"Levee" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doubtless be a matter of surprise to a good many people to hear of the change that has taken place in the venue of one of the principal functions of Government House. When I first arrived here and for many years afterwards the usual annual levee was held at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. There is also another very marked innovation in respect of the present procedure connected with presentations to His Excellency the Viceroy. Formerly all that one had to do was to send in a card, in response to a ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... sheep, heifers, steers, and bullocks better than a Leicestershire drover, was an excellent judge of horse flesh, and, during his father's life, had several times proved he knew the exact moment of striking earnest. Had fate sent him to a minister's levee instead of a market for quadrupeds, he would have been a great politician! He would have bought and sold with as much dexterity as any dealer in black ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... of January all were early astir, for the father, dressed at dawn in full European evening dress,[10] as is customary on such occasions, had to pay his respects at the levee of the Emperor. When this duty was over, he returned home and received visitors of rank inferior to himself. Later in the day and on the following day he paid visits of New Year greeting to all his friends. He took ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... on his light boots to compete in the race, The western turkey-shooting draws old and young—some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs, Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece; The groups of newly-come emigrants cover the wharf or levee, As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his saddle, The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their partners, the dancers bow to each other, The youth lies awake in the cedar-roofed garret, and harks to the musical rain, The Wolverine sets traps on ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... hungry and damp, it was rather aggravating to find that the carriages which Langham had ordered to be at one pier had gone to another. So the new arrivals sat rather silently under the shed of the levee on a row of cotton-bales, while Clay and MacWilliams raced off after ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... crowded with men. The size of that levee astonished the two new arrivals. The General was not in sight. He was closeted with some one in the bedroom. Harlan and Linton noted that the men in the parlor did not wear the demeanor of ordinary visitors calling to pay their respects to a ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... improvement in the levee system, will give to our people a mine of untold wealth; and as we progress in the development of our resources and the increase of our power, so will we advance in State pride and the ability to maintain principles ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... before the eyes of the poet teems with lovely faces, or dawns into a spirit-landscape, face after face of suffering, in all varieties of expression, would crowd, as if compelled by the accompanying fiends, to present themselves, in awful levee, before the inner eye of the expectant master. Then he would rise, light his lamp, and, with rapid hand, make notes of his visions; recording, with swift successive sweeps of his pencil, every individual face which had rejoiced his evil fancy. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... the Doctors of Art; In the eastern quarter the sky was still grey. I said to myself, "You have started far too soon," But horses and coaches already thronged the road. High and low the riders' torches bobbed; Muffled or loud, the watchman's drum beat. Riders, when I see you prick To your early levee, pity fills my heart. When the sun rises and the hot dust flies And the creatures of earth resume their great strife, You, with your striving, what shall you each seek? Profit and fame, for that is all your care. But I, you courtiers, rise from my bed at ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... particularly pleases me is, there is no place where women are of such importance: not one of the sex, who has the least share of attractions, is without a levee of beaux interceding for the honor of attending her on some party, of which every ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... from New Orleans to Saint Louis; and our walk was constantly on the Levee, whence we could see a hundred of those huge white Mississippi steamers at their moorings in the river: "Look," said my friend Lochlomond to me, as we stood one day on the quay—"look at that post! ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... boats!" exclaimed Tom, pointing to the long line of river steamers that were tied up at the levee. "What are those ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... lay about fifty miles due east of New Orleans. In that day of sailing-vessels, no enemy could breast the waters of the rolling Mississippi and crush the resistance of the city's defenders, as did Farragut in 1862. Knowing that they could not hope to take their ships up to the levee of the city, the enemy determined to cast anchor near the entrance of Lake Borgne, and send through a chain of lakes and bayous a mammoth expedition in barges, to a point within ten miles of the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... New Orleans of those days was anything but a picturesque city. Built upon marshy flats, below the level of the river and protected from inundation by the Levee, her antique and weathered houses seemed to cower and cluster ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... destroyed! No, he will be sentenced to a term of imprisonment. But he will not serve it. He will escape, or it will be commuted. And while he is in gaol he will have a good time. He will smoke and play cards, or, leaning out of his dungeon casement, hold a levee of his friends. Recently the soldiers at Bergamo mutinied because they were supplied with worse bread than the denizens of the gaol. I trust the ringleaders were sent to prison so as to remedy this ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... get the better of it, and she would prefer your never mentioning the subject to her again. She has a great number of pensioners: and on Saturday, after she comes back from market, there is a regular levee of old men and women in the passage, waiting for their weekly gratuity. Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscriptions, and hers are always the most liberal donations to the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution Society. She subscribed twenty pounds towards ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... of Cairo was wretched. Levees had been constructed to protect it from high water, but notwithstanding the streets and the grounds generally were just a foul, stagnant swamp. Engines were at work pumping the surface water into the river through pipes in the levee; otherwise I reckon everybody would have been drowned out. Charles Dickens saw this locality in the spring of 1842 when on a visit to America, and it figures in "Martin Chuzzlewit," under the name of "Eden." I never read that book until after the ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... Pulteney's always horribly funked at Court; frightened out of his life when he dines with any royalties; makes an awful figure too in a public ceremony; can't walk backward for any money, and at his first levee tumbled down right in the Queen's face. Now at the Castle one night he just happened to come down a corridor as Beauty was smoking. Beauty made believe to take him for a servant, took out a sovereign, and tossed it to him. 'Here, keep a still tongue about my cigar, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... burn his hand off. THEREFORE I trust to the laws of human nature alone, and pronounce all men thieves alike. Let everybody, high and low, be watched. Let Townsend take particular care that the Duke of Wellington does not steal the silk handkerchief of the lord in waiting at the levee. A person has lost a watch. Go to Lord Fitzwilliam and search him for it; he is as great a receiver of stolen goods as Ikey Solomons himself. Don't tell me about his rank, and character, and fortune. He is a man; and a man does not change his nature when he is called a lord. ("If Government ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... King has had his levee, which was crowded beyond all precedent. He was very civil to the people, particularly to Sefton, who had ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... sovereign at a respectful distance, out of compliment to the country, her traditions, "his most gracious majesty," and himself, put his own corpulent form into fancy costume, and likewise donned the Highland garb. The absurdly ludicrous result is told us by Lockhart. "The king at his first levee diverted many, and delighted Scott by appearing in the full Highland garb—the same brilliant Stewart tartans, so-called, in which certainly no Stewart, except Prince Charles, had ever before presented himself in the saloons of Holyrood. His majesty's Celtic toilette ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... been a couple of hours later, when Captain Blood, as spruce and cool as if he had just come from a levee, stepped upon the quarter-deck of the Victoriense, to confront M. de Rivarol, still in ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... conviction that he was exactly and fully equal to what he had to do. He was never hurried; never negligent; but seemed ever prepared for the occasion, be it what it might. In his study, in his parlour, at a levee, before Congress, at the head of the army, he seemed ever to be just what the situation required. He possessed, in a degree never equalled by any human being I ever saw, the strongest, most ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... week, during which time the game become so excessively lively, that the creatures require stirring up with the long hair-pin or skewer whenever too unruly; this appears to be constantly necessary from the vigorous employment of the ruling sceptre during conversation. A levee of Arab women in the tent was therefore a disagreeable invasion, as we dreaded the fugitives; fortunately, they appeared to cling to the followers of Mahomet in ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... the unprejudiced testimony of those who, before the war, in his own country, had owned slaves, those of the "Southland" were always content, always happy. When not singing close harmony in the cotton-fields, they danced upon the levee, they twanged the old banjo. But these slaves of the Upper Congo were not happy. They did not dance. They did not sing. At times their eyes, dull, gloomy, despairing, lighted with a sudden sombre fire, and searched ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... Australians and New Zealanders and Cape-of-Good-Hopers and China and India merchants, who feel that their hard labors and long exile have left life empty and joyless until they see the names of their wives and daughters in the Gazette among the presentations at a drawing-room or levee. ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... he, in a sort of grave tone which did not however mean gravity. "Holding a levee?—and do you receive your courtiers at different hours according to their ages? in that case. I have come at ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... apology to the government of the United States. The situation was aggravated by the fact that one of the attaches of the American Legation in London at this very time was refused admission to a diplomatic levee at the Court of St. James because he did not appear in court dress. The British Minister at Washington received his passports. In Australia, the first Home Rule Parliament had been opened at Sydney by Sir William Denison. The popular elections were ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... colored people had taken hands and danced around the White House, with a few cheers for the much abused gentleman who has immortalized himself by one just act, no President could have had a finer levee, or one to be ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... scene of excitement and commotion. A large gasoline torch flared into the night, defying the efforts of the storm to extinguish it, and by the light of this torch, scores of men were working busily, almost crazily, repairing a cave-in that threatened every moment to make a new break in the levee. ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... have been ten years according to some calculations, or ten eternities,—the heart and the almanac never agree about time,—but one morning old Champigny (they used to call him Champignon) was walking along his levee front . . . when he saw a figure approaching. He had to stop to look at it, for it was worth while. The head was hidden by a green barege veil, which the showers had plentifully besprinkled with dew; a tall thin figure. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... night of a levee at the White House. The East Room was crowded with smartly dressed men and women of the capital, quaintly simple legislators from remote States in bygone fashions, officers in uniform, and the diplomatic ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... the outbreak, then that they should forfeit five hundred extra rifles and thirty thousand rupees as a fine, and lastly, that they must offer submission to the Queen's rule within a fortnight,—the submission to be given at a full durbar, which is a native Indian term for a levee or reception held by a native prince or officer of ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 56, December 2, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Windermere's last reception before Easter, and Bentinck House was even more crowded than usual. Six Cabinet Ministers had come on from the Speaker's Levee in their stars and ribands, all the pretty women wore their smartest dresses, and at the end of the picture-gallery stood the Princess Sophia of Carlsruhe, a heavy Tartar-looking lady, with tiny black eyes and wonderful emeralds, talking ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... that Captain Waring proposed to sail at ten of the clock; but after breakfasting, I was of two minds whether to see the last of Miss Dorothy, foreseeing a levee in her honour upon the ship. And so it proved. I had scarce set out in a pungy from the dock, when I perceived a dozen boats about the packet; and when I thrust my shoulders through the gangway, there was the company gathered at the mainmast. They made a gay bit of colour,—Dr. Courtenay ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... think and talk Of each remembered hobby: I long to lounge in Poet's Walk— Or shiver in the lobby; I wish that I could run away From House, and court, and levee, Where bearded men appear to-day, Just ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... his neighbour prosecute. Bring action for assault and battery, Or friend beguile with lies and flattery? O'er plains they ramble unconfin'd. No politics disturb the mind; They eat their meals, and take their sport, Nor know who's in or out at court; They never to the levee go To treat as dearest friend, a foe; They never importune his Grace, Nor ever cringe to men in place; Nor undertake a dirty job, Nor draw the quill to write for Bob: Fraught with invective they ne'er go To folks at Pater-Noster Row: No judges, ...
— English Satires • Various
... week she and Julia sat patiently at the morning levee of an eminent and titled London surgeon. Full forty patients were before them: so they had to wait and wait. At last they were ushered into the presence-chamber, and Mrs. Dodd entered on the beaten ground ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... upon it, the lines coarsened with a touch of puffiness. He was dressed, as for a gala, in peach-colour and silver; his breast sparkled with stars and was bright with ribbons; for he had held a levee in the afternoon and received a distinguished personage incognito. Now he sat with a bowed head, now walked precipitately to and fro, now went and gazed from the uncurtained window, where the wind was still blowing, and the lights winked ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... friend.' 'He does me too much honour (observed our squire) to rank me among the number — Whilst I sat in parliament, I never voted with the ministry but three times, when my conscience told me they were in the right: however, if he still keeps levee, I will carry my nephew thither, that he may see, and learn to avoid the scene; for, I think, an English gentleman never appears to such disadvantage, as at the levee of a minister — Of his grace I shall say nothing at present, but that for thirty years he was the ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... father, as well as the roan colt and a goodly supply of hay and grain that had been provided for him, were on the levee waiting for the Mollie Able when she turned in for the landing, and Rodney did not fail to notice that in the crowd of lookers-on there was one young fellow who made it a point to keep pretty close to him, although he did not ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... Street, the other day, Mawman the Great, by whom I sent due homage to your imperial self. To-morrow's post may perhaps bring a letter from you, but you are the most ungrateful and ungracious of correspondents. But there is some excuse for you, with your perpetual levee of politicians, parsons, scribblers, and loungers. Some day I will give you a poetical catalogue ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... him; as, indeed, Johnson, during the whole course of his life, had no shyness, real or affected, but was easy of access to all who were properly recommended, and even wished to see numbers at his levee, as his morning circle of company might, with strict propriety, be called. Mr. Langton was exceedingly surprised when the sage first appeared. He had not received the smallest intimation of his figure, dress, or manner. From perusing his writings, he fancied he should see a decent, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... former occasion sought to trespass on the royal just prerogative, had now completed his attack on the Constitution, in denying the rights of Lords and Commons, is worthy observation. Talbot, who made one of my morning's levee, told me that at White's last night, all was hurra! and triumph. Charles Sturt and other youngsters took part at the bar, to echo the "Hear, hear," from Fitzpatrick and Burke, of Fox's doctrine; ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... The President's levee was better attended than usual; that is to say, there was not even room on the stairs, and America's first- born, as per election, had long ago lost all feeling in the ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... increase when * She unveileth and shameth the moonshine bright. Bow down all beings between her hands * As she showeth charms with her veil undight. And she foodeth cities[FN13] with torrent tears * When she flasheth her look of levee light. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... capacity he was presented to King William IV. at the levee held on the 9th of May; and congratulations poured in from all quarters as soon as the good news was published. But he could not, even in the first moments of rejoicing, forget that the cause of congratulation ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... at the news of his voyage. George III., who had broken off an important state conference to peep through his telescope at the wonderful balloon, afterwards allowed the young Italian to kiss his hand at a brilliant levee. Military honours were bestowed upon him, and with fewer obstacles in his way he now ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Mark's Cathedral. It attains a height of upwards of three hundred feet, and is used for various purposes, which, however, it could serve equally well in some other part of Venice. It strikes one the more, that it is the one deformity of the place. It reminded me of the entrance of a clown at a royal levee, or the appearance ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... The drawing-room and levee are to be postponed sine die. Trade and agriculture are both flourishing. The only embarrassment arises out of the uncertainty as ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... most implacable foe of republican institutions in France, at a dinner-party, at the town mansion of the Count d'Artois. Lord Grenville gave a magnificent entertainment in their honor, on the 1st of March, 1800; and the next Sunday the exiles were presented to his majesty George III. at a levee held ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... scene. The king is the most absolute despot in the world. He is heir-at-law to all his subjects. He is regarded as a demigod. It is unlawful to indicate that the king eats, sleeps, or drinks. No one is allowed to approach him, except his nobles, who at a court levee disrobe themselves of all their elegant garments, and, prostrate upon the ground, they crawl into his royal presence. The whole people are the cringing lickspittles of the nobles in turn. Every private ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... on earth to me is half so fair As Hyde-Park Corner, or St. James's Square; And Happiness has surely fix'd her seat In Palace Yard, Pall Mall, or Downing Street: Are hills, and dales, and valleys half so gay As bright St. James's on a levee day? What fierce ecstatic transports fire my soul, To hear the drivers swear, the coaches roll; The Courtier's compliment, the Ladies' clack, The satins rustle, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... at right angles from the river, the better to catch the sea-breeze, and most of the huts have open gables, a practice strongly to be recommended. Le Roi would not expose himself to the damp air; the consul was not so particular. His majesty's levee took place in the verandah of a poor bamboo hut, one of the dozen which compose his capital. Seated in a chair and ready for business, he was surrounded by a crowd of courtiers, who listened attentively to every word, especially when he ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... sandy beach like that of the ocean, which extends for miles and as far as the eye can reach, save that occasionally there is to be found a sharp projection of rocks. The overlooking bench rises from the water's edge about eight feet, forming a bank of sand or natural levee, which serves to prevent the overflow of the land adjoining, which, when the lake is receiving the water from the mountain streams that empty into it while the snows are melting, is several feet below the surface ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... I incontinently find myself holding a levee of departed Christmas nights. Silently, and without special call, into my study of imagination come these apparitions, clad in snowy mantles, brooched and gemmed with frosts. Their numbers I do not care to count, for I know they are the numbers ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... courtiers and cavaliers, and treated all the members of these different petty courts with imperial munificence. In return there were universal manifestations of homage and devotion. The kings and princes every morning attended his levee. He arranged the entertainments that were to take place, and designated those who were to participate in them. All bowed to him, even the Emperor Alexander himself. The most cordial feeling prevailed between the two emperors. They were always seen arm ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... when the castle was thronged with guests, and those of all ages and descriptions and from every rank in and out of society! The presidential levee is not more democratic than were the fetes of the Princess Maksontoff. To the music of the Admiral's band combined with the castle orchestra, it was "all hands round." The Prince danced with each and every lady in turn. The ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... he shipped with during that year or more—I am sure that he had never dreamed that such men were. He had never stood on the curbing outside a recruiting office on South State Street, in the old levee district, and watched that tragic panorama move by—those nightmare faces, ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... happy that you haf a home to go in," he said, when she told him, and sat silently pulling his beard in the corner, while she held a little levee on that ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... escape from an unjust Praetor without paying largely—went to his mistress and endeavored to settle the matter with her. Here we have an amusing picture of the way in which the affairs of the city were carried on in that lady's establishment; how she had her levee, took her bribes, and drove a lucrative trade. Doing, however, no good with her, the trustees settled with an agent to pay Verres two hundred thousand sesterces to drop the affair. This was something under L2000. But Verres repudiated the arrangement with scorn. He could do ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... 5th, the fleet with transports moved down the river, anchoring at night two miles above the city. The next morning at dawn the River Defence Fleet was sighted lying at the levee. They soon cast off, and moved into the river, keeping, however, in front of the city in such a way as to embarrass the fire ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... not hesitate to show his dislike of the ceremony that prevailed around him. He stopped the weekly levee at the White House, and the system of precedence in force at the present time; also the appointment of fast and thanksgiving days. He dressed with severe simplicity and would not permit any attention to be paid him as president which would be refused him as a private citizen. In ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... levee was a little pothouse of the lowest sort; yet from that unclean and smoky hole was destined to come one of the finest fortunes in Louisiana. They called the proprietor "Pere la Chaise."[7] He was a little old marten-faced man, always busy and smiling, who every year laid aside immense profits. ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... in the latter part of 1848. I was walking one morning along the Levee, with a fair companion on my arm, when a well-known voice ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... unlocking of his learning and philosophy. How the imagination is piqued by anecdotes of some great man passing incognito, as a king in gray clothes!—of Napoleon affecting a plain suit at his glittering levee!—of Burns, or Scott, or Beethoven, or Wellington, or Goethe, or any container of transcendent power, passing for nobody!—of Epaminondas, "who never says anything, but will listen eternally!"—of Goethe, who preferred trifling subjects ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... pay half I am possessed of rather rather than go before the commissioners," said Miss Buff. "Old Phipps is one of them; and here he is. Come to see you, Bessie; you are having quite a levee. I shall be off now." Miss Buff rose, and Miss Wort with her, but before they went there were some rallying speeches to be exchanged between Miss Buff and the quaint old bachelor. They were the most friendly ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... and wait for him all afternoon, just as he had waited so often for some one who did not come? His reflections were disturbed by a hooting noise up the bank, followed by a shower of rocks. The next instant a mongrel pup scurried down the levee and ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... established at the former one, wherein the debutants might perfect themselves in their various gestures and attitudes, we should not behold such a number of awkward louts, and johnny raw's, as exhibit themselves at the levee room of the king of the Guelphs. In the capital of Eyeo, it is the custom of the court, for the monarch to hold a levee twice a day, at six in the morning, and two in the afternoon; rather hot work for the courtiers, perspiring in a temperature of about 120 deg.. The son ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... character. There is not a trait in them that renders them doubtful. They are so originally vice, that they are generated in the dung of other vices, and crawl into existence with the filth upon their back. The fugitives have found protection in you, and the levee-room is ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... dark neat sea-dress and cloak and the little close straw bonnet with chocolate ribbands; and every now and then made pretences to get near and see how the face looked that was hidden under it. The report of the first venturers was so favourable that Eleanor had an unconscious sort of levee the next day or two; and then, the fresh sweet face that was so like a flower was found to have more attractions when known than it had before when unknown. There was not a hand on board but seized or made opportunities every day and as often as he could to get near her; if a chance offered ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... waistcoat gay, When strained upon a levee day, Scarce meets across his princely paunch; And pantaloons are like half-moons Upon ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... fulfilled and he died; whereupon his son, Zayn al-Asnam, arose and donned mourning-dress for his father during six days; and on the seventh he went forth to the Divan and took seat upon the throne of his Sultanate. He also held a levee wherein were assembled all the defenders of the realm, and the Ministers and the Lords of the land came forward and condoled with him for the loss of his parent and wished him all good fortune and gave him ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... boarders left "post haste," but the house filled up again before night in spite of the smallpox sign. At that time, in the year of 1863, the Gillis house run by Dr. Hopkins was the only large house in Kansas City in use. There was a new building, the "Bravadere," up on the hill from the levee, but it had ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad and to transform it into a real railway line. Nearly twenty years had passed since he had drifted in, an eighteen-year-old Scotch-Irish boy from Ontario, and had begun work in a steamship office on the levee at St. Paul. Now, in 1876, he was thirty-eight years old and a town character. And the town felt that it had his measure. He had already tried a variety of occupations, and at this time was agent for lines of steamboats on the Mississippi and ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... finding himself with some one, no matter who he might be. Swift talked about the prospects of ending the strike. He regarded it as a reportorial feast, and had natural regrets that such good material for lurid paragraphs was to be cut off. As they passed through the Levee, he nodded to the proprietors of the "places," with ostentatious familiarity. From the Levee they took an electric car, which was crowded with officers and deputies bound for the stock yards. The long thoroughfare lined with rotting wooden houses ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... doth in my Favour speak, Your Levee is but twice a Week; From mine I can exclude but one Day, My Door is ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... Mtesa, the King of Uganda, sent his pages to announce a levee at the palace in my honour. I prepared for my presentation at court in my best, but cut a sorry figure in comparison with the dressy Waganda. The preliminary ceremonies were so dilatory, that I allowed five minutes to the court to give ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... England, I am ready, provided you give me time to swallow a potion recommended by Celsus in my perilous case, to answer with the most perfect sincerity every question which you can put to me upon that subject." So saying, he called upon a monk who had attended at his levee, and giving him a large key, whispered something in his ear. The cup which the monk brought was of such capacity as proved Celsus's draught required to be administered in considerable quantity, and a strong smell which it spread through the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... resist my impatient desire to have it satisfied. To this end, I am resolved to withdraw alone from the camp, and I order you to keep my absence secret: stay in my pavilion, and to-morrow morning, when the emirs and courtiers come to attend my levee, send them away, and tell them, that I am somewhat indisposed, and wish to be alone; and the following days tell them the same thing, till ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... performer upon the piano and harp, but also a linguist of considerable proficiency, while her grace of manner and brilliant powers of repartee added greatly to her social charms. On one occasion during Polk's administration she attended a levee at the White House, and as she passed down the line with the other guests she received an enthusiastic welcome and was soon so completely surrounded by an admiring throng that for a while Mrs. Polk was left very much to herself. It was Mrs. Scott who wrote ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... powers potenter still that routed it, they regarded as beings whose moods genuflexions could affect. In perhaps the same spirit that Frenchmen assisted at a lever du roi, and Englishmen attend a prince's levee, the Aryan breakfasted on song and sacrifice. It was an ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... now no recollection of having, when a child, seen the king with any of the appendages of royalty, except when he went to town, once a week, to hold a levee; and then ten dragoons rode before, and ten after his carriage, and the tradesmen in the streets through which he passed duly stood at their doors, to make the most profound reverences, as in duty bound, when their monarch looked ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... to reach the bayou levee. The quarry was already in midstream, wielding an efficient canoe paddle. On impulse Val shouted after him, but he never turned. A rifle lay across his knees and there were some rusty traps in the bottom of the flimsy canoe. Then Val remembered that Pirate's Haven ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... I am surrounded with a more numerous train of servants and dependents. But this comes not home to the heart of your Rinaldo. I look in vain through all the circle for an equal and a friend. It is true, when I repair to the levee of my prince, I behold many equals; but they are strangers to me, their faces are dressed in studied smiles, they appear all suppleness, complaisance and courtliness. A countenance, fraught with art, and that carries nothing of the soul in it, is uninteresting, ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... Monsieur Domairon, the professor of belles lettres, who, taking notice of the offensive passage, insisted upon the letter being burnt, and added a severe rebuke. Long afterwards, in 1802, Monsieur Domairon was commanded to attend Napoleon's levee, in order that he might receive a pupil in the person of Jerome Bonaparte, when the first consul reminded his old tutor good-humouredly, that times had changed considerably since ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... friend, one of a family of whom Ireland has reason to retain a grateful recollection. He was, however, with Ponsonby, Curran, and others of his friends in both Houses, added to the Privy Council, where they were free to shape the measures of the new administration. At the King's levee, on the 10th of December, when Lord Fitzwilliam was sworn in, the aged Burke, in deep mourning for his idolized son, attended; Grattan was so much spoken to by the King as to draw towards him particular attention; Mr. Pitt, the Duke of Portland, and other ministers, were present. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... I set out to be presented at the first court in Europe. I remember my emotion when I saw the king at Versailles. When the king's levee was announced, the persons not presented withdrew. I felt an emotion of vanity; I was not proud of remaining, but I should have felt humiliated at having to retire. The royal bed-chamber door opened; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... by came a little dry cough, as she went through the presentations at the levee, and read out 'Viscount Fitzjocelyn, by the ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... glory of the town is the "levee," as it is called, or the long river beach up to which the steamers are brought with their bows to the shore. It is an esplanade looking on to the river, not built with quays or wharves, as would be the case with us, but with a sloping bank running down to the water. In the good ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... superb picture, or abstraction of the Roman pomps and power, when ascending to their utmost altitude, confront the following representative sketch of a great English levee on some high solemnity, suppose the king's birthday: "Amongst the presentations to his majesty, we noticed Lord O. S., the governor general of India, on his departure for Bengal; Mr. U. Z., with an address from the Upper and Lower Canadas; Sir L. V., on his appointment ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... those alone; neither did the king usually sit down to table with the nobility or with his courtiers. Never was he known to be guilty of the slightest excess at table, and his repasts were simple, if not frugal. At a levee, or on the terrace at Windsor, or in the circle of Hyde Park, this model of a worthy English gentleman might be seen, either with his plain-featured queen on his arm, or driven in his well-known coach with his old and famous cream-coloured horses. Junius derided ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... than he had expected in obtaining an audience of Anne of Austria. It was granted, and was to take place after her morning's "levee," at which, in accordance with his rights of birth, he was entitled to be present. A vast crowd filled the apartments of Saint Germain. Anne had never at the Louvre had so large a court; but this crowd ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... conferring of the Order one elective latitude—it could either be sent out or wait till I returned to England and attended a levee with the other recipients. I had a great desire to see the King, and, though it meant a year's waiting, I requested to be allowed to do so. This not only was most courteously granted, but also the permission to let my presence in England be known to the Hereditary Grand Chamberlain, ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... eyes at first for no one but Madame Bonaparte (since coming to live at the Tuileries she was no longer called Citizeness Bonaparte), whom I had not yet seen, this being my first levee, and of whom I had heard almost as much as of the First Consul. I had heard that she was not faultlessly beautiful, but of great charm, and I could see at once that this was true. I do not know why she was not perfectly beautiful—perhaps her features were a little heavy, her nose ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... I retired to bed the night before, introduced the whole of the nuns in rotation, beginning with the elder, and ending with those who last took the vow of chastity. I felt little interest, I must confess, at the commencement of my levee; but as it came near to a close, many beautiful countenances attracted my attention and I gave the kiss of peace with more zest than prudence would have justified. The last of the sisterhood came forward, and was introduced as Soeur Marie. Gracious Heaven! ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... captured." Again he pondered. "I am very glad you have brought good news, though Schmidt's death is a heavy price to pay for the victory. His Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I thank you! You must have a rest. Be at the levee tomorrow after the parade. However, I ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... fully at his death confuted. The loads of poems in his praise Ascending, make one funeral blaze. As soon as you can hear his knell This god on earth turns devil in hell; And lo! his ministers of state, Transformed to imps, his levee wait, Where, in the scenes of endless woe, They ply their former arts below; And as they sail in Charon's boat, Contrive to bribe the judge's vote; To Cerberus they give a sop, His triple-barking ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Commissioner and the Marchioness of Heatherdale will arrive to-day at Holyrood Palace, there to reside during the sittings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and to-morrow the Royal Standard will be hoisted at Edinburgh Castle from reveille to retreat. His Grace will hold a levee at eleven. Directly His Grace leaves the palace after the levee, the guard of honour will proceed by the Canongate to receive him on his arrival at St. Giles' Church, and will then proceed to Assembly Hall to receive him on his arrival there. The Sixth Inniskilling ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... state to the King that I was ready to obey His Majesty's commands, if he wished to ask me any questions. He told me to-day that the King expressed himself perfectly ready to give me an audience if I wished for one. This I thought was better declined. I shall go to the levee on Friday, and shall be very impatient for your ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Shah's camp he says: "June 12th, attended the Vizier's levee, when there was a most intemperate and clamorous controversy kept up for an hour or two, eight or ten on one side, and I on the other. Amongst them were two Moollahs, the most ignorant of any I have met in Persia or India. It would be impossible to enumerate all the ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... Abracadabra; Titmouse's levee at Closet Court; Mr. Tag-rag's entertainment to him at Satin Lodge; ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... turnin' on us. Th' Japs threaten us with war. Th' Chinese won't buy shoes fr'm us an' ar-re chasin' th' missionaries out iv their cozy villas an' not even givin' thim a chance to carry away their piannies or their silverware. There's th' divvle to pay all along th' levee fr'm Manchurya to Madagascar, accordin' to Hogan. I begin to feel onaisy. Th' first thing we know all th' other subjick races will be up. Th' horses will kick an' bite, the dogs will fly at our throats whin we lick thim, th' fishes will refuse to be caught, th' cattle an' pigs will set fire to ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... language often formal and obsolete, that we are asked to take for granted some very unaccustomed supposition and extravagant assumption, does not trouble us more than the usages and sights, so strange to ordinary civil life, of a camp, or a royal levee. All is in keeping, whatever may be the details of the pageant; they harmonize with the effect of the whole, like the gargoyles and quaint groups in a Gothic building harmonize with its general tone of majesty and subtle beauty;—nay, as ornaments, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... much torment of this sort, a definite notion seemed to take her; she turned her lord by a touch of the elbow, and exchanged two or three business-like whispers with him at a window overlooking the Levee. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... Bagh, and is ornamented with well wooded gardens, among which the Khujoor holds a conspicuous place. An elegant and large Bheir and a Mimosa, are two other trees of the place; it is situated on the left bank of the Bolan river. The bed of this river until the Levee bund was cut, had been dry, but there is now plenty of water in it. It is in some places much choked by bulrushes, etc., it is eighty yards broad, and is shingly. Dadur stands nearly on the end of a good sized plain, surrounded ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... did not seem to be a bit put out because no one replied to him in this astonishing levee. He descended from the porch and strolled off toward Britt Block, ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... accident as strange there as one's self. The routine varied little. There was no attempt at entertainment. Except for the desperate isolation of these two first seasons, even secretaries would have found the effort almost as mechanical as a levee at St. James's Palace. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... levee, eh?" he said, glancing about upon the group. "How d'ye, young ladies and gentlemen? Holloa, Ed! so you're the brave fellow that shot his father? Hope your grandfather dealt out justice to you in the same fashion that Wal and Dick's ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... he said, at length, with not a little stiffness in his manner, while Charles had no less awkwardness in receiving him; "you have been holding a levee this morning; I thought I should never get to see you. Sit you down; let us both sit down, and let me at last have a word ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... embarking here for the West—two companies of dragoons, their officers and mounts. I managed to get passage on this boat to Louisville, and thence to the city of St. Louis. Thus, finally, we pushed in at the vast busy levee of this ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... company even if the aura was markedly Victorian. Reeve was full of stories of how Wordsworth used to stop with him when he came up to London in his later years. He lent his Court suit to Wordsworth in order that the Poet-Laureate should present himself at a Levee in proper form. But again these remembrances must be repressed ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... could equal the admiration excited by the British troops. The admirable strength, stature, and discipline of the men, and the successes which they had already obtained, made them the first object of universal interest; and the parades of our regiments formed a daily levee of princes and nobles. It was impossible that soldiership could be on a more stately scale. Other times have followed, which have shown the still statelier sight of nations marching to battle; but the hundred thousand men who marched under Cobourg to take up their positions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... his mistake instantly, and had experience enough of Western humor not to prolong the disadvantage of his unfortunate adjuration. He colored slightly and said, with a smile, "You know what I mean; you could have protected yourselves better. A levee on the bank would have kept you ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... between two pillars in the drawing-room, and reaches, not to the floor, but to the tops of the miniature towers of a silver palace, where some splendid Rajah, of fabulous wealth and power, is about to hold a grand durbar, or levee. All the people, be they illustrious personages or the common herd, who assist in the ceremony, are puppets a span long, rudely constructed and coarsely painted, but very faithful as to costume ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... acquaintance, coterie, society, company. social gathering, social reunion; assembly &c (assemblage) 72; barbecue [U.S.], bee; corn-husking [U.S.], corn-shucking [U.S.]; house raising, barn raising; husking, husking-bee [U.S.]; infare^. party, entertainment, reception, levee, at, home, conversazione [It], soiree, matinee; evening party, morning party, afternoon party, bridge party, garden party, surprise party; kettle, kettle drum; partie carree [Fr.], dish of tea, ridotto^, rout^; housewarming; ball, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... before the cabinet in January, 1801. The king's feelings were then generally known, and the Duke of Portland and Lords Westmorland and Liverpool more or less decidedly joined Loughborough in opposing emancipation. On the 28th George attacked Dundas on the subject at a levee: "I shall," he said, "reckon any man my personal enemy who proposes such a measure". He requested Addington, the speaker, to remonstrate with Pitt. On the 31st Pitt wrote him a long letter setting forth the general grounds of his desire for emancipation, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... spring in its beauty is near! How the fences and tules once more reappear! How soft lies the mud on the banks of yon slough By the hole in the levee the waters broke through! ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... on to Leixlip,' (where—this between ourselves and the reader—during the summer months His Excellency and Lady Townshend resided, and where, the old newspapers tell us, they 'kept a public day every Monday,' and he 'had a levee, as usual, every Thursday.') But this had ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... rest of my countrymen, I was always hoping the Government would "do something" for me. I have not missed a levee for fourteen years, and I have shown the calves of my legs to every viceroyalty since Lord Clarendon's day; but though they all joked and talked very pleasantly with me, none said, "O'Dowd, we must do something for you;" and ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... guessed first, since the whole party had cried "Fashion" almost together, but it was settled at last in favor of Harry Weathervane, who was sure to give out hard names, since he had been to Cincinnati recently, and had gone along the levee reading the names of those boats that did business above that city, and so were quite unknown, unless by report, to the boys ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... knew just exactly when it was time for crawfish to be plentiful down in the Claiborne and Marigny canals; just when a poor, breadless fellow might get a job in the big bone-yard and fertilizing factory out on the railroad track; and as for the levee, with its ships and schooners and sailors—Oh, how he could revel among them! The wondrous ships, the pretty little schooners, where the foreign-looking sailors lay on long moon-lit nights, singing gay bar ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... of an increase in the family of Johnny's yellow and disreputable setter "Tiger," who usually accompanied him to school and howled outside, the master joined with marked distinctness. Then he said, with equally marked severity, "Books!" The little levee was ended, and ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... not before observed that amongst all the village crowd that attended to see this solemn show not one afflicted countenance appeared, not one dejected look, not one watery eye. The pastor was scarcely known to his flock; it was in London that his meridian lay, at the levee of ministers, at the table of peers, at the drawing-rooms of the great; and now his neglected parishioners paid his indifference ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... preparation for defending it. He himself occupied the late Governor Semple's quarters and passed out compliments to white and native alike, praising them for their daring, their adroitness and their success. A great meeting was then gathered in the Governor's apartments and a levee was held at which all of the servants and employees of the Company were present, and in a speech McLeod told the audience that the English had no right to build upon their lands without their ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... manifested itself only in paroxysms of ill-humor, and this most frequently in the morning, at his levee. There, amid his assembled chiefs, in whose anxious looks he imagined he could read disapprobation, he seemed desirous to awe them by the severity of his manner, by his sharp tone, and his abrupt language. From the paleness of his face, however, it ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... fois par an, dans une immense salle ou il n'y avait ni chaises ni table. Il lisait son rapport; puis il ajoutait: "Que tous ceux qui approuvent se levent." Naturellement personne n'etant assis, le brave homme s'ecriait: "Approuve a l'unanimite!" et declarait la seance levee. ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann
... diagonally across the fair-ground, in the direction of the levee which protected the ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... the winter in which Mr. Stead wrote his indictment of Chicago. I can vividly recall his visits to Hull-House, some of them between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, when he would come in wet and hungry from an investigation of the levee district, and while he was drinking hot chocolate before an open fire, would relate in one of his curious monologues, his experience as an out-of-door laborer standing in line without an overcoat for two hours in the sleet, that he might have a chance ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... top of the levee, and the young boys and girls in it cried, "Oh, you kid!" to Saxon and Billy, and Hastings, who was rowing them ashore in the skiff. Hastings called, "Oh, you kid!" back to them; and Saxon, pleasuring in the boyishness ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... the land, the steamboats the ocean and the great fresh waters of the world. Possibly steamboats may be utilized on short stretches of rivers, but even on these they will have to compete with railroads having wide-reaching connections which they do not possess. The money expended to levee the Mississippi may be lost by the United States, but the planters will receive some benefit from it in the protection given to their crops. The steamboats in interior waters will be exchanged for iron whalebacks, and new forces of a new nature, as yet only partly developed, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... giving a general and comprehensive account of the late actions around and on Spion Kop prevented me from describing its scenes and incidents. Events, like gentlemen at a levee, in these exciting days tread so closely on each other's heels that many pass unnoticed, and most can only claim the scantiest attention. But I will pick from the hurrying procession a few—distinguished for no other reason than that they have caught my eye—and from ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... printshops, to extract a little amusement; or haply, as a last resort, in the hope of a little novelty, to pay a fifty-times repeated visit (where our individual faces should be as well known to the warden as those of his own charges) to the Lions in the Tower—to whose levee, by courtesy immemorial, we had a prescriptive title ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... satisfaction for the beauty and fineness of the silk, the richness of the pattern, and at seeing so early a product from that colony;" and to express her pleasure at such a favorable result, a complete court-dress was made from it, and on His Majesty's next birth-day, she appeared at the levee in a full robe ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris |
