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More "Deferential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... late a change in Kouaga's manner towards us?" I asked him. "At first he was deferential and submissive to your every wish, but it occurs to me that of late his manner is overbearing, and he watches us closely, as if fearing we ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... brush aside the representatives and generals of another state would instantly decide that he only did so not because of want of politeness, which one-half the world does not understand, but because the nation to which he belongs was so great and powerful there was no need to be deferential to any of the others, and especially so to the state whose representatives allowed themselves to ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... o'clock Whittaker had packed his portmanteau. He took up his position at the window and waited. Before long he heard the sound of a horse's feet. Miss Cheyne's visitor presently appeared, and swung off his hat with the usual deferential pride. The horse was led away. The usual murmured conversation followed. Whittaker rose and walked to the door. He paused on the threshold, and looked slowly round the room as if conscious then that the moment was to be one of the indelible memories ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... broad, low stairway, pausing at the half-way landing to gaze dreamily from a casemated window out upon the sparkling waters of the lake. Some of its brightness was reflected in her eyes, as, with a step less discreet and deferential than that which usually characterized her approaches to her mother's bedchamber, she passed on to a half-closed door, tapped lightly upon it, and then pushed ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... purpose; apparently he had only to signify his wish and no parental objection to his plan would be interposed. The boys arrive: Hal, whose mama spends her days at Bath over cards with Lady Diana Sweepstake, is an ill-bred child, neither deferential to his uncle, nor with appetite for buns when queen-cakes may be had. His cousin Ben, on the contrary, has been taught those virtuous habits that make for a respectful attitude toward rich uncles and assure a dissertation upon the beneficial effect of buns versus queen-cakes. The boys, ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... all with Harboro's friend. He had assumed the attitude of a deferential guide, and his remarks were almost entirely addressed to Harboro. But she was not to be put out by so small a part of the night's programme. After all, Valdez was not planning to return with them, and they were likely to have the ride back by themselves. Valdez, she had been ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... javelin as an officer would his sword, under the like circumstances, in civilized warfare. But, with admirable tact and forethought, Huertis declined to accept it, immediately returning it with the most profound and deferential cordiality of manner. He at the same time informed him, through Velasquez, that, though strangers, his party were not enemies but friendly visitors, who, after a long and painful journey, again to ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... sign of deferential friendliness, the man endeavoured to approach Finn. But though Jess lay still, showing only pointed indifference where the men were concerned, Finn leaped backward like a stag, and kept a good score of paces ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... be "a weak, critical, fastidious creature, vain of a little exclusive information or of an uncommon knack in Latin verse or mathematical logic; he is to be a man of quick perceptions, broad sympathies, and wide affinities, responsive but independent, self-reliant but deferential, loving truth and candor, but also moderation and proportion, courageous but gentle, not ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... all, reckless, impassioned, poised upon the brink of some desperate plunge.... Then the hands of consequences seemed to lay compelling hold upon him; the fire was extinguished; the vision gone like a mirage. His eyes were friendly, his lips smiling, as he bowed to her, in deferential courtesy, to all appearances a ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... witnessed some strange things. Longstreet, wet and muddy, was the first to enter. He had ridden round most of the battle-field, and his report was not particularly cheerful. Jackson was very quiet, never volunteering any counsel or suggestion, but answering when questioned in a brief, deferential tone. His countenance was very serious, and soon became very troubled. After a time the clatter of horses' hoofs was heard, and two gentlemen came in, dripping. They were the President and his nephew. Davis and ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Graham stood with the deferential attendant listening to Ostrog's retreating steps. There was a sound of quick question and answer and of men running. The curtain was snatched back and Ostrog reappeared, his massive face glowing with excitement. He crossed the room in a stride, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... prime. Soon after she had occasion to seek for legal advice, and for this purpose visited the law-office of Aaron Burr. She had known him a good many years before; and, though he was now seventy-eight years of age, there was no perceptible change in him. He was still courtly in manner, tactful, and deferential, while physically he ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Armstrong. Our hero was of an affectionate disposition, and would have allowed his warm feelings to expend themselves on a dog rather than have denied them free play. No wonder, then, that he was attracted by the handsome manly countenance and deferential manner of Armstrong, who, although an uneducated youth, and reared in the lower ranks of life, was gifted with those qualities of the true gentleman which mere social position can neither bestow nor take away. His intellect also ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... landlady scared away all customers of that numerous class, who will not allow originality to be an excuse for the breach of decorum, and who, little accustomed perhaps to attendance at home, loved to play the great man at an inn, and to have a certain number of bows, deferential speeches, and apologies, in answer to the G—d d—n ye's which they bestow on the house, attendance, and entertainment. Unto those who commenced this sort of barter in the Clachan of Saint Ronan's, well could Meg Dods pay it back, in their own coin; and glad they were to escape from the ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... love to me, and when he would go on, I said it bored me to death, and if he wanted to remain friends with me he must simply amuse me; and then to tease him I got up and went and talked to the Western senator. He had such a quizzical entertaining look in his keen eye—he was being stiffly deferential to one of the ladies, a Mrs. Welsh, who was talking to him so brightly. It looked like a huge mastiff allowing a teeny ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... Mary returned, almost forgetting her first bitter moment. Hal Macy's direct hand-clasp and frank, bright smile of welcome stamped him with sincerity and truth. She liked equally well Lawrence Armitage's deferential greeting and she found the Crane's wide, boyish grin irresistible as he bowed low over her small hand. Yes, the Sanford boys were certainly nice. She was not so sure that she liked the girls. They made too much of Marjorie, and Marjorie had ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... near the switch. A portiere rustled, and a young man approached his bed—a short, thin, pale, fair young man, active and deferential. ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... debutante, decadence, decapitate, deciduous, declivity, decompose, decorous, dedicatory, deduction, deferential, deficiency, deglutition, dehiscence, delectable, delete, deleterious, delineate, deliquescent, demarcation, demimonde, demoniac, denizen, denouement, deprecate, depreciate, derelict, derogatory, despicable, desuetude, desultory, deteriorate, diacritical, diagnosis, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... aesthetic fraternity who were floundering in unknown seas, without a notion of which way their noses were turned, that Gloriani, conscious and compact, unlimitedly intelligent and consummately clever, dogmatic only as to his own duties, and at once gracefully deferential and profoundly indifferent to those of others, had for Rowland a certain intellectual refreshment quite independent of the character of his works. These were considered by most people to belong to a very corrupt, and by many to a positively indecent school. Others thought them ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... capable of giving counsel and comfort in such case made and provided. His looks fell upon little Peter, who had kept ever at his side from the moment of his escape from the village, and now trotted along with the deferential humility which became him, while surrounded by so gallant and numerous an assemblage; but even little Peter could not relieve him from the weight of eulogy heaped on his head, nor from the prickings of the conscience which every word of praise and every encomiastic ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... witness that a savage may be a perfect gentleman. Now as I write their faces rise before me. Joyous, free limbed, white toothed swimmers in Samoan surf, a Hawaiian eel-catcher, a Mexican peon with his "sombrero trailing in the dust," a deferential Japanese farm boy anticipating your every want, a sturdy Chinaman without grace and without sensitiveness, but with the saving quality of loyalty to his own word, herdsmen of the Pennine Alps, Aleuts, Indians and Negroes, each race has its noblemen ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan
... to his feet and stood over Mrs. Groome with his charming deferential manner, but he had far too much tact to offer assistance as she rose ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... Silas's room. But I did not cool all that way; and it was not till I had just reached the lobby, and saw the sour, jealous face, and high caul of old Wyat, and felt the influence of that neighbourhood, that I paused to reconsider. I fancied there was a cool consciousness of success behind all the deferential phraseology of Captain Oakley, which nettled me extremely. No; there could be no doubt. I ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Alexander straightened up and the pliant softness of her body stiffened in his arms. She pushed against his shoulders with steady hands. They were not struggling hands but firm and definite of meaning, and Halloway released her. He released her readily as a man may who can afford to be deferential in his ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... any case, misled. Her anger and worry increased momentarily, especially since Graydon, beyond a little furtive observation, completely ignored her. She naturally ascribed his course to resentment at her first greeting of Arnault, his continued presence at her side, and the almost deferential manner with which he was treated by her father, who had joined his family at supper, when no ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... the kind interest which he affected to take in her. He waited until the door was fairly closed, and then drew his chair near to Dumiger's. The latter, quite unaccustomed to the neighborhood of so great a man, immediately withdrew his seat to a more deferential distance; but the dimensions of the room speedily put a stop to the retrogression and his modesty ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... for any one else? More than one young man in Yerbury had paid her the peculiar deferential attention that asks encouragement if there is any to give, but is too truly delicate to proceed without. Then there was Jack, who understood her soul better than any one else; but had he touched her heart in a ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... their poor cowardly hearts that they are strongest, and wanted the reformer to come humbly, cap in hand, and ask them to let a little truth live, a little modest, humble, unaggressive truth—it will be very orderly, very quiet, very deferential, if they, the powerful, the venerable, the respectable lies will let it stay here, in some ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... thus abide in Christ have the habit of reserve and quiet; they are not rattling and reckless talkers, they will not always have an opinion about everything, and they will not always know what they are going to do. There will be a deferential holding back of judgment, and walking softly with God. It is our headlong, impulsive spirit that keeps us so constantly from hearing and following ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... feelings more like the positive antipathy of an exile. His sympathies are all in favor of the perpetual drill, the mechanical obedience, the secret government proceedings, the narrow and prescribed range of ideas, the silent and deferential demeanor, the methodical, though tardy, action—of Sparta. Whatever may be the justice of his preference, certain it is, that the qualities whereby he was himself enabled to contribute so much both to the rescue of the Cyreian ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... bowing. He had sloping shoulders and a serious-looking mouth, with a reddish beard and moustache, and had an air of strangely mingled submissiveness and capability. His voice too, as he spoke, was at once deferential and decided. ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the governor, ma'am?" asked the commissioner, with a deferential manner he always ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... man watched the other's manoeuvres with eyes that did not disguise their amusement. He was always ready for a chat in which Monkey liberally be-larded him with sirs, was obsequious and deferential; but he would never cross the door of a public-house, and never, as the little man reported, ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... underwent a change. He had been deferential, even submissive; seldom a teacher so amiable and unmasterful; now he concentrated his power of spirit, and shot it a continuing flash ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... and d'Alembert, were for a time members of Holbach's society, but, for reasons that are not altogether clear, gradually withdrew. Grimm suggests that Buffon did not find the young philosophers sufficiently deferential to him and to the authorized powers, and feared for his dignity,—and safety, in their company. D'Alembert, on the other hand, was a recluse by nature, and, after giving up his editorship on the Encyclopedia, easily dropped out of Diderot's ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... for Parmalee. He was suave, polished and deferential. His attentions gallant without being obtrusive, and his geniality and culture made ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... the seat placed for her by the deferential host, and watched her father's departure up the winding road. They were both thinking of Corrie, lacking whom all places were blank, with whom, in one winter's enthusiasm, they had studied this soft Spanish tongue they now used without him. They had planned a trip to Puerto Rico, then, that never ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... instances of wanton disregard of property rights—among them, as to the imminent peril of bursting our sides we partly overheard, the looting of her own wardrobe—the look of sympathetic agony in Haberton's handsome face was the very flower and fruit of histrionic art. His deferential and assenting nods at her several statements were so exquisitely performed that one could not help regretting their unsubstantial nature and the impossibility of preserving them under glass for instruction and delight of posterity. And all the time the wretch was drawing his chair ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... his whole body which made it actually, as well as apparently, lower to the ground than when he stood erect. As for Warrigal, she trod a home trail, and one in which she was accustomed to meet with deferential treatment from all and sundry. The law of her race prevented a male dingo from attacking her, and no female in that countryside would have cared to face Warrigal ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... the present, and she was proud in the possession of a relationship which had lasted so long. Clara and Madge, too, were both excited and pleased. To say nothing of Frank's appearance, of his unsnobbish, deferential behaviour which showed that he understood who they were and that the little house made no difference to him, the girls and the mother could not resist a side glance at Fenmarket and the indulgence of a secret satisfaction that ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... this time, moreover, Harpagus was personally very deferential and obsequious to Astyages, and professed an unbounded devotedness to his interests. He maintained a high rank at court and in the army, and Astyages relied upon him as one of the most obedient and submissive ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Jackson stood peerless and alone. His success in defending the Southwest, ending in a blaze of glory below New Orleans, utterly eclipsed all the other achievements of the war, excepting alone the darling triumphs on the ocean and the lakes. The deferential spirit of Mr. Monroe's letters to the General, and the readiness of every one everywhere to comply with his wishes, show that his popularity, even then, constituted him a power in the Republic. It was said in later times, that "General Jackson's popularity could stand anything," and in ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... quiet is broken by an aged nobleman on the opposition benches. He rises slowly and feebly with the assistance of a cane, but his voice is firm and his manner is forcible. That he is a man of mark is evident from the significant silence and the deferential attention with which his first words are received. You ask his name, and with ill-disguised amazement at your ignorance a gentleman by your side informs you that the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... instant that the guest saluted him with marked politeness and explained, with many deferential poises of the head, and in terms at once civil and concise, that for some time past he (the newcomer) had been touring the Russian Empire on business and in the pursuit of knowledge, that the Empire abounded in objects of interest—not to mention a plenitude of manufactures and a great ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... profoundly. "Yet even a rat has its bite," he murmured in a deferential undertone into ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Christian." And when he came to Oxford, he came there with an enthusiasm so simple and warm as to be almost childish. He reverenced even the velvet of the Pro.; nay, the cocked hat which preceded the Preacher had its claim on his deferential regard. Without being himself a poet, he was in the season of poetry, in the sweet spring-time, when the year is most beautiful, because it is new. Novelty was beauty to a heart so open and cheerful as his; not only because it was novelty, and had its proper charm as ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... smile had an air of jovial, careless cruelty. He expressed no wonder at the extraordinary story—no pleasure or excitement—no incredulity either. He betrayed no sentiment whatever. Only with a politeness almost deferential suggested that "the bird might have flown while Mr.—Mr. Razumov was running ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... shooting to be done. However, there was no trouble here, but the contrary; the Blue Mountaineers—it sounds like a new sort of Bond Street band, doesn't it?—treated me in quite a different way than they did when I first met them. They were amazingly civil, almost deferential. But, all time same, they were more distant than ever, and all the time I was there I could get not a whit closer to them. They seemed in a sort of way to be afraid or in awe of me. No doubt that will ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... sister's garden and hothouses) early every morning, and a little later following himself to have lunch with his intended, her mother, and her emigre uncle. The middle of the day was spent in strolling or sitting in the shade. A watchful deferential gallantry trembling on the verge of tenderness, was the note of their intercourse on his side—with a playful turn of the phrase concealing the profound trouble of his whole being caused by her inaccessible nearness. Late in the afternoon ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... that body, where Cleveland failed to drive it. As a speaker he seldom rose above an ordinary plane, but he was simple and sincere. His messages to Congress breathed an atmosphere of serenity and of deferential reliance upon the wise and judicious action of the legislative branch. Their smug and genial tone formed a sharp contrast with his predecessor's anxious demands for multifarious reforms; while Cleveland inveighed against narrow ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... and led him to a carriage in waiting. Then he took him to Pine street, and introduced him, in the most deferential manner, to the broker who held half of New York at his disposal, and knew the city as ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... impertinent, I hope,' observed Caingey, in his most deferential style, to our hero when they met at the News'-room the next day—'you'll not think me impertinent, I hope; but I think you said as we rode home, yesterday, that you didn't altogether like the brown horse ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... this fellow—" Sprudell's voice shook and his pink face had again taken on the curious chalkiness of color which it became under stress of feeling. Forgetting prudence, his deferential pose, forgetting everything that he should have remembered in his rage at Bruce's hardihood, and the fear of exposure, he shook his finger ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... to the governor nearly led to a quarrel. That dignitary was by no means so deferential as on the previous visit; indeed, he was barely civil. Many things had happened during the previous weeks. A ship had arrived from Spain, and she carried an important passenger—to wit, Brother Basil. He was weeks behind the Golden Boar, but he soon made up for lost time. ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... windows to the back of the bank, finally stopping before a door bearing the name, in modest lettering—BENJAMIN AUGUSTUS CLYMER. The bank president was sensitive on one point; he never permitted initials only to be used before his name. The messenger's deferential knock was answered by a gruff command to enter. Clymer welcomed Kent with an ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... before remarked, had a turn for mimicry; and it was with an irresistible feeling of deferential awe creeping over him that Coates heard the contents of Lady Rookwood's epistle delivered with an enunciation as peremptory and imperious as that of her ladyship's self. The letter was hastily indited, in a clear, firm hand, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... at breakfast the next morning, my scout came in with a face of the most ludicrous importance, and quite a deferential manner. I declare I don't think he has ever got back since that day to his original free-and-easy swagger. He laid a card on my table, paused a moment, and then said, 'His ludship ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... her being, sharing her pleasures, lessening her woes, consoling her heart. Still, there was one office that he had failed to perform; he was not obsequious. Not that he was ever wanting in attention and deferential courtesy, or that he ever failed to betray a warmth of feeling or a generous devotion; but his manner was prosaic, thoroughly practical both in action and in expression. He spoke his thoughts directly and forcibly. He was never enthusiastic, ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... and gave her hand cordially, surprised by the bow and air of deferential politeness with which it was received, like a favour, while Dr. Spencer asked her whether she had been staying ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... to the fire, looking into all its glowing crevices and crannies, thinking, thinking of many things. By and by, in came Father Letheby. He was subdued and deferential, but evidently very much hurt at my unaccustomed rudeness. He stood with his back to the fire, looking down on me, and he said, in his best Sunday ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... perfectly deferential, and something about it pleased his companion more than she would have admitted. Somehow she resented him and liked him at the same time. She was half afraid of him, too. But her fear was wholly sub-conscious, and would certainly have been promptly denied had she ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... influence on contemporary manners. He held, indeed, that in the drama, even in comedy, the function of teaching was as important as that of giving pleasure. His attitude toward his audiences was that of a learned schoolmaster, whose ideas they should accept with deferential respect; and when they did not approve his plays he ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... was afternoon of the same day that the Colonel tossed his horse's bridle to his groom, and stepped up to old Charlie, who was sitting on his bench under a China-tree, his head as was his fashion, bound in a Madras handkerchief The "old man" was plainly under the effect of spirits and smiled a deferential salutation without trusting himself ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... only my own but my family's dependence on M'Swat—sank into oblivion. I merely recognized that she was one human being and I another. Should I have been deferential to her by reason of her age and maternity, then from the vantage which this gave her, she should have been lenient to me on account of my chit-ship and inexperience. Thus ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Signore," said Nanni, and Daymond found himself returning the salutation with a courtesy that was little short of deferential. The two men had met upon a common footing,—if the watery deep may be said to furnish one,—and Geof had ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... repulsive look, was evidently a pensioner or old soldier. This person was engaged in examining some rusty fire-arms that had been submitted to his inspection. His self-importance was amusing, as was also the deferential aspect of those who, with arms in their hands, hammering flints or turning screws, awaited patiently their turn for his opinion of their efficiency. But perhaps the most striking group of all was that ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... from the Knight's brow; his eyes, though tired, were no longer sombre; his manner was more than usually courteous and deferential, as if to atone for the defiant brusquerie of ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... had not entirely escaped the usual fate of men who are in advance of their age. The unflinching determination to administer the laws without fear or favour to all classes had infringed upon the assumed immunities of the Greek Church, which had always received deferential consideration from the Turkish government, and although actually liable to taxation, the right had never been enforced. This is a curious contradiction to the vulgar belief in Mussulman intolerance and bigotry; the Greek Church ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... speaking face flashed its message to his soul. A pleased wonder sprang into his eyes, a question as his glance lingered, held by the tumult in her face, and the unmistakable personality of her glance. Then his face lit up with its old smile, graver, oh, much! and more deferential than it used to be, with a certain courtliness in it that spoke of maturity of spirit. He lifted his hat a little higher and waved it just a trifle in recognition of her greeting, wondering in sudden confusion if he were really not mistaken after all and had perhaps been appropriating ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... believed that the Pope was anti-Christ. The idea came to him from Lorenzo Valla, whose tract on the Donation was published in 1518 by Hutten. He became convinced almost immediately after writing to Leo that deferential letter which he had agreed upon with Miltitz. It obliged him to force on a breach at Worms. His main objection to the Confession of Augsburg was that this article was excluded ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... affectionately; Your loving son or daughter, etc. In business letters you may use, Yours; Yours truly; Truly yours; Yours respectfully; Very respectfully yours, etc. In official letters you should be more deferential. Use, I have the honor to be, Sir, your obedient servant; Very respectfully, your most obedient servant; ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... standing with her back to the window like a low-browed goddess, her tawny hair loose over her shoulders, and the pallor of her face made more conspicuous by her costume of unrelieved black. Caspilier, with the grace characteristic of him, swept off his hat, and made a low, deferential bow; but when he straightened himself up, and began to say the complimentary things and poetical phrases he had put together for the occasion at the cafe the night before, the lurid look of the Russian made his tongue falter; and Tenise, who had never seen a woman of this sort before, ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... who had just ascended the iron ladder, approached, touching his cap with a deferential forefinger. "A letter addressed to you, sir. Found it in the corridor outside your stateroom. Must have fallen ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... in contact, he was courteous to men; to a friend or intimate, as myself, an ever-new delight and joy; to all people, truthful to fantasy; and to women, on the rare occasions on which I ever saw him in their company, he was polite and deferential—but rather overwhelmingly so; it was a politeness which raised a barrier, and there was a glacial surface to the manner. I remarked this, and speculated about it. He seemed to have one manner to every woman with whom he ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... tidings onward. As for Gregoire the page, restive and always ready to bolt, he did not behave very well; for he actually tried to pass the royal couple at the head of the procession, a proceeding which brought him various severe admonitions until he fell back, as duty demanded, to his deferential and modest post. On the other hand, as the three maids of honor began to sing the ballad of Cinderella on her way to the palace of Prince Charming, the royal couple condescendingly declared that the song was appropriate ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... made him look younger than he was: twenty-one instead of twenty-seven. As befitted an acolyte of the Goddess of Wisdom, his dark, curly hair was cut rather long. When he bowed to a departing worshipper, lowering his head in graceful acknowledgment of their deferential nods, he felt that he made a striking ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... here it is allotted me. He is quite an old man in his bearing and gait. He was dressed in a blue coat with metal buttons, wore his star and garter, and had on black tights and shoes. He had been to the opera, and then came to this party. Every one pays the most deferential homage to the old hero. Waterloo and its eventful scenes came directly before me, and I felt almost impatient for ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... retort that sprang to her lips. The man's quiet, deferential manner, that refused to see anything extraordinary in her presence in his master's camp, was almost harder to bear than flagrant impertinence would have been. That she could have dealt with; this left her tingling with a feeling of impotence, as if a net were ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... from the window I saw the figures of two men come out of the sharp angle of St. Mary's and walk towards the town. Both were tall, both in cloaks; but one wore his hat and the other carried it. By this, as well as his drooping, deferential shoulders, I knew this latter to be the servant, the former his patron. Midway towards the Via de' Benci they stopped, while he of the bare head explained at length, pointing this way and that ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... wide awake, jumps back, digs the hand that is not holding the green umbrella into her waist, her head jerks a little, and I can imagine she is consigning all these Egyptians to a certain place. She comes on board where all are very deferential, and she is asked to lunch ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... Pauline with the most deferential politeness, and added to the compliment by a kindly inquiry concerning the health of her father. Pauline trembled like a leaf at this phase of the interview, and timidly looked up to assure herself that the Governor was really earnest in his question. But his open manner dispelled all doubt, ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... cleared the way for his fair companion, and, purposely placing her where the full light of the wax chandeliers set off her beauty to the best advantage, devoted himself to her with a subserviency as deferential as if she had been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... flower-pots, to stick in the pork-pie, she set the table with its ugly knives and forks and glasses. All the time her rings sparkled, her red brooch sent out beams, she laughed and was gay, she was quick, and she flattered Madame by being very deferential to her. Whether she was herself or not, in the hideous, common, stuffy sitting-room of the lodging-house she did not know or care. But she felt excited and gay. She knew the young men were watching ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... Griswold had ample time to overtake himself in the race reconstructive, and for the moment the point of view became frankly Philistine. The luxurious hotel, with its air of invincible respectability; the snowy napery, the cut glass, the shaded lights, the deferential service; all these appealed irresistibly to the epicurean in him. It was as if he had come suddenly to his own again after an undeserved season of deprivation, and the effect of it was to push the hardships and perils of ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... The rest they were to pay between them, though Jack at first insisted upon paying the whole. But in this Grey overruled him, and they agreed to share the expense equally. Nothing could be kinder or more deferential than their demeanor toward Bessie, who, wholly overcome with grief and fatigue, lay perfectly quiet in her room, and let them do what they liked, she was so weary and worn, and it was so good to be cared for; but on the day of the funeral she roused herself, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... have been more circumspect than the young man. He treated Nellie Dawson with the chivalrous respect of a Crusader of the olden time. He was always deferential, and, though he managed frequently to meet and chat with her, yet it invariably had the appearance of being accidental. Fortunately his feeling of comradeship for Captain Dawson gave him a legitimate pretext for spending many evenings in his cabin, where ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... and "The Shrubbery" under the able instructions of Mr John Randolph. The young man's manner was puzzling to his pupils at both houses. With the Misses Rothwell (who gave themselves airs, besides practising those which were given them by their master), he was quietly civil and deferential, and yet made them sensible of his superiority to them in a way which they could not help feeling, and yet equally could not resent. With Mary Franklin his respectful manner was mingled with an almost tenderness, ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... George Watts, and the brother-in-law each took a cigar with that careless yet deferential manner which always distinguishes the treatee from the treator; and then the box was protruded in an offhand way toward Harry Covare, the personal clerk of the Registrar; but this young man declined, saying that he preferred cigarettes, a package of which he drew from his pocket. He had very ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... in clusters, like the night-dew on patches of cobweb in a meadow. It was an honest face, with unworldly sort of blue eyes, that looked out from under the broad visor of the infantry cap. With a deferential glance towards us, the new-comer unstrapped his knapsack, spread his blanket over it, ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... by evening engagements, have crowded out family prayers, and the pious custom, honored in all ages, of "grace before meat," is in many houses disregarded, except when a clergyman is at the table. Then the deferential bend of the host's head in the direction of the reverend guest is rather a tribute to the cloth than an acknowledgment of the Divine Giver to whom thanks are due. In the olden days it was the pupil who studied the Sunday-school lessons as needfully as he conned the tasks ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... deferential and conciliatory smile of his, which seems to say: "We entirely agree with you, Sir, but it isn't for us to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... authority which did us service on the roads, and invested us with seasonable terrors. But perhaps these terrors were not the less impressive, because their exact legal limits were imperfectly ascertained. Look at those turnpike gates; with what deferential hurry, with what an obedient start, they fly open at our approach! Look at that long line of carts and carters ahead, audaciously usurping the very crest of the road. Ah! traitors, they do not hear us as yet; but as soon as the dreadful blast of our horn ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... came into the room where she expected to find Rosamond, but the words of contrition died on her lips, for the room was filled with a litter of lovely gowns, hats and slippers, in the midst of which sat Rosamond criticising and selecting, while a deferential young woman in correct black made notes on a little pad. The name of an exclusive outfitter was on ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... accident of birth. Now, Ruth belonged to this rare class, and Susy, without quite understanding it, felt it. She forgot the humble little house, the lack of rooms, and the workmanlike appearance of the whole place. She said in a deferential tone: ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Skeptic sat down beside the Gay Lady on a wide, wooden settle close by, and both listened, smiling, to the discussion which had arisen between Grandmother and the Philosopher. It was well worth listening to. The Philosopher, while wholly deferential, held his ground staunchly, but Grandmother worsted him in the end. Her cheeks grew pink, her black eyes shone. ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... appeared in the form of two steaming little tumblers of rum-punch, the characteristic beverage of the day. All severity of tone and manner had disappeared, and there was something almost chivalric in the deferential smile and rude grace with which the old fellow handed his waiter to the ladies and assured them of the harmless mildness of the punch. Depositing his burden upon a little stand within easy reach of the sofa, Billy turned to leave, but paused ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... no flaming sword turning every way above it to ward off danger. There is nothing in the world of man and things which impels a provident regard for it. Suns, winds, frosts, storms, time, diseases, and death pay no deferential respect to it. Man respects it, bows to it, but while he does it, it withers under his devotion, so little does he mingle wisdom and care in his regard. Society professes to respect it, and so it does, but it subjects it to so many untimely trials and injurious ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... He was so much aware of all family matters, and was accustomed to so much confidence from her father, that she could not believe him unconscious; and there was something hateful to her in the plausible frankness and deferential familiarity of his manners, as, brushing up his sandy hair upon his forehead, he poured forth explanations that Mr. Ponsonby would be delighted, but grieved that no one had met her—Valdivia not expected so soon—not anticipated ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the smile of deferential recognition combining oddly with the cynical searching expression of his eyes. Leaning his case on the table, he lifted the glass lid without a word. The Count took a box of cigarettes and urged by a fearful curiosity, asked as casually as ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... black legs, visible because he had tucked his one long garment up about his waist, were a mass of scars. He was lean, angular, yet peculiarly straight considering his years. As he stood before us he let his shirt-like garment drop, and the change from scarecrow to deferential servant was instantaneous. He was so wrinkled, and the wrinkles were so deep, that one scarcely noticed his sightless eye, almost hidden among a nest of creases; and in spite of the wrinkles, his polished, shaven head made him look ridiculously youthful because one expected gray hair ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... said the Frenchman, with a Parisian shrug of the shoulders. "Your father has treated me very kindly, and I have heard a great deal about his brave and accomplished son," said Mr. Gilfleur, with a very deferential bow. ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... companionship would at all events be relieved of tedium, but he was in a quandary as to what should be his attitude. Later in the seclusion of the smoking-room he shaped a tentative policy of such deferential courtesy as he would have tendered a new acquaintance. He fancied that she would appreciate a manner which neither bordered on intimacy nor presumed upon ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... dressing-room to dress for the last act. She heard the distant roar, however, and felt the tide of triumph rising still higher round her heart. If she had been used to her cadaverous maid, too, she would have seen that the woman's manner was growing more deferential each time she saw her. Success was certain, now, a great and memorable success, which would be proclaimed throughout the world in a very few days. The new star was rising fast, and it was the sallow-faced maid's business to serve ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... received the ladies of the Court, so that, by standing near the door, we could see the whole of the ceremony. The Queen was absent as she had caught cold at the Princess of Wales's ball. The ladies, in consequence, only passed with a side step and solemn demeanour, making en passant a low, deferential bow to the King. But I was extremely amused at their manner directly this was over. As soon as they arrived within a short distance of our door, their solemn and respectful countenances relaxed into a smile of mockery, their side swimming steps into a run, and they all appeared as changed as if ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... equality in Italian fibre which I believe fits the nation for democratic institutions better than any other, and which is perhaps partly the result of their ancient civilization. At any rate, it fascinates a stranger to see people so mutually gentle and deferential; and must often be a matter of surprise to the Anglo-Saxon, in whose race, reclaimed from barbarism more recently, the native wild-beast is still so strong as to sometimes inform the manner. The uneducated Anglo-Saxon is a savage; ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... his room chuckling. He could imagine the deferential way in which John, who had caused the accident, had offered help. When we went down Alice met him in the hall and he thrilled at something in her manner as she gave him her hand. It was getting dark and the glow of the fire flickered among the shadows, but there was only one lamp, and as it was shaded ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... shaven face showed a firm mouth with bloodless lips so thin as to be hardly perceptible. His eyes, when they could be seen at all, were greenish in color, and small and restless as those of a ferret. He advanced into the room with the obsequious deferential manner which in all well-trained servants becomes second nature, moving across the thickly carpeted floor with the rapidity ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... presuming—" he said, in a mock deferential way that showed he didn't imagine he ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... of late a change in Kouaga's manner towards us?" I asked him. "At first he was deferential and submissive to your every wish, but it occurs to me that of late his manner is overbearing, and he watches us closely, as ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... lantern-jawed notary in a frayed russet gown, who must have been watching their movements, approached them and asked them what had been their business at the Pope's palace. Hugh told him, whereon the lawyer, finding that he was a person of high degree, became deferential in his manner. Moreover, he announced that he was a notary named Basil of Tours and one of the legal secretaries of his Holiness, who just now was living without the gates of the palace by express command in order to attend to the ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... cried Long Ned, with the deferential air of a courtier, and holding out his hand to Paul. Our hero, being somewhat abashed by the novelty of his situation and the rebuke of Gentleman George, accepted, though with some reluctance, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... or more, during which time, as he noted, the door remained ajar. Then there entered a figure which seemed wildly out of place in the establishment of Ho-Pin. It was that of a butler, most accurately dressed and most deferential in all his highly-trained movements. His dark hair was neatly brushed, and his face, which had a pinched appearance, was composed in that "if-it-is-entirely-agreeable-to-you-Sir" expression, ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... chateau. Britt stormed and threatened, but the inscrutable Mohammedans shook their heads and hastened toward the gates. Despair reigned in the chateau; tears and lamentations were no more effective than blasphemy. The major-domo, suave and deferential, gravely informed Mr. Britt that they were leaving at the instigation of their legal adviser, who had but that hour issued ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... did us service on the roads, and invested us with seasonable terrors. But perhaps these terrors were not the less impressive, because their exact legal limits were imperfectly ascertained. Look at those turnpike gates; with what deferential hurry, with what an obedient start, they fly open at our approach! Look at that long line of carts and carters ahead, audaciously usurping the very crest of the road. Ah! traitors, they do not hear us as yet; but as soon as the dreadful blast of our horn reaches them with the proclamation ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... duties of these relations, true dignity consists in conforming to all those relations that demand subordination, with propriety and cheerfulness. When does a man, however high his character or station, appear more interesting or dignified than when yielding reverence and deferential attentions to an aged parent, however weak and infirm? And the pupil, the servant, or the subject, all equally sustain their own claims to self-respect, and to the esteem of others, by equally sustaining the appropriate relations ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... road, retraced his unfamiliar steps and asked a question, to which—it was so unusual from one in his habit—he received a hesitating but correct reply. A moment later he passed Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope, who stood in his path with a hostile stare, and got out of it with a deferential bow, and knocked at a door upon which was pasted the name, in large red letters cut from a poster, of Miss Hilda Howe. It was a little ajar, so he entered, when she cried "Come in!" with the less hesitation. Hilda sat on the single chair the place contained, in the dress and make-up of the last ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... detests tobacco, as I instinctively do, it may be imagined this habit did not add to their attractiveness. A sweetheart who defiled her lips with tobacco! "Phew!" Neither is it considered disrespectful in any degree to begin smoking in the presence of others. Deferential as the singing girls were, when at leisure they lighted their pipes as a matter of course, wholly unconscious that ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... satisfied. She had made friends with the women too. She was much too shrewd to incur their hostility by openly courting the admiration of their husbands. She knew they did admire her, and that was enough. She was most deferential to Mrs. Colston, so much so that the brewer's wife openly expressed the opinion that she was evidently well bred, and wondered how Butcher managed to secure her. Furthermore she was useful, for her opinion, when anything had to be done, was always the one to be followed, and without ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... position struck me as very different from the position of women with us. English women are deferential to their husbands; they are content to be relegated to the background on all occasions when they are not wanted. They are dependent. They seldom wear an air of triumph and rarely take the lead. But American women are complacent ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... bridegroom are of different religions, the marriage is usually first celebrated in the church of that communion to which the husband belongs; the second celebration should immediately follow, and upon the same day. Some, however, regard it as duly deferential to the bride's feelings that the first ceremony should be performed in her own communion. There is a notion prevalent, that in the case of a marriage between Roman Catholics and Protestants, the ceremony must necessarily be first performed in a Protestant ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... Page then, as always, exercised a great fascination over young men. The apparently merciless character of his ridicule might at first convey the idea of intolerance; the fact remains, however, that he was the most tolerant of men; he was almost deferential to the opinions of others, even the shallow and the inexperienced; and nothing delighted him more than an animated discussion. His liveliness of spirits, his mental and physical vitality, the constant sparkle ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... grasses to wing them, and the mysterious shapes of steamers and warships in the offing beyond the Sand.... The sail of the receding yacht gleamed now against the Sand, and its flashing broke her heart; for it was the flashing of freedom. She thought of the yachtsman; he was very courteous and deferential; a mild creature; he had behaved to her as to a woman.... Oh! To be the petted and capricious wife of such a man, to nod commands, to enslave with a smile, to want a thing and instantly to have it, to be consulted and to decide, to spend with large ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... dear sir!" said Gammon, with a deferential and deprecating smile, "you give me credit for an acuteness I feel I do not possess! If, indeed, I had not had your sagacity to rely upon, ever since I have had the honor of being connected with you in business—— ah, Mr. Quirk, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... The deferential title won the attention which the loud voice could not gain, and Pedro glanced carelessly upon the mighty herder, a mere youth of sixty summers, and ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... love. He pursued his twofold scheme with masterly art and address. He first sought to secure the confidence and regard of the melancholy and gentle mother; and in this—for she was peculiarly unsuspicious and inexperienced, he obtained signal and complete success. His frankness of manner, his deferential attention, the art with which he warded off from her the spleen or ill-humour of Mr. Templeton, the cheerfulness that his easy gaiety threw over a very gloomy house, made the poor lady hail his visits and trust in his friendship. ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bank, finally stopping before a door bearing the name, in modest lettering—BENJAMIN AUGUSTUS CLYMER. The bank president was sensitive on one point; he never permitted initials only to be used before his name. The messenger's deferential knock was answered by a gruff command to enter. Clymer welcomed Kent with an air ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... evident that the Captain was much impressed by Constance. Yet she instinctively disliked the man. His cameraderie had something offensive about it, as contrasted with the deferential friendship of Santos. ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... refusing tea, but asking leave to smoke, and the Prince, gracefully deferential to his future father-in-law, listened to the little he had to say, answering carefully in ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... was so entreating, his manner so deferential, she could not resist. She ventured within a few steps and while he cleared a chair from its books and papers her eyes wandered round. One end of the room was curtained off and the opening between ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... blue, unbelieving eyes and the bright white flash of an automatic smile had an air of jovial, careless cruelty. He expressed no wonder at the extraordinary story—no pleasure or excitement—no incredulity either. He betrayed no sentiment whatever. Only with a politeness almost deferential suggested that "the bird might have flown while Mr.—Mr. Razumov ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... precocious babe." He is assured that Mr. BURTIE, who plays this neutral part, "has seen some five-and-twenty summers, and has advanced intellectual views about most things." Mr. Punch's Dramatic Critic has been instructed to "give him double bowing" by way of deferential compensation. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... old gentleman must be a decided miser to live in such a dirty place, with so many watches; but thinking that perhaps his fondness for the Dodger and the other boys, cost him a good deal of money, he only cast a deferential look at the Jew, and asked if he might get up. Permission being granted him, he got up, walked across the room, and stooped for an instant to raise the water-pitcher. When he turned his head, the box ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... of good-will and fellowship had reached its height, like one who would ride in upon its crest the Gainer rose to his feet and began speaking to the King. His manner was less smoothly deferential than when addressing Edmund, she noticed, affecting more the air of bluff frankness which one might who wished to disarm any suspicion of flattering; but she could not hear what he said because of the noise around him. The first words she heard distinctly were Canute's, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... in the world whom he so regarded and admired and loved; but yet it was not merely a tender and deferential sentiment. He laid his mind open before her, and it was safe to do that, because my mother never had any wish to prevail by sentiment or by claiming loyalty. He knew that she would be perfectly candid too, with love ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... looked Mary Gray on Friday morning, as she entered the school at an early hour. She waited only to place her books in neat order in her desk, ere she approached the teacher, and whispering in a voice that laughed in spite of her efforts to make it low and deferential—"After this week sister Nellie is coming to school every day, and oh, I am ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... stepped up to old Charlie, who was sitting on his bench under a China-tree, his head as was his fashion, bound in a Madras handkerchief The "old man" was plainly under the effect of spirits and smiled a deferential salutation without trusting himself to ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... out in curious places. When we find him speaking of a young Roman of fashion standing for hours in a crowd to listen to his pleading in the courts, or of his audience pressing him not to omit a single line of his poems, or of the deferential way in which certain young barristers of promise hang on his lips, copy his gestures and bow to his judgment, one cannot resist a smile. When he tells us that he went on calmly reading and taking notes during the ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... knew she should be called to account if she did not look well at "the Romish King;" besides, Thekla was shrieking with delight at the sight of her father, tall and splendid on his mighty black charger, with a smile for his child, and for the lady a bow so low and deferential that it was evidently remarked by those at whose approach every lady in the balconies was rising, every head ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was turning from the window I saw the figures of two men come out of the sharp angle of St. Mary's and walk towards the town. Both were tall, both in cloaks; but one wore his hat and the other carried it. By this, as well as his drooping, deferential shoulders, I knew this latter to be the servant, the former his patron. Midway towards the Via de' Benci they stopped, while he of the bare head explained at length, pointing this way and that with ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... Not only did it happen that he knew the Russian language, but also he could speak a mixture of three different dialects, so that the pair were able to understand one another. Yet the old lady never ceased to abuse him, despite his deferential manner, and to compare him unfavourably with myself (so, at all events, Potapitch declared). "You," the old chamberlain said to me, "treated her as a gentleman should, but he—he robbed her right and left, as I could see with my own eyes. Twice she caught ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... The voice, smooth and deferential, the step, steady and silent, made it hard to believe that only a few hours before Bukta was yelling and capering with naked fellow-devils of ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... "Come, John, we're three minutes late! why don't we have dinner?" He asked no question—at least, not at first—either about Sir Lionel or about Jerusalem, and seemed resolute to give the traveller none of that eclat, to pay to his adventures none of that deferential awe which had been so well expressed by ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... modiste and her aristocratic patron were a little puzzled at Patty's attitude, which, though modest and deferential, was yet sure and true in its ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... Pigeons cider on the table before me, while he subtly dictated what manner of dinner I should eat. For this interval Amedee's exuberance was sobered and his badinage dismissed as being mere garniture, the questions now before us concerning grave and inward matters. His suggestions were deferential but insistent; his manner was that of a prime minister who goes through the form of convincing the sovereign. He greeted each of his own decisions with a very loud "Bien!" as if startled by the brilliancy of my selections, ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... beginning; while Charlotte was too physically weak (as "Mary" has expressed it) to "gather up her forces" sufficiently to express any difference or opposition of opinion, and had consequently an assenting and deferential manner, strangely at variance with what they knew of her remarkable talents and decided character. At this house, the T.'s and the Brontes could look forward to meeting each other pretty frequently. There was another English family where Charlotte soon became a welcome ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... her wet foot, and clambered back on to the bank. A young man stood there, civilly deferential. His bicycle lay on the grass at the edge of the road, which was only ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the chief's subdued steps—in departing even his feet contrived to appear deferential—had barely died away when it was replaced by the noise of other and more determined ones ascending the stairs. The creaking of the ancient floor-boards heralded the approach of Jason Bolt, the junior partner, who passed by his own ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... the flower-pots, to stick in the pork-pie, she set the table with its ugly knives and forks and glasses. All the time her rings sparkled, her red brooch sent out beams, she laughed and was gay, she was quick, and she flattered Madame by being very deferential to her. Whether she was herself or not, in the hideous, common, stuffy sitting-room of the lodging-house she did not know or care. But she felt excited and gay. She knew the young men were watching her. Max gave his assistance wherever possible. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... customers of that numerous class, who will not allow originality to be an excuse for the breach of decorum, and who, little accustomed perhaps to attendance at home, loved to play the great man at an inn, and to have a certain number of bows, deferential speeches, and apologies, in answer to the G—d d—n ye's which they bestow on the house, attendance, and entertainment. Unto those who commenced this sort of barter in the Clachan of Saint Ronan's, well could Meg Dods pay it back, in their own coin; ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... exercise, laboriously, imperfectly. For the first week or two it had given her vast satisfaction to be learning the piano; what more certain sign of having achieved ladyhood? It pleased her to assume airs with her teacher—a very deferential lady—to put off a lesson for a fit of languidness; to let it be understood how entirely time was at her command. Now she was growing rather weary of flats and sharps, and much preferred to read of persons to whom the same nomenclature was very applicable in the ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... salutation of Salam Alaikum in the most modest and deferential tone; but his former friend was so far from responding in their former strain of intimacy, that, having consulted the eye of his older companion, he barely pointed to a third carpet, upon which the stranger ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... all these blessings, now complacently say, "If these pioneers in reform, had only pressed their measures more judiciously; in a more ladylike manner; in more choice language; in a more deferential attitude, the gentlemen could not have behaved so rudely." We give in these pages enough of the characteristics of these women, of the sentiments they expressed, of their education, ancestry, and position, to show that no power could have met the prejudice and bigotry of that period ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... spiritual, nor his mental, nor his physical needs were of the kind to take him much abroad. He found at home the ease of his body and the peace of his conscience, together with Mrs Verloc's wifely attentions and Mrs Verloc's mother's deferential regard. ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... high wall is always felicitous), which admits you to an inner court, where you discover the face of the building. It has statues set into it and is raised upon a very low and very deep arcade. The principal function of the deferential old portress who conducts you over the place is to call your attention to the indented table of Jean Guiton; but she shows you other objects of interest besides. The interior is absolutely new and extremely sumptuous, abounding in ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... Kathleen she was a cheerful, madcap companion, who reminded her that she was yet young. Denis Quirk's sentiments in regard to the girl he carefully concealed from the outside world, even from Sylvia herself. He was polite and deferential, yet humorous, with her; but she would have liked him to demonstrate clearly that he had enrolled himself among her bodyguard. She had given him abundant opportunities so to do, walking almost daily into the town with him, paying flying visits to "The Mercury" office, and playing dreamy music ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... out bright as their reputation. It was hard to believe that these simple, kindly peasants had ever stained their beautiful pastoral country with the bloodiest, cruellest deeds of recent times. They have a polite, deferential manner without servility, and a pious way of interpolating prayer and ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... her gaze without flinching, and he was a man who undoubtedly commanded attention when he spoke. His tone was deferential but decisive. His black eyes were taking in this charming and intelligent woman in full measure. Her rare beauty, her unstudied pose, her slender elegance, the quiet harmonies of her costume—each and all made their ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... undertaken. She feared a break, either of ceremony or china. Then, as she had time to watch the guest and accustom herself to his ways and his appetite, she devoted her energy to plying him with goodies, bending beside him with grave and deferential mien, then straightening up again to pass through a dumb show of mirth above his august head. Theodora was talking away valiantly, sternly resolved to do what credit she could to the family; but Billy, at the foot of the table, ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... Reyburn would go out in time for him to call her up at her noon hour. He was a very temperamental stenographer and understood the moods and tenses of his most temperamental employer fully. It was all in knowing how to manage him. James was most deferential, and knew when to keep still and not ask questions. This was one of the mornings when he went to the dictionary himself when he wasn't sure of a word rather than break the ominous silence. Not that Mr. Reyburn was a hard master, quite the contrary, ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... Warren had not entirely escaped the usual fate of men who are in advance of their age. The unflinching determination to administer the laws without fear or favour to all classes had infringed upon the assumed immunities of the Greek Church, which had always received deferential consideration from the Turkish government, and although actually liable to taxation, the right had never been enforced. This is a curious contradiction to the vulgar belief in Mussulman intolerance and bigotry; the Greek Church not only enjoyed a perfect ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... if in search of some friend capable of giving counsel and comfort in such case made and provided. His looks fell upon little Peter, who had kept ever at his side from the moment of his escape from the village, and now trotted along with the deferential humility which became him, while surrounded by so gallant and numerous an assemblage; but even little Peter could not relieve him from the weight of eulogy heaped on his head, nor from the prickings of the conscience which every word of praise and every encomiastic ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... It was the remarkably handsome and gentlemanly gunner, Hugh St. Mark, who was scarcely ever known to break the silence, and all were amazed that he should do so now. "I know that man," said St. Mark, touching his cap, and speaking in a mild, firm, but extremely deferential manner, "and I know that he would not be found absent from his station, if ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... violent deaths. Ramon had been a great favorite of the dictator, but it was claimed signs were not lacking to show that a rupture between them was near. Watching them now, Yeager could well believe that this might be true. Culvera was suave, adroit, deferential as he raked in his chief's gold, but the irritability of the older man needed ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... etiquette. On the Continent, however, the gentleman bows first. There the matter of the raising the hat is also important. An American gentleman takes his hat quite off to a lady; a foreigner raises it but slightly, and bows with a deferential air. Between ladies but slightly acquainted, and just introduced, a very formal bow is all that is proper; acquaintances and friends bow and smile; intimate male friends simply nod, but all gentlemen with ladies raise the hat and bow if the lady ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Wild, Captain?" remonstrated the other, in a deferential tone. "You know this is a pet project. It might be dangerous to ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and boisterous or cheeky; or would he like that boy of his to come forward with an entire lack of self-consciousness, and as his father introduces him as "My Son!" have him put out his hand in frank and easy and yet deferential friendliness? And then saying quickly and quietly whatever it was he came to say, as quickly and quietly make his way out again? Would he be sorry that the big man thought, "Fine boy that! Ability too!" Why would he think he had ability? Because the ease and dexterity with which ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... reason cannot possibly be two different beings. It is an absolute contradiction that I should receive that as true which my understanding rejects as false. Faith, therefore, is nothing but submissive or deferential incredulity. But why should this submission be exercised when my understanding invincibly recoils? The reason, we well know, is, that my understanding has been persuaded that the mysteries of my faith are laid down by God himself. All, then, that I can do, as a reasonable ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... manner. Now, I don't care a button what you do to me, because I don't affect to be anybody. So far from having high connections I have no connections at all, and I come of the scum of the earth. But towards that lady, I do care what you do; and you shall do what is deferential and respectful, or you shall not ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab, there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind, their intent eyes all fastened ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... more susceptible of the younger minds. On Mr. Gladstone they told with full force. He became, and never ceased to be, not merely a High-churchman, but what may be called an Anglo-Catholic, in his theology, deferential not only to ecclesiastical tradition, but to the living voice of the visible church, respecting the priesthood as the recipients (if duly ordained) of a special grace and peculiar powers, attaching great importance to the sacraments, feeling himself nearer to the Church of Rome, ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... these blessings now complacently say, "If these pioneers in reform had only pressed their measures more judiciously, in a more ladylike manner, in more choice language, with a more deferential attitude, the gentlemen could not have behaved so rudely." I give, in these pages, enough of the characteristics of these women, of the sentiments they expressed, of their education, ancestry, and position to show that no power could have met the prejudice and bigotry of that period ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... kind, and just to everyone, was as blind as a babe to the impositions practiced by the oily-tongued, deferential Dawson. True, he did 'get upon her nerves' now and again, but she secretly reproached herself for what she felt to be her American prejudices, and by way of self-discipline overlooked in Dawson many little aggravating ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Johnson, commenting on this speech, "could have made a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a king to pay. It was decisive." "But did you make no reply to this high compliment?" asked one of the company. "No, sir," replied the profoundly deferential Johnson, "when the king had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... smiling and did not unbend even when the station master, who had known him from his boyhood, felt at liberty to offer a deferential welcome. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... supposed that Kresney failed to observe the gradual change in Evelyn's bearing. The man displayed remarkable tact and skill in detecting the psychological moment for advance. He contented himself at first with conversations in the Club Gardens and an air of deferential sympathy, which was in itself a subtle form of flattery. But on a certain afternoon of regimental sports, when Evelyn appeared, radiant and smiling, in one of her most irresistible Simla frocks, with an obviously appreciative Pioneer subaltern in attendance, Kresney perceived ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... thus sheltered and protected. And I think, furthermore, that there is no country in the world where women are so much considered and cared for and sheltered, in every walk of life, as in America. In England and France,—all over the continent of Europe, in fact,—the other sex are deferential to women only from some presumption of their social standing, or from the fact of acquaintanceship; but among strangers, and under circumstances where no particular rank or position can be inferred, a woman traveling in England or France ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... are not painted, but their spiritual significance floats through his music, modified and moulded by the individuality of the man. All this appears in his aspect. As he advances, the strong, composed grace of his appearance, deferential not to individuals but to the mind which shall receive the song of his inspiration, destroys conventional ideas of grace, as Mont Blanc might destroy them. His tall, compact figure well becomes a priest of art. Out of his eyes shines the reflection ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... an odd little bend of the head, half deferential, half satirical; and Raymond said, "Cecil, I believe it rests with you to make the move." An ingenuous girlish blush mantled on her cheek as she looked ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mere arc of a circle, and yet revolution being maintained. And to the beauty of characters and deeds, it is requisite that they should never seem even to imperil fealty to the universal idea. Revolution perfectly exact expresses only necessity, not voluntary fidelity; but departure, still deferential to the law of the whole, in evincing freedom elevates its obedience into fealty and noble faithfulness: by this measure of eccentricity, centricity is not only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... arrangement admitted me were such as any man might have enjoyed with proud satisfaction. I had always too much earnest respect for Mr. Irving ever to claim familiar intimacy with him. He was a man who would unconsciously and quietly command deferential regard and consideration; for in all his ways and words there was the atmosphere of true refinement. He was emphatically a gentleman, in the best sense of that word. Never forbidding or morose, he was at times (indeed always, when quite well) full of genial humor,—sometimes overflowing with ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... breakfast the next morning, my scout came in with a face of the most ludicrous importance, and quite a deferential manner. I declare I don't think he has ever got back since that day to his original free-and-easy swagger. He laid a card on my table, paused a moment, and then said, 'His ludship is ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. With his pale, beautiful, and intellectual face, as a reminder of what genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, not to treat him always with deferential courtesy, and, to our occasional request that he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or that he would erase a passage colored too highly with his resentments against society and mankind, he readily and courteously assented-far more yielding than most men, we thought, on ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... other Atwaters his feeling held less of apprehension, more of tenderness; and whenever he saw one of them he became deferential and a little short of breath. Thus, on a sunny afternoon, having been home to lunch after his morning labour downtown, he paused in passing young Herbert's place of residence and timidly began a conversation with this glamoured nephew. It happened ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... of the small cabins to ourselves that night. He was still deferential to Elza, but in his manner and in the glitter of those little black eyes, there was irony, and an open, though unexpressed, admiration for ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... came forward with his hat in his hand. He looked as if he had just landed from the Eighteenth Century. His figure was that of Mr. Edward Gibbon. 'Yes, madam,' he said, in a markedly deferential tone, fussing about with the rim of his hat as he spoke, and adjusting his pince-nez. 'I was recommended to your—ur—your establishment for shorthand and typewriting. I have some work which I wish done, if it falls within your province. But I ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... before her fire, and looking down at her with his head a little on one side. Lizzie's anger against the man chiefly arose from a feeling that he treated her with all a Corsair's freedom without any of a Corsair's tenderness. She could have forgiven the want of deferential manner, had there been any devotion;—but Lord George ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... only the Professor, but with Long and Ashman in turn. They were as deferential as they knew how to be, but all the same, their sagacity told them he bore them no good will, and would have been much better pleased had the Aryks wiped them out before they ascended ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... went into the house for her gloves and a straw hat; she made no other change in her dress, having taken off her apron before she set out after Prince. She found her new friend standing with the reins in his hand, as if he were to drive and not she; and Diana was helped into her own waggon with a deferential courtesy which up to that time she had only read of in books; nor known much even so. It silenced her at first. She sat down as mute as a child; and Mr. Knowlton handled Prince and the waggon and all in the style of one that knew how and ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... would doubtless have had a large liberty of choice among the many beautiful women of his circle, but he never married, and there is no record of any entanglement. To the few women he deemed worthy of his respect and admiration, he was deferential and even gallant. In one of his letters to a young relative ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... ample time to overtake himself in the race reconstructive, and for the moment the point of view became frankly Philistine. The luxurious hotel, with its air of invincible respectability; the snowy napery, the cut glass, the shaded lights, the deferential service; all these appealed irresistibly to the epicurean in him. It was as if he had come suddenly to his own again after an undeserved season of deprivation, and the effect of it was to push the hardships ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... again; but the Count, stepping between, answered quickly: "His grievance against you is that you have been detected in secret correspondence with his daughter, the most noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this gentleman, the most illustrious Marquess Zanipolo—" and he waved a deferential hand at the frowning hidalgo of the ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... between his wrists filled all my mind. Who could he be? The sense of warmth that had come with his smile, and that very curious sensation I had had when he had come up close to the bar and spoken to me, were with me yet. His voice had been pleading and deferential, surely nothing in it to resent. The memory of his face made me forget the chain between his wrists; as if he himself had been greater than any ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... the way with a mincing gait around the whole system of desks to a tall and important-looking door, which he opened with a deferential action of the arm. ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... human being had ever heard of before, and which was absolutely necessary even for a day's health. He wore a huge broad-brimmed hat, equally hygienic, very much at the back of his head, and his voice coming out of so heavy and hearty a type of man was, as I have said, startlingly shrill and deferential. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... morning, I perceived in the shadow of the cavern no less a person than Miss Oman. She saw me at the same moment, and beckoned peremptorily with a hand that held a large Spanish onion. I approached with a deferential smile. ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... quickly, and uttered a word of warning. But were silent again. Then the young man said, his manner growing deferential, and his voice falling to a ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... One of the ladies said that you always thought of him as having spoken French after it was over, and accused herself of wrong in not being able to feel afraid of him. None of the ladies was afraid of him, though they could not believe that he was really so deferential to their work as he seemed; and they knew, when he would not criticise Mr. Harrington's work, that he was just acting ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... account the nature and importance of each, assigns to all their due order of precedence. It maintains no one department of thought exclusively, however ample and noble; and it sacrifices none. It is deferential and loyal, according to their respective weight, to the claims of literature, of physical research, of history, of metaphysics, of theological science. It is impartial towards them all, and promotes each in its own place and for its ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... cat, but I can see through her so clearly. Not that she's bad; she's simply an opportunist. She's awfully sweet and deferential and 'frank' with women, but with men—well, she simply tucks her head so that her shoulder-length black curls fall forward enchantingly, gives them one wistful smile out of her big eyes that are like black pansies ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... buttonhole with a bit of riband in it, then worked he the muscles of his face into most grotesque expression of interest or pleasure—(Tunc immensa cavi spirant mendacia folles!)—and you had a famous display of grimace and deferential civility, in bad French or worse Italian. We have seen him sneering and leering as he made his way round a drawing-room at an evening party, and bowing like a French perruquier to some absurd fool of a foreigner; and we have seen him, a minute after, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... her cue from this and that stronger nature, until by chance she came in hailing distance of Mrs. Hilbrough. The two were perfect counterparts. Mrs. Hilbrough was clairvoyant and of prompt decision, but she lacked the commanding position for personal leadership. She was superficially deferential to Mrs. Van Horne's older standing and vastly greater wealth, but she swiftly gained the real ascendancy. Her apparent submission of everything to Mrs. Van Horne's wisdom, while adroitly making ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... beginning of the boycott gave the gentlemen in Washington a terrible scare, prompting them to collect funds to relieve the famine in China and even renouncing all claim to the war indemnity of 1901 to smooth matters over. But Japan apparently took no notice of all this and continued to be deferential and polite, even when the growing heaps of unsold goods in the warehouses at Shanghai made the Americans ready to sacrifice some of their national pride. Since Japan wished to take the enemy by surprise, she had to be very careful not to arouse ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... people's right; now he muttered some perilous stuff or other in a sly and doubtful whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience could scarcely catch the secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured accents and a deeply-deferential tone, as if a royal ear were listening to his well-turned periods. Colonel Killigrew all this time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle-song and ringing his glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered toward the buxom figure of the widow Wycherly. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... golden dust which was his combined with his straight, slender little figure to put all who beheld him in mind of churches, angels, God, and Paradise. At all events, all viewed him in a manner contemplative, interested, and more than a little deferential. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... certain uneasy sensation—amounting almost to a superstitious awe—convinced me that I was the object of her undivided attention. Suddenly the priests, in procession, came down from the altar; and as they passed us, I instinctively raised my veil again, through motives of deferential respect. At the same instant I glanced toward the stranger lady; she also drew back the dark covering from her face. Oh! what a countenance was then revealed to me—a countenance of such sovereign beauty that, though of the same sex, I was struck with admiration; ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... sir," said the latter, with a deferential air that greatly pleased the warrior, "forgive me if I venture to intrude my own troubles on one whose anxiety must needs be greater, but this youth left my hut yesterday to visit you, saying that he knew you well, and if he ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... fell upon the whole assembly, and it then became the duty of the performer, assuming an attitude of profound and deferential obeisance, to salute the lieutenant-general after a fashion more easily describable by Rabelais or by M. Armand Silvestre than by me, and which seems to have been derived from some of the singular rites attributed by Von Hammer to the Templars, as a part of the ceremonial observed ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... extensive, though somewhat mild, profanity which took no account of ladies' presence, although he was almost exaggeratedly deferential to them, as well as cordially courteous to all. His speech was like his gait, tripping. I remember the arrival of the first steamer of a new French line to Rio. Steam mail-service was there and then exceptional; most of our home letters ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... Consolidated Bank. At the window of the paying teller she explained that she wished to see the person connected with the bank who had charge of the safety-deposit boxes and who looked after the accounts pertaining to the estate of Alexander Strong. The teller recognized the name. He immediately became deferential. ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... said, had important reformatory influence on contemporary manners. He held, indeed, that in the drama, even in comedy, the function of teaching was as important as that of giving pleasure. His attitude toward his audiences was that of a learned schoolmaster, whose ideas they should accept with deferential respect; and when they did not approve his plays he was outspoken in ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... did not come out much; but there was a deferential manner in the bearing of the men toward her, which those haughty creatures accord not save to clever women; and she contrived to hold the talk with three or four at the head of the table while she still had ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... looked at her, and the tone of the conversation became of that pacific kind which implies curiosity on one side and the power of satisfying it on the other. At last the younger woman said in her previous deferential, coaxing tone,— ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... his hat, and approached the lady, deferential as knight-errant of old awaiting the behest ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... graceful young girl advanced a step or two towards me, and catching hold of my hand, before I could prevent her, kissed it, greatly to my confusion; as albeit it was an act expressive amongst the Spanish, with whom she had been brought up, of deferential courtesy and gratitude, but it made me blush up to my eyes ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... the sarcastic retort that sprang to her lips. The man's quiet, deferential manner, that refused to see anything extraordinary in her presence in his master's camp, was almost harder to bear than flagrant impertinence would have been. That she could have dealt with; this left her tingling with a ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... The attainment of glory exceeding even his own great aspirations coincides with dereliction from the plain rules of honor between friends, and with public humiliation to his wife, which he allowed himself to inflict, notwithstanding that he admitted her claims to his deferential consideration to be unbroken. In this contrast, of the exaltation of the hero and the patriot with the degradation of the man, lie the tragedy and the misery of Nelson's story. And this, too, was incurred on behalf of a ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... ignorance under the veil of the darkness. "And have you really driven over four-and-twenty miles of Barsetshire roads on such a day as this to assist us in our little difficulties? Well, we can promise you gratitude at any rate." And then the vicar shook hands with Mrs. Proudie, in that deferential manner which is due from a vicar to his bishop's wife; and Mrs. Proudie returned the greeting with all that smiling condescension which a bishop's wife should show to a vicar. Miss Proudie was not ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... annoyance to him. Our house was now but rarely visited by him, unless when some legal difficulties had arisen on which he wished to consult my father or some important papers required translating. Then the air of pride would yield to one of deferential affection, and in silvery tones he would discourse on such topics as he imagined were the most pleasing to us. My father would be termed "Signor Padre" and my mother ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... however, as his hunger was appeased, the king became morose and overgloomed again; the more so in proportion to the satisfaction he fancied he had previously manifested, and particularly on account of the deferential manner which his courtiers had shown towards Fouquet. D'Artagnan, who ate a good deal and drank but little, without allowing it to be noticed, did not lose a single opportunity, but made a great number of observations which ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have disturbed them," he said, with a deferential bow; and he came and sat by her side, treading as lightly as a boy across the flags. Hedwig shuddered and drew her dark skirts about her ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... he was good for logic: "false?"—not one premise but stood on adamant, not one conclusion but it was fixed as fate: "presumptuous?"—it was bold and masculine, certainly, but humble too; here and there almost deferential: "ignorant?"—ye powers that live in looks, testify by thousands how Clements had been studying!—And yet this most lying sentence, a congeries or sorites of untruths, hastily penned by some dyspeptic scribe, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... was in the sudden movement that air of accident, of impulse, which we all love. It overcame all the tremors of the great lady. She said, "My dear!" in the excitement of the moment, and bent forward to kiss the cheek of this beautiful young creature, who was so deferential, so reverent in her young pride. And the Duchess's daughters did not disapprove! Still more wonderful than the effect on the Duchess was the effect upon these ladies, of whose criticisms their mother stood in dread. They drew close about the lovely stranger, and it immediately became apparent to ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... was in the livery of Peter of Blentz, bowed, and with a deferential sign to the girl led the way from the room. Emma von der Tann followed her guide up a winding stairway which spiraled within a tower at the end of a long passage. On the second floor of the castle the servant led her to a large and beautifully furnished suite of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... small matters that life is made up,' put in the General in his deferential way. 'Our friend,' he went on after a pause, 'is unfortunate in misrepresenting himself. We also have a little grudge against him—a little matter of a letter which has not been explained. I admit that I should like to ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... seat placed for her by the deferential host, and watched her father's departure up the winding road. They were both thinking of Corrie, lacking whom all places were blank, with whom, in one winter's enthusiasm, they had studied this soft Spanish tongue they now used without ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... of time to study them, and somehow his recollection of the girl with the hunting-case watch did not seem to fit her in with these kindly and efficient women. He could not, for instance, imagine her patronising the Senior Surgical Interne in a deferential but unmistakable manner, or good-naturedly bullying the First Assistant, who was a nervous person in shoes too small for her, as to their days ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... degree, but in kind, from the purely spiritual anathemas which had formerly fallen upon them. Personally she had no fear. The prophet knew of her unbelief, and his conduct was increasingly kind and deferential, but for others she disliked exceedingly the new symptoms of tyranny. Yet it was but natural, she admitted; men who had offered their own lives in sacrifice for a creed were likely to think it of more worth ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... entered. He was a gentleman, I felt at once. His manner was as deferential, as kind, and as considerate to my sensitiveness, as anything it's possible for ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... far livelier interest than before in the conditions and feelings of Myrtle Hazard. He had called frequently at The Poplars to talk over business matters, which seemed of late to require a deal of talking. He had been very deferential to Miss Silence, and had wound himself into the confidence of Miss Badlam. He found it harder to establish any very near relations with Myrtle, who had never seemed to care much for any young man but Cyprian Eveleth, and to care for him quite as much as Olive's brother as for any personal ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... suffer requital for his irreverence, so Shem and Japheth received a reward for the filial, deferential way in which they took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders, and walking backward, with averted faces, covered the nakedness of their father. Naked the descendants of Ham, the Egyptians and Ethiopians, were led away captive and into exile by the king of ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... them personally; he had been taken there first by Lightmark, when the latter was fresh from Paris, and had been himself more in touch with them. But he had often sat smoking silently a little outside the main group, listening, with a deferential air that sat upon his age somewhat oddly, to ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... that she had never seen her father dining out before, never watched him critically as an equal. To Capes he was almost deferential, and she had never seen him deferential in the old time, never. The dinner was stranger than she had ever anticipated. It was as if she had grown right past her father into something older and of infinitely wider outlook, as if he had always been unsuspectedly a flattened figure, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... get the long pipe, with its stem of maple-root, and filled it with tobacco with her own pretty fingers. A sweet smile and a deferential look from Eric recompensed her. When he saw M. de Vermondans seated in his chair, and inhaling the aroma of tobacco through the amber mouthpiece, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... glow. Her lips were slightly parted as though in surprise that he should not be looking at her with his usual expression. His usual expression was unconditionally approving and attentive. He was in his talks with her the most anxious and deferential of dictators, an attitude that pleased her immensely. It affirmed her power without detracting from his dignity. That slight girl, with her little feet, little hands, little face attractively overweighted by great ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... generally sits with one foot up on a chair. On a brass table beside him are such things as Mr. Sims needs. But they are few. Wealthy as he is, the needs of Mr. Sims reach scarcely further than Martini cocktails and Egyptian cigarettes. Such poor comforts as these, brought by a deferential waiter, with, let us say, a folded newspaper at five o'clock, suffice for all his wants. Here sits Mr. Sims till the shadows fall in the street outside, when a limousine motor trundles up to the club and ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... densest crowd will part and make way for. The crowd had parted and made way for Philip. As the court was being "fenced," he appeared with his companion at the foot of the mount. There he was recognised by many, but he scarcely answered their salutations. The Governor made a deferential bow, smiled, and beckoned to him to come up to his side. He went up slowly, pausing at every other step, like a man who was in doubt if he ought to go higher. At length he stood at the Governor's right hand, with all eyes upon him, for the favourite ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... at the analysis now, I'll warrant," whispered the Princess to her companion. In a short time Herr Feltz himself appeared. He greeted the Princess with most deferential respect, but seemed astonished to find in her company the young woman who had called on him a few hours previously with the Director of ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... With another deferential bow, the clerk hastened to display a case of watches and they bent over them. As each new watch was ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... after dinner and another half cigarette before he went to bed. Gorman confided to me that millionaires and half-crown cigars had always been associated in his mind before he met Ascher. To me the most surprising thing about the man was the low opinion he had of himself and his own abilities. He was deferential to Gorman and even seemed to think what I said worth listening to. He knew all about Gorman's two novels and his play. He had read many of Gorman's newspaper articles. He used to try and make Gorman talk about literature and art. Gorman, being a man of great intelligence, hates talking about ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... becoming embarrassed and deferential at the sound of her voice, though with Elizabeth Jane he was quite at his ease. "No, no—I merely recommended that it ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the pronounced scent of spirits, she drew away when he came too near; Jim Langham instantly became more deferential. By the luck that often comes to beginners, Gertie presently made five, potting the red and effecting a cannon; she beamed with the delight of success. Spot white was left in the centre of the table, and Langham, obtaining the long rest, explained ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... her. She could not besiege him in his abode; and in the places where they met, large houses crowded with people, the eye of the world was upon her. For how long had she forgotten it—she who had been all her life so deferential toward it! Even now she remembered it only because it interfered with what she wanted ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... time, were dangerous, because the people had reason and justice on their side. He told me, also, all the steps he had taken to secure the co-operation of the K. of Prussia, which were straightforward and deferential; and he complained, though without bitterness, of the manner in which they had been misrepresented.... It may be that some good will come, perhaps before the close of the present century, from a public avowal by congregated sovereigns that their subjects ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... with the importance of that event, grandma had Georgia and me stand up on our cellar floor and learn to make that deferential bow, she by turns, taking the parts of the Frau Wirthin, ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... it is of literature; and why should oral discussion be less attractive than written? Dr. Johnson used to express unbounded contempt for all talk that was not discussion; and Robert Louis Stevenson has given us frankly his view: "There is a certain attitude, combative at once and deferential, eager to fight yet most averse to quarrel, which marks out at once the talkable man. It is not eloquence, nor fairness, nor obstinacy, but a certain proportion of all these that I love to encounter in my amicable adversaries. They must not be pontiffs holding doctrine, but huntsmen questing after ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... were all three talking quite nicely, and with at any rate an appearance of being natural. Prince Aribert became suave, even deferential to Nella, and more friendly towards Nella's father than their respective positions demanded. The latter amused himself by studying this sprig of royalty, the first with whom he had ever come into contact. ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... the head of a Department, to a high Government official, or to a superior officer, it is customary to write in a strain a little more deferential than ordinary, so that, instead of saying, as you would to a friend, "I have to acquaint you," "I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter," you would say, "I have the honor to acknowledge." The ending, too, of such letters should be slightly different: "I have the honor to be, General, Your ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... not pleased at all with Harboro's friend. He had assumed the attitude of a deferential guide, and his remarks were almost entirely addressed to Harboro. But she was not to be put out by so small a part of the night's programme. After all, Valdez was not planning to return with them, and they were likely to have the ride back by themselves. Valdez, she had been informed, was ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... and touches, with the prettiest little blue Virgin imaginable, a heavenly landscape, and a predella in monochrome, in one scene of which Eve rises from the side of the sleeping Adam with extraordinary realism. The announcing Gabriel is deferential but positive; Mary is questioning but not wholly surprised. In any collection of Annunciations this picture would find a ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... counsel, owing to the absence of his lawyer through sickness, and Mr. Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler, the later Lieutenant-Governor of the State, was assigned to defend him. At this juncture Browne arose and addressed the Court. In the most deferential and conciliatory manner he urged that he was entitled to an adjournment until such time as he could produce William R. Hubert as a witness; stating that, although the latter had been in town on December 14th, and had personally given ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... I did not come to replace him," corrected Mr. Jefferson, making his best bow, and which was very courtly and deferential, indeed, "not to replace him—no one can do ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Windsor on Monday, told me he had been exceedingly struck with Lord Melbourne's manner to the Queen, and hers to him: his, so parental and anxious, but always so respectful and deferential; hers, indicative of such entire confidence, such pleasure in his society. She is continually talking to him; let who will be there, he always sits next her at dinner, and evidently by arrangement, because he always takes in the lady-in-waiting, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... all our weaknesses at a moment's notice, no matter how stupendous the crisis in our fortunes, any more than, though our boat be sinking under us, we can divest ourselves of our clothes with a single shrug; and sympathy and deferential respect had still their weight with Richard Yorke. Perhaps, too, his nature had not yet even got quit of its gregariousness, and he was not sorry to have his acquaintance sought, though by this ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... me, bowing low in a deferential manner, more out of forced respect than awe, at least on Wagner's part, and after the customary blessing that followed, we all sat down at the long wooden table that stretched lengthwise through the room. Wagner and Bernibus ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... with the deferential attendant listening to Ostrog's retreating steps. There was a sound of quick question and answer and of men running. The curtain was snatched back and Ostrog reappeared, his massive face glowing with excitement. He ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... Postmaster-General. Two of them were obviously bigwigs—so big, at any rate, that his fate lay in their hands; and the other one was a secretary—not the General Secretary—not even a gentleman, if one could draw any inference from his deferential tone and the casual manner in which the others addressed him. He was a sandy person—not unlike Ridgett, but rather older and ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... not dispute. In his sight, she was simply and entirely worthy of the distinction he had bestowed upon her; an adornment to Ridgeley and his name. From their wedding-day, his deportment toward her had been the same as it was to-night—attentive, but never officious; deferential, yet far removed from servility; a manner that, without approximating uxoriousness, yet impressed the spectator with the conviction that she was with him first and dearest among women; a partner of whom, if that were possible, he was more proud than fond—and of the depth and reality of his ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
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