"Decorous" Quotes from Famous Books
... charming sort of morning gown, and bareheaded. She had nothing in her hands, and seemed indifferent to the birds, but when Thorpe flung forth a handful of fragments into the centre of their whirling flock, she looked up at him. It was the anxious instant, and he ventured upon what he hoped was a decorous compromise between a bow and a look ... — The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... back to reality; that he stand upon things, and not shows of things. According as he loves, and venerates, articulately or with deep speechless thought, the awful realities of things, so will the hollow shows of things, however regular, decorous, accredited by Koreishes or Conclaves, be intolerable and detestable to him. Protestantism too is the work of a Prophet: the prophet-work of that sixteenth century. The first stroke of honest demolition to an ancient thing grown false and idolatrous; preparatory ... — Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... an undertone. He walked to a wardrobe and produced a robe of dingy scarlet. "This do?" he asked. It was taken from him. It hung limp for a moment in mid-air, fluttered weirdly, stood full and decorous buttoning itself, and sat down in his chair. "Drawers, socks, slippers would be a comfort," said the Unseen, curtly. ... — The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence, The Duke, dumb-stricken with amazement, Stood for a while in a sultry smother, 310 And then, with a smile that partook of the awful, Turned her over to his yellow mother To learn what was held decorous and lawful; And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct, As her cheek quick whitened thro' all its quince-tinct. Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once! What meant she?—Who was she?—Her duty and station, The wisdom ... — Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... buckeye-blossoms. When the body was deposited in the box, Tennessee's Partner drew over it a piece of tarred canvas, and gravely mounting the narrow seat in front, with his feet upon the shafts, urged the little donkey forward. The equipage moved slowly on, at that decorous pace which was habitual with Jenny even under less solemn circumstances. The men—half curiously, have jestingly, but all good-humoredly—strolled along beside the cart; some in advance, some a little in the rear, of the homely catafalque. But, whether from the narrowing of the road ... — Tennessee's Partner • Bret Harte
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