"Decent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Rovuma river, the frontier between German East Africa and Mozambique, and made a pretence of marching north. By the end of September the great German colony had been conquered save for the unhealthy south-eastern corner, where only the Mahenge plateau provided a decent habitation for ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... United States in the vicinity of forts where political prisoners are held will supply decent lodging and sustenance for such prisoners unless they shall prefer to provide in those respects for themselves, in which case they will be allowed to do so by the commanding ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... a thoroughly disreputable place, for Jake has a decent enough Indian wife; but he happens also to have a cellar which has a hard name for illicit-whiskey supplies, though never once has the law, in its numerous and unannounced visits to the shanty, ever succeeded in discovering ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... With pleasing mien, grave walk, and decent vest, Fraud rolled her eye-balls humbly in her head; And such benign and modest speech possest, She might a Gabriel seem who Ave said. Foul was she and deformed, in all the rest; But with a mantle long and widely ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the suffering of all humanity," Ransom returned. "Do you think any movement is going to stop that—or all the lectures from now to doomsday? We are born to suffer—and to bear it, like decent people." ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... lived with a niece in a couple of rooms quite close to Henrietta. Mrs. Marston was dead, and Miss Arundel had retired from the school with just enough to live in decent comfort. ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... talked over his nebulous relation with her to Nan; but he was suddenly alive with curiosity to know. He couldn't coax Nan into betraying that confidence, but he was nevertheless set on getting at it somehow. He wondered if it might be decent to do it by ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... lowlands adjoining the coast. The impression was confirmed by the miserable aspect of the place, one long wide vacant street, in which, as we drove down it, the effects of the intemperie were stamped on the sickly faces of the few stragglers we met. We found, however, a roomy and decent hotel, and, after rambling about the neighbourhood, sat down to our usual evening tasks of writing and drawing. We were in light costume, and had thrown open the casements, for though the apartment was both lofty and spacious, the air felt insufferably close and stifling. Shortly afterwards, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... he had neither the consideration nor the silly sense of a fool's solicitude for a hard-worked mother. She appealed to the sleeping Lumai, who awoke heavily and fatly, who muttered and mumbled easy terms of Somo dialect to the effect that it was a most decent world, that all puppy dogs and eldest-born sons were right delightful things to possess, that he had never yet starved to death, and that peace and sleep were the finest things that ever befell the lot of mortal man—and, in token thereof, back into the ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... old fellow, and we will be good friends!—only, tell your people to keep decent tongues in their heads, ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... luck, anyway," said I. "Here is decent shelter, and the hills keep off the worst of the storm. We ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... change which took place may be mentioned the instance of the Earl of March. "As Duke of Queensberry, at nearer ninety than eighty years of age, he was still rolling in wealth, still wallowing in sin, and regarded by his countrymen as one whom it was hardly decent to name, because he did not choose, out of respect for the public opinion of 1808, to discontinue a mode of existence which in 1768 was almost a thing of course" ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... newspapers have all been pleased to remark that President Cleveland has done a very decent thing by refusing to appoint as post-master at Mr. Blaine's home, in Augusta, the Democratic editor, who "was virulently active in publishing particularly unclean falsehoods concerning the Republican candidate last fall." Mr. Blaine had a perfect right to object, and he exercised ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... form to raise it. The committee, however, only wanted to scare her, and had of course worked out a third course of action, which was reasonable and combined the advantages of both, that is, a very decent fete in every respect only without champagne, and so yielding a very respectable sum, much more than ninety roubles. But Yulia Mihailovna would not agree to it: her proud spirit revolted from paltry compromise. She decided at once that if ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the travellers moved had just been vacated by a Spanish family of political refugees departing for France. These lodgings were at least provided with doors, window-panes, and decent furniture; but the luxury of chimneys was unknown, and a stove, which had to be manufactured at an enormous price on purpose for the party, is described as "a sort of iron cauldron, that made our heads ache and dried up our throats." Continuous stormy weather having suspended steam traffic ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... the Irish their heads and they'll run straight enough. Look at the Boers, don't you know. Not half such a decent sort as the Irish. Look at ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... variety; they saw in this an opportunity of spending halcyon days in the game preserves, glorious opportunities for making collections of big game heads, all sandwiched in with pleasant and successful enterprises against an enemy that was waiting only a decent excuse to surrender. ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... corps to the American army. On reliable authority I am told that American women, because they have dared demand their political freedom, are held in vile conditions in the Government workhouse in Washington; are compelled to paint the negro toilets for eight hours a day; are denied decent food and denied communication with counsel. Why should I work for democracy in Europe when our American women are denied democracy at home? If I am to fight for social hygiene in France, why not begin ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... am concerned most, however, about somebody I value more than the Archbishop of Canterbury; Frances, to whom I owe much of my own faith, and to whom therefore (as far as I can see my way) I also owe every decent chance for the controversial defence of her faith. If her side can convince me, they have a right to do so; if not, I shall go hot and strong to convince her. I put it clumsily, but there is a point in my mind. Logically, therefore, I must ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... some pity Upon my wretched women, that so long Have follow'd both my fortunes faithfully; Of which there is not one, I dare avow, And now I should not lie, but will deserve, For virtue and true beauty of the soul, For honesty and decent carriage, A right good husband; let him be a noble; And, sure, those men are happy that shall have 'em. The last is, for my men,—they are the poorest, But poverty could never draw 'em from me— That they may have ...
— The Life of Henry VIII • William Shakespeare [Dunlap edition]
... I experienced in finding that a war was inevitable betwixt the King my husband and his Majesty, and that I must continue in a state of separation from my husband; that, as long as the war lasted, it was neither decent nor honourable for me to stay at Court, where I must be in one or other, or both, of these cruel situations: either that the King my husband should believe that I continued in it out of inclination, and think ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... understand it I know, for to you the world is black and white, and each incident stands by itself. But as a man lives these incidents are interwoven like the links of a chain, each one depending on the others, so that sometimes what appears to be a bad thing is really the only decent thing ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... fashion with all those fine garments of enlightened self-government, but underneath those garments are, or were, the same vermin that infested the garments of so many communities less clean—parasites that suck existence from God's gifts to decent people. Indeed, that human vermin at one time infested East Haven even more than the other and neighboring towns; perhaps just because its clothing of civilization was more soft and warm than theirs; perhaps (and upon the face this latter is the more ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... form a kind of scarf; and to prevent it trailing on the ground, throw it in a graceful way over the shoulder, so that part of it falls on the bosom, while the end hangs down the back. It is often ornamented with cotton tassels, and is the most decent and serviceable, as well as the most picturesque, covering worn by any of the native tribes. Sometimes a coronal of flowers surrounds the head, which is usually adorned by a large daub of arnatto on the hair above the brow; while the forehead and cheeks are painted in various patterns with the same ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... visiting the works in the day and spending hours in the evening over the plans. He was waiting. He believed that Corona cared for him, and he knew that he loved her, but for the present he must wait patiently, both for the sake of his promise and for the sake of a decent respect of her widowhood. In order to wait he felt the necessity of constant occupation, and to that end he had set himself resolutely to work with his father, whose ideal dream was to make Saracinesea the most complete and prosperous community in ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the result of educated intelligence. The largest number earn from two to two hundred and fifty dollars, and, as has been said, lose an average of thirty days in the year. The highest average wage, $6.91, is little more than subsistence, and the lowest, $4.05, is far less than decent subsistence requires. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... given by Colonel Logan, to have the bodies collected, and interred in a manner as decent as circumstances would permit. This being accomplished, he returned with his men to Bryan's Station, and there dismissed them—it not being thought advisable to pursue the enemy further. In this ever memorable battle of Blue ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... though every effort was made to revive him and save his life. Grenfell and his crew gave the man and woman as decent a Christian burial as the wilderness and conditions would permit, and when all was over the Doctor found five ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... epoch, people still imagined that a wedding was a private and social festival, that a patriarchal banquet does not spoil a domestic solemnity, that gayety, even in excess, provided it be honest, and decent, does happiness no harm, and that, in short, it is a good and a venerable thing that the fusion of these two destinies whence a family is destined to spring, should begin at home, and that the household should thenceforth have its nuptial ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... bloater!" said Herbert. "It isn't fair. If she'd said some salmon, or a lobster, or even a pound of sausages; or if she'd allowed me to 'phone for it. It's not as if I'd ever had any practice. It's not decent to start a beginner on ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... he was friendly without being companionable; and as they were of a decent sort, they let ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... that the decadence obvious in the sartorial modes for society women reached its limit last year and that a saner and more decent sense of propriety would evince itself in the revulsion of public taste. But the tendency to bizarre indecency has increased so that now we are offered in our public ballrooms the spectacle of criminal impropriety—of women's bare legs with painted knees, of naked backs and lewdly veiled ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... the first edition in the Bodleian Library, which had belonged to Gough the antiquary, there is written in his hand, as a foot-note to 'neighbours': 'There is now, as I have heard, a body of men not less decent or virtuous than the Scottish Council, longing to melt the lead of an English Cathedral. What they shall melt, it were just that they should swallow.' It can scarcely be doubted that this is the suppressed ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... the convict population, and as it would be unjust to allow the exceptions which may yet exist to affect the reputation of the colony at large, the government will still more firmly pursue the course of withdrawing assigned servants from all masters who neglect to regard cleanly, decent, and sober habits in and out of their huts, and a seasonable attention to moral and religious duties, as part of the compact under which the labor ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... it's evened up my circulation and I can be decent again. I'm not going to tell you what made me rage like the bull of Bashan, for it wouldn't be safe yet to let loose on that. It's enough that I can treat a good comrade like you as I did and ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... of such a society was usually a privileged slave who had the confidence of his or her master and could go and come at will. Thus a form of communication could be kept up between all members. In event of death of a member, provision was made for decent burial, and all the members as far as possible obtained permits to attend the funeral. Here and again their plan of getting together was brought into play. In Richmond they would go to the church ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... Old Faith and the New," a publication which certainly has to be ranked here, for the reason that in it he founds on Darwinism his whole knowledge of the world, on the ground of which he wishes to arrange life, appears to be much more decent, and in the practical consequences much more conservative, than Buechner; but essentially stands upon quite the same ground. Haeckel, Oskar Schmidt, and (as to his linguistic Darwinism) W. Bleek, group themselves around Strauss, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... sell so profitably as their originals; and her theory was, that this agent hoped to make our friend buy the place, and so allured him there under pretence of sketching. Moreover, she surmised, he was studying some effect of shadow, because, unlike most men, he appeared in decent spirits only on cloudy days. It is always so easy to fit a man out with a set of ready-made motives! But I drew my own conclusions, and was not surprised to hear, soon after, that Severance ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... plates occasionally at the landlord, and quickly retorted to the cheap witticisms of the guests, and created in the Sabbath school a sensation that was so inimical to the orthodox dulness and placidity of that institution, that, with a decent regard for the starched frocks and unblemished morals of the two pink-and-white-faced children of the first families, the reverend gentleman had her ignominiously expelled. Such were the antecedents, and such the character of M'liss, as ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... of Captain Brand's being commissioned against the South Sea pirates, he had always been esteemed as honest, reputable a sea-captain as could be. When he started out upon that adventure it was with a ship, the Royal Sovereign, fitted out by some of the most decent merchants of New York. Governor Van Dam himself had subscribed to the adventure, and himself had signed Captain Brand's commission. So, if the unfortunate man went astray, he must have had great temptation to do so; many others behaving no better ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... with such actions!" grumbled Mrs. Popham. "Young folks are so full of notions nowadays that they look for change and excitement everywheres. I s'pose James Todd thinks it's a decent, respectable way of actin', to turn his back on the girls he's been brought up an' gone to school with, and court somebody he never laid eyes on till a year ago. It's a free country, but I must say I don't think ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... beast swarmed with bugs and mosquitoes; and, though the five letters I had were to the wealthiest persons in Volo, amongst them being the mayor, not one offered me hospitality when I told them the next day that I must return by the steamer that brought me, in default of a decent bed and eatable food; and, though they expressed polite regrets, they saw no alternative, and I took a return passage. Hospitality in continental Greece has no traditions; and even in Athens, except from Greeks who had lived in England, I have never been ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... three-fourths of his time in a dream and the rest in open self-deception, and we expect him to be as nice upon a matter of fact as a scientific expert bearing evidence. Upon my heart, I think it less than decent: you do not consider how little the child sees, or how swift he is to weave what he has seen into bewildering fiction; and that he cares no more for what you call truth, than you for a gingerbread dragoon. It would be easy to leave them in their native cloudland, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nation rose and demanded honesty, and honesty was there. The enormous majority of decent people woke from a discontented apathy and took charge. Men sprang into place naturally and served the nation. The old log-rolling, brainless, greedy public officials were thrown into the junk-heap. As if by magic the stress of the war wrung ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... glory—so much so that even now a positive satisfaction would have been his could he have pictured himself outstretched and lifeless, with lookers-on moved to compassion by the dead grace of his winsome face and slender limbs. Joan, too, was caught by the same infection. Not to lie whole and decent in one's coffin! Oh, it was an indignity too terrible for contemplation; and every time they were away from Jerrem she would beset Reuben with entreaties and questions as to what could be done ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... expenses for rent, insurance, and car fare. From the remainder the per capita income is found which must provide for all other expenses, that is, for each person's share of food, clothing, light, fuel, medicine, and all incidentals. It was estimated that a family could not maintain a decent standard of living on a per capita income of less than $1.50 a week. Although each case is considered on its merits, aid is almost always given when the per capita income is less than $1.50; in some special cases it is granted when the income exceeds this ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... St Paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent furnished lodging, and for the next twenty-four hours he lived, comparatively speaking, in peace. His last notes were written on this day. They are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full, but the ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... profiting by the liberty of his arms, and loosening his own neck from the halter, notwithstanding a movement made by some of the people to prevent it, which was, however, staid by a look from their leader's eyes. "I will first cast loose this here rope; seeing that it is neither decent, nor safe, for an ignorant man, like me, to enter into such unknown navigation, a-head of his officer. The collar was just the necklace of the dog, which is here to be seen on the arm of poor Guinea, who was, in most respects, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... exams, I'm not in a position to say. He will be near thirty, and ought to have a couple of thousand a year—more or less. His father, at any rate, was a great man at the bar, and must have left something decent. And the only other thing in the world I know about him is that he's a great friend of that clever gossip Margaret Winchfield—which goes to show that however obscure he may be as a scribbler of fiction, he must possess some redeeming virtues as a social being—for Mrs. Winchfield is by ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... her country education blame. One thing he only wonder'd at,—what she So very comic in his nose could see. Hers, it must be confest, was somewhat short, And time and shrinking age accounted for't; But for his own, thank heaven, he could not tell That it was ever thought remarkable; A decent nose, of reasonable size, And handsome thought, rather than otherwise. But that which most of all his wonder paid, Was to observe the Fairy's waiting Maid; How at each word the aged Dame let fall She courtsied low, and smil'd assent to all; But chiefly when the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of the sacred edifice, all divested themselves of their sandals, except the Inca and his family, who did the same on passing through the portals of the temple, where none but these august personages were admitted. *28 After a decent time spent in devotion, the sovereign, attended by his courtly train, again appeared, and preparations were made to commence the sacrifice. This, with the Peruvians, consisted of animals, grain, flowers, and sweet-scented gums; sometimes of human beings, on which occasions a child or beautiful ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... roads; improved both in dimensions and also in the art of construction. For it is observable, that, so early as Queen Elizabeth's days, England, the most equestrian of nations, already presented to its inhabitants a general system of decent bridle roads. Even at this day, it is doubtful whether any man, taking all hinderances into account, and having laid no previous relays of horses, could much exceed the exploit of Carey, (afterwards Lord Monmouth,) a younger ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... "what is this about? You're really cutting with the Groves—two excessively nice people who were decent to me." ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... to go with me to pick out the apron, and he fretted like sixty because I would buy one made of decent cloth! I was all in ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... the florid Schomberg with the military bearing, benefactor of white men ('decent food to eat in decent company')—mature victim of belated passion. The girl shuddered. The characteristic harmoniousness of her face became, as it were, decomposed for an ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... he said, "all this guardian angel business. You let me alone and I'll let you alone. We're both decent chaps, but when you begin with your psychotherapy and that other word I don't know how ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... In yesterday's issue you took occasion to speak of the organ-grinding nuisance, about which I hope you will let me ask you the following questions: Why must decent people all over town suffer these pestilential beggars to go about torturing our senses, and practically blackmailing the listeners into paying them to go away? Is it not a most ridiculous excuse on the part of the police, when ordered to arrest these vagrants, to ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... hard-working, does her best, but has chronic bronchitis; does not keep house over tidy. The two elder boys are very idle, tiresome fellows, and worry the father a great deal. They improved and found work during the year following the visit, in which time the father got into decent work in the City. The S. P. C. C. branch had to interfere on behalf of small children. Three dead since marriage, when parents were at ages 23 and 20. Food good when there is any. School gave free dinners and clothes to two. Evidence from Police, S. P. C. C. branch, School Charity, Parish ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... and violence could not be suppressed. We have all heard of the way in which the decent element finally got together, formed special laws and executed offenders in short order. No one of course approves lynch law in the abstract, but when the circumstances of the case are taken into consideration, it is difficult to condemn very severely the men who made ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... degrading and savage names. Billingsgate might have gone to school to Drayton House. Inter alia, they seemed in love with a term that Othello hit upon; only they used it not once, but fifty times a day, and struck decent women with it on the face, like a scorpion whip; and then the scalding tears were sure to run in torrents down their silly, honest, burning cheeks. But this was not all; they had got a large tank in a flagged room, nominally ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... had now wandered back to his post. Tom held his breath. But the policeman, although he undoubtedly followed the youth with his gaze for a moment, failed to act, and Tom was not a little relieved. Even if the fellow was a crook he seemed an awfully decent sort and Tom was glad he ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... enough, you can steal and lie and marry people like Kenneth Saunders; there's no law that you can't break—pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth! That IS society! And yet, if you want to be decent, you can slave away a thousand years, mending and patching and teaching and keeping books, and nothing beautiful or easy ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... post-office or a shop, Pym is the most perfectly isolated village within a reasonable distance of London. As I sauntered up the mile-long lane that climbs the steep hill, and is the only connection between Pym and anything approaching a decent road, I thought that this was the place to which I should like to retire for a year, in order to write the book I had so often contemplated, and never found time to begin. This, I reflected, was a ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... bigoted prelates and ministers who would have sent to the flames an unoffending woman if she denied the authority of the Pope, were not the men to suffer him to escape who had not only overturned the papal power in England, but had deprived them of their sees and sent them to the Tower. No matter how decent the forms of law or respectful the agents of the crown, Cranmer had not the shadow of a hope; and hence he was certainly weak, to say the least, to trust to any deceitful promises made to him. What ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... Cap'n Bill, "I'd like a decent square meal, once more, just by way of variety. In the last place there was nothing but fruit to eat, and here it's worse, for there's ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... him, and only coldly spoke to him when speech was necessary. Chester treated him with marked aversion; the colonel would not look at him; only Armitage—his captain—had a decent word for him at any time, and even he was stern and cold. The most envied and careless of the entire command, the Adonis, the beau, the crack shot, the graceful leader in all garrison gayeties, the beautiful dancer, rider, tennis-player, the adored of so many sentimental ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... answer. "He's a queer old gink—old chap, I mean—whose work is quite the go about here recently. Some very decent people have taken him up, I believe. He's worth meeting, so I'm told, as a curiosity. I've seen only two or three of his paintings, but they're really not bad. Some of the fellows at the club were talking about him the other night. I think you'd ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... are simply exterminating the bourgeoisie, and their arguments are machine guns and the gallows. My talk to-day with Joffe has shown me that these people are not honest, and in falsity surpass all that cunning diplomacy has been accused of, for to oppress decent citizens in this fashion and then talk at the same time of the universal blessing of freedom—it is ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... have been three times before the court of session and won each time. I knew your father, who was a decent shoemaker in Cupar, and when he sent you to learn to be a lawyer he little thought he was making a tool for those he despised. Pick a man from the plow, clap on his back a black coat, send him to college, and in five years ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... He left behind him no friend to speak for him, and we have heard of him certainly from one enemy; but the tidings are of a nature to force upon us belief in the evil which Cicero spoke of him. Had he been a man of decent habits of life, and of an honest purpose, would Cicero have dared to say to the Romans respecting him the words which he produced, not only in the second Philippic, which was unspoken, but also in the twelve which followed? The ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... exalt—the source and marrow of vanity. We see her as a wife partaking of the cares and guiding the labors of her husband and by domestic diligence spreading cheerfulness all around for his sake; sharing the decent refinements of civilization without being injured by them; placing all her joy, all her happiness in the merited approbation of the man she loves; as a mother, we find her affectionate, the ardent instructress of the children she has reared ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... a guide," began Shelby, as soon as decent greetings had been made. "He's just been let loose by Sir Somebody of Somewhere, and I nailed him. Name o' Joshua,—but we can stand that. He really knows it all,—without continually proclaiming ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... the one that he tried to give me. I probably was the first decent man who ever had treated him civilly, and to impress me with his knowledge he spread that knowledge before me. It was ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... was an actor, short in stature, defective in speech and accent, but earnest in temperament, whom he cast for this eminent role. The other parts were filled as best he could, and the principals with him enabled Mr. Booth to give some semblance of a decent performance. In order to properly advertise the event, he secured the assistance of several Hawaiians, and furnished them with a paste made out of their native product called "poi." He discovered later, to his amazement, that not a bill had been posted, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... my store. It is not in my power to supply this unfortunate girl with decent raiment and honest bread. I have no house to which to conduct her. I have no means of securing her from ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... for her death as long as was decent, I took possession of all her property, a particular account of which she gave me before she died; and the corn you sold for me was ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... survive Mr. Combe long, for he dy'd in the Year 1616, the 53d of his Age. He lies buried on the North Side of the Chancel in the great Church at Stratford; where a Monument, decent enough for the Time, is erected to him, and plac'd against the Wall. He is represented under an Arch in a sitting Posture, a Cushion spread before him, with a Pen in his Right Hand, and his Left rested on a Scrowl of Paper. The Latin Distich, which is placed under ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... with a pretty blush. "But then, you know, he could hardly say less after such a frank confession on my part. It is no more than decent of him to make believe, even if it is not true. Now, Katy, look at Boston, and see if you ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... the custom, sir, in decent society," said Mr. Crawley, haughtily, "to call the dish as I have called it"; and it was served to us on silver soup plates by the footmen in the canary coats, with the mouton aux navets. Then "ale and water" ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said Smith. "Look at this. Here's my aeroplane, fixed up here. You don't suppose I came down here on purpose? I lost my way in this confounded mist, and don't know where I am. Just be sensible, there's a decent chap, and get some of your men to help us out. I'll ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... my rooms during this part of the day, I could form some opinion as to the briskness of the plague. I don’t mean this for a sly insinuation that I got up every morning with the sun. It was not so; but the funerals of most people in decent circumstances at Cairo are attended by singers and howlers, and the performances of these people woke me in the early morning, and prevented me from remaining in ignorance of what was going ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... told him that I worked a little in the same trade as his own. This worthy man bade me come into his shop, and at once gave me work to do, and spoke as follows: "Your good appearance makes me believe you are a decent honest youth." Then he told me out gold, silver, and gems; and when the first day's work was finished, he took me in the evening to his house, where he dwelt respectably with his handsome wife and children. Thinking of the grief which my good father might be feeling ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... that the use of beer and ale had produced none of those dreadful effects which were the consequences of drinking geneva; and since the prohibition of the distilling of malt-spirits had taken place, the common people were become apparently more sober, decent, healthy, and industrious: a circumstance sufficient to induce the legislature not only to intermit, but even totally to abolish the practice of distillation, which has ever been productive of such intoxication, riot, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... addressing a single sermon, on the Lord's day, to many who are under his episcopal supervision. The early bishop had the care of a parish: the modern bishop superintends a diocese. The elders of the primitive bishop were not unfrequently decent tradesmen who earned their bread by the sweat of their brow: [587:3] the presbyters of a modern prelate have generally each the charge of a congregation, and are supposed to be entirely devoted to sacred duties. Even the ancient city bishop ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... cat's sake let's get to a regular town where we got a chance to make real money! Why—think of it! We can start now, and with luck we can sleep in Los Angeles to-night. And it won't be hot like it is here, and you can git a decent meal and see a decent show while you put yourself outside it. And," he added artfully, giving the propeller a pull, "the Thunder Bird is achin' to fly. Look underneath, bo. I've got her name painted on the under side, too, so she'll holler her name like a honkin' goose as she flies. And you ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... feet, lady of the house, and when I saw the light below I thought maybe if you'd a sup of new milk and a quiet decent corner where a man could sleep {he looks in past her and sees the dead man.} The Lord have mercy ...
— In the Shadow of the Glen • J. M. Synge
... I praise Young "Peter" sleek before the fire, A proper dog, whose decent ways Renew the virtues of his sire; "Patroclus" rests in grassy tomb, And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... He did not wander about the countryside, but lived at the little village of Elstow, about a mile from the town of Bedford, as his father had before him. He was a poor and honest workman who mended his neighbors' kettles and pans, and did his best to keep his family in decent comfort. ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... fire was at its height. The waves of air followed one another with great violence, and the fumes of picric acid and of other acids that he did not know became very strong. But he scarcely noticed it. The bombardment was all in the day's work, and when the Germans ceased, the French, after a decent interval, would begin their own cannonade, carried on at ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in Konnaia Square had been founded in the year 1679, by the third of the line, Alexis Gregorievitch, who had purposely placed the dwelling of his race in this far corner of the city, out of the possible range of decent dwellings. And none of the succession of Peters and Mikhails that followed, ever thought to reproach this act of their ancestor. The details of the life of one of these men would have sufficed for ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... might all have saved their lives, if they would have renounced the Covenant: So they were really a sort of martyrs for it.—Swift. Decent term. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... ignorance, and red-headed lewdness. If she were even a type, she might be worth considering; but she is simply an abnormal sport, with a little brain addled by notions that she is like Hypatia, and a large impudence rendered intolerable by the fact that she has money. Her father is a decent man. He ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... politics; and a man who mingles in political development with no intention of taking on responsible tasks unless he gets all his particular formulae accepted is a pervert, a victim of Irish bad example, and unfit far decent democratic institutions ... ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... sugar and sherbet with it, and then hands it to his customer who swallows the mixture with every sign of deep satisfaction. If possessed of a conveyance the middle-class Memon will drive about sunset to the Apollo Bunder, Breach Candy or the Bandstand. Happy possessor of a tolerably decent horse and victoria, he considers himself above the conventionalities of dress, and thus may be seen in the skull-cap, waist-coat, long white shirt and trousers which constitute his shop or business-attire, attended not infrequently by little miniatures ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... their situation, not being able to get many students, endeavoured to turn a penny in the only way in which they could turn it, and sold their degrees to whoever would buy them, generally without requiring any residence or standing, and frequently without subjecting the candidate even to a decent examination. The less trouble they gave, the more money they got, and I certainly do not pretend to vindicate so dirty a practice. All universities being ecclesiastical establishments under the ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... and health and good looks. The second Sunday the minister's wife, prompted by her husband, spoke to Mrs. Ridge and called soon after. She liked Milly—minister's wives usually did—and she approved of the grandmother, who had an aristocratic air, in her decent black, her thin, gray face. "They seem really nice people," Mrs. Borland reported to her husband, "but a very ordinary home. He travels for the Hoppers'. Her mother was a southerner." (Milly had got that in somehow,—"My mother's home was Kentucky, ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... Cottage. You see we have no lessons then, 'cause Miss Marston goes away for her holidays, and we can be out of doors all day long if we choose; papa doesn't mind as long as we're in time for meals and looking clean and decent. There's a lovely cove near our house,—it isn't deep or dangerous,—and there we go boating and swimming; then there's fishing and crabbing, and drives about the country in the big, rattly depot-wagon behind Pegasus,—that's our horse, but he's an ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... he found his company amusing, which he did until their arrival at Tjilatjap. Here his opinion was somewhat modified, when his voluble companion, profiting by superior experience, annexed the only decent room in the hotel and exulted over the ruse which ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... I have been able to learn," he said, evenly, "we should reach Saul, with decent luck, just ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... good cheerful noise, scuffling with their feet as they marched into church and up the organ-loft stair, and blowing their noses a good deal during the service. To be brief, the congregation looked as decent as might be in these bad times. The Abbey Church was furnished with a magnificent screen, and many hatchments and heraldic tombstones. The Doctor spent a great part of his income in beautifying his darling place; he had endowed it with a superb painted window, bought in the Netherlands, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... undertaking that had been begun, promising them a happy result. He yielded up his spirit to God amid tender colloquies. Those of the ship wished to keep his body in a well-sealed wooden casket, in order to give it decent burial on shore; but in order to avoid innovations, the venerable superior, Fray Juan, did not consent to this. Accordingly, having been placed in a casket, he was cast into the sea, accompanied ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... instantly transforms the heart into a second brain. But why worry, when nothing is final? Haven't you and I, for instance, lamented the present rottenness of smart society? Why, when kings by the name of George sat on the throne of England, society was just as drunken, just as dissolute! Then a decent queen came, and society behaved itself; and now, here we come round again to the Georges, only with the name changed! There's nothing final. So, when things are as you don't like them, remember that and bear them; and when they're as you do like them, ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... safety, and of wealth, united in a single spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine. But as some decent mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every age, been supposed to reflect a becoming majesty on the origin of great cities, the Emperor was desirous of ascribing his resolution, not so much to the uncertain ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... custom when death takes place. The two great toes are tied together, to make the body look decent; and formerly the hands were placed with the palms together, as if in the attitude of prayer, and were kept in that posture by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... have nothing to do with any of them. Mr. Phillips gave more credit than any of the folk I had ever seen to my yearnings after Bessie's orphans, and my resolutions to live single for their sake; but he never could see that they would be such a drawback to any decent man that liked me; but I knew there were few men so taken up with bairns as ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... everybody was talking about the "lovely" new waiter, and to hear the girls go on you'd think the Prince of Wales had landed. Jonadab was the only kicker, and he said 'twas bad enough afore, but now that new dude had shipped, 'twa'n't the place for a decent, ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... hope fade. He hadn't a chance—even to go to a decent jail! He had heard all about the horrors of the reformatory. They wouldn't even let your people visit you on Sundays! And his mother would think he was run over or murdered. She would go crazy with worry. He didn't mind on his own account, but his mother— He loved the old widowed mother ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... Exchange in all directions out of the city are lined, on both sides, with an almost unbroken series of shops, and are so kept in the hands of the middle and lower bourgeoisie, which, out of self-interest, cares for a decent and cleanly external appearance and can care for it. True, these shops bear some relation to the districts which lie behind them, and are more elegant in the commercial and residential quarters than ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... kitchen to the Fellows' table, waiting for dinner until all the rest had finished, and wearing a garb to signalise inferiority and degradation. Common manliness cannot suffer indignities of this sort. Johnson at Oxford and Goldsmith in Dublin rebelled. The agonised sense of decent justice could not be stifled. In such contexts, only cowards can wish dishonour borne and indignation unrevealed. Oliver himself had none of those conventional prejudices that raise Universities to fetishes. Like the ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... means of living, but perhaps her morals may be irremediably corrupted. She is now lodged in a room with ten or dozen men, and the house is so crouded that I doubt whether I have interest enough to procure her a more decent apartment. ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... close on two hundred miles astern. But as I told you a moment since, you need not worry about your future. Why, you have already been adopted into the happy family—you are already one of the jolly company of the brig Cohasset, with equal rights, and an equal share. And if we have decent luck with this job ahead of us, you will have no cause to grieve at being yanked out of your berth ashore. It isn't so bad, is it? We know you leave no family behind—oh, yes, we know quite a lot about ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... who, with hermit heart, Disdain'st the wealth of art, And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall; But com'st a decent maid, 10 In attic robe array'd, O chaste, unboastful Nymph, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... life; his interest was engrossed by a human figure, seated on a campstool near the back wall of the house, and holding a concertina, whence, at this moment, in slow, melancholy strain, 'Home, Sweet Home' began to wheeze forth. The player was a middle-aged man, dressed like a decent clerk or shopkeeper, his head shaded with an old straw hat rather too large for him, and on his feet—one of which swung as he sat with legs crossed—a pair of still more ancient slippers, also too large. With head aside, and eyes looking upward, ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... courage to say a decent word in favor of the I. W. W. I have. (Here several in the ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing
... firmly, "all I've got to say is that it ain't decent. Think of people sleepin' just off kitchens and washin' their faces and ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... no reproof for him when, clean and decent once more, he sought the dining-room. Aunt Hannah shook her head, but smiled as she made the tea, and kissed him as ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... espied, at the upper end of the street, a negro-slave standing at his door; so I went up to him and said to him, 'Hast thou a place where I may abide for an hour of the day?' 'Yes,' answered he, and opening the door admitted me into a decent house, furnished with carpets and mats and cushions of leather. Then he shut the door on me and went away; and I misdoubted me he had heard of the reward offered for me, and said to myself, 'He hath gone to inform against me.' But, as I sat pondering my case and boiling like cauldron over fire, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... singular regularity for the last three weeks. The two spectators of this gentle comedy received it as they had often received it before, with a mixture of apparent astonishment and patronizing unconsciousness, and, after a decent interval, moved away together, leaving the ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... lessons and instructions, and Urad, with a decent solemnity, attended both her labours and her teacher, who was so pleased with the fruits which she saw spring forth from the seeds of virtue that she had sown in the breast of her pupil, that she now began to leave her more to herself, and exhorted her to set apart some portion ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... were going out to a savage country, where you've got to do everything yourself before you can have it, and as there'd be no parsons and churches, we thought we'd get it done decent and 'spectable ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... collection of three stores under one roof: two of them were shut up and evidently unoccupied, the third showed a lighted window. This was the manufactory. It occupied the middle place and presented a tolerably decent appearance. It showed, besides the lighted lamp I have mentioned, such signs of life as a few packing-boxes tumbled out on the small platform in front, and a whinnying horse attached to an empty buggy, tied to a post on the opposite ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... BLAKE'S dissipated friends called his attention to the frown or the pout of her, Whenever he did anything which appeared to her to savour of an unmentionable place, He would say that "she would be a very decent old girl when all that nonsense was knocked out of her," And his method of knocking it out of her is one that ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... knows how to keep his word, even when it has been passed to a Norman. But let me see thee use the dress and costume of thy English ancestry—no short cloaks, no gay bonnets, no fantastic plumage in my decent household. He that would be the son of Cedric, must show himself of English ancestry.—Thou art about to speak," he added, sternly, "and I guess the topic. The Lady Rowena must complete two years' mourning, as for a betrothed husband—all our Saxon ancestors would ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... "Since the Consul went away on leave things seem to have been humming—two stabbing affrays, eight drunken seamen locked up, a mutiny on a tramp steamer, and now a yacht being cast away—a fairly decent list! And yet some stay-at-home people complain that British consuls are only paid to be ornamental! They should spend a week here, at Leghorn, and ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... say—why, I know the fellow well. He ought to be able to make a decent map of this country, for he's spent many years roaming over it, though I think he was more concerned about stealing some honest trapper's pelts than anything else. Why, see here, he's made an awful botch of this thing right around this quarter, where he certainly knows every foot of ground. ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... brought three young Irishmen to her house, who pretended to be in daily expectation of remittances from their country, and of a pension from Bonaparte. During six months she not only lodged and supported them, but embarrassed herself to procure them linen and a decent apparel. At last she was informed that each of, them had been allowed sixty livres—in the month, and that arrears had been paid them for nine months. Their debt to her was above three thousand livres—but the day after she asked for payment they decamped, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... arranged for our passage, Patsey. She is a fast-looking little craft, with very decent accommodation. She is in the wine trade, and brought a cargo safely up last week, and will start again the day after tomorrow. She carries a crew of eight hands; and I have made inquiries about the captain, and hear ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... and believe, is a decent man—that is to say, upon any ground not connected with politics; equal to six out of any ten manufacturers you will meet in the Queen's high road—whilst of the other four not more than three will be found conspicuously his superiors. He is certainly, in the senate, not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... their pay was in arrear, and that of the officers, owing to the great depreciation of the paper currency, was wholly unequal to their decent maintenance. These multiplied privations and sufferings soured the temper of the men, and it required all the influence of Washington to prevent many of the officers from resigning their commissions. The long continuance of want and ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... are all in love with you!" he exclaimed in low, vehement tones; adding quickly, as he detected a flicker of apprehension in Magda's eyes: "But you need not fear to dance with me. I will be as your brother—I will go on being 'decent.'" ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... place the Bunyard letter in my money-belt; the others, being of minor importance, I put in my valise again. I looked at the miserable being who lay groaning and uneasy in the stupor of intoxication. The state-room was not fit for the occupancy of a decent person. The fumes of the whiskey were sickening to me, and I could no longer stay there. Taking my valise in my hand, I left it, resolved not to be the room-mate of such a ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... ethical position. It's the sort of way a woman always does gloss over her ethical positions. You're all dependents—all of you. By instinct. Only you good ones—shirk. You shirk a straightforward and decent return for what you get from us—taking refuge in purity and delicacy and such-like when it ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... that all useful information may be obtained; but when it has passed through the examination of the committees, has been approved by the collective wisdom of the senate, and requires only a formal ratification to give it the force of a law, it is neither usual nor decent to offer petitions, or declare any dislike of what the senate ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... bad lot. I knew it from the first. Of course we shall have trouble." Then Mr. Eustace explained to the lawyer that their best way out of it all would be to get the widow married to some respectable husband. She was sure to marry sooner or later,—so John Eustace said,—and any "decently decent" fellow would be easier to deal with than she herself. "He must be very indecently indecent if he is not," said Mr. Camperdown. But Mr. Eustace did not name Frank Greystock the barrister as ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... at each other in astonishment, as it seemed odd and not altogether decent to be unable to ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... doctrine that her existence was imperilled if Great Britain should extend by so much as a mile a vague frontier running through a South American swamp thousands of miles away. And for that cause these decent and honourable people were prepared to take all the risks that would be involved to Anglo-Saxon civilisation by a war between England and America. The present writer happened at that time to be living in America, and concerned with certain political work. Night after night he heard these ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... won't find us together," announced Bradley decisively. "You stay right here—you won't be any worse off than before I came—and I'll get as far as I can and account for as many of the beggars as possible before they get me. Good-bye! You're a mighty decent little girl. I wish that I ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... upon letter, to prevent the green and blue factions cutting each other's throats at the public spectacles; letters to the tribunus voluptatum, who had to look after the pantomimes and loose women, telling him to keep the poor wretches in some decent order, and to set them and the city an example of a better life, by being a chaste and respectable man himself. Letter upon letter of Cassiodorus', written in Dietrich's name, disclose a state of things in Rome on which a Goth could look only with ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... taverns! There is just one genuine, clean, decent, palatable thing occasionally to be had in them,—namely, a boiled egg. The soups taste pretty good sometimes, but their sources are involved in a darker mystery than that of the Nile. Omelettes taste as if they had been carried in the waiter's hat, or fried in an old boot. I ordered scrambled ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... will keep his planes at home. But as you won't listen to me, you've got to have your way, I suppose. Well, I've got you rooms of a sort. They'll have to do. I haven't got money enough for anything decent." ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Better tell me what sort of lodgings you have got. Is it a decent room? Plenty of air and sunshine? But, no. Don't tell me anything. I mustn't know." ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... had, as yet, served no other purpose than that of feeding my vanity and making me believe I was a very superior animal; and you may learn from this incident, that those who wish to make a proper figure in the world, and play the part they are called on to perform in a decent manner, must study their lesson in the world itself, by mingling with their fellows, for books alone can no more teach such knowledge than it can teach a dog to swim without his ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... whole movement of women's rights was to be established in America. He had seen the effects of woman's presence in associations upon men, and he was sure that this same agency would have the effect of bringing politics to such a condition as that decent people of either sex might take part in it. As to the Bible declaring that man shall rule over woman, he found a similar case where it used to be quoted in support of the institution of slavery, but when ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the door. Rogers opened it and admitted Papadopoulos, who forthwith began to execute his usual manoeuvres of salutation. Rogers stood staring and open-mouthed at the apparition. It took all his professional training in imperturbability to enable him to make a decent exit. This increased my good humour. I grasped the ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... blister your fingers, I dare say," he admitted. "I'm afraid you are too good for this rude country, and I have no use for you. I could afford to be decent? Perhaps so, but I earn my money with considerably more effort than you seem willing to make. The cook will give you dinner with the other men to-day; then you can resume your search for an easy billet. We have no room ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... a bare room adorned by a single Chinese bronze of flawless shape, or by some precious fragment of Asiatic pottery. But such redeeming features were conspicuously absent, and no attempt had been made to disguise the decent ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... grandson of his grandfather. A perpetual breeder of trouble; never did a decent day's work the whole trip. Insolent, mutinous, and overbearing, till I went for him with intent to do bodily mischief; then he became extremely obsequious. Like the rest of the foregoing, he resigned and ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... in a farm again. The people are very decent indeed. The woman gave me three drinks as soon as I arrived, offering them herself and refusing to take any payment for them; she also offered to boil me a couple of eggs, but I did not wish to put on good ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... eyes, wandering from one face to the other, there lurked the question as to whether they had seen Roden and Von Holzen quit his door a minute earlier. But no reference was made to those two gentlemen, and Lord Ferriby, who, as a chairman of many boards, was a master of the art of conciliation and the decent closing of both eyes to unsightly facts, received Cornish's suggestion with a ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... know how, under such a home government, I ever became a decent fellow. I do not know why I am not now a pirate, a freebooter, a pickpocket, or a nuisance to myself and the world in some other capacity. I have come to believe since that my inherited good qualities saved me under such an utter neglect of all home ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... torment from the present; and one of the things which made the present a source of misery to him was the fact that he was expected to behave more like a mad millionaire than a sober young man with a knowledge of the value of money. His mind, trained from infancy to a decent respect for the pence, had not yet adjusted itself to the possession of large means; and the open-handed role forced upon him by ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... way he draws on his courage. The history of the two years that passed before he came to Mr. Sloane is really absolutely edifying. He rescued his sisters and nieces from the deep waters, placed them high and dry, established them somewhere in decent gentility—and then found at last that his strength had left him—had dropped dead like an over-ridden horse. In short, he had worked himself to the bone. It was now his sisters' turn. They nursed him with all the added tenderness of gratitude for the past and terror of the future, and brought ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... conjectured there was none; but there might be just cause, if the memorial was not taken into consideration. He placed himself in the case of a slave, and said, that on hearing that Congress had refused to listen to the decent suggestions of a respectable part of the community, he should infer, that the general government, from which was expected great good would result to EVERY CLASS of citizens, had shut their ears ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... country, to that persecution, as so many judgments of God to punish so heinous an offense, and exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable laws. The whole appeared to me as written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom. The six concluding lines I remember, though I have forgotten the two first of the stanza; but the purport of them was, that his censures proceeded from good-will, and, therefore, he would be ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... this. Boone and Calloway were to be killed, but they were too brave to be killed in this way. Some proposed making them run the gauntlet. At last it was decided (in pity for the girls, it is said) that the parents should be killed in a more decent and quiet way. They were to be tomahawked and scalped, and the girls were still to be kept prisoners. With the morning's light they started out to execute the sentence. That the poor girls might not see their parents murdered the men were led off to the woods, ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... Doll, who always thought it necessary to explain that he was not what no one thought he was. "I hate all that sort of thing. Utter rot, I call it. For goodness' sake, Scarlett, sit tight. I must be decent to the beast in my own house, and if you go I shall have to have him alone jawing at me till all hours of the ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... and great lords came into our city, they were ever ready to find lodging in the great and wealthy house of the Im Hoffs; but then she would suffer them to pay court to her, and grant them greater freedom than becomes the decent honor of a Nuremberg citizen's hearth. Once, then, when my lord the duke of Bavaria lay at their house with a numerous fellowship, a fine young count, who had courted my grand uncle's wife while she was yet a maid, fanned his jealousy to a flame; and, one evening, at a late hour, while ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the same decision to make again as when she knew nothing, she would have taken wing, just as she had. She had made failures, she had hurt herself, mind and body, but her honour, her self-respect were intact. Suddenly she sat straight. She was glad that she had taken a bath, worn a reasonably decent dress, and had a better one in the back of the buggy. She would cut the Gordian knot with a vengeance. She would not wait to see how they treated her, she would treat them! As for Adam's state, there was ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... "Happiness for instance only comes when we forget our eternal search for it, and try to make others happy. Even religion is changing. The old selfish idea of saving our own souls has given way largely to the saving of others, by giving them a chance to redeem themselves. Decent living conditions—" ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "Well, that's one decent thing he did," said Rob Lindsey, "and I s'pose there's just a chance that he didn't take my ball, or your kite, but who ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... unkind; they offered food and fire—as soldiers do, Loskiel," he added, with a flash of Contempt for men who sought what no Siwanois, no Iroquois, ever did seek of any maiden or any chaste and decent ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... I saw at the Ragged School. They could not be trusted with books; they could only be instructed orally; they were difficult of reduction to anything like attention, obedience, or decent behaviour; their benighted ignorance in reference to the Deity, or to any social duty (how could they guess at any social duty, being so discarded by all social teachers but the gaoler and the hangman!) was terrible to see. Yet, even ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... kinds of friendships," he said, "physical and mental. The physical is a thing of the moment. Of cauce you quite like the individual, you remain quite nice with them, and so on,—to keep the thing as decent as possible. It is quite decent, so long as you keep it so. But it is a thing of the moment. Which you know. It may last a week or two, or a month or two. But you know from the beginning it is going to end—quite finally—quite soon. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... water to be moist inside—then put it in a bake pan, without any cover, and heat it very hot. If broken pieces of bread are put in the oven, five or six hours after baking, and rusked, they will keep good a long time. Sour heavy bread, treated in this manner, will make very decent cakes and puddings, provided there is enough saleratus used in making them to correct the acidity of the bread. Rich cake, that has wine or brandy in it, will remain good in cold weather several months, if it is kept in a cool, dry place. The day in which it is to be eaten, ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... about it," said Tanno. "Horse-training is, at least, and always, an activity fit for a gentleman and wholly decent and respectable." ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... for breath. Then she drew a long sigh. "Oh dear," she lamented, "I'd give anything if I had a decent shape! I'd like to wear those shimmering, flowing, transparent summer things over silk tights. But, mercy me! I'd look like a potato busted wide open. Now you can wear ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... of horrors, the electors of the department had been in session. As the news reached them of what was going on in the streets, one thought came into the minds of all the decent men among them, to get through as fast as possible and quit the city. At the first ballot 442 electors were present. At the seventh only 203 remained. Of these 135, being the compact 'Republican' minority, gave their votes on that ballot to Drouet, the postmaster's son of Ste-Menehould, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... ancient usages, Salina Bowles set herself resolutely against all cooking-stoves, modern ranges and inventions of that class. That exemplary female was often heard to declare that no decent meal could ever be cooked by any of these new-fangled contrivances. A hickory back log, and good oak-wood answered her purpose quite well enough. Only give her plenty of them and she'd cook a dinner with any woman on this side of sundown. From these prejudices it happened that Salina, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens |
