"Levee" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... case that happened some years ago. I am a scrapbook fiend, Belding," chuckled Mr. Monroe. "There were once two bills issued for a Kansas bank just like this one you have brought to me. Only this note that we have here was printed for the Drovers' Levee Bank of Osage, Ohio, as you can easily see. This note went through that bank, was signed by Bedford Knox, cashier, and Peyton J. Weld, president, as you can see, and its peculiar ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... the fatigues of the preceding night, the Duc d'Orleans still gave his mornings to business. He generally began to work with Dubois before he was dressed; then came a short and select levee, followed again by audiences, which kept him till eleven or twelve o'clock; then the chiefs of the councils (La Valliere and Le Blanc) came to give an account of their espionage, then Torcy, to bring any important ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... judge of time and measure." Figg's prowess in a combat with Button has been celebrated by Dr. Byrom,—a poet of whom his native town, Manchester, may be justly proud; and his features and figure have been preserved by the most illustrious of his companions on the present occasion,—Hogarth,—in the levee in the "Rake's Progress," and in ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... were not, he often said, his ways, and he seemed to lack the capacity to easily adapt himself to new grooves. Unconventional he certainly was, and never in London even would he wear a tall hat or a tail coat; nor could he ever be persuaded to attend a levee or any State function whatever. He usually dressed in roughish tweeds, with trousers unfashionably wide, and a flaming necktie competing with his bright red cheeks, which contrasted strongly with his ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... on board the Jackson, I was ordered on board the Louisiana (as executive officer) then lying alongside the "levee" at New Orleans. Her battery was not mounted; and the mechanics were at work upon her unfinished armor and machinery. Much was to be done, and with the most limited facilities; but many obstacles had been surmounted and affairs were progressing favorably, when we received ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... Franklin and Lord Dartmouth opened auspiciously. Franklin waited upon him at his first levee, at the close of October, 1772, and was received "very obligingly." Further Franklin was at once recognized as agent for Massachusetts, with no renewal of the caviling as to the manner of his appointment, from which he hopefully augured that "business ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... angel's face a little crack'd. (Could poets or could painters fix How angels look at thirty-six:) This drew us in at first to find In such a form an angel's mind; And every virtue now supplies The fainting rays of Stella's eyes. See, at her levee crowding swains, Whom Stella freely entertains With breeding, humour, wit, and sense, And puts them to so small expense; Their minds so plentifully fills, And makes such reasonable bills, So little gets for what she gives, We really wonder how she ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... adventurous career. At the same time the persons about Bonaparte who practised the art of flattering failed not to multiply reports and insinuations against Bernadotte. I recollect one day, when there was to be a grand public levee, seeing Bonaparte so much out of temper that I asked him the cause of it. "I can bear it no longer," he replied impetuously. "I have resolved to have a scene with Bernadotte to-day. He will probably be here. I will open the fire, let what will come of it. He may do what he pleases. We shall ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... upon the levee, and sat upon a great, prostrate beam. The air was pungent with the dust of commerce. The great river slipped yellowly past. Across it Algiers lay, a longitudinous black bulk against a vibrant electric haze sprinkled with ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... nice bed to sleep in. In such a bed Mme. du Barry might have stretched her arms and yawned, or the beautiful Duchesse de Mazarin might have held her morning levee. A British general, with his bronzed face and bristly mustache, would look a little strange under that blue-silk canopy, with rosy cherubs dancing overhead on the flowered ceiling. His top-boots and spurs stood next to a Louis Quinze toilet-table. His leather ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... of a few moments brought him to the levee of the river,—a favored district, where his counting-house, with many others, was conveniently situated. In these early days only a few of these buildings could be said to be permanent,—fire and flood perpetually threatened them. They were merely temporary ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... going to shovel the earth—behold! Reynard wakes up, catches Chanticleer (who is holding the censer) by the neck, and bolts into a thick pleached plantation. Still, despite this resurrection, his good day is over, and a levee en masse of the Lion's people soon surrounds him, catches him up, and forces him to release Chanticleer, who, nothing afraid, challenges him to mortal combat on fair terms, beats him, and leaves him for dead in the lists. And though he manages to pay Rohart the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... a deep gully facing the house and running to a levee where the street crossed. A stream ran down it, dipped under a culvert, turned sharply, and ran away to a distant river, spanning which they could see the bridge. Tall old forest trees lined the ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... 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 noon And live ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... 6th, the Commandant and British Resident held a state levee. It was attended by all the friendly and submitted kings. These vied with each other in their pomp; they were dressed in gorgeous robes and carried their state umbrellas, while their attendants danced round them, beating drums and blowing horns. After the palaver was over, target ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... press correspondents, who wanted to know things which it was inexpedient to tell; and, finally, a rasping conference with the Boss, who, using the ball as a cover for one of his rare pilgrimages to Albany, had, throughout the day, held levee in his hotel parlors with such vogue that at moments both Senate and Assembly all ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... 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 bad French at ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... is from five to fifteen feet below high water in the Mississippi River. The only protection to the city from the river is the levee. In May, 1883, a small break was observed in the levee, and the water was running through. A few bags of sand or loads of dirt would have stopped the water at first; but it was neglected for a few hours, and the current became so strong that all efforts ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... 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 of antagonists, and ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... in France about the beginning of the eighteenth century. Louis the Fourteenth in his old age became religious: he determined that his subjects should be religious, too: he shrugged his shoulders and knitted his brows if he observed at his levee or near his dinner-table any gentleman who neglected the duties enjoined by the Church, and rewarded piety with blue ribbons, invitations to Marli, governments, pensions, and regiments. Forthwith Versailles became, in everything but dress, a convent. The pulpits ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... finally dropping into the hands of some literary 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. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... backgammon, and other games, which they scarce intermitted to gaze with curiosity upon the stranger. A third was filled with Lowland gentlemen and officers, who seemed also in attendance; and, lastly, the presence-chamber of the Marquis himself showed him attended by a levee which marked ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... sunset on Decoration Day—May 30, 1865—when young Duncan went ashore from the tow boat at Cairo. The town was ablaze with fireworks, as he made his way up the slope of the levee, through a narrow passage way that ran between two mountainous piles of cotton bales. At other points there were equally great piles of corn and oats in sacks, pork in barrels, hams and bacon in boxes, and finer goods of ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... such, I am told, was the unpopularity of the Shah that out of the whole population of Candahar very few persons were looking on, though the Easterns are devoted sight-hunters. On the — he held a levee, where every officer had the honour of making his leg to his Majesty. I was not present at either of these grand occasions, being at the time still on the sick-list. I, however, had a glimpse of his Majesty the ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... the 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 circle blazing with orders. The invoker ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... said M'Loughlin, "whether is it you or I that is about to hold a little levee in my humble parlor to-day? But I suppose I need not ask. Consider yourself at home here, my good neighbor—you are now up, and I am down; so we must only allow you to have ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... political 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 ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... in a part of Franklin's story in the most interesting way that you can. 10. Tell what you can about the author. 11. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: coppers; voluntarily; vexation; ambitious; esteem; contracts. 12. Pronounce: directly: chagrin; sacrificing; levee; ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... No levee of the President's has occurred during my sojourn here; but I learn that in the true spirit of democracy, the doors on these occasions are open to every citizen without distinction of rank or costume; consequently the assemblage at such times may ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... brute, At law his neighbour prosecute, Bring action for assault and battery, Or friend beguile with lies and flattery? O'er plains they ramble unconfined, No politics disturb their 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 ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... 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 or two ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... del Campo.—When the attempt was made upon the life of George III., by Margaret Nicholson, who attempted to stab him as he was going to St. James's to hold a levee, a council was ordered to be held as soon as the levee was over. The Marquess del Campo, the Spanish ambassador, being apprised of that circumstance, and knowing that the council would detain the king in ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... made me very uneasy, and increased Tempe's terror to such an extent that she became almost unmanageable. During the next day I actually became accustomed to the noise and danger, and "with a heart for any fate" passed the day. At night my levee was larger than before; among them I had the satisfaction of seeing and supplying some Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee soldiers. That night the bombardment was terrific. Anxiety for my husband, combined with a shuddering terror, made ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... confused idea of being identified with the unlucky Mark of Cornwall; and that he awakened from such unpleasant visions with a brow more clouded than when he was preparing for his couch on the evening before. He was silent, and seemed lost in thought, while his squire assisted at his levee with the respect now only paid to sovereigns. "Guarine," at length he said, "know you the stout Fleming, who was said to have borne him so well at the siege of the Garde Doloureuse?—a ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... to make the King my husband conceive an aversion for me; insomuch that he scarcely ever spoke with me. He left her late at night, and, to prevent our meeting in the morning, she directed him to come to her at the Queen's levee, which she duly attended; after which he passed the rest of the day with her. My brother likewise followed her with the greatest assiduity, and she had the artifice to make each of them think that he alone had any place in her esteem. Thus was a jealousy kept ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... along some of our rivers that are subject to flood, notably the lower Mississippi, where the work has been done by the joint action of the states affected, through their local levee boards and their state boards of engineers, and the United States Mississippi River Commission. The United States government has spent large sums for river improvements, but there is a general feeling that the money has not always been wisely spent. At all events the work has been restricted ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... b't haalf his feed. Ha'n't been daown on his straw. Must ha' been took aout somewhere abaout ten 'r 'levee o'clock. I know that 'ere critter's ways. The fellah's had him aout nights afore; b't I never thought nothin' o' no mischief. He 's a kin' o' haalf Injin. What is 't the chap's been a-doin' on? Tell ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... levee, that is to say, giving directions about the labors of the next day, and seeing all the peasants who had business with him, Levin went back to his study ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Assemblage. — N. {opp. 73} assemblage; collection, collocation, colligation[obs3]; compilation, levy, gathering, ingathering, muster, attroupement[obs3]; team; concourse, conflux[obs3], congregation, contesseration|, convergence &c. 290; meeting, levee, reunion, drawing room, at home; conversazione &c. (social gathering) 892[It]; assembly, congress; convention, conventicle; gemote[obs3]; conclave &c. (council) 696; posse, posse comitatus[Lat]; Noah's ark. miscellany, collectanea[obs3]; museum, menagerie &c. (store) 636; museology[obs3]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... in the public papers, the "Laureate's Ode," with the other parade of June 4th, 1786, the author was no sooner dropt asleep, than he imagined himself transported to the birth-day levee; and, in his dreaming fancy, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... they were the titular dignitaries of the chessboard! Amid all these changes, he stood immutable as adamant. It mattered little whether in the field, or in the drawing-room; with the mob, or the levee; wearing the Jacobin bonnet, or the iron crown; banishing a Braganza, or espousing a Hapsburg; dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic he was still the same ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... "Hic homines ex stultis facit insanos." "This fellow," says he, "has an art of converting fools into madmen." When I was in France, the region of complaisance and vanity, I have often observed that a great man who has entered a levee of flatterers humble and temperate has grown so insensibly heated by the court which was paid him on all sides, that he has been quite distracted before he could ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... the above was written, especial honour has been shown to those who participated in the hardships and glories of the campaign by His Majesty King Edward VII., who received the surviving officers at a levee at St. James's Palace on ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... on duty at Windsor once when Pulteney was staying there. 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, my good fellow!' ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... gray hair. He was simple and unaffected in his manners, and never assumed any magniloquence because of his exalted position. On returning from Washington to Cooperstown for the summer, he seemed to delight in holding a kind of indiscriminate levee in the main street of the village, greeting old neighbors, shopkeepers, and farmers alike, and remembering most of them by their Christian names. In those days the merchants were accustomed to leave their ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... 8th of March, the rapid rise of the river (p. 376) and the consequent great pressure upon the dam across the canal, near the upper end, at the main Mississippi levee, caused it to give way and let through the low lands at the back of our camps a torrent of water that separated the north and south shores of the peninsula as effectually as if the Mississippi flowed between them. This occurred when the enterprise ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... of King Christian, the madman, who was at last deprived of all real share in the government on account of his infirmity. "Such a Tom of Bedlam I never saw," said Lord Holland. "One day the Neapolitan Ambassador came to the levee, and made a profound bow to his Majesty. His Majesty bowed still lower. The Neapolitan bowed down his head almost to the ground; when, behold! the King clapped his hands on his Excellency's shoulders, and jumped over him like a boy playing at leap-frog. ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... accept affect deference emigrant prophesy sculptor plaintive populous ingenious lineament desert extent pillow stile descent incite pillar device patients lightening proceed plaintiff prophet immigrant fisher difference presents effect except levee choler counsel lessen bridal carrot colonel marshal indite assent sleigh our stair capitol alter pearl might kiln rhyme shone rung hue pier strait wreck sear Hugh lyre whorl surge purl altar cannon ascent principle mantle weather barren current miner cellar mettle ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... "Al-Rasif"; usually a river-quay, levee, an embankment. Here it refers to the great dyke which ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... the clapping of hands, and the ripple of a girl's laughter. Bob turned angrily and walked swiftly back up the road, walked clear past his own ranch without noticing, and finally turned aside by a clump of cottonwood trees along the levee of the main irrigation canal. The water, a little river here, ran swiftly, muddily, black under the desert stars. Bob lifted his fiddle and flung it into the ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... to clear up the affairs of my inheritance, I presented myself before Sir John Macartney, the English Minister, at his weekly levee in the Palazzo C——. A bluff, soldierly man, of Irish birth and English opinions, he received me with particular civility, in which curiosity may perhaps have played its part. He deplored my loss of an excellent father, rejoiced in my gain of an excellent estate, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... is there, And the shark's prey; the spendthrift, and the leech That sucks him. There the sycophant, and he That with bare-headed and obsequious bows Begs a warm office, doomed to a cold jail And groat per diem if his patron frown. The levee swarms, as if in golden pomp Were charactered on every statesman's door, 'BATTERED AND BANKRUPT FORTUNES MENDED HERE.' These are the charms that sully and eclipse The charms of nature. 'Tis the cruel ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... 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 immigrants 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 ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... we will never make visits together, nor see a play, but always apart; you shall be every day at the king's levee, and I at the queen's; and we will never meet, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... and lewd Hens, and no Posts disposed of, but thro' the Interest of Lust; how often, Britain, have I congratulated thy Happiness, where Virtue is rewarded, Vice discountenanc'd and punish'd; where the Man of Merit is provided for, and not oblig'd to pay a Levee to the kept Mistress of a Statesman; and where the Ignorant, Pusillanimous, and Vicious, however distinguish'd by Birth and Fortune, are held in Contempt, and never admitted to ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... not receive at the usual time, and there was some reason to think that it would be discontinued. He did not take those methods of retrieving his interest, which were most likely to succeed, for he went one day to Sir Robert Walpole's levee, and demanded the reason of the distinction that was made between him and the other pensioners of the Queen, with a degree of roughness which, perhaps, determined him to withdraw, what had only been delayed. This last misfortune he bore not only with decency, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... 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 ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... of the Firm, Townshend soon to withdraw, impatient of the bottom] is all-powerful now: O TEMPORA, O MORES!" "I receive universal congratulations, and have to smile" in a ghastly manner. "The King and Queen despise me. I put myself in their way last Levee, bowing to the ground; but they did not even condescend to look." 'Notre grand petit-maitre,' little George, the Olympian Jove of these parts, "passed on as if I had not been there." 'Chesterfield, they say, is to go, in great pomp, as Ambassador Extraordinary, and fetch the Princess ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... or with all their wines? What could they more than knights and squires confound, Or water all the Quorum ten miles round? A statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil! "Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil; Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door; A hundred oxen at your levee roar." Poor Avarice one torment more would find; Nor could Profusion squander all in kind. Astride his cheese Sir Morgan might we meet; And Worldly crying coals from street to street, Whom with a wig so wild, and mien so mazed, Pity mistakes ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... England is, by returning to her sweet, stale flatteries, after the establishment of the Confederacy, to be friends as of old with the North. It is, she thinks, easily done. Our servants abroad and their friends are to be a little more favored with levee tickets and access to noble society; a few dozen more of the rank and file will be marched along or 'presented' before her Majesty, and thereby sworn in to endless admiration of all that is Anglican; venerable gentlemen in white waistcoats will make sweet speeches, after public ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... 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. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... businesses (July 25th): Armies to be on actual march by the 10th of August coming. 'During this Versailles visit, he had such a crowd of Officers and great people paying court to him as was like the King's Levee itself.' ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... 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 ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... bring Mr. Langton to 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 ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... Rambouillet being unable to attend the LEVEE, had appointed me to wait upon him at six in the evening; at which hour I presented myself at his lodgings, attended by Simon Fleix. I found him in the midst of half a dozen gentlemen whose habit it was to attend him upon all public occasions; and these gallants, greeting me with ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... took his breakfast of tea, wines, and confectionary, when he transacted business with the first minister, consulting with, or directing, him in the weighty matters of state, previous to their appearing in regular form before the respective departments to which they belonged. He had then a kind of levee, which was usually attended by the Collaos, or ministers, and the presidents of the departments or public boards. At eleven refreshments were again served up and, after business was over, he either amused himself in the women's apartments, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... 