"Footman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cold. Yet Catherine ordered the footman to light a fire in Mark's study. When he had done so she told him not to allow her to be disturbed. Then she went into the room and shut the door behind her. She walked up to the writing table, at which Mark had spent so many hours, labouring, thinking, imagining, working out, fashioning ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... been murdered by the King's officers; that the men, women, and children, confined and tortured by King's officers, or by robbers and ruffians, be set at liberty and satisfied; the said so and so being the infant commander-in-chief, the King's chamberlain, footman, coachman, chief fiddler, eunuch, barber, or person uppermost in his thoughts at the time. Similar orders are passed in his name by his deputies, secretaries, and favourites upon all the other numerous petitions and reports, which he sends to them unperused. Not, perhaps, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... price he tempts,—all are alike under this great dominion of the gold. The milliner who makes the dress is as much a servant (more so, in that she uses more intelligence in the service) as the maid who puts it on; the carpenter who smooths the door, as the footman who opens it; the tradesmen who supply the table, as the labourers and sailors who supply the tradesmen. Why speak of these lower services? Painters and singers (whether of note or rhyme,) jesters and storytellers, moralists, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... her footman! M. de Tignonville shrugged his shoulders; but after all, it was no affair of his, and he went up. Halfway to the top, however, he stood, an oath on his lips. Two men had entered by the open door below—even as he had entered! ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... the coal cellar, composed of the cook, footman, Jim, and myself, all the executive details were arranged; my aunt being, of course, kept in happy ignorance of our intentions. As soon as my respected relative uttered the preliminary snore of her afternoon siesta, Beauty made ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... stream, the young partisan of the Pawnees led his troops, at a swift gallop, along its margin, in quest of some favourable spot, where by a sudden push he might throw his own band without loss to the opposite shore. The instant his object was discovered, each mounted Teton received a footman behind him, and Mahtoree was still enabled to concentrate his whole force against the effort. Perceiving that his design was anticipated, and unwilling to blow his horses by a race that would disqualify them for service, even after they had succeeded in outstripping the more heavily-burdened ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... disaster of his lord, now leaped from the box. Mr. Godfrey had scarcely had time to reduce this new antagonist to a state of inactivity, before the footman, upon whom he had first displayed his prowess, began to discover some signs of life. He might have been yet overpowered in spite of all his valour and presence of mind, if the house of his brother-in-law, had not fortunately been so near, that the shrieks of Delia, ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... Omar had mentioned nothing concerning the spoil, Abu Obeidah regarded it as left to his own discretion and divided it without waiting for fresh instructions. To a horseman he gave thrice as much as to a footman, and made a further difference between those horses which were of the right Arabian breed (which they looked upon to be far the best) and those that were not, allowing twice as much to the former as to the latter. And when they were not satisfied with this distribution, Abu ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... the Woodcutter Chief was sitting in his house, the postman came to the door—Rat-tat. The footman brought in a letter, and the Woodcutter Chief opened it. He read it through, and laughed. Then he waved it in the air, and said, "Let them come." As he waved the letter in the air, all the snuff fell out of it upon his nose. ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... bound, first picked up Mrs Easy, and laid her on the sofa. Sarah rose, picked up Johnny, and carried him, kicking and roaring, out of the room; in return for which attention she received sundry bites. The footman, who had announced the doctor, picked up the urn, that being all that was in his department. Mr Easy threw himself panting in agony on the other sofa, and Dr Middleton was excessively embarrassed how ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... afternoon a carriage and pair drove up, and a gorgeous footman delivered a card—"Lady ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... no slight peril to the soul. It was only yesterday that her husband had tempted her with such a delightful little man-servant—a perfect English groom. But she had resisted the temptation; and answered: "No, Warden, it would not be right; I will not have a footman on the box. I dare say we can afford it; but let us beware of overweening luxury. I assure you I don't require help to get into the carriage and out of it; I won't even let the coachman ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... can I do for you,—some little favour, eh? Snug sinecure for a favourite clerk, or a place in the Stamp-Office for your fat footman—John, I think you call him? You know, my dear Douce, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... chronicles all his days. Between the table and the door there stood two hundred footmen in two rows of one hundred facing one another. Nobody looked at Leothric as he entered through the hole in the door, but one of the Princes asked a question of a footman, and the question was passed from mouth to mouth by all the hundred footmen till it came to the last one nearest Leothric; and he said to ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... not, for nothing could make the situation worse. The next instant Avon was among them, in imminent risk of being trampled to death. The beasts were terrified by the advent of the footman, and ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... made their onset, loud beneath their hoofs Rang the wide plain, and rose the dust in air As by some Thracian whirlwind stirred; and veiled The heavens in darkness. When on Curio's host The tempest burst, each footman in the rank Stood there to meet his fate — no doubtful end Hung in the balance: destiny proclaimed Death to them all. No conflict hand to hand Was granted them, by lances thrown from far And sidelong sword-thrusts slain: ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... Lawrence hummed and added an operatic flourish of an arm. Something like it might really be imagined. A large square missive was handed to the footman. Thereupon the orderly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... out, and saw driving down the road a hired carriage of most primitive construction, drawn by two great white horses, and driven by an old coachman in a blouse. Beside this old coachman was seated a tall footman in livery, of the most severe and correct demeanor. In the carriage were two young women, dressed both alike in very elegant, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... The old footman Filippitch came in, on tiptoe, as usual, with a cravat tied up in a rosette, with tightly compressed lips, 'lest his breath should be smelt,' with a grey tuft of hair standing up in the very middle of his forehead. He came in, bowed, and handed my grandmother on an iron tray a large ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... came back on Monday. He had arrived in Berlin by the time we got here, and the Grafin's triumphant calm visibly increased when the footman who met us at the station eagerly told her the news. For this, as the papers said that evening, hardly able to conceal their joy beneath their pious hopes that the horrors of war may even yet be spared the world, reveals the full seriousness of the situation. I like the "even yet," don't ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... of nature have had a very generous education; and the rest are frequently mortified, by passing foolish judgments: But in music the case is vastly different; to judge of that requires only use, and a fine ear, which the footman oft has a great deal finer than his master. In short, a man without common sense may very well judge of what a man writes without common sense, and without common sense composes.' He then inquires what the consequence will be if we banish poetry, which is, that taste, politeness, erudition ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... founded Sackville College at East Grinstead; and then Richard, the third earl, famous for the luxury in which he lived at Knole in Kent and Dorset House in London. Among this nobleman's retinue was a first footman rejoicing (I hope) in the superlatively suitable name of Acton Curvette: a name to write a comedy around. Richard Sackville, the fifth earl, was a more domestic peer, of whom we have some intimate and amusing glimpses in the memorandum ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... an hour more I was at the door. A servant ran out, and I dismounted leisurely and easily. Pulling off my gloves, I dusted my boots with them, turned to the stableman and bade him look to the horse, and then said to the footman: ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... block away. Hendricks, the footman, received my order with impassivity and shut us in together with the unconcern of a good servant. It was dark in the carriage, and neither of us spoke as we whirled through the snowy streets. Once the lights of a passing hansom illumined my companion's ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... The footman, a young person, of a highly morbid and sensitive disposition, abhorrent of twilights, has pulled down all the blinds in the sitting-rooms, and drawn the curtains closely, has lit the lamps, and poked into a blaze the fire, that Mr. Amherst has the wisdom ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... determined face; and she noticed many things that quite escaped her sister: the luxury of the motor for instance; the details of the Farrell livery worn by the two discharged soldiers who sat in front as chauffeur and footman; and the evident fact that while small folk must go without servants, the rich seemed to have no difficulty in getting as many ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her Godmother's instructions. Then she got into the beautiful coach. The footman shut the door, the coachman whipped up the horses, and away she ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... Every footman that waited at the grand state-dinner table was a bailiff in disguise, in charge of the plate and china, which, together with all the fabulous riches of art, literature, science and virtu collected at Lone had been taken in execution, by the ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... near Yugao, he advanced to the entrance of the saloon. He saw all was dark in the adjoining chambers. The wind was high, and blew gustily round the mansion. The few servants, consisting of a son of the steward, footman, and page, were all buried in profound slumber. Genji called to them loudly, and they awoke with a start. "Come," said he, "bring a light. Valet, twang your bow-string, and drive away the fiend. How can you sleep so soundly in such a place? ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... that he had received very serious accounts as to his spiritual state. "He is addicted to all manner of debasing pursuits," he remarked, "and it is my particular wish that you should avoid him." Learning that young Dimsdale was in London, he even took the precaution of telling off a confidential footman to walk behind her on all occasions, and to act either as an ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rang the bell near him, and while Lady Atherley continued to repeat that it was very strange, and that she could not imagine what it could be, he waited silently till his summons was answered by a footman. ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... was gone to bed, Mrs. Ianson unfolded all to the Doctor, who nearly broke Miss Bowen's fingers with his congratulatory shake; John the footman, catching fragments of talk, probably put the whole story together for the amusement of the lower regions; and when Agatha retired to rest she was quite sure that the whole house, down to the little maid who waited on herself, was fully aware of ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to strangers. Barrie and Mrs. James think him such a "quiet, nice man." It is not their business to judge character, luckily for their illusions. My opinion of Vedder—who looks exactly like the frog footman in Tenniel's illustrations of "Alice in Wonderland"—is that he's a smouldering volcano. He never speaks unless absolutely necessary, then uses as few words as possible, but his thoughts seethe in language unfit for publication except where his worshipped master is ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... for my patience is exhausted, and I would recommend you not to trifle with me. Do you imagine," he continued, with increasing violence, "that I am to submit to the most painful and humiliating interviews, and at my return to be treated as a footman whom you have sent on an errand? If you hate me, conceal it at least. Act the hypocrite once more, and to good purpose, for I am weary of the part you ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... The footman who opened to him looked him up and down interrogatively. "Miss Elliot is at home, but I don't know if she will see ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... a state of desperation. After a moment's thought, he said, "It must be!" Then, addressing his footman, who held open the door of the carriage, "To Lucenay House." While Saint Remy is on his way to the duchess, we will be present with the reader at the interview between Ferrand and ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... McKenzie Bourdaloue, Louis, The Passion of Christ Broadus, John A., Let us Have Peace with God Brooks, Memorial Discourse on Phillips. By Henry Codman Potter Brooks, Phillips, The Pride of Life Bunyan, John, The Heavenly Footman Burrell, David James, How to Become a Christian ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... footman opened the door leading into the dining-room and solemnly announced that supper was served. They supped and toasted, ate and drank amid the clatter of knives, forks, dishes, and spoons. Kseniya made Arkhipov, Polunin, a General and a Magistrate sit ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... entered, more noiseless and more dignified than any English footman, and announced another visitor. Lewis lifted his head, and saw the lady rise, smiling, to greet a tall man who had come in with the frankness of a privileged acquaintance. "How do you do, Mr. Marker?" he heard. "I am so glad to see you. We didn't dare to expect you till to-morrow. ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... It jumped so far with the humour of the convicts that they set up a feeble cheer, at which Sylvia frowned. Frightened as she was, the prison-bred child was as much astonished at hearing convicts cheer as a fashionable lady would be to hear her footman quote poetry. Bates, however—practical and calm—took quite another view of the case. The bold project, so boldly avowed, seemed to him a sheer absurdity. The "Dandy" and a crew of nine convicts navigate a brig round the world! Preposterous; why, not a man aboard ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... passed the concierge, only to encounter another refusal from a footman, who insisted that Madame la Comtesse was ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... to cut out two boards from the lower part of the door. There were two great iron bars above them, but the hole was just big enough to squeeze through, and Mademoiselle was dragged between the splinters by M. de Grammont and a footman. As soon as her head appeared inside the gate the drums beat, there were loud vivats, a wooden arm-chair was brought, and Mademoiselle was hoisted on the men's shoulders in it and carried along the ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... or two remarkable models of its own, notably, a kind of victoria, the body of which takes the form of two large inverted sea-shells gaudily painted with flowers and butterflies, and running on light iron wheels with bright spokes and rubber tyres. A liveried coach-man on the box, a footman with a smart rug over the arm standing on an iron step behind and balancing himself by grasping two straps attached to the back corners of the carriage, a shabbily-harnessed China pony in the shafts, and ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... familiar manner, the diplomatic showman remarked that he had hastened his arrival in Paris for the express purpose of taking part in the Longchamps celebration. The General's carriage, he explained, with its ponies and little coachman and footman, was so small that it would be in great danger in the crowd unless the King would graciously permit it to appear in the avenue reserved for the court and ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... snort the admiral caught the man by the shoulder and swung him out of the way, signalling directly after for his carriage, which, as the coachman and footman had not expected to be wanted for some time yet, stood right away, with the servants chatting by ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... he would tumble in the most inconceivable manner in ascending the commodious, facile, and well-carpeted staircase of an elegant mansion, so as to bruise his nose or his lip on the upper steps, or to tread upon his hands, and even occasionally to disturb the composure of a well-bred footman; on the contrary, he would often glide without collision through a crowded assembly, thread with unerring dexterity a most intricate path, or securely and rapidly tread the ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... was soon accomplished. His Excellency's footman mounted the horse, and Sir Asinus entered the chariot and found himself opposite an elderly gentleman, very richly clad, and with a smiling and rubicund face which seemed to indicate a love of the best living. This gentleman was Francis Fauquier, Governor ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... shirts and neckcloths almost floating in good old port. At this instant, to add to my dissatisfaction, in walked my dame! The cannons having disturbed her, she had heard the never-to-be-sufficiently-confounded footman run up the stairs, and arisen to ascertain the cause; when, guided by our voices, she now joined our party, an uninvited and unwelcome guest. Indeed, we were hopelessly committed, for getting up and lighting our candles ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... down to Dolly Town? The sight would do you good There the dollies walk, And the dollies talk, And they ride about In a grand turn-out, With a coachman thin Who is made of tin, And a footman ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... They set off. During the first day's journey, Lord Ellenborough, happening to stretch his legs, struck his feet against something below the seat. He discovered that it was a bandbox. His indignation is not to be described. Up went the window, and out went the bandbox. The coachman stopped; and the footman, thinking that the bandbox had tumbled out of the window by some extraordinary chance, was going to pick it up, when Lord Ellenborough furiously called out, "Drive on!" The bandbox accordingly was left by a ditch side. Having reached the county-town, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... thrown aside, and a footman entered announcing the newly-arrived guest. From the hall beyond came the sound of a departing motor, and the clatter of luggage being brought in. The ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... boarded up. There was no sign of life about the place when they got down from the limousine and mounted the steps at the heels of the footman who had run on ahead to ring the bell. They waited for the opening of the inner door and the shooting of the bolts in the storm-doors, but no sound came to their ears. Again the bell jangled,—how well she remembered the old-fashioned ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... high days are all lighted. Whensoever any Spaniards pass by this church, although they be on horseback, they will alight and come into the church, and kneel before this image, and pray to Our Lady to defend them from all evil; so that whether he be horseman or footman he will not pass by, but first go into the church and pray as aforesaid, which if they do not, they think and believe that they shall never prosper, which image they call in the Spanish tongue Nostra Signora de Guadaloupe. At this place there are certain cold baths, which arise, springing ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... Lady Blanche says to the footman, 'Stop your chattering, knave, and do my bidding.' Mr. Rochester talks about the metal welkin when he means the sky; and as for the mad woman who laughs like a hyena and sets fire to bed curtains and tears ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... evening, at latest to-morrow, an unhoped-for succour may come to him. Hemerlingue, seized with remorse, sends to him, as to all those who took part in the work connected with the Tunis loan, his December gratuity. A tall footman brings it: "On behalf of M. le Baron." The visionary says those words aloud. The pretty faces turn towards him; the girls laugh, move their chairs, and the poor fellow awakes ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... which the blue bow was dangling: "Oh, how thick!"—and she had remarked on Artur's shiny boots and Flebbe's hair, which was covered with pomade and which he wore plastered down on both sides of his healthy-looking footman's face with a parting in the middle. She had also made inquiries about their school report at Easter, but had never got any longer answer than "yes" ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... not—not post it now. I should have sent the footman. Come with me and see mamma. I know she will be glad to have you here," she hurried, in evident confusion. She bethought herself suddenly and made an effort to withdraw the letter from its rather conspicuous position. The hand containing it ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... and the newspapers are occasionally naked savages; the streets are imperfectly garmented even by day; and we have our stumbling social anecdotist, our spot-mouthed young man, our eminently silly woman; our slippery one; our slimy one, the Rahab of Society; not to speak of Mary the maid and the footman William. A vigilant mother has to contend with these and the like in an ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... picked up the valise and darted down the platform. Aristide followed. The footman held invitingly open the door of a cosy brougham. Aristide paused for the fraction of a second. Who was this ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... novelties are overlooked or forgotten. Already I begin to see women with heavily-laden wheel-barrows, without surprise. I have now learned, I hope, that a postman's rap is one, two, and no more; a servant's, one; while a footman gives from four to twenty, as hard as he can bang, so as to startle the whole neighborhood and make everybody run to the windows. Eating fish with a knife said to be fatal. Great personages give you a finger to shake. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... of wicker or some stout fabric stayed with wood, having a hole from which its rider, or footman, emerges to the waist, and is slung upon his shoulders in the familiar manner. The horse's head and tail, a pair of stockings stuffed and shod—and ludicrously disproportionate to the bulk of the horseman; the bit and bridle and caparison, ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... but accompanied them with dramatic gestures; Schroeder, when telling us how he (the hero of her anecdote) drew his sword, flourished her knife in a threatening manner toward Haizinger, and Mendelssohn whispered to me, 'I wonder what John [the footman] thinks of such an English vivacity? To see the brandishing of knives, and not know what it is all about! Only think!'" A comic episode which occurred during the first performance of "Fidelio" is also related by the same authority: "In that deeply tragic scene where Mme. Schroeder ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... her treatment of her beautiful boy and her own pair of black eyes; so she determined to "pay her off" in her own way, and stopping one day at the hole in the hedge which served for entrance to the estate of the "three-cornered field," she sent the footman in to say the dowjer Lady Scatterbreen wanted to speak with ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... footman began to hand Tamara her snowboots and cloak, but Gritzko almost snatched them from the man's hand. She made no protest, but let him help her to put them on and wrap her up, while her godmother thought it advisable to walk ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... area like a damp waistcoat-pocket, which he found to be number twenty-four, Mews Street, Grosvenor Square. To the sense of smell the house was like a sort of bottle filled with a strong distillation of Mews; and when the footman opened the door, he seemed to ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... As she passed towards the staircase, her glance was attracted by a sword, bright of hilt, dark of sheath. Fitz's sword, lying with his white gloves on the table, where he had laid them on coming into the house. The footman had drawn the blade an inch or so from the sheath—to look at the chasing—to handle the steel that deals in warfare with all the curiosity of one whose business lies among the ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... before he went to the village school in the morning, with his toes peeping out of his shoes, and his shirt hanging like a rabbit's tail out of his ragged trowsers; and now the puppy talks of 'my carriage,' and 'my footman,' and says that 'he and his lady purpose to spend the winter in the town,' ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... "You shall be footman," she ordered, turning to me—but this time my mother only laughed. "Wait here till I come down again." Then to my mother: "Now, ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... with a hollow clap; a footman furled an umbrella and climbed to his place beside the driver. As the vehicle drew away, one caught a glimpse of a crest ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... landscape of Poussin, a crayon sketch of Salvator; but the Transfiguration, the Last Judgment, the Communion of St. Jerome, and what are as transcendent as these, are on the walls of the Vatican, the Uffizi, or the Louvre, where every footman may see them: to say nothing of Nature's pictures in every street, of sunsets and sunrises every day, and the sculpture of the human body never absent. A collector recently bought at public auction in London, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of Shakespeare: ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... one of our parcels at the feet of a lady who was going by, she nonplussed us very effectually by ringing the bell and handing in to the footman "something which had been accidentally dropped from one of the upper windows." Fortunately for us the parcel did not reach Aunt Maria; Polly ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... bell, and again the footman in plush and powder answered the door, but this time there was no hesitation ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... opened by the footman, ushering in a broad-shouldered man, who was carrying a travelling-bag and an umbrella in his hand. Dropping into an arm-chair before the curtain, he waved away the footman, who, even now, mechanically repeated a previously vain attempt to relieve ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... himself in it abroad or even at home. Another odd indication of Johnson's regard for good manners, so far as his lights would take him, was the extreme disgust with which he often referred to a certain footman in Paris, who used his fingers in place of sugar-tongs. So far as Johnson could recognize bad manners he was polite enough, though unluckily the limitation is ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... de'il, or the de'il's footman, sir blackamoor? I'd have thee tell thy master to admit his guests in a more convenient fashion. Hang me, if my bones will not ache for a twelvemonth. My back is almost broke, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... portraits of which the heads had been painted by Lawrence and the hands and draperies by Lawrence's hireling, and huger canvasses on which the heads and breasts had been painted by Rubens and everything else by Rubens's regiment of hirelings. The guiding footman preceded him through a great chamber which he recognised as the drawing-room in its winding sheet, and then up a small and insignificant staircase; and G.J. was on ground strange to him, for never till then had he been higher than the first-floor in ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... the common-sense view of the affair of the missed gentleman, and supposing that the footman had been bribed to let him quietly out at the street-door, who, perhaps, had found his feelings too little under his control to go through the interview with me that he sought, Root set about making a miracle of the matter. It was astounding—nay, superhuman! It boded some misfortune ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... value myself as a gentleman, a free man, a man of education, and one pretending to literature; is there any situation in life so low, or even so criminal, that can subject a man to the possibility of such an engagement? Would you dare attempt to bind your footman to such terms? Will the law suffer a felon sent to the plantations to bind himself for his life, and to renounce all possibility either of elevation or quiet? And am I to defend myself for not doing what no man is suffered to do, and what it would be criminal ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... the three young friends looked, dressed alike in fleecy white with holly wreaths in their hair, as they slowly descended the wide oaken stairway arm in arm. A footman was lighting the hall lamps, for the winter dusk gathered early, and the girls were merrily chatting about the evening's festivity when suddenly a loud, long shriek echoed through the hall. A heavy glass shade fell from the man's hand with a crash, and the young ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... be," cried she, "and how the country folks will enjoy it. Can't I come down to the wedding, Quincy, and bring my landau, my double span of cream-colored horses, and my driver and footman in the Chessman livery? I'll take you and your lady ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... in conversation with a fiddler, a public singer, a creature little better than a mountebank! My lady Ortensia would as soon talk with a footman! Shame, my lord! The suspicion is unworthy! I would scarcely answer to the young man himself, if he spoke to me, though I am only a poor servant! A fiddler, indeed! A lute-strummer, a catgut-pincher, and a Neapolitan into ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... Pullman car reserved for each two of you. Some of you have seen an omnibus in the distance, and have wondered what it was used for. To suggest that you should travel in such a plebeian conveyance, is to give you a shock that takes you two days to recover from. You expect a private carriage, with a footman in livery, to take you through the mountains. You, all of you, must have the most expensive places in the theatre. The eight-mark and six-mark places are every bit as good as the ten-mark seats, of which there ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... apartments in one of the quiet but fashionable streets in Paris; she embroidered her husband such a dressing-gown as he had never worn before; engaged a coquettish waiting maid, an excellent cook, and a smart footman, procured a fascinating carriage, and an exquisite piano. Before a week had passed, she crossed the street, wore her shawl, opened her parasol, and put on her gloves in a manner equal to the most true-born ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... object he had in view all along." But it almost seems as though one required to be "brought up" in Pickwick, so to speak, thoroughly to understand him. No true Pickwickian would ever have called Tuckle the Bath Footman, "Blazer," or Jingle, "Jungle." It were better, too, not to adopt a carping tone in dealing with so joyous and irresponsible a work. "Dickens," we are told, "knew nothing of cricket." Yet in his prime the present writer has seen him ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... enthusiasm, immediately reached up his hand to Richard, and was going to address him in a great hurry, when the house-door opened without any warning, and a footman very nearly put ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... what the correct thing was under the circumstances. The footman, remembering him of old, and servants in those simple days being still open to impressions, suggested that he wait. Peter gladly accepted the idea. But he did not wait, for hardly had the footman left him than that functionary returned, to ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... sent a man this time. A footman 'e was before the War, but 'e didn't take it up again arter 'e was demobbed. Just now, bein' out of a job 'e's ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... and of all queer ones perhaps old Tom Towler was the queerest. Tom in his person furnished an apt illustration of the right appropriation of talent and the fitness of things, for he would neither have made a groom, nor a coachman, nor a postillion, nor a footman, nor a ploughman, nor a mechanic, nor anything we know of, and yet he was first-rate as a huntsman. He was too weak for a groom too small for a coachman, too ugly for a postillion, too stunted for a footman, too light for a ploughman, too ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... nameless indignities through our streets at night. They are free by the current standard. And the poor half-starved wretches struggling with the impossible stint of oakum in a casual ward, they too are free! The nimble footman is free, the crushed porter between the trucks is free, the woman in the mill, the child in the mine. Ask them! They will tell you how free they are. They have happened to choose these ways of living—that is all. No doubt the piquancy of the life attracts them ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... want of power, as well as tact, left her more lewd after his fucking her than she was before, so that she had been forced by the excess of her unsatisfied lust produced by her husband to have recourse to the fine prick of her footman, a powerful young fellow, otherwise very plain, and not likely to inspire jealousy to any husband, but with whom she rarely could do more than get a rack-off in a hurry, which was far from satisfaction sufficient for her ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... notion of marrying your mistress never get a hold on you. It is a torment omitted from the hell of Dante, you see. Look here! I will beat her; I will give her a thrashing; I will give it to her! Poison of my life, she sent me off like a running footman.' ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... family one whom his own sister could not receive at her house, why, he ought to sink to her level, and wealth would but make his disgrace the more notorious. If I had an only son, and that son were booby enough to do anything so discreditable as to marry beneath him, I would rather have my footman for my successor. You ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... New Burlington street without my harp and with a beating heart, and I heard the high-sounding titles of princes and ambassadors and dukes and duchesses announced long before my poor plebeian name puzzled the porter and was bandied from footman to footman. As I ascended the marble stairs with their gilt balustrade, I was agitated by emotions similar to those which drew from a frightened countryman his frank exclamation in the heat of the battle of Vittoria: 'Oh, jabbers! ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... many days elapsed before he departed, with his governor and one footman, who had been an antient servant in the family.—As their first route was to France, they went in the Dover stage, and thence embarked for Calais, without any thing material happening, except it were, that on sight of the ocean, Natura was fired ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Avdotya Stepanovna H——, a spiteful and arrogant old lady, who, on installing herself in her niece's house, appropriated all the best rooms for her own use, scolded and grumbled from morning till night, and would not go a walk even in the garden unattended by her one serf, a surly footman in a threadbare pea-green livery with light blue trimming and a three-cornered hat. Anna put up patiently with all her aunt's whims, gradually set to work on her sister's education, and was, it seemed, already getting reconciled to the idea ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... French—he's an Englishman. One could tell that by his horses," said the coachman, putting this interpretation on the silence of his brother whip. Then, perceiving a tall footman at a little distance, dressed in a long gray livery coat, with blue collar and silver buttons, the coachman addressed himself to him, by way of compensation, but without much varying his phrase: "Here's nice weather to stand about in, comrade!" On the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... eleven o'clock and midnight, the Emperor called me, asked for a black frock coat and round hat, and ordered me to follow him; and with Prince Murat as the third party, we entered a close carriage with Caesar as driver, and only a single footman, both without livery. After a short ride, the Emperor stopped in the rue de —-, alighted, went a few steps farther, and entered a house alone, while the prince and I remained in the carriage. Some hours passed, and we began to be uneasy; for the life of the Emperor had been so often ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... people; and was very glad to have it in his power to oblige any of that family; he therefore treated him with respect, and called a servant to conduct him into an inner room, where the duke's barber waited on him to shave him. Presently after came in a footman, who brought in a good suit of trimmed clothes, a fine Holland shirt, and all the other parts of dress suitable to these. As soon as he had finished dressing, he was introduced to the duke again, who complimented him on his genteel appearance, and not without ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... pounds per annum—tea and things o' course not reckoned, - There's a cat that eats the butter, takes the coals, and breaks MY SECOND: There's soci'ty—James the footman;—(not that I look after him; But he's aff'ble in his manners, with amazing length of ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... quadrupeds, I will perhaps try my fortune later on with the bipeds." The old man shook his head in wonder and went his way. Another time a handsome coach passed by, in which sat a lady and two children. There was a coachman on the box and a footman behind. The prince happened to have a basket of freshly-plucked strawberries in his hand, which attracted the notice of the proud Saxon lady.[151] She ordered the coachman to stop, and called out from the coach-window, "Come here, you lout, and bring me the strawberries. I will ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... daughter of an Englishwoman, who brought her up as a boy, after revealing to her the secret of her origin, apparently wishing to protect her against the mischances which befell herself. She was first a footman, then a sailor on board a man-of-war; afterwards she served with great bravery in Flanders in a regiment of infantry. Then she entered a cavalry regiment, where she fell deeply in love with a comrade, and her woman's nature awoke. Obeying ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... wrote of the balloon] Progressive Motion on the Earth may be advanc'd by it, and that a Running Footman or a Horse slung and suspended under such a Globe so as to have no more of Weight pressing the Earth with their Feet than Perhaps 8 or 10 Pounds, might with a fair Wind run in a straight Line across Countries as fast as that Wind, and over Hedges, Ditches and even Waters. It has ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... scene of the first act, was produced a child in swaddling-clothes, appear a full-grown man with a beard in the second; or to represent an old man active and valiant, a young soldier cowardly, a footman eloquent, a page a counsellor, a king a porter, and a princess a scullion. Then what shall we say concerning their management of the time and place in which the actions have, or may be supposed to have happened? I have seen a comedy, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... root for life in some mind sufficiently thoughtful to invest it with interest, and yet far removed from any opportunities, through books or society, for disarming the argument of its sting. Such a danger was quickened by the character and pretensions of Mrs. Lee's footman, who was a daily witness, whilst standing behind his mistress's chair at dinner, to the confusion which she carried into the hostile camp, and might be supposed to renew such discussions in the servants' hall with singular ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood—(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish)—and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery, ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. With a Proem by Austin Dobson • Lewis Carroll
... to asphalt, rounded the looming capitol with its chateau-like red roofs cut sharply against the pure spring sky, grated the stones again, and halted at the canon's door. The governor had the carriage door open before the footman could leap down, and told the man that he would ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... of a woman, she would assume the goddess; that if power were given to her, she would exert that power to the giver, if to nobody else. And D——r's wife is thrown into my dish, who, thou knowest, kept her ceremonious husband at haughty distance, and whined in private to her insulting footman. O how I cursed the blasphemous wretches! They will make me, as I tell them, hate their house, and remove from it. And by my soul, Jack, I am ready at times to think that I should not have brought her hither, were it but on Sally's account. And yet, without knowing either Sally's heart, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson |
