"Curtsy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and got under the low roof. The rain fell in torrents; the sky was completely overcast. In dumb despair Elena stared at the thick network of fast-falling drops. Her last hope of getting a sight of Insarov was vanishing. A little old beggar-woman came into the chapel, shook herself, said with a curtsy: 'Out of the rain, good lady,' and with many sighs and groans sat down on a ledge near the well. Elena put her hand into her pocket; the old woman noticed this action and a light came into her face, yellow and wrinkled now, though once handsome. 'Thank you, ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... lodged, when his mistress, perceiving, by the countenance of her comrade, that she was on the point of desiring him to walk in, checked her intention with a frown; then, turning to Mr. Pickle, dropped him a very formal curtsy, seized the other young lady by the arm, and saying, "Come, cousin Sophy," vanished in ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... would rather he ploughed the fields for bread than served your King. Here he is. Good-bye, Monsieur d'Argenton, may you find all well at Valmy; good night, Monsieur La Mothe, we shall meet again in the morning, or is it already the new day?" and with a smiling curtsy to each she was gone. To Stephen La Mothe it seemed a cold good night after all that had come and gone between them that day, the misunderstood question in her work-room, the shadow of death in the Burnt Mill, and, above ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... many sad days that have been spent in service, and now so very few of the employers are to be seen; and when they are with us we feel that we are still respected by them, for there is the usual welcome—for they would look back the same as we do on days that are gone by. In our young days the curtsy was fashionable; you would see every man's daughter bobbing whenever they met the lady or gentlemen or when they met their teacher. The custom is gone now, and we wonder why; but the days are changed, and some call it education that ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... premium"——So saying, he entered the parlour and made his bow to Mrs. Dods, who, seeing what she called a decent, purpose-like body, and aware that his pocket was replenished with English and Scottish paper currency, returned the compliment with her best curtsy. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... my cousin's duty to make a curtsy, and say, "Father, as it please you;" but for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy, and say, "Father, as it pleases me." ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... so that any be Known guilty here of incivility: Let what is graceless, discompos'd, and rude, With sweetness, smoothness, softness, be endu'd. Teach it to blush, to curtsy, lisp, and show Demure, but yet full of temptation, too. Numbers ne'er tickle, or but lightly please, Unless they have some wanton carriages. This if ye do, each piece will here be good, And graceful made by ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... for a foreigner. Some dogs, and the boy who held them in charge, made up the company. They rode silently along, looking with grave, serious eyes at the people, who came out of the scattered cottages to bow or curtsy to the real Squire, 'come back at last,' and gazed after the little procession with gaping wonder, not deadened by the sound of the foreign language in which the few necessary words that passed among them were spoken. One lad, called from his staring by the Squire to come and help about the cart, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to the door. He met the landlady just entering with a basket of eggs in her hand. She dropped him a curtsy. ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... much her daily use as Padre nostro or Ave Maria. At the door she must have her hand kissed three times in face of the nudging neighbours; and to each salute her honesty prompted a fresh "Grazie, Signore," a curtsy, and a profound blush. Meleagro beat his forehead to see her so lovely and so unapproachable; Orsini bit his lip; but Alessandro, mindful of his nails, and not to be Sub-Prefect for nothing, went away to find ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... astonishment, on being told that Taglioni was paid a hundred and fifty guineas a-night, "that such a sum should be paid to a woman to stand a long time like a goose on one leg, then to throw one leg straight out, twirl round three or four times with the leg thus extended, curtsy so low as nearly to seat herself on the stage, and spring from one side of the stage to another, all which jumping about ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... Wentworth gave a second glance at her as he dropped languidly into a chair, and asked Elsworthy if there was any news. Mrs Elsworthy, who had been telling the adventures of the holiday to her goodman, gathered up her basket of eggs and her nosegay, and made the clergyman a little curtsy as she hurried away; for the clerk's wife was a highly respectable woman, and knew her own place. But Rosa, who was only a kind of kitten, and had privileges, stayed. Mr Wentworth was by far the most magnificent figure she had ever seen in her little life. She looked at him with awe ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Aunt Rachel, who had hitherto looked rather askance upon the presumptuous damsel (as much so, peradventure, as her nature would permit), but who, on the first appearance of the new-married pair at church, honoured the bride with a smile and a profound curtsy, in presence of the rector, the curate, the clerk, and the whole congregation of the united parishes of Waverley ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... she, with her forefinger up; and then when I tried to lay hands on her again, she gave a little dainty curtsy, and was off ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... impetuosity, drew up her slender height, and made him a curtsy, a flower bending buoyantly to the breeze, and ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... had risen from their seats as their father entered, each made a deep curtsy as her name was mentioned, and Harry bowed deeply in return. Mademoiselle Marie was two years at least older than himself, and was already a young lady of fashion. Jeanne struck him as being about the ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... and the clanging of the garden bell opportunely broke up the gathering, and sent the girls hurrying helter-skelter along the terrace in the direction of the house. Irene paused for a moment to look back at the sea and the sky, and the distant twinkling lights, and to curtsy to the crescent moon that hung like a good omen in the dome of blue. There was a scent of fragrant lemon blossoms in the air, and she trod fallen rose petals under her feet. Suddenly a remembrance of the desolation of Miss Gordon's garden in a February ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... as she came some minor French refrain and tapping at the uncared for window as she passed. She might have been attractive once, and Crabbe was not a very young man now. Some graces she must have had; a way of catching at the side of her skirt, suggesting a curtsy; plenty of fair hair and a child's smile playing at the corners of her mouth—not so foolish then. But wise or foolish, she had been another man's wife, unless he had encountered her in her ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... flatter you; and it is to this end I say, you are Italians without the subtlety of the Italian, and Greeks without their genius.—You need not curtsy so profoundly.—I could say worse than this, Kate, if I were minded ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... curtsy," said Nell, laughing softly. "But one can't curtsy on a horse, alas! Please let me off with a bow," and she bent low in the saddle, with all a girl's pretty irony. "But don't be sparing of those ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... him—Continental fashion—a bit of curtsy and offered him her slender fingers; which, as well as the rest of her hand, he took and held. Its shapeliness together with her beauty of face and figure were instantly swept up by ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... much obliged to you, miss," said the old dame with a curtsy. "'Tis kind of you to say that can stand over till Maggie's better. She just dropped off for a bit of sleep, and thought as how she would be safe like, seein' that we don't get no mor'n four or five of them things in a week these ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... proud Southern woman said sincerely, with a curtsy. "Some day the 'rebel scout' may thank you also for me and mine." And with a smile that augured friendship when that brighter day should come she passed out of his sight ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... of the two of us was the more dumbfounded; but this I do know; that I was still speechless and fair witless when she swept me a low-dipped curtsy and gave me ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... the girl, with a curtsy, "de baby 's be'n oryin' an' frettin' fer Miss Rena, an' I 'lowed she mought want me ter fetch 'im, ef ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... condemned." My own experience in the law courts leads me to accept these statements without reserve, and I regard as one of the gravest scandals of our present penal system the ease with which a girl who makes a pretty curtsy to the court, and who appears to be shamefaced when giving her evidence, is believed by the judge or magistrate. The dangers involved in this are obvious to many, especially to those who have much to ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... talking loudly. Stumbling over a log his burning eyes had not seen, he turned in grotesque humor to offer curtsy and abject apology, then hastened on upward. Later, carroming from a huge tree he had hit head on, he addressed it in grave good humor: "Please keep to the right." His flushed face purple in the green light of the deep woods, he hurried on, again worrying ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles, drop a bow or curtsy, as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the sort. I go about in black, which favours the notion. Only in Christ Church reverend quadrangle, I can be content to pass for nothing short of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... lift your eyes from the ground," says she. "You don't know what to ask. I am tired of being a peasant woman and a moujik's wife. I was made for something better. I want to be a lady, and have good people to do the work, and see folk bow and curtsy to me when I meet them walking abroad. Go back at once to the fish, you old fool, and ask him for that, instead of bothering him for little trifles like bread troughs and moujiks' huts. Off ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... his snug little place of business, with the face and the heart of a school-boy. When Bobby, draggled by three days of wet weather, came in for his dinner, Mr. Traill scanned him critically and in some perplexity. At the end of the day's work, as Ailie was dropping her quaint curtsy and giving her adored employer a shy "gude nicht," he had a sudden thought that made him ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... back a little way from the road. A young woman, with a pale face and sad-looking blue eyes, was standing at the gate with a baby in her arms. As the phaeton drove up, a faint colour came to her white face; she dropped a little curtsy and was turning away, but stopped when the old lady called to her. The young woman approached, with an air of timidity, of passive obedience, which was as pathetic as ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... street one day and exchanged a few rather forced pleasantries. It suddenly dawned on Fanny that he was patronizing her much as the scion of an aristocratic line banters the housemaid whom he meets on the stairs. She bit an imaginary apron corner, and bobbed a curtsy right there on Elm Street, in front of the Courier office and walked off, leaving him staring. It was shortly after this that she began a queer line of reading for a girl—lives of Disraeli, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Mozart—distinguished ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... Letting drop a curtsy, taught by Nature, the mother of the Graces, Alice Elleray, the orphan of Wood-edge, without waiting to be twice bidden, trills, as if from a silver pipe, a wild, bird-like warble, that in its cheerfulness has ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... bursar of Oriel was introduced into Mrs Phillips's little drawing-room, accompanying, and strongly contrasting with, three gentlemen in scarlet and gold. Hurriedly did the good old lady seize her spectacles, and rising to receive her guests with a delighted curtsy, scan curiously for a few moments Turpin's athletic proportions, and the fox-hunter's close-fitting leathers and tops. As for Dawson, he stood like the clear-complexioned and magnificently-whiskered officer, who silently invites the stranger to enter the doors of Madame Tussaud's wax exhibition; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... unless they're crocodile ones. Please to recollect in future, my dears, when you speak to me, that you're addressing a member of the Upper School! You're only little Junior girls! Ta-ta!" and with a mock curtsy, in process of which she nearly dropped her pile of books, Gwen retired laughing from the Fourth Form to take her place and try her luck ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... absently before him; but the lady was quick-eyed, and threw a nod and a "How do you do?" in the nick of time. In spite of her shabby bonnet and very old Indian shawl, it was plain that the lodge-keeper regarded her as an important personage, from the low curtsy which was dropped on the ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... out into the garden, and, turning a corner suddenly, he came upon a little person in a large white cap, with a large white apron on, in which she was gathering sweet pot-herbs, thyme, and basil, and mint, and savory, and sage, and marjoram. She stood up and dropped a curtsy. ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... He was a strange little figure, and showed a shy awkwardness at the grandeur of his surroundings. He bobbed a funny little curtsy to Ruth, whom he already adored, and with an embarrassed nod, included the rest of us in a ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle, went away through the tapestry door, which led to her apartments. Esmond stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone, and then her image was impressed upon him and remained forever ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... (She sits down after an awe-stricken curtsy to Burgoyne, which he acknowledges by a dignified bend of ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... to her. She regarded it, clasped it in the hand which was against her bosom, and at length dropped a curtsy, though ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... the empress excelling in that inclination of the body which the Russian ladies substitute for the curtsy, and which he justly regards as very becoming, the empress adding dignity and grace. He describes Orloff as an herculean figure, finely proportioned, with a cheerful eye, and, for a Russian, a good ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... unjust a cause?" "Mr. Burke saw me," she says, "and he bowed with the most marked civility of manner." This, be it observed, was just after his opening speech, a speech which had produced a mighty effect, and which certainly, no other orator that ever lived could have made. "My curtsy," she continues, "was the most ungrateful, distant and cold; I could not do otherwise; so hurt I felt to see him the head of such a cause." Now, not only had Burke treated her with constant kindness, but the very last act which he performed ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... Dropping him a curtsy, Trudy repaired to do the dishes and swiggle an oil mop about the floor briefly. Then she burnt some scented powder and pulled down the window shades. This constituted getting the establishment in order, the slavey having gone tootling off on ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... pleasant aspect, which, indeed, threw a cheerfulness about the parlor, like the circle of reflected brilliancy around the glass vase of flowers that was standing in the sunshine. He made a salutation, or, to speak nearer the truth, an ill-defined, abortive attempt at curtsy. Imperfect as it was, however, it conveyed an idea, or, at least, gave a hint, of indescribable grace, such as no practised art of external manners could have attained. It was too slight to seize upon at the ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... stand up there in the crosstrees and deal with them, one at a time, as we came to them. And so I did, with the gratifying result that when the sun's lower rim had reached to within a finger's breadth of the western horizon the Mercury slid out past the southern edge of the reef and made her first curtsy as she once more dipped to the swell of the open ocean, having triumphantly negotiated and overcome every one of the difficulties of that endless rock-bound channel. I sprang into the topgallant rigging and shinned ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... Hall of the Haughtons is reached, and the carriage rolls through the wide open gates. At the pretty lodge door stands the keeper and his wife, he pulls off his cap while she curtsies low, their future mistress tosses them a gold bit at which more curtsy and bow. What a magnificent avenue through the great park, the oak and elm mingling their branches and interlacing their arms overhead, through which a glimpse of blue heavens with golden gleams of sunlight are seen. A turn in the road and the grand entrance is before them, on either side of which ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... forward and curtsy as she had done before, but she held Silas's hand in hers and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... by the hand and they moved toward the door. Polly turned just as they were passing through the door and made her quaint and graceful curtsy, saying, "I am glad I came, and I guess we will ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... made the lady of the house the most perfect and unexceptionable curtsy, regarding her all the time with an air that seemed to say, "I wonder if she knows how to ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... N. lowering &c v.; depression; dip &c (concavity) 252; abasement; detrusion^; reduction. overthrow, overset^, overturn; upset; prostration, subversion, precipitation. bow; courtesy, curtsy; genuflexion^, genuflection, kowtow, obeisance, salaam. V. depress, lower, let down, take down, let down a peg, take down a peg; cast; let drop, let fall; sink, debase, bring low, abase, reduce, detrude^, pitch, precipitate. overthrow, overturn, overset^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the grimness faded from the wrinkled old face, and the housekeeper, for this her appearance proclaimed her to be, bowed in a queer Victorian fashion which suggested that a curtsy might follow. One did not follow, however. "I am sure I apologize, sir," she said. "Benson did not tell ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... William must have had a very large business. One likes to think that Major Washington dealt with Sewell, and it is not difficult to imagine on ball evenings Mrs. Carlyle's maid rushing in, making a hasty curtsy and breathlessly demanding Madam's wig; or perhaps Mrs. Fairfax's maid presents Mrs. Fairfax's compliments and "Please, will Mr. Sewell come at two o'clock to dress Mistress Fairfax's hair?" Nor, is it difficult to picture William, when the shop day is ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... Betty alighted at last, entered the wicket-gate, and approached the small, weather-stained, brick house. She made her curtsy to madam, asked the Vicar's blessing—though he was not twenty-five years her senior and scarcely so wise—hugged the little girls, particularly sick Fiddy, and showered upon them pretty tasteful town ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of Avenel, father," said the Maid of the Mill, dropping as low a curtsy as her rustic manners enabled her to make. The Miller, her father, doffed his bonnet, and made his reverence, not altogether so low perhaps as if the young lady had appeared in the pride of rank and riches, yet so as to give high birth the due homage which ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... very well with poor people, George. It's very dreadful, I know, but there!—I'm not Lady Maxwell—and I can't help it. Of course, with the poor people at home in our own cottages it's different—they always curtsy and are very respectful—but Mrs. Matthews says the people here are so independent, and think nothing of being rude to you ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... niece are welcome," and Lady Warner made a deep curtsy, not like one of Lady Fareham's sinking curtseys, as of one near swooning in an ecstasy of politeness, but dignified and inflexible, straight down and ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... away the more gratified that I had a chance of lifting my cap to a matron, dark-haired and comely, (who, I was sure, at a glance, had once been the maiden of Benjie Westham's "troth-plight,") and receiving a handsome curtsy in return. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... enthusiams. I have seen sons and daughters stand in complete surprise as their mother's knitting needles softly beat time to the song she was singing, or her worn face turned rosy under the hand-clapping as she made an old-fashioned curtsy at the end of a German poem. It was easy to fancy a growing touch of respect in her children's manner to her, and a rising enthusiasm for German literature and reminiscence on the part of all the family, an effort to bring together the ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... you are,' retorted Miss Squeers with a low curtsy, 'almost as witty, ma'am, as you are clever. How very clever it was in you, ma'am, to choose a time when I had gone to tea with my pa, and was sure not to come back without being fetched! What a pity you never thought that other people might be as clever ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the dusty high-road for a little while, and then she reached the foot of the steep hill which led up to her home. The artist gentleman was there as usual, a pipe in his mouth, and a palette on his thumb, painting busily: as she hurriedly dropped a curtsy in passing, Lilac's heart ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... Bracken, Mrs. Bracken's husband?" she said. There was a tremble in her voice as she slipped from the davenport and bobbed a curtsy. There was a shake in her knees, also. Suppose this strange man should be a burglar? The thought was enough to make the voice and knees of any little girl tremble and shake. But the strange man nodded curtly and Mary Rose laughed tremulously. "I thought perhaps you were a burglar," ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... and folding them in a red case, and leaning back in his arm-chair, turning the case about in his two hands, he gave my godmother a nod. Upon that, my godmother said, "You may go upstairs, Esther!" And I made him my curtsy and ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... said Miss Deborah, who had dropped her nephew's arm, so that she might be more cautious about the mud, and who lifted her skirt on each side, as though she was about to make a curtsy,—"he's right: a woman ought to think just as her husband does; it is quite wrong in dear Helen not to, and it will bring unhappiness. Indeed, it is a lesson to ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... at the door with a smile of welcome upon his rugged features and a handshake and a pleasant word for everyone. His daughter Susan greeted the men with a little curtsy and kissed the girls upon the cheek. Susan was not pretty, though she was strong and healthy; her laughing blue eyes assured a sunny disposition, and she numbered her suitors by ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... to curtsy, whisp- er, hold your chin up, laugh and lisp, And then you're sure to take: I've known the day when brats, not quite Thirteen, got fifty pounds a night; Then ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... lost all remembrance of the text from which she had deduced her melodious sermon. There was, I thought, more mechanical tact than expression in her performance, but it was enthusiastically applauded for all that; and with an awkward curtsy—much like Sydney Smith's little servant-maid Bunch's "bobbing to the centre of the earth"—the red-cheeked little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... find that you have come among a set who are quite prepared to accept you as a friend." Here she made a little curtsy. "And now I have to offer my sincere apologies for the little proposition I am about to make." It immediately occurred to her that M. Le Gros had betrayed her. He was a very civil spoken, affable, kind old man; but he had betrayed her. "M. Le Gros happened to mention that you were anxious to draw ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... stench, to the real joy of most of the women present, who don't dislike an opportunity of finding fault. Lady Lucy, indeed, was plentifully abused, and Mr Hobart had his share; and common fame says he has never had a card since. Few women will curtsy to him; and I question if he ever will lead any one to their chair again as long as he lives. I leave you to judge how deeply he feels this wound. Every body says it would never have happened if you had not retired ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... more than a child. But she knew that a year can effect an enormous alteration in a girl in her late teens—sometimes seeming to transform her all at once from immature girlhood into gracious and charming womanhood. Lady Doreen had "come out" since Ann had met her, made her curtsy at Court and taken part in her first London season, and it was not difficult to imagine her, delicate though she might be, as extremely attractive and invested with a certain ethereal grace and charm peculiarly ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... years passed before Mazarin expressed a wish to see his ugly niece again; and it was indeed a very different Marie who now made her curtsy to him. Gone were the angular figure, the awkward movements, the sallow face, the slow wits. Time and the healthy life of the cloisters had done their work well. What the Cardinal now saw was a girl of seventeen, of exquisitely ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... hands I rudely repulsed her. 'What do you wish with me?' exclaimed I to her. 'Ah! you are a woman, and of a sex I abhor, and can no longer tolerate; the very gentleness of your look threatens me with some new treason. Go, leave me here alone!' She made me a curtsy without uttering a word, and turned to go out. I called to her to stop: 'Tell me at least,' said I, 'wherefore— how—with what design they sent you here? how did you discover my name, or the place where you ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... her head in merry glee, sprang up, and with a triumphant curtsy and a "No, you don't, sir—not this time," joined her ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Henrietta's tone conveyed restraint, even comparative reverence—who never for an instant forgot she once had reigned over some microscopic court out in the far Colonial wilderness, nor allowed you to forget it either. Her glance half demanded your curtsy. Still she was the "real thing" and, in that, eminently satisfactory—genuine grande dame by right both of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... know, by indirect hints, that Lionel Verner might be expected to—to—solicit the honour of my becoming his wife. How I laughed behind their backs! It would have been time enough to turn rebellious when the offer came—which I was quite sure never would come—to make them and him a low curtsy, and say, 'You are very kind, but I must decline the honour.' Did you get any teasings on your ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... dainty curtsy, and I could only try and hide the pain which this last cruel stab had inflicted on my heart. So she was not "Mademoiselle" after all, and henceforth it would even be wrong to indulge ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... which John Howe, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, preached, and exercised the pastorate. I was ordained, too, by English Independents. Moreover, I am a Doctor too. Agnes and Janet, get up this moment and curtsy to his Reverence! John and Charles, remember the dream of the sheaves! I descended from kilts and Donald Dhus? Na, na, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... disturbed the silence of the dawn. Soon the haze lifted, leaving the dew thick on the grass by the ditch, and on the moss and the ivy in the hedgerow bank. The larks soared once more into the sky; a robin sang wistfully in the ash; a brown wren, with many a flick of her tiny wings and many a merry curtsy, hopped in and out among the trees, trilling loudly a gleeful carol. The tits flew hither and thither, twittering to each other as they flew. The hedge-sparrows' metallic notes sounded clear amid all the varied music, as the birds, ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... something, and to my surprise after taking it she made me an elaborate curtsy. It rather upset me, for I had thought we had got on very well together and were quite free and easy in our talk, very much on a level. But she was not done with me yet. She followed to the gate, and holding out her open hand with that small gift in it, ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... him, and sees his honorable friend slipping into the place he has manoeuvred for at the expense of manliness, truth, consistency, and honesty, does he not conjugate the verb valoir negatively? When Madame Favorita has made her last curtsy for the night behind the foot-lights, has thrown off her tawdry frippery, and sits in her lonely chamber, glowering at the image of the young rival who has won all the applause,—when she bemoans her waning charms and the wearisome life which has lost its sparkle, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... be! How much dey do make ob us up to de house! De leopard hab change him spots, an' we hab change our skin! W'at 's de use o' bein' free, w'en we's w'ite folks a'ready? Tell me dat!" said Aunt Zoe, turning on her witheringly, rising from a deep curtsy and smoothing down her apron. "Tell ye w'at, ye Debil's spinster!" added she, with a sudden change of tone, as Flor began to mimic one of Miss Agatha's opera-tunes and with her hands on her hips slowly balance up and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... Depression. — N. lowering &c. v.; depression; dip &c. (concavity) 252; abasement; detrusion[obs3]; reduction. overthrow, overset[obs3], overturn; upset; prostration, subversion, precipitation. bow; courtesy, curtsy; genuflexion[obs3], genuflection, kowtow, obeisance, salaam. V. depress, lower, let down, take down, let down a peg, take down a peg; cast; let drop, let fall; sink, debase, bring low, abase, reduce, detrude[obs3], pitch, precipitate. overthrow, overturn, overset[obs3]; upset, subvert, prostate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Dunshunner, welcome to my humble tabernacle. Let me present you to Mrs Sawley"—and a lady, who seemed to have bathed in the Yellow Sea, rose from her seat, and favoured me with a profound curtsy. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... here's Madam Beaumont's man, Martin, called in a flustrum while you was away, to say madam must have the nicest of our fish, whatsomever it might be, and a john-doree, if it could be had for love or money, for Tuesday."—Here the woman, perceiving Miss Walsingham, dropped a curtsy. "Your humble servant, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... Compliments, until the day came that she was to meet her uncle at Smithfield Market. They then went very lovingly together to an inn upon the paven stones, where Moll asked very readily at the bar if Mr. Tompkins (which was the name of her uncle) was there. The woman of the house made her a low curtsy and said he was only stepped over the way to be shaved, and she would call him. She went accordingly and brought the grave old man, who as soon as he came into the room said, Well, Mary, is this thy husband? Yes, sir, answered she, this is the person I have promised to bring ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Captain were sitting side by side, and the Gulab, when she had finished the song, had swept her sinuous lithe form back in a graceful curtsy in front of the two, and, as if by accident, a red rose had floated to the feet of Captain Barlow. Surely her soft, dark, languorous ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... small. Life came into everything; the Channel leapt and (because the wind was across the tide) the little waves broke in small white tips: in their movement and my own, in the dance of the boat and the noise of the shrouds, in the curtsy of the long sprit that caught the ridges of foam and lifted them in spray, even in the free streaming of that loose untidy end of line which played in the air from the leach, as young things play ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... Watch, and once Orderly to Garth himself—brings out her ain bottle from the spence—a hollow square, and green as emerald. Bless the gurgle of its honest mouth! With prim lips mine hostess kisses the glass, previously letting fall a not inelegant curtsy—for she had, we now learned, been a lady's maid in her youth to one who is indeed a lady, all the time her lover was abroad in the army, in Egypt, Ireland, and the West Indies, and Malta, and Guernsey, Sicily, Portugal, Holland, and, we think she said, Corfu. One of the children ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... flitting about area-railings; dingy shawls which drop you furtive curtsies in your neighborhood; demure little Jacks, who start up from behind boxes in the pantry. Those outsiders wear Thomas's crest and livery, and call him "Sir;" those silent women address the female servants as "Mum," and curtsy before them, squaring their arms over their wretched lean aprons. Then, again, those servi servorum have dependants in the vast, silent, poverty-stricken world outside your comfortable kitchen fire, in the world of darkness, and hunger, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Madame Cerise relaxed to allow a quaint smile to flit across it. She returned Fogerty's bow with a deep curtsy. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... bobbed her curtsy. Was this the man she was to be so dreadfully afraid of? Her whole charming little face broke into ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... for more I made her a curtsy, and walked out of the room. I found the dressing-room where I had left my cloak, fully determined to go home at once, if I could only get the carriage. I had to wait some time, however, and whilst I sat alone the door opened and Rachel Leonard came ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... timing her steps to the soft jingle of her tambourine. The girl had a lithe gracefulness and stately bearing unusual in those of her class—whose exhibitions were rather of the fast and furious kind with a liberal display of their forms—and when with a last low curtsy she ended, there was plenty of applause from all save the two monks. They eyed her with a displeasure they took no trouble to conceal; and when she tripped lightly over to them and extended her tambourine for an offering they ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... fashionable houses is to allow children as soon as they are old enough, to come into the drawing-room or library at tea-time, as nothing gives them a better opportunity to learn how to behave in company. Little boys are always taught to bow to visitors; little girls to curtsy. Small boys are taught to place the individual tables, hand plates and tea, and pass sandwiches and cakes. If there are no boys, girls perform this office; very often they both do. When everybody has been helped, the children are perhaps ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... a flying and de hoss come a-bringing Marse Tom down de road. Mammy drap everything in the dust and grab her apron to drap a curtsy. She 'low—'Git dat hat off dat head and bow your head ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... every moment to send the train off the line. These sudden turns and jerks had the effect of making us all rather uncomfortable, and poor Baby and I felt quite sea-sick. The sensation was the same as when the ship makes a deep curtsy and seems to leave you behind as she dips ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... been somebody else—a real Excellency—or heaven knows what! Or, what is worse in your new magnificence, you might have forgotten one of your oldest, most humble, but faithful subjects." She drew back and made him a mock ceremonious curtsy, that even in its charming exaggeration suggested to Paul, however, that she had already made ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... and wakes him up at midnight: "I'm with you," And away he goes, tumbles on his homely old clothes, and trundles through Covent Garden with the young fellows. When he used to frequent Garrick's theatre, and had "the liberty of the scenes", he says, "all the actresses knew me, and dropped me a curtsy as they passed to the stage." That would make a pretty picture: it is a pretty picture in my mind, of youth, folly, gaiety, tenderly surveyed ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... shocked, therefore, at finding the lithe, dashing ensign transformed into a corpulent old general, with a double chin; though it was a perfect picture to witness their salutations; the graciousness of her profound curtsy, and the air of the old school with which the general took off his hat, swayed it gently in his hand, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... curtsy, flashed a radiant smile upon him and was tempted to hug him; but she refrained from this, not knowing how such a caress might be received. Then she thanked and thanked him till he bade her stop, and with her tin cup in her hand ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... deemed sufficient at Fullerton, were here carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious and roomy. The number of servants continually appearing did not strike her less than the number of their offices. Wherever they went, some pattened girl stopped to curtsy, or some footman in dishabille sneaked off. Yet this was an abbey! How inexpressibly different in these domestic arrangements from such as she had read about—from abbeys and castles, in which, though certainly larger than ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Patty, dropping a pretty curtsy. Then they all went to the drawing-room, where Patty was praised and applauded till she blushed ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... was agreeably disappointed; for the hostess was no sooner asked the question than she readily agreed; and, with a curtsy and smile, wished them a good journey. However, lest Fanny's skill in physiognomy should be called in question, we will venture to assign one reason which might probably incline her to this confidence and good-humour. When Adams ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... placed the unwelcome hat therein and closed his fingers over it. "The explanation for all this," she went on, making him a curtsy, "is very simple. We have been invited to ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope |
