and young Desires, Pied Vanity, the mint of strange attires, Ye lisping Flatteries, and obsequious Glances, Relentful Musics, and attractive Dances, And you detested Charms constraining love! Shun love's stoln sports by that these lovers prove. By this, the sovereign of heaven's golden fires, And young Leander, lord of his desires, Together from their lovers' ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... An obsequious official came forward to greet them as they descended, and Mordaunt entered into conversation with him. Two soldiers were on guard here also, standing like images on each side of the entrance. Noel studied them with frank interest. Chris ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... above all things the light of knowledge that streams from New England; it is natural that the unquestioned immorality and laxity of principle engendered by slavery should shrink from the contrast with a state of morals unsurpassed for purity in the world; and that an obsequious church and clergy, which, in the holy name of religion, and 'using the livery of heaven to serve the devil in,' had dared by the thinnest sophistries and most palpable perversions to garble the true teachings of the Bible, and been willing to brave the anathemas denounced against ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Kuznetski Bridge, where, halting at a Picture shop, I entered it with my eyes looking to every side. It was not precisely horses by Adam which I meant to buy, since I did not wish to be accused of too closely imitating Woloda; wherefore, out of shame for causing the obsequious shopmen such agitation as I appeared to do, I made a hasty selection, and pitched upon a water-colour of a woman's head which I saw displayed in the window—price twenty roubles. Yet no sooner had I paid the twenty roubles over the counter than my heart smote me for ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... this passion, I felt it rise up like a snake in my breast when I saw that feeble woman. She was splendidly dressed—wrapped in furs of the most costly kind, trailing behind; her velvets and lace worth a countess's dowry. She was attended by obsequious menials; surrounded by luxuries; her compartment of the carriage was a perfect palace in all the accessories which it was possible to collect in so small a space; and it seemed as though 'Cleopatra's cup' would ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... wife—he fortunately had no children—induced him to stand or sit behind his counter with regularity, but people would not come to buy of him, because he never seemed to consider their buying as any favour conferred on him; and thus he became gradually displaced by his more energetic or more obsequious rivals. In the end he was obliged to put up his shutters. Unhappily for him, he had never been a very ardent attendant at any of the places of religious worship in the town, and he had therefore no organisation to ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... adepts in the science to visit him at Champtoce. The messengers he despatched on this mission were two of his most needy and unprincipled dependants, Gilles de Sille and Roger de Bricqueville. The latter, the obsequious panderer to his most secret and abominable pleasures, he had intrusted with the education of his motherless daughter, a child but five years of age, with permission, that he might marry her at ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... stout Parkhead were nigh, Obsequious at their Regent's rein, And haggard Lindsay's iron eye, That saw fair Mary ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... pay court to; feed on, fatten on, dance attendance on, pin oneself upon, hang on the sleeve of, avaler les couleuvres [Fr.], keep time to, fetch and carry, do the dirty work of. go with the stream, worship the rising sun, hold with the hare and run with the hounds. Adj. servile, obsequious; supple, supple as a glove; soapy, oily, pliant, cringing, abased, dough-faced, fawning, slavish, groveling, sniveling, mealy-mouthed; beggarly, sycophantic, parasitical; abject, prostrate, down on ones marrowbones; base, mean, sneaking; crouching &c v.. Adv. hat ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... soon—so one of them expressed it to me—"walks round them without getting off his chair" and, on the strength of his undeserved reputation for simplicity and fair dealing, keeps them dangling a lifetime in a tremble of obsequious amiability, cheered on by the hope of ultimately over-reaching him. Idle dream, where a pliant and sanguine southerner is pitted against the unswerving Saxon or Teuton! This accounts for the success of foreign trading houses in the south. Business is business, and the devil ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... was to his last day as unspoiled by his unaccustomed grandeur as his brother Alexis. Each was ready at any moment to turn from the obsequious homage of nobles to hobnob with a peasant friend or relative. How utterly devoid of false pride Alexis was is proved by the following anecdote. One day when, in company with the Empress, he was paying a visit to Count Loewenwolde, ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... gave a prompt and obsequious obedience. The Fighting MacDonalds individually must ever be treated with respect, but the Fighting MacDonalds in a body! Surely not the most vivid Orangeman could blame him in his extremity. Perhaps the distracted landlord felt that, after all, here was a providential means of escape ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... very long wait, Ina went down and sung her principal song, with the usual bravas and thunders of applause. She was called on twice, and as she retired, Severne stepped forward, and, with a low, obsequious bow, handed her a beautiful bouquet. She took it with a stately courtesy, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... following Belle's death the Hon.———sat down to a sumptuous dinner in one of the most fashionable of the Saratoga hotels. A costly bottle of wine added its ruddy hue to his florid complexion. The waiters were obsequious, the smiling nods of recognition from other distinguished guests of the house were flattering, and as the different courses were brought on, the man became the picture of corpulent complacence. His aspect might have changed could ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... a man, bolder than the rest, entered the room, and advanced on tiptoe towards the bed. He was followed by others, and the chamber was rapidly filled, as silently as if the new-comers had been the most humble and obsequious courtiers. D'Artagnan saw every thing through a hole he had made in the curtain. In the man who had first entered, he recognised his former servant Planchet, who, since he had left his service, had been a sergeant in the regiment of Piedmont, and who was now a confectioner in the Rue des Lombards, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... who gave us law, In corners, with selected friends, withdraw: There, in deaf murmurs, solemnly are wise; Whispering, like winds, ere hurricanes arise. The most corrupt are most obsequious grown, And those they ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... moment, the arrival of her friend was a sincere pleasure to Elizabeth, though in the course of their meetings she must sometimes think the pleasure dearly bought, when she saw Mr. Darcy exposed to all the parading and obsequious civility of her husband. He bore it, however, with admirable calmness. He could even listen to Sir William Lucas, when he complimented him on carrying away the brightest jewel of the country, and expressed his hopes of their all meeting frequently at St. James's, with very decent composure. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... factors in succession, to look after his estate and manage his slaves. The present one is known as 'the Paphlagonian,' or sometimes as 'the Tanner,' an unprincipled, lying, cheating, pilfering scoundrel, fawning and obsequious to his master, insolent towards his subordinates. Two of these are Nicias and Demosthenes. Here we have real names. Nicias was High Admiral of the Athenian navy at the time, and Demosthenes one of his Vice-Admirals; both held still more important commands later in connection ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... into the public-house with him, if he had to call, and often sat beside him in the bar-parlour as he drank his beer or brandy. The landladies paid court to her, in the obsequious way landladies have. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... not the genuine article at all, we must go to Africa for that—but the sort of creatures generations of slavery have made them: obsequious, trickish, lazy and ignorant, yet kind-hearted, merry-tempered, quick to feel and accept the least token of the brotherly love which is slowly teaching the white hand to grasp the black, in this great struggle for the liberty of both ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... with cheerful alacrity: "Mr. Agenor Clerambault—Mr. Hyacinth Moncheri," and asked the Honourable Under-Secretary of State to what he owed the honour of his visit. The Honourable Under-Secretary, not in the least surprised by the obsequious welcome of the old scholar, settled himself in his armchair with the lofty air of familiarity suitable to the superior position he held over the two representatives of French letters. He represented ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... pure gold. A hat of the costly grass from the shores of the South Sea crowns his well-oiled locks, and thus you have the "bar-keeper of the boat." His nether man need not be described. That is the unseen portion of his person, which is below the level of the bar. No cringing, smirking, obsequious counter-jumper he, but a dashing sprig, who, perhaps, owns his bar and all its contents, and who holds his head as high as either the ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... after others was not the only thing that urged the chemist to such obsequious cordiality; there was a plan ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... Captain Pearson, "but I in my service must be more pointedly obsequious, than thou in thy plainness art ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the crowd of rich men who occupy box and pit bestow a thought on the domestic life of these young girls? Do their wives and daughters, lolling on cushioned seats, clothed in purple and fine linen, and waited on by a host of obsequious fops, ever think whether the dancing-girls have a domestic life of any kind or not? They came to the theatre to be amused,—not to meditate; why should they permit their amusement to be clouded by a single thought as to whether any others but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... between them he caught a glimpse of the sunken Lake of Death, darkly gleaming in its deep bed. There was no movement, no sound, on the plain where he walked, except the soft-padding feet of his dumb, obsequious flock. ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... decision of 1895,[4] in which the Court accepted Mr. Joseph Choate's invitation to "correct a century of error". The "constitutional revolution" of 1937 produced numerous reversals of earlier precedents on the ground of "error", some of them, the late Mr. James M. Beck complained, without "the obsequious respect of a funeral oration".[5] In 1944 Justice Reed cited fourteen cases decided between March 27, 1937 and June 14, 1943 in which one or more prior constitutional decisions were overturned.[6] On the same occasion Justice Roberts expressed the opinion that ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... Women's Christian Association," he commanded the obsequious young Valentine who drove the big Chambers. Mr. Vandeford was never sufficiently unoccupied of mind to pilot a car in and out of New York traffic. For half a second the ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and scientific turn of the wrist,' he insisted, 'and—yes, those fellows at first were obsequious enough; now, some of them, having found out how ill-mannered the Americans dare be without being beaten, are aping our manners. I—I trust the ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... An obsequious doorman threw open the limousine door as the car stopped before the great hotel. He handed the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of money Hans at once became the most obsequious of hosts, and so would remain while it lasted. But Dennis saw that the moment it was gone his purchased courtesy would change, and he trembled at his narrow escape from being thrust out into the wintry streets, friendless, penniless, to beg or starve—equally ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... musing I behold The grateful and obsequious marigold, How duly every morning she displays Her open breast, when Titan spreads his rays; How she observes him in his daily walk, Still bending towards him her small slender stalk; How when he down declines, she droops and mourns, Bedewed, as 'twere with tears, till he returns; And how ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... to-morrow. And there's a central point, a fazenda, where one may talk direct with The Master, whoever and wherever he may be. And—judging by Ribiera—my guess is that The Master has the same hold upon them that they have on their underlings. Ribiera is too arrogant a scoundrel to make obsequious reports if he were not afraid to omit them." He was silent for a moment, thinking. Then he said abruptly, "Try to get some sleep, if you can. That pistol of Ribiera's—you have it handy? Keep it where you can reach it in the dark. I'm ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... you fools?" he said brutally. He felt as though he could throw himself down amongst them and never move any more. But they seemed cheered; and in the midst of obsequious warnings, "Look out! Mind that manhole lid, sir," they lowered him into the bunker. The boatswain tumbled down after him, and as soon as he had picked himself up he remarked, "She would say, 'Serve you right, you old ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... for dinner and sitting about amidst the scarlet furniture—satin and white-enameled woodwork until the gong should gather them; and my aunt is there, very marvelously wrapped about in a dust cloak and a cage-like veil, and there are hotel porters and under-porters very alert, and an obsequious manager; and the tall young lady in black from the office is surprised into admiration, and in the middle of the picture is my uncle, making his first appearance in that Esquimaux costume I have ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... obsequious seraphins Their rosy fleece of fire bestow; For well they now can spare their wings, Since heaven itself lies here below: Well done (said I), but are you sure Your down so warm will pass for pure. CHORUS.—Well ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... peril. Beatrix, who had pouted sufficiently (and who whenever a stranger appeared began, from infancy almost, to play off little graces to catch his attention), her brother being now gone to bed, was for taking her place upon Esmond's knee: for, though the doctor was very obsequious to her, she did not like him, because he had thick boots and dirty hands (the pert young miss said), and because ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said the obsequious Moor, pointing to the helpless girl. "I hope it is deserving the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... prince; assiduous at feasts, at galas, at ladies' receptions, at ceremonies, and in battle; servile in a gentlemanlike way; very haughty; with eyesight dull or keen, according to the object examined; inclined to integrity; obsequious or arrogant, as occasion required; frank and sincere on first acquaintance, with the power of assuming the mask afterwards; very observant of the smiles and frowns of the royal humour; careless before a sword's point; always ready to risk his life on a sign from his Majesty ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... of the wide stairway under the unlighted porte-cochere. It was a dark night, and the lights of the motor-cars cut as sharply through the blackness as knives would cut through solid substance. The obsequious lackey—the automatic genie of the house which belonged to none of the three men,—stood like a graven statue after having helped them in. The fur-coated chauffeurs bulked dimly in their seats. One after the other, like spurred steeds, the cars leaped into the blackness, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... and even obsequious at first, ready to condescend and accommodate, he is equally prompt when matters require that peculiar turn which southerners frequently find themselves turned into,—no more tick and a turn out of doors. At times, Mr. O'Brodereque's ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide Of passers-by in thickest confluence flow'd: To whom with loud and passionate laments From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd. Nor wail'd to all in vain: some here and there, The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave. I meantime at his feet obsequious slept; Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear Prick'd up at his least motion, to receive At his kind hand my customary crumbs, And common portion in his feast of scraps; Or when night warn'd ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... he was as polite as to his father, and to both he was almost obsequious. It was rather difficult for father or son to realize that this was the man who had threatened to send his own brother to the fort as a soldier, to say nothing of the ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... character of The Rehearsal, a farce by George Villiers, duke of Buckingham (1671). Bayes is represented as greedy of applause, impatient of censure, meanly obsequious, regardless of plot, and only anxious for claptrap. The character ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... society. He looked uneasy in his clothes, he was at a loss to know what to do with his hands, he shifted about from one foot to another as he spoke, and half rose and sat down again when anybody spoke to him. He seemed ready to do some menial service; he was obsequious, nervous, and grave by turns, laughing eagerly at every joke, listening with servility; and occasionally, imagining that people were laughing at him, he assumed a knowing air. His treatise weighed upon his mind; again and again he ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... made of palm wood, and covered with sheets of iron. In his mansion, above the entrance of which is written "L'Entree de Sidi Laid," are clocks innumerable, musical boxes, tables, chairs, sofas, and even framed photographs. Negro servants bow before him, wives, brothers, children, and obsequious hangers-on of various nationalities, black, bronze, and cafe au lait in colour, offer him perpetual incense. Rich worshippers of the Prophet and the Prophet's priests send him presents from afar; camels laden with barley, donkeys staggering beneath sacks of grain, ...
— Halima And The Scorpions - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... only the envy, but the trifling ambition of Madame Cheron, who, since she could not rival the splendour of her festivities, was desirous of being ranked in the number of her most intimate friends. For this purpose she paid her the most obsequious attention, and made a point of being disengaged, whenever she received an invitation from Madame Clairval, of whom she talked, wherever she went, and derived much self-consequence from impressing a belief on her general acquaintance, that they were ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... is a child's portrait, posed and painted in a rather distant, if obsequious, imitation of the manner of Velasquez, the great difference being that whereas the Spaniard's work is most remarkable for supreme distinction, the ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... these are trifles. Downward flies my Lord, Nodding beside my Lady in his carriage. Away! away! "Fresh horses!" are the word, And changed as quickly as hearts after marriage; The obsequious landlord hath the change restored; The postboys have no reason to disparage Their fee; but ere the watered wheels may hiss hence, The ostler pleads ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Parliament, in assuming the crown; this act of usurpation—for Richard's true heir was Roger Mortimer, a descendant of an older branch of the family—had two important results; it made Henry more obsequious to the Parliamentary power which had placed him on the throne, and it was the occasion of the bloody Wars of the Roses that were to devastate the kingdom during the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV.; Henry's own reign was a troubled ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... for pastime took a prance, Some time ago, to peep at France; To talk of sciences and arts, And knowledge gained in foreign parts. Monsieur, obsequious, heard him speak, And answered John in heathen Greek: To all he asked, 'bout all he saw, 'T was ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... led in chains and pining in dungeons; they were the iron necessity of all other nations; universal destroyers for the sake of raising at last, out of the ruins, the mausoleum of their own dignity and freedom, in the midst of the monotonous solitude of an obsequious world. To them, it was not given to excite emotion by the tempered accents of mental suffering, and to touch with a light and delicate hand every note in the scale of feeling. They naturally sought also in Tragedy, by overleaping all intervening ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... said the obsequious footman, hurrying away on his errand. He quickly returned, bearing a tin of French ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... Representatives, I found the door guarded by a negro, squalid and filthy. He evidently reveled in his new citizenship; his chair was tilted back against the wall, his feet were high in the air, and he was making everything nauseous about him with tobacco; but he soon became obsequious and admitted us to one of the most singular deliberative bodies ever known—a body composed of former landed proprietors and slave-owners mixed up pell-mell with their former slaves and with Northern adventurers then known as "carpet-baggers.'' The Southern ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... burghers of a certain description, who have a huge relish for good feeding, and an humble ambition to be great men in a small way—who thirst after a little brief authority, that shall render them the terror of the almshouse and the bridewell—that shall enable them to lord it over obsequious poverty, vagrant vice, outcast prostitution, and hunger-driven dishonesty—that shall give to their beck a hound-like pack of catshpolls and bumbailiffs—tenfold greater rogues than the culprits they hunt down! My readers ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... bath and the subsequent putting on of a clean, whole suit of clothes placed upon the bed by the so obsequious man servant, who said his master had sent these clothes with his compliments and the hope that they would fit. The clothes I accepted thankfully enough, for I had decided to ask M. Cartier the address of a shop in the city in which ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... sat on his Throne one day, His Crown upon his brow; To him, in most obsequious way, The ...
— The Animals' Rebellion • Clifton Bingham
... with new sensations—until he stood before one of the popular cafes, now effervescing with sprightly life. He paused here a moment to listen to the music. A group of well-groomed men and women laughingly clambered out of a big touring car and passed in before the obsequious attendants. He watched them with some envy. Music, good food, good wines, laughter, and bright eyes—the flimsiest vanities of life to be sure—and yet there was something in his hungry heart that craved them all. Well, ten years from now perhaps,—his hand fell upon the vial. No. Not ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... prison life in general, modify it ever so much by special chambers, obsequious turnkeys, a general tendency to make one as comfortable as possible, a jail is a jail, and there is no getting away from that. Cowperwood, in a room which was not in any way inferior to that of the ordinary boarding-house, was nevertheless conscious ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... Overflowing with obsequious respect for "his illustrious confreres," as he unctuously called them, he prowled about their conference and tried to take part in it; but his confreres kept him at a distance, hardly answered him, or answered him haughtily, as Fagon—Louis the Fourteenth's ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... for instance, coming along the road. He used to pass you with a jaunty, gallant, curious look as if you were seventeen and he were saying, "There's a girl who ought to be married. Why isn't she?" He had just sidled past them, abashed and obsequious, a little afraid of the big man. Even Mrs. ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... nothing that the obsequious and attentive waiter could bring proved tempting enough to recall the vanished appetite. Never having known what it was to be sick, Griswold disregarded the warning, drank a cup of strong coffee, and went out to the lobby to get a cigar, leaving his table companions in the midst of ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... disappointed. Maggie's rather silly, obsequious smile concealed but for a moment the ineffable tragedy that had lain in wait ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... but with revived interest in life. He noted the pusillanimous pallor of the driver and his friend, and felt personally indebted to the desperado who had put a stop to their unpleasant conversation. The inside passenger made a yet more obsequious surrender. Not that the trio were set any better example by their noble ally, who began by smiling at the whole affair, and was content to the last in taking an observant interest in the bushranger's methods. These were simple and in a ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... not unhappy,—to those about him most kind,—most affectionate, obsequious even to the women of his family, whom he scarce ever contradicted; but there had been some bankruptcy of his heart, which his spirit never recovered. He submitted to life, rather than enjoyed it, and ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... were not. One of them was the renowned Colonel Maitland. I never heard anything about his war service, but I do know that as a gastronomist his reputation is European. The cool way he will condemn an entree, presented to him by an obsequious waiter, merely after casting a single glance upon it, speaks volumes for his critical insight; and as for wines—well, he can tell the vineyard and the vintage of a claret by the scent alone. I verily believe that were he to be served with ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster |
