"Dishabille" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enunciated with a clearness and force he had hitherto held in reserve, had smoked to some purpose. We may be permitted to believe that his integrity had never been seriously questioned; that the pretext for a brief abandonment of his beloved Paris while she was in a state of excitement and dishabille had not been altogether unwelcome. Though no admirer of the government of Louis Philippe, he had, as he still acknowledges, appreciated "the mildness of that regime, its humanity, and the facilities ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... her morning dress, at once gave way, saying she must go and speak to Lolly, and hastened out of the room. Lucy, in her dishabille, sat crouched upon the bed, her white bare shoulders and floating hair, together with the defiant glance of the blue eye, and the hand moodily compressing the lips, reminding Honor of the little creature who had been summarily carried into her house sixteen years since. She came towards her, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had no agitation now, only clearness of mind and a curious sense of confusion that he should see her en dishabille—the old fastidious sense mingling with the feeling that she was now a stranger to him, and that, waking, she would fly embarrassed from his presence, as he was ready to fly from hers. He was about to steal to the door and escape before she waked, but she ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... military commandant, an officer in the Brazilian army, named Praia. He was breakfasting with the Vicar, and we found the two in dishabille (morning-gown, loose round the neck, and slippers), seated at a rude wooden table in an open mud-floored verandah, at the back of the house. Commander Praia was a little curly-headed man (also somewhat of a ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... will become of me!" said the poor girl, with the extremity of terror in her look—a terror so excessive, that she was quite heedless of the dishabille of Furlong, who jumped from the curtains, when ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... the door was flung back to the wall. Led by Victor Vassilyevski a dozen men, guests and servants, in various stages of dishabille, streamed into ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... England, is not very common, for the French do not generally breakfast: when they do, it is without form, and on fruit, bread, wine, and water, or sometimes coffee; but tea is scarcely ever used, except by the sick. The morning is therefore passed with little intercourse, and in extreme dishabille. The men loiter, fiddle, work tapestry, and sometimes read, in a robe de chambre, or a jacket and "pantalons;" [Trowsers.] while the ladies, equipped only in a short manteau and petticoat, visit their birds, knit, or, more frequently, idle away the forenoon without ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... characters are mainly co-ordinate; the design of the work precluding any subordination among them. Diverted by fortune from all their cherished plans and purposes, they pass before us in just that moral and intellectual dishabille which best reveals their indwelling graces of mind and heart. Schlegel remarks that "the Poet seems to have aimed, throughout, at showing that nothing is wanting, to call forth the poetry that has its dwelling in Nature and the human mind, but to throw off all artificial ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... familiarity breeds or should breed contempt, send the most villanous scrawls to their intimate friends and those of their own household. They are akin to the numerous wives, who, reserving not only silks and satins, but neatness and courtesy, for company, are always in dishabille in their husbands' houses. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... everything; and a young and pretty wife, in dishabille and in tears, imploring, entreating, conjuring, promising, coaxing, and fondling, is not quite so easy to be detached when once she has gained access. In less than half an hour Mr Sullivan was obliged to confess that her conduct had been the occasion of a meeting being ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... this way," called out Mrs. Graham, who was listening. "Ah, Mrs. Livingstone, is it you. I'm glad to see you," said she, half rising and shading her swollen eyes with her hand, as if the least effort were painful. "You must excuse my dishabille, for I am suffering from a bad headache, and when Martha said some one had come, I thought at first I could not see them, but you are always welcome. How have you been this long time, and why have you neglected ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... know what will become of the grumblers," Marion said as they rested in various stages of dishabille, and talked the exciting scenes over. "They have been shamefully left in the lurch; they were going to have this affair a demoralizing dissipation from first to last, unworthy of the spirit of Chautauqua. And if more solemn, or more searching, ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... won't," repeated Mrs Denman; "how can I? Just think of the situation. Sitting in my chair in dishabille, when a man—a Man, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... proved to be some of our old friends the emigrants, who had thrown aside their marine dishabille, and displayed the appearance of gentlemen. We were much pleased with again meeting each other. Their conversation upon the road was very interesting, it was filled with sincere regret for the afflictions ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... surprised, I called out; when to my consternation a key was turned from within; and thrusting his lean visage at me, and holding the door ajar, the apparition of Bartleby appeared, in his shirt sleeves, and otherwise in a strangely tattered dishabille, saying quietly that he was sorry, but he was deeply engaged just then, and—preferred not admitting me at present. In a brief word or two, he moreover added, that perhaps I had better walk round the block two ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... there?" said Kate, coming out, in a charming state of dishabille, from the state-room she shared with her sister on the opposite side of the saloon, alongside to that of Mr Meldrum. "Is ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... the extremest limit of dishabille permissible even on the hottest of summer afternoons in the most retired of back yards,—no coat, no vest, no shoes. In one hand he held a crumpled collar and a high, black silk stock; with the other he grasped the julep. His hair was tousled, his face shriveled up and pinched by his heavy nap, ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... persons or events in writing to you or to my mother, it is not, I believe, that I want power to systematise my ideas or to measure my expressions, but because I have no objection to letting you see my mind in dishabille. I have a court dress for days of ceremony and people of ceremony, nevertheless. But I would not willingly be frightened into wearing it with you; and I hope you do not wish me ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... fashion, especially among the younger part of the community, owing, perhaps, to their more frequent intercourse with foreigners, though it will probably be long before the morning at home is not considered a privileged time and place for dishabille. Notwithstanding, I have made many visits where I have found the whole family in a perfect state of order and neatness, but I have observed that there the fathers, and what is more important, the mothers, had travelled ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... lightnings flash. And glittering crowns of prostrate seraphim. That morning, thou that slumber'd'st not before. Habitual evils change not on a sudden. Thou waft'd'st the rickety skiffs over the cliffs. Thou reef'd'st the haggled, shipwrecked sails. The honest shepherd's catarrh. The heiress in her dishabille is humorous. The brave chevalier behaves like a conservative. The luscious notion of champagne and ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... chamber and hastened once more through the rooms. Her hair now was waving wildly around her shoulders, and her purple dress, no longer held together by the golden sash, was floating loosely around her form. She took no notice whatever of her dishabille; only one idea, only one purpose filled ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... woman, crowding fifty. She was in a worse state of dishabille. She hadn't quite made it to bed and was still in her slip. Her stockings had been unhitched from her garters and hung in slack transparency around her fat calves, like the sloughed-off skin ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... and that she was dismissed from the dining-room when they began to talk on business. She then betook herself to dress for the evening amusement; that is, to make herself something decent before she met Ussher; to brush her hair, and to dismiss all the traces of that disenchanting dishabille which I have attempted to describe. Whilst at her toilet Feemy turned over in her mind all that her brother and Father John had said, and firmly resolved not to let the evening pass without telling her lover the comfort it would be to have some decided steps ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... flew fearfully, and the wind moaned through the boughs of the old oak-tree in its winter dishabille, and so down to the seashore, when it rushed over cliffs and crags and knocked off the caps of the mad waves and sped on like a tyrant, crashing everything in its way and rejoicing in its might. And so we glided oddly but easily enough into the ballroom, ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... brilliant eyes assume the appearance of being protruded, and imparting to all her features a sharp, prominent aspect, the very reverse of the natural Indian type; yet, true to her sex and the manners of her country, she was splendidly decorated, even in this state of dishabille and distress; the coverlet being of rich Indian manufacture, and resplendent with the dyes of the East—her gown and cap decorated with costly needlework—her fingers covered with a profusion of rings, while a cambric handkerchief, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... I see. (She comes in, and sits down. It may be remarked that a woman's morning appearance, in dishabille, is a severe test of both looks and character; she passes that test triumphantly. She looks at ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... maxim, and here is 'a commentator upon it.' A newly-married lady is suddenly surprised by a visit from a newly-married man, when she straightway begins to apologize: 'She is horribly chagrined, and out of countenance, to be caught in such a dishabille; she did not mind how her clothes were huddled on, not expecting any company, there being nobody at home but her husband!' The husband meanwhile shakes the visitor's hand, and says: 'I am heartily glad to see you, JACK: I don't know how it was, I was almost asleep; ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... Lowestoffe's services, and, just as he was sealing and delivering his billet to the messenger, his aged landlord entered the apartment. His threadbare suit of black clothes was now somewhat better arranged than they had been in the dishabille of his first appearance, and his nerves and intellects seemed to be less fluttered; for, without much coughing or hesitation, he invited Nigel to partake of a morning draught of wholesome single ale, which ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... into the room in various stages of dishabille. The terrified Joan and the disappointed Paul had each to tell their tale. But whilst the parents bent over their daughter, soothing her terrors and calming her fears, Jack drew toward Paul and his comrade, and said in ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... this kind of constitution you see going about of a morning rather in dishabille—hair uncombed haply—face and hands even unwashed—and shirt with a somewhat day-before-yesterdayish hue. Yet are they, so far from being dirty, at once felt, seen, and smelt, to be among the very cleanest ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... more tranquillizing images the vision of the philosophe reclining among her pillows, in the act of making that uneasy movement of her fingers upon the collar button of her robe, which women make when they are uncertain about the perfection of their dishabille, and giving her inaudible adieu with the majesty of ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... Excellency! It is I who have to beg your indulgence, Signor Marchese. Can it be one o'clock already? In truth I had no idea it was so late; and I have still to dress! How can I apologize to your Excellency sufficiently for appearing before you in this dishabille?" ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... the den Mr. Harbison stopped, blinking in the light. Then, when he saw us, he tried to back himself and his dishabille out into the obscurity of the library. But Aunt Selina was ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... slippers with the things barely basted together, and the tailor would take them, with an airy courage, as if they were perfectly finished, and go in behind the curtain where the lady was waiting in a dishabille which the favorite customer, out of reverence for the sex, forbore to picture to himself. Then sounds of volcanic fury would issue from the alcove. "Now, Mr. Morrison, you have lied to me again, deliberately lied. Didn't I tell you I must have ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... coffee seemed delicious, and the bread was a most welcome novelty, since for three weeks I had eaten scarcely anything but meat, and that for the most part without salt. The meal also had the relish of good company, for opposite to me sat Shaw in elegant dishabille. If one is anxious thoroughly to appreciate the value of a congenial companion, he has only to spend a few weeks by himself in an Ogallalla village. And if he can contrive to add to his seclusion a debilitating and somewhat ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... dressed himself with unceremonious celerity, and hurried to the palace, conjecturing on the way all imaginable possibilities of politics and diplomacy, revolution or invasion. To his vexation, not less than his surprise, he found the king in dishabille, engaged with a Siamese-English vocabulary, and mentally divided between "deuce" and "devil," in the choice of an equivalent. His preposterous Majesty gravely laid the case before the consul, who, though inwardly chafing at what he termed "the confounded coolness" of the situation, had ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... of August, sat in his office, the windows open, the door open, the neck of his soft shirt open, and his low shoes kicked off. But his plump, pink face was freshly shaven and massaged and he wore two-dollar silk socks. Even in dishabille Reedy had ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... sleep. But at last it occurred to him that he ought to stay out until Miss Black was ready for breakfast, lest he might embarrass her by being near when she should emerge from behind her curtains in morning dishabille. So he retired to the smoker, gave the porter a goodly fee to tell him when the lady in Number 8 arose, and sat down resolutely at the window with his elbows on the sill and his chin in his hands. He sat there ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly |