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. ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... Leavenworth, one bright autumnal morning. All along the way they had picked up much information about the movement of steamers, and they were delighted to find that the steamboat "New Lucy" was lying at the levee, ready to sail on the afternoon of the very day they would be in Leavenworth. They camped, for the last time, in the outskirts of the town, a good-natured border-State man affording them shelter in ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... own, sir, an objection, which I despair of answering to the satisfaction of those by whom it will be raised. The hardy serjeant would never cringe gracefully at a levee, would never attain to any successful degree of address in soliciting votes; and if he should by mere bribery be deputed hither, would be unable to defend the conduct ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... declaring his intention to retire. The pattern of two terms which he set no President has ever dared attempt to exceed. The opponents of his administration, those who had foreseen the coming royal reception in the simple levee which marked his social life, or who objected to the growing custom of celebrating his birthday as if he were a monarch, were compelled to cease their evil prophecies when he attended, as a spectator, the inauguration of his successor in the room of the House of Representatives adjacent to ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... have not noticed the poet's laureateship. The truth is, the office never seemed to belong to him; and we forgot it, when not specially reminded of it. We did not like to think of him in court-dress, going through the ceremonies of levee or ball, in his old age. His white hair and dim eyes were better at home ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... Mrs. Heywood's; afterwards with Mr. ——— to the American minister's, whom we found at home; and I requested of him, on the part of the Americans at Liverpool, to tell me the facts about the American gentleman being refused admittance to the Levee. The ambassador did not seem to me to make his point good for having withdrawn with the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Mississippi, and Representative John R. Lynch[42] of the same State, had all served in public office before they were sent to Congress. Senator Revels had held several local offices in Vicksburg, while Senator Bruce, before he came to the Senate, had been sheriff, a member of the Mississippi levee board, and for three years the tax collector of Bolivar County. John R. Lynch, on the other hand, had served not only as justice of the peace, but also two terms in the lower house of the legislature, during the latter one of which he was the Speaker of that body. Unlike the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... some artistry. A dark-blue dressing-gown of flowered satin fell open at the waist; disclosing sky-blue breeches and pearl-colored stockings, elegant shoes of Spanish leather with red heels and diamond buckles. His chestnut hair had been dressed with as great care as though he were attending a levee, and Leduc had insisted upon placing a small round patch under his left eye, that it might—said Leduc—impart vivacity to a countenance that looked over-wan from his ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... exceed not only every Prince and Potentate now in being, but even all those whose memory has come down to us. He has more unaffected dignity than I could conceive in man. His address is the gentlest and most prepossessing you can conceive, which is seconded by the greatest fund of levee conversation that I suppose any person ever possessed. He speaks deliberately, but very fluently, with particular emphasis, and in a rather low tone of voice. While he speaks, his features are still more expressive than ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... 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 permission—a ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... quiet effects in some side street; for example this street seen half in moonlight, beneath my window in the Coburg; the only sound the click clack of the busy horse's feet on the wood pavement, as hansoms and carriages flit round from Berkeley Square—there's a levee to night, and their yellow lamps string up Mount Street and divide beneath ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... personal character. This has been so well drawn, and so recently too, that we are induced to adopt the following traits from a contemporary Magazine.[5] The paper whence these are extracted, purports to be a description of the Lord Chancellor's first levee:— ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... identify Cachar Modun with Tchakiri Mondou, or Moudon, which appears in D'Anville's atlas as the title of a "Levee de terre naturelle," in the extreme east of Manchuria, and in lat. 44 deg., between the Khinga Lake and the sea. This position is out of the question. It is more than 900 miles, in a straight line from Peking, and the mere journey ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Father of the Marshalsea assented. 'We have even exceeded that number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a Levee—quite a Levee. Amy, my dear, I have been trying half the day to remember the name of the gentleman from Camberwell who was introduced to me last Christmas week by that agreeable coal-merchant who was remanded ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... appeared so much more terrified than butlers usually appear when detected in a lie, that Mrs. Pomfret resolved, as she said, to sift the matter to the bottom. Impatiently did she wait till the clock struck nine, and her mistress' bell rang, the signal for her attendance at her levee. ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... almost as much as either wealth or pleasure. He had long been in the habit of exacting the most abject homage from those who were under his command. His flagship was a little Versailles. He expected his captains to attend him to his cabin when he went to bed, and to assemble every morning at his levee. He even suffered them to dress him. One of them combed his flowing wig; another stood ready with the embroidered coat. Under such a chief there could be no discipline. His tars passed their time in rioting among the rabble of Portsmouth. Those officers who won ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... To pity him seemed a childish affectation. His praise of my good looks pleased me, for on that point he was fitted to be a judge, and I was still fancying I had lost them on the heath. Troops of the satellites of his grand parade surrounded him. I saw him walk down the pier like one breaking up a levee. At times he appeared to me a commanding phantasm in the midst of phantasm figures of great ladies and their lords, whose names he told off on his return like a drover counting his herd; but within ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... low gurgle of water, and a leaden sky greeted us the next morning as we lay beside the half-submerged levee of Sacramento. Here, however, the novelty of boats to convey us to the hotels was an appeal that was irresistible. I resigned myself to a dripping rubber-cased mariner called Joe, and wrapping myself in a shining cloak of the like material, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... general room of Silverdale Grange, and most of the company gathered there basked in it contentedly after their drive through the bitter night. Those who came from the homesteads lying farthest out had risked frost-nipped hands and feet, for when Colonel Barrington held a levee at the Grange nobody felt equal to refusing his invitation. Neither scorching heat nor utter cold might excuse compliance with the wishes of the founder of Silverdale, and it was not until Dane, the big middle-aged ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... deference and regard, the queen having particularly commanded that every attention should be lavished on him; and indeed, until his death warrant was signed, the prisoner had been permitted a free intercourse with his friends and relatives. Thus his prison bore rather the resemblance of a levee of a person in power, than the visits of despairing friends to one in the last stage of mortality. All his friends and companions in arms had been assiduous in these mournful visits, and he appeared greatly pleased with this testimony of their regard. Indeed it was his pride which had ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... thoughtless and volatile for avarice or ambition, may be found a species of falsehood more detestable than the levee or exchange can shew. There are men that boast of debaucheries, of which they never had address to be guilty; ruin, by lewd tales, the characters of women to whom they are scarcely known, or by whom ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... curiosity, that I cannot 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 ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... arranged his main body of troops along the inner edge of the small canal extending from a levee to a tangled swamp. The legendary cotton bales had been blown up or set on fire during the artillery bombardment and protection was furnished only by a raw, unfinished parapet of earth and a double row of log breastworks with red clay tamped between them. ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... the streets with him, gliding between the Princes of the Church in the ceremonies of Saint Peter's and the Lateran, or mingling in the company that ascended the state staircase at some cardinal's levee. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Isidore's habits and behaviour that irritated him at times, was unconsciously becoming daily more and more attached to his nephew. True, Isidore's hair was always dressed to perfection; his bow—that is to say, when he was off duty—might have gained a smile of approval at the king's levee or at one of the Pompadour's receptions; his hands would scarce have disgraced a lady; and the perfumes and cosmetics he used were as choice as they were multifarious. But then the same perfection was observable in his uniform and accoutrements, ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... 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 ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... to George III, who had a high opinion of him; but like many of his lordship's contemporaries, his Majesty strongly deprecated the frequent outbursts of temper on the part of his Chief Justice. "At a levee, soon after an extraordinary explosion of ill-humour in the Court of King's Bench, his Majesty said to him: 'My Lord Chief Justice, I hear that you have lost your temper, and from my great regard for you, I am very glad to hear it, for I ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... instead of diamonds, and far more brilliant than koh-i-noors, swept the pavement with their long trains; martial music floated on the gentle breeze from the barracks or some festive hall, and a thousand gas-lights along the levee and in the city, doubling their number by reflection from the ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... held a general levee. About twenty headmen, or sheiks of principal villages, attended by many of their people, came to present themselves and to sue for peace. I received the chiefs on my diahbeeah, and each received a present of a long blue shirt as he stepped on board. They now seated themselves by Bedden, ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... He shall.—But let that pass.—We will be jocund. 160 How fares it with you? have you been abroad? The day is overcast, but the calm wave Favours the gondolier's light skimming oar; Or have you held a levee of your friends? Or has your music made you solitary? Say—is there aught that you would will within The little sway now left the Duke? or aught Of fitting splendour, or of honest pleasure, Social or lonely, that would glad your heart, To compensate ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... were posted in Stockton one Sunday. The town was then the point of departure for the southern placer district, a lively place with craft of all kinds coming from San Francisco to tie up at its levee and an endless procession of wagons traveling out cross the flat lands of the San Joaquin valley to the foot-hills. Everything was running wide open and the sidewalks were crowded with men, most of whom were ready to take a rather long ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... idea than he before had of the extent, value, and wholly voluntary character of the services rendered by the young captain in the West Indies; and he indicated the completeness of his satisfaction by offering to present him to the King, which was accordingly done at the next levee. George III. received him graciously; and the resentment of Nelson, whose loyalty was of the most extreme type, melted away in the sunshine ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... time to time, and give vent to their gladness. It is like a summer picnic of school-children suddenly let loose in a wood; they sing, shout, whistle, squeal, call, in the most blithesome strains. The warm wave has brought the birds upon its crest; or some barrier has given way, the levee of winter has broken, and spring comes like an inundation. No doubt, the snow and the frost will stop the crevasse again, but only for a ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... should see how happily they live on very small means indeed. And I must own I am the more tempted to go abroad because there is preparation for a Marriage in my Family (a Niece—but not one of my Norfolk Nieces) which is to be at my Brother's near here; and there will be a Levee of People, who drop in here, etc. This may ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... interesting to his audience—the mobilisation of the National Guard; that is, the call upon men who like talking and hate fighting to talk less and fight more. 'It was the sheerest tyranny to select a certain number of free citizens to be butchered. If the fight was for the mass, there ought to be la levee en masse. If one did not compel everybody to fight, why should anybody fight?' Here the applause again became vehement, and Fox again became indiscreet. I subdued Fox's bark into a squeak by pulling his ears. 'What!' cries your poet-son, 'la levee en masse gives us fifteen millions ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... there will be: a school in the end the true teacher will have, though he begin it, as the barefoot Athenian began his, in the stall of the artisan, or in the chat of the Gymnasium, amid the compliments of the morning levee, or in the woodland stroll, or in the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... Major Wheat. These detached companies had been thrown together previous to the fight at Manassas, where Wheat was severely wounded. The strongest of the three, and giving character to all, was called the "Tigers." Recruited on the levee and in the alleys of New Orleans, the men might have come out of "Alsatia," where they would have been worthy subjects of that illustrious potentate, "Duke Hildebrod." The captain, who had succeeded to the immediate command of these worthies on the advancement of Wheat, ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... took up the cry, and a howling mob, mostly of soldiers, were at his heels. He hoped to reach the river, where among the immense piles of stores heaped along the levee, or among the shipping, he might secrete himself, but a patrol guard suddenly appeared a block away, and his retreat was cut off. He gave himself up for lost, and reached for a small pistol which he carried, with the intention of putting a bullet through his own heart; "for," ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... The next levee day at Versailles, I meant to bring again under the view of the Count de Vergennes, the whole subject of our commerce with France; but the number of audiences of ambassadors and other ministers, which take place, of course, before mine, and which seldom, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... had been perfectly well;" and added, "that the necessity of attending to the public business before the House, as well as the time occupied by a late journey to Scotland, had rendered him less assiduous in paying his duty at the levee and drawing-room ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... its ability to do so with incredulity. The Governor would take the General's arm and be piloted safely between the hay-wagons and the sprinkling-cart to the other side of the street. Proceeding to the post-office in the care of his friend, the esteemed statesmen would there hold an informal levee among the citizens who were come for their morning mail. Here, gathering two or three prominent in law, politics, or family, the pageant would make a stately progress along the Avenue, stopping at the Palace Hotel, where, perhaps, would be found upon the register the name of some ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... agree far better with his master; but every day that Mr. Egremont seemed sufficiently amused at Nice was so much gain, and she had this in her favour, that he was always indolent and hard to move. Moreover, between his master's levee and late dinner Gregorio was hardly ever to be found. No doubt he knew the way to Monte Carlo well enough, and perhaps preferred that the family should be farther off, for he soon ceased to show himself discontented with their present abode. Once when his absence was ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge |
