"Free-and-easy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... extremely funny, when some unexpected grasshopper, some free-and-easy beetle presents itself without invitation or excuse, scampering over our white mats, to see the manner in which Chrysantheme indicates it to my righteous vengeance,—merely pointing her finger at it, without another word than "Hou!" ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... lovers came within any close distance of her, he speedily could not but notice that her very tendons and bones mollified, paralysed-like from feeling, so that his was the sensation of basking in a soft bower of love. What is more, her demonstrative ways and free-and-easy talk put even those of a born coquette to shame, with the result that while Chia Lien, at this time, longed to become heart and soul one with her, the woman ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Presently he came out in a loose blouse and slippers, a short pipe in his mouth, and an old newspaper in his hand, and threw himself on the heathery scrub which met the shingle, within easy hail of the fishermen. There he lay, the picture of free-and-easy, loafing, hand-to-mouth young England, "improving his mind," as he shouted to them, by the perusal of the fortnight-old weekly paper, soiled with the marks of toddy-glasses and tobacco-ashes, the legacy of the last traveller, which ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... canvasser, and noted his fixed, unearthly stare, and listened to his hoarse, unnatural voice, the sergeant knew what was the matter; it was a man in the horrors, a common enough spectacle at Ninemile. He resolved to decoy him into the lock-up, and accosted him in a friendly, free-and-easy way. ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... the blame partly on the general licentiousness, partly upon the French education of many of Charles's courtiers, and partly on the poets. Dryden undoubtedly formed his diction by the usage of the Court. The age was a very free-and-easy, not to say a very coarse one. Its coarseness was not external, like that of Elizabeth's day, but the outward mark of an inward depravity. What Swift's notion of the refinement of women was may be judged ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Cesare, Cardinal of Valencia, who was to go to Naples to-morrow as papal legate, yet dressed tonight in cloth of gold, with no trace of his churchly dignity about him; there was their younger brother Giuffredo, Prince of Squillace, a handsome stripling, flanked by his wife, the free-and-easy Donna Sancia of Aragon, swarthy, coarse-featured, and fleshy, despite her youth; there was Giovanni's sometime wife; the lovely, golden-headed Lucrezia, the innocent cause of all this hate that festered in the Lord of Pesaro's soul; ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... This free-and-easy rural character of the London parks is quite in keeping with the tone and atmosphere of the great metropolis itself, which in so many respects has a country homeliness and sincerity, and shows the essentially bucolic taste of the people; ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... man stood for what he was; and, being a sagacious set, every one's true value was pretty accurately known. It was a neighborly town, with gossip enough to stir the social atmosphere with small gusts of interest or wonder, yet do no harm. A sensible, free-and-easy town, for the wisest man in it wore the worst boots, and no one thought the less of his understanding; the belle of the village went shopping with a big sun-bonnet and tin pail, and no one found her ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... School Bible Lesson.] I spoke to them of her beautiful life, they all cried, and we had a little dedication meeting, giving ourselves to God to live like Nellie, and claiming His power for help. Afternoon free-and-easy. Hall just on full, but could not keep the meeting on as we had ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... you know, when first I met him at Rogers's; but that was Lady Holland's fault; even now, his being a clergyman hurts my mind a little sometimes, and I fancy I should like him more entirely if he were not so. I have a superstitious veneration for the cloth, which his free-and-easy wearing of it occasionally disturbs a little; but I feel deeply honored by his notice, and most grateful for the good-will which he expresses towards me, and should have been too glad to have heard him laugh once more at his own jokes, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... pretensions or size, but like hundreds of poor men's houses in Palestine still—a one-storied building with a low, flat roof, mostly earthen, and easily reached from the ground by an outside stair. It would be somewhat difficult to get a sick man and his bed up there, however low, and somewhat free-and-easy dealing with another man's house to burrow through the roof a hole wide enough for the purpose; but there is no impossibility, and the difficulty is part of the lesson of the incident, and is recognised expressly in the narrative by Christ's notice of their 'faith.' We ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... savings of the winter, packs her trunk and takes a trip more or less extensive, and there is none to say her nay,—nothing to bother her save the accumulation of her own baggage. There is an independent, happy, free-and-easy swing about the motion of her life. Her mind is constantly being broadened by contact with the world in its working clothes; in her leisure moments by the better thoughts of dead and living men which she ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... string again and we have a benevolent 'broad-brim,' stiff, symmetrical and proper to the last degree, like an Italian villa; and, once more changing the straight lines to crooked ones, the conventional formalist becomes the unconventional, free-and-easy South-westerner, who may stand for Swiss ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... a robust appearance, and a free-and-easy way with him. His free-and-easy way shows itself chiefly in his habit of smiling upon and waving his hand to all those whom he encounters on his daily walks. He is talkative at times, but his vocabulary is limited. In my opinion it is limited to one word, though ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... gone into the luggage van—how I trembled for Kinko!—and there, with Popof's assistance, had got out of one of his boxes a somewhat free-and-easy costume, but one certain of success at a wedding: A primrose coat with metal buttons, and a buttonhole, a sham diamond pin in the cravat, poppy-colored breeches, copper buckles, flowered waistcoat, clouded stockings, thread gloves, black pumps, and white beaver hat. What ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... But, mostly, each of them is partly true and partly false: and—'circumstances alter cases.' The fact is, that life aboard a Bluenose was just what we might expect from crews that lived a comparatively free-and-easy life ashore in a sparsely settled colony, and a very strenuous life afloat in ships which depended, like all ships, on disciplined effort for both success {94} and safety. When national discipline is not very strong ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... familiarly as "thou." Perhaps there is a little too much familiarity in all this, for the worthy man has not yet begun to realize the prestige and authority of his new station; and there was some one who considered this free-and-easy manner very humiliating. But that some one can not see him at this moment, and the master takes advantage of the fact to bestow a hearty greeting upon the old bookkeeper, Sigismond, who comes out last of all, erect and red-faced, imprisoned in a high collar and bareheaded—whatever the weather—for ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... lucky, seeing you," cried Mr. Tom Herbert, who was a free-and-easy sort of a gentleman, the second son of a brother justice of Mr. Hare. "I wish to goodness you'd give us a draught of your cider, Carlyle. We went up to Beauchamp's for a stroll, but found them all out, and I'm awful thirsty. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... went to school together grow up to be the young man and woman of society; and while the memory of school days is a bond of hearty friendliness between them, it is not necessary that they should evince their mutual regard by a free-and-easy demeanor. ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... of being able to drink more of it than any three men in town. Everybody called him "Dicky"; everybody cheered up at the sight of him—especially the natives, to whom his marvellous red hair and his free-and-easy style were a constant delight and envy. Wherever you went in the town you would soon see Dicky or hear his genial laugh, and find around him a group of admirers who appreciated him both for his good nature and the white wine he was ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... curly hair, loquacious, and very fond of that feminine society which Aratoff so shunned. Truth to tell, Kupfer breakfasted and dined with him rather often, and even—as he was not a rich man—borrowed small sums of money from him; but it was not that which made the free-and-easy German so diligently frequent the little house on Shabolovka Street. He had taken a liking to Yakoff's spiritual purity, his "ideality,"—possibly as a contrast to what he daily encountered and beheld;—or, perhaps, in that same attraction ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... faded, brocaded chairs were of the order pouf, and as inviting as they were disreputable in appearance; there was manuscript music among the general litter, a guitar hung from the wall by a tarnished blue and silver ribbon, and a violin lay on the piano; and yet, notwithstanding the air of free-and-easy disorder, one could hardly help recognizing a sort of vagabond comfort and luxury in the Bohemian surroundings. It was so very evident that the owners must enjoy life in an easy, light-hearted, though perhaps light-headed fashion; and it was also so very evident ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... pockets, which he said "the sailors wore on the sloops, and called 'em monkey-jackets"!—such a way as he had of putting a quid in his mouth! for Nat Boody chewed. It is not strange that Reuben, feeling a little of ugly constraint under the keen eye of the spinster Eliza, should admire greatly the free-and-easy manner of the tavern-boy, who had such familiarity with the world and such large range of action. The most of us never get over a wonderment at the composure and complacency which spring from a wide knowledge of the world; and the man who can crack his whip well, though only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... essence, at any rate its chief protection. It is a part of their system that religion shall be perfectly free, and that no man shall be in any way constrained in that matter. Consequently, the question of a man's religion is regarded in a free-and-easy way. It is well, for instance, that a young lad should go somewhere on a Sunday; but a sermon is a sermon, and it does not much concern the lad's father whether his son hear the discourse of a freethinker in the ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... to a more civil aspect of affairs than the picture of thirty death-dealing demons in the tops of a Yankee frigate, let us see how they manage their aggressions upon the untamed field and forest. During his various ramblings, our traveller's free-and-easy manner gained him the confidence of several able and energetic men—an advantage which enabled him to peep behind the scenes in many of the western movements. The following incident, which came under his own knowledge, comes within the design of this article, which is to illustrate ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... earth," it is said, "is against Nature. It flies in the face of the processes of evolution. You have only to look about you to see that everything has been made for a quite different purpose. For ages Mother Nature has been keeping house in her own free-and-easy fashion, gradually improving her family by killing off the weaker members, and giving them as food to the strong. It is a plan that has worked well—for the strong. When we interrogate Nature as to the 'reason why' of her most marvelous contrivances, her answer has a grim simplicity. We are like ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... so the end of him and all. But wait. There was one man, the mate on the first voyage. He had been put in prison also. He did not get away as soon as Brigond. When he was free, he come to the captain of a ship that I know, the Free-and-Easy, that sails to Havre, and told him the story, asking for passage to Quebec. The captain—Gobal—did not believe it, but said he would bring him over on the next voyage. Gobal come to me and told me all there was to tell. I said that it was a true story, for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... each other through and through!" he now protested. It gave a tang of the unexpected to her uniform sweetness, this always having a corner still to turn which kept her out of his sight. Paul was used to seeing most women achieve this effect of uncertainty by the use of coquetry, and in the free-and-easy give and take between young America of both sexes, he had learned with a somewhat cynical shrewdness to discount it. He entered into the game, but, in his own phrase, he always knew what he was about. Lydia, on the contrary, often ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... probable rival. He lived peacefully in a way—that is, when he was not in open conflict with the natives. He killed his game and cooked it and ate it heartily, and he enjoyed a measure of happiness. He had found a home; the free-and-easy life suited him; and if he was not possessed of riches (which would have been of little value to him then), he had, at least, health and strength and an ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... understand, and in the evening brings them to me and puts down their meaning and spelling with their Japanese equivalents. He speaks English already far better than many professional interpreters, but would be more pleasing if he had not picked up some American vulgarisms and free-and-easy ways. It is so important to me to have a good interpreter, or I should not have engaged so young and inexperienced a servant; but he is so clever that he is now able to be cook, laundryman, and general attendant, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... of Sponge in the minds of all, but we trust we have given such a general outline of style, and indication of character, as an ordinary knowledge of the world will enable them to imagine a good, pushing, free-and-easy sort of man, wishing to be a ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... and restless, to be sure, in the absence of the sort of female society he had become accustomed to; but there were many compensations in his free-and-easy bachelor life, in his pretense of business, which consisted in watching the ticker, as it is called, in an occasional interview with Henderson, and in the floating summer amusements of the relaxed city. There was nothing unusual in this ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and legs trembled and her cheeks twitched. Sitting in the kitchen she tried to hear what the visitors were saying, and she kept crossing herself, pressing her fingers to her forehead, and gazing at the ikons. Anisim, slightly drunk, opened the door into the kitchen and said in a free-and-easy way: ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... them became assimilated with the natives, there was always a constant influx of new comers, full of energy and vigour, who kept the race from becoming enfeebled. The attractions of high pay and the prospect of a free-and-easy life drew them to the service of the feudal lords. The Pharaoh entrusted their chiefs with confidential offices about his person, and placed the royal princes at their head. The position at length attained by these Mashauasha ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... to enjoy himself—to "live in the free-and-easy style of the Regency days." He wanted to learn the shoe-trick, in order to visit the thieves' taverns of the city, like Rodolphe in the Mysteries of Paris; drew out of his pocket a dirty clay pipe, abused the servants, and drank a great quantity; then, in order to create a good ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... and I go wandering about it all day. We dine at all manner of places, and go to two or three theatres in the evening. I suppose, as an old farmer said of Scott, I am "makin' mysel'" all the time; but I seem to be rather a free-and-easy sort of superior vagabond. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... customers their shirts, their handkerchiefs, and their sheets. She stopped on the threshold as if she were already fatigued; then, she raised her eyes, smiled as she saw us smoking, flung at us, with her left hand, which was free, the sly kiss characteristic of a free-and-easy working-woman, and went away at a slow place, dragging ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the finest-looking men in the world. A great shock of rough dusty-dark hair, bright-laughing hazel eyes, massive aquiline face, most massive yet most delicate, of sallow-brown complexion, almost Indian-looking; clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy;—smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical metallic,—fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation free and plenteous: I do not meet, in these late decades, such company over a pipe!' Not only were pipes smoked at home, but ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... dress might, at need, have explained this free-and-easy demeanor. The old maid wore a merino gown of a dark plum color, of which the cut and trimming dated from the year of the Restoration; a little worked collar, worth perhaps three francs; and a common straw hat with blue satin ribbons edged with straw plait, such as the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... much, to be sure, in all his works has to be conceded to the spirit of romance. Both in 'The Vicar of Wakefield' and in 'She Stoops to Conquer' characterization is mostly conventional, and events are very arbitrarily manipulated for the sake of the effects in rather free-and-easy disregard of all principles of motivation. But the kindly knowledge of the main forces in human nature, the unfailing sympathy, and the irrepressible conviction that happiness depends in the last analysis on the individual will and character make Goldsmith's writings, especially ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... brilliant, blending the delicate perfume of aristocracy with free-and-easy Bohemianism, and enhanced by the artistic background of pictures, bric-a-brac, and marble facsimiles of the masterpieces of statuary, including the Venus of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... and Brummell did nothing more. It is not a question whether such roads to eminence be contemptible or not, but whether their adoption in one station of life be more so than in another. Was Brummell a whit more contemptible than 'Wales?' Or is John Thomas, the pride and glory of the 'Domestics' Free-and-Easy,' whose whiskers, figure, face, and manner are all superb, one atom more ridiculous than your recognized beau? I trow not. What right, then, has your beau to a place among wits? I fancy Chesterfield would be much disgusted at seeing his name ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... judge from the looks of the party, a happier mode of convincing them of our "free-and-easy" feelings could not possibly have been discovered. From any mortification this proceeding might have caused me, I was speedily relieved by Trevanion calling O'Leary to one side, while he explained to him ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... words, that if you take away eighteen girls to do strawberry picking, you cannot expect them, immediately on their return, to settle down again into ordinary routine and everyday habits. An atmosphere of camp life seemed to pervade the place, a free-and-easy, rollicking spirit that was not at all in accordance with Miss Beasley's ideas of propriety. The Principal, who had never altogether approved of the week on the land, considered that the school was demoralized, and made a firm effort to restore ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... at a certain hour, throws himself upon the town, gets through his day in some manner quite satisfactory to himself, and regularly appears at the door of his own house again at night, like the mysterious master of Gil Blas. He is a free-and-easy, careless, indifferent kind of pig, having a very large acquaintance among other pigs of the same character, whom he rather knows by sight than conversation, as he seldom troubles himself to stop and exchange civilities, but ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... screams, veils floating over the fresh coats of rouge; the women were in a large majority, Cardailhac having reflected that, where a bey was concerned, the performance was of little consequence, that one need only emit false notes from pretty lips, show lovely arms and well-turned legs in the free-and-easy neglige of the operetta. All the plastic celebrities of his theatre were on hand, therefore, Amy Ferat at their head, a hussy who had already tried her eye-teeth on the gold of several crowns; also two or three famous comic actors, whose pallid ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... polite, and even formal, rather than free-and-easy and rude. She taught him to be a man. He must not be what brave boys called a molly-coddle: like most womanly women, she had a veneration for man, and she gave him her own high idea of the ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... drawin' mighty close lines on him. You can't take a man living a free-and-easy life the way he was and wing him all at once and tie him down to a chair without seein' some ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... table sat Master Pothier, with a black earthen mug of Norman cider in one hand and a pipe in the other. His budget of law hung on a peg in the corner, as quite superfluous at a free-and-easy ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... state occasions, it was not a stately room. It was furnished with elegance and good taste; but what was better, the genial home atmosphere from the rest of the house had invaded it, and one did not feel, on entering it from the free-and-easy sitting-room, as if passing from a sunny climate to the icebergs of the Pole. Therefore I am sure my reader will follow me gladly out of the biting, boisterous wind into the homelike apartment, and as we stand in fancy before the glowing grate, ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... have something to say which is worth hearing is the substance of good conversation, we must reckon among its accidents and ornaments a manner which knows how to be easy and free without being free-and-easy; a habitual deference to the tastes and even the prejudices of other people; a hearty desire to be, or at least to seem, interested in their concerns; and a constant recollection that even the most patient hearers may sometimes wish to be speakers. Above all else, the agreeable talker cultivates ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... business Ned turned his mind to, when he got there; but he wrote home that him and his friends was always a-singing, Ale Columbia, and blowing up the President, so I suppose it was something in the public line; or free-and-easy way again. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... might be the saving of her health. So I agreed to go with Isa to look at her, and judge whether the charming account I heard was all youthful enthusiasm. Edith went out driving with my mother, and we began our TETE-A-TETE walk, in which I heard a great deal of the difficulties of that free-and-easy house at Oxford, and how often Isa wishes for some one who would be a real guide and helper, instead of only giving a playful, slap-dash answer, like good- natured mockery. The treatment may suit Mary's own daughters, but 'Just as you please, my dear,' is not good for sensitive, ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the next morning, my scout came in with a face of the most ludicrous importance, and quite a deferential manner. I declare I don't think he has ever got back since that day to his original free-and-easy swagger. He laid a card on my table, paused a moment, and then said, 'His ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... flowers of Transatlantic rhetoric, culled from the small-talk of one of his fellow-passengers, whom he calls "an American Presbyterian clergyman"—though we grievously suspect him to have been a boatswain, who had jumped from the forecastle to the pulpit by one of those free-and-easy transitions not unusual in the "free and enlightened republic." At Smyrna, he signalized his return to the "land of the Franks," (which we had always imagined to be Europe,) by ordering a beefsteak and a bottle of porter, and bespeaking the paper of a Manchester traveller in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Meals are free-and-easy affairs; there is no dinner-bell and no fixed time for eating. But food is always ready, hanging in a pot over the fire; and when anyone feels inclined to eat, the hand is plunged into the pot, and a piece of meat pulled out and devoured. In addition to reindeer-meat—of ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... fractiousness of the horse, and gathered me some mountain pinks, which I admired. I mention these little incidents to indicate the habit of respectful courtesy to women which prevails in that region. These men might have been excused for speaking in a somewhat free-and-easy tone to a lady riding alone, and in an unwonted fashion. Womanly dignity and manly respect for women are the salt of society in this ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... double wages will not tempt them to abandon their free-and-easy life; and the Condor's first officer is forced to the conclusion, that he must return to ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... just before that, and the boys are wild to make a camel of themselves, so we planned this. Won't you be Jacob or Abraham or whoever the man with the bracelets was?" asked Miss Ellery, as they all settled on the steps in the free-and-easy way which ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... quiet and steady, was sought for, if not popular, even in the free-and-easy West; one of those men who are unwillingly masters among men. Just and mild, always; with a peculiar gift that made men talk their best thoughts to him, knowing they would be understood; if any core of eternal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... speaks of the rover's life, he means not life in a man-of-war, which, with its martial formalities and thousand vices, stabs to the heart the soul of all free-and-easy ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... free-and-easy character: volunteers were called for, and responded with songs, step-dances, and the like; while the audience, lying and sitting round on the sand, greeted their efforts with hearty applause, and joined in every ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... rule, was punctilious, and in these free-and-easy places, perhaps, especially so. If only for his own protection he did not seek to make advances unless some kind of introduction paved the way. But for these two to skate together in the semi-darkness ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... it easy for us to attach any meaning to the word "servant." There were women who came in occasionally to do the washing, or to help about extra work. But they were decently clothed, and had homes of their own, more or less comfortable, and their quaint talk and free-and-easy ways were often as much of a lift to the household as the actual ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... sanctuary—and, smiting old John upon the back, inquire if there was never a pretty girl in the house, and where he hid his little chambermaids, with a hundred other impertinences of that nature; none of your free-and-easy companions, who would scrape their boots upon the firedogs in the common room, and be not at all particular on the subject of spittoons; none of your unconscionable blades, requiring impossible chops, and taking unheard-of pickles ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Fatherland. There was on board an American sea-captain, of Norwegian birth, as I afterwards found, who would gladly have joined us. The other passengers were three Norwegians, three fossil Englishmen, two snobbish do., and some jolly, good-natured, free-and-easy youths, bound to Norway, with dogs, guns, rods, fishing ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... with the coloured patches in the centre of the back, significant of the term of imprisonment to which their wearers had been sentenced, and the strangely shaved heads of those present, he might have been in a singularly free-and-easy barrack-room. Most of the men looked up ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... laughing in his free-and-easy way, like a jolly old sailor as he was, taking his long pipe out of his mouth that he might do it all the better, "I think it was pretty near being what the bears did with us, my hearties! yes, that would be quite as ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... lines are at the mercy of the railroad commissioners, who can stop every one of them; but boating, yachting, and carriage driving on Sunday are free to all who have the money to pay for them. But while outdoor frolic is free-and-easy, indoor enjoyment is prohibited. Everybody is liable to five dollar fines for attending "any sport, game, or play" on Sunday, unless it has been licensed, and private families never ask a license for their own amusements. But to be present on Sunday "at any dancing," ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... "This is Moses, father, my host's servant, and my very good friend, and a remarkably free-and-easy friend, as you see. He will guide us back to the cave, since Van der Kemp seems ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... best parlor, shut up and darkened, with all proper carpets, curtains, lounges, and marble-topped tables, too good for human nature's daily food; and being sustained by this consciousness, they cheerfully went on receiving their friends in the study, and having good times in the old free-and-easy way; for did not everybody know that this room was not their best? and if the furniture was old-fashioned and a little the worse for antiquity, was it not certain that they had better, which they could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... Maine and Canada. During this cool excursion, he got way up among the wood-choppers and log-men of the Aroostook and Penobscot country. These wood-chopping and log-rolling gentry, according to all accounts, must be a jolly, free-and-easy, hard-toiling and hardy race. The "folks" up about there live in very primitive style; their camps and houses are very useful, but not much addicted to the "ornamental." Howard had a very long, tedious and perilous tramp, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... hard work. No sooner did we return to our quarters than we threw off our uniform coats, spread our bearskins on the floor and sat down upon them with crossed legs, to enjoy a comfortable smoke in the good old free-and-easy style. If our faces had only been just a little dirty we ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... when my brother, in pursuance of his duties, usually entered the magistrate's office, and, attired as I was—look at me! just as I am now—in this old coat, the souvenir of the 'Indigent,' and these free-and-easy slippers, I waited at the great entrance of the Magistracy, to pay my respects ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... the sheltering refuge of such safe subjects as are the substance of everybody's and anybody's chit-chat. Maybe I judge them harshly when I persuade myself that the records of their past could not stand the open daylight of a free-and-easy discussion. This verdict is, however, the suggestion of my instinct, and need not carry weight with ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... then passes with difficulty. His upper teeth overlapped each other, and this defect (which Lavater calls terrible) was all the more apparent because they were as white as those of a dog. But for a certain lawless and slothful good humor, and the free-and-easy ways of a rustic tippler, the man would have alarmed ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... under it. One of the finest looking men in the world. A great shock of rough dusty-dark hair; bright, laughing hazel eyes; massive aquiline face, most massive, yet most delicate; of sallow-brown complexion, almost Indian looking; clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy; smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical metallic,—fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation free and plenteous: I do not meet in these decades such company over a pipe! We shall see what he will grow to. He is often unwell; very ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... once posted, they glorified their office, you may be sure. Discipline had grown rather free-and-easy in the town about that time, and it is said that the guard-house never was so full within human memory as after their first tour of duty. I remember hearing that one young reprobate, son of a leading Northern philanthropist in those parts, was much aggrieved at being taken to the lock-up merely because ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... that this free-and-easy way of address was just the thing for such characters. Mr. Beecher had shown him, to his great surprise, that a man could be a decent and comfortable human being, although he was a minister, and had so gained his confidence and ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... and woman in Protestant Ulster. There was no more familiar figure in the streets of Belfast. Barefooted street urchins, catching sight of him on the steps of the Ulster Club, would gather round and, with free-and-easy familiarity, shout "Three cheers for Londonderry." He knew everybody and was everybody's friend. There was no aristocratic hauteur or aloofness about his genial personality. He was in the habit of entertaining the whole Unionist Council, some five hundred strong, at luncheon or dinner as the ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... became formally engaged. The Princess said at first that she did not think her betrothed "by any means so disagreeable as she had expected." In time, however, this ardour of affection abated. The Prince was a baddish subject, and he had a free-and-easy manner, and wanted tact and refinement. He returned to London from some races seated on the outside of a coach, and in a highly excited state. Worst of all, he lodged at his tailor's. The engagement was ultimately broken off by a difficulty ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time of day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... Luther's Smalkald Articles.67 He contended that there provision was made for the kind of meeting that he was conducting; and, therefore, he invited men of all classes to meet him on Sunday afternoons, read a passage of Scripture together, and talk in a free-and-easy fashion on spiritual topics. He became known as rather a curiosity; and Valentine Lscher, the popular Lutheran preacher, mentioned him by name in his sermons, and held him up before the people as an example they would all do ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... to see a man a-wrestling with the dumps, 'Cause in the game of life he doesn't always catch the trumps, But I can always cotton to a free-and-easy cuss As takes his dose and thanks the Lord it wasn't any wuss. There ain't no use of swearin' and cussin' at your luck, 'Cause you can't correct your troubles more than you can drown a duck. Remember that when beneath the load your suffering head is bowed That ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... the Doctor. He had been but a few months in the place; but the old church-goers had found him out as a passionate, free-and-easy, honorable fellow, full of joke and anecdote,—shrewd, too. They "fellowshipped" with him heartily, and were glad when he got the post of surgeon with their sons. If there were anything more astringent below this, any more real self in the man, held back, belonging to a world outside of theirs, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... Club, where to their friends in town Our country neighbours once a month come down; We term it Free-and-Easy, and yet we Find it no easy matter to be free: E'en in our small assembly, friends among, Are minds perverse, there's something will be wrong; Men are not equal; some will claim a right To be the kings and heroes of the night; Will their own favourite ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... mighty free-and-easy style of talking of late. He was perfectly right, though in addition to the wind, which sprung up immediately afterwards, we got a thick fog, which totally obscured the land. I steered a course, however, which I hoped ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... and there were lots of pretty girls on the floor," Mr. Hamblin went on, in his free-and-easy style, "and the costumes were exceptionally fine, too. By the way," with a covert look at Ray, "that Miss Montague ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... I never brought her up at all, except to give her a lick of a strap now and again. Don't put it on me, Governor. She ain't accustomed to it, you see: that's all. But she'll soon pick up your free-and-easy ways. ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... Dorado, for example, in the Boulevard Strasbourg, is as large and almost as elegant as Booth's Theatre in New York, but it is a cafe chantant. Keeping still to the favorite haunts of the blousard, we enter the showiest of the cafes chantants peculiar to him—as free-and-easy a beuglant as one could wish. Beuglant, by the way, is the argot name of this sort of place; and as the word comes from beugler, to "bellow," it may easily be seen how flattering it is as a definite noun for a place where the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... besides that I'd awfully like to have a note from you as soon as you are able to write. I'll answer it, you know—and then you'll answer that, perhaps—and so the hours will go by. I know this is a rather free-and-easy-sounding proposition from a perfect stranger, as I suppose you think me, but circumstances do alter cases, you know, and if our circumstances can't alter our cases, then it's ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... shutting it up close, smoke and all, until the time when he should get into it at the "Rising Sun." Lady Glenmire undertook the medical department under Mr Hoggins's directions, and rummaged up all Mrs Jamieson's medicine glasses, and spoons, and bed-tables, in a free-and-easy way, that made Miss Matty feel a little anxious as to what that lady and Mr Mulliner might say, if they knew. Mrs Forrester made some of the bread-jelly, for which she was so famous, to have ready as a refreshment in the lodgings when he should arrive. A present ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... reasoning on the subject of veracity, would in its tendency be destructive to the safeguards of personal virtue and of social purity; and his arguments for the lie of exigency are similar to those which are put forward in excuse for common sins against chastity, by the free-and-easy defenders of a lax standard in such matters. "Some moralists," says the average young man of the world, "in their extreme regard for personal purity, will not admit that any act of unchastity is necessary, even to protect one's health, or as an act of ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... by no means certain that Robert Ashford, with his foxy face and cross eyes, would not steal his master's goods or any one else's did he get the chance. Unless he were caught in the act, he could do it with impunity, for everything here is carried on in such a free-and-easy fashion that any amount of goods might be carried ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... he brought them books and chocolates, watered the garden, mowed the tennis ground, mended the bells, and made himself generally useful. At first this flashy, muddling, free-and-easy household had disgusted him; and his cool assured manner and critical air irritated his relatives; whilst his attitude of superior comment had proved a vexatious restraint. But week by week Douglas came to see that it was to this particular class he now belonged. These were his nearest ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... that the square, squat wall must be that of a studio, as there were no windows, but a high, domed skylight on top. Now I saw that though the outer building was square, the room within was octagon in shape. It was, perhaps, a studio, as I had fancied, but there was something of the free-and-easy negligence of an Oriental smoking-room ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... is dead right, me b'hoys," nodded Arthur Street, who was known at Yale as Easy Street, on account of his free-and-easy way. ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... whispered Cissy as one peeped out from its hiding-place; and, seeing no cause for alarm in the presence of the little picnic party, with whom no doubt it was now well acquainted, it came further out from the coppice, sitting up on its haunches in the usual free-and-easy fashion of rabbitikins, and beginning to comb out its whiskers with ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... procuring subjects, associations of country gentlemen for keeping fox-hounds, book societies, benefit societies, clubs of all ranks, from those which have lined Pall-Mall and St. James's Street with their palaces, down to the Free-and-easy which meets in the shabby parlour of a village inn. Is there a single one of these combinations to which Mr. Gladstone's argument will not apply as well as to the State? In all these combinations, in the Bank of England, for example, or in the Athenaeum club, the will and agency of the society are ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... big men do not look well in glossy black coats and silk hats; they seem to want wideawakes, bowlers, caps, anything rather than a Paris hat, and some loose-cut jacket of a free-and-easy colour, suitable for the field, or cricket, or boating. They do not belong to the town and narrow doorways; Nature grew ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... the stairs, and Ronicky Doone paused. To go down was to face the mysterious chief whom he had no doubt was the old man to whom Harry Morgan had already referred. In the meantime the conviction grew that this was indeed Caroline Smith. Her free-and-easy way of talk was exactly that of a girl who might become interested in a man whom she had never ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... gentle rhythm with Gypsy's springing motion she began to feel truly dashing, supremely swagger. She seemed lifted out of herself, no longer timid, commonplace, unathletic Missy Merriam, but exalted into a sort of free-and-easy, Princess Royal of Swaggerdom. She began to wish someone ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... a very free-and-easy field hospital; no irksome regulations, and restrictions, and inspections. A doctor comes round in the morning and looks at each of us. The dressings are done once in twenty-four hours by an orderly. He is a very good chap, but ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... but we can't be making wind no more'n we can make wittals—and excusing me, Miss, it ain't Daniel, not meaning no disrespect to the other gent, whose papers were all right, I don't doubt, but my mother warn't easy in larning, and maybe didn't know of him—it's Dan, Miss, free-and-easy ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... you weep, but nothing to move you to laughter. Why is this? Are there not smiles as well as tears in life? Have we not a deep, joyous nature, as well as aspiration, reverence, awe? Is there not a free-and-easy side of existence, as well as vexation and sorrow? We assent that these things ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... lad." Pierce remained silent at this accusation, and the colonel went on: "However, I didn't bring you here to lecture you. The Royal Mounted have other things to think about than young wasters who throw themselves away. After all, it's a free-and-easy country and if you want to play ducks and drakes it's your own business. I merely want you to realize that you've put yourself in a bad light and that you don't come into court ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... land speculators of his time, owned over 32,000 acres along the Ohio. He held a patent from Lord Dunmore, dated July 5, 1775, for nearly 3,000 acres lying about the mouth of this stream. In accordance with the free-and-easy habit of trans-Alleghany pioneers, ten men squatted on the tract, greatly to the indignation of the Father of his Country, who in 1784 brought against them a successful suit for ejectment. Twelve years later, more familiar with this than with ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... that he has a divine right to the world's oyster, cannot swallow it properly till he has donned a white choker, and refuses to be comforted when Jonathan disposes of it in his rapid way with the shell for a platter. We confess that we prefer the free-and-easy manner in its proper place to the diplomatic way of always treating the reader with sentiments of the highest consideration, and like a book all the more for having an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... who looked doubtful at Gedge's free-and-easy way of talking, glancing the while at the Doctor to see how he would take it, nodded his head and delivered himself of a grunt, as the little party filed out of ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... native habits and costumes, and though driven, on state occasions especially, to imitate French and English habits, yet they love nothing better than at times to enjoy themselves in their native way. The ball given by the prince to-night is what might be called a free-and-easy. It is his particular desire that no one should come in full dress; in fact, he rather likes to have his stranger guests come in their worst clothes, for this prevents the attention of the public being called to them as they enter the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... England. Setting aside the mere romantic exterior of a Macedonian brigand, here was a young man of the period with astonishingly courteous manners, of—and this was of secondary consideration—of frank and winning charm, with a free-and-easy intimacy with Balzac, of fearless truthfulness regarding his deficiencies, and with a golf handicap of one. The Colonel's hand and heart went out in instinctive coordination. The Colonel Winwoods of this country are not gods; ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... demeanor. He had been in constant companionship with some of the greatest statesmen and orators of his time, but even his devotion to Charles James Fox had never beguiled him into any of Fox's careless, free-and-easy ways. He was sorely tried, as all {121} contemporary accounts tell us, by the abrupt and overbearing manners of his son-in-law, Lord Durham, but he always contrived, in public at least, to bear Durham's eccentricities with unruffled temper and undisturbed ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... came what the French call un denouement,—what we in forcible modern English would call a smash,—and it happened thus. It was one evening toward the summer that Koosje's eyes were suddenly opened, and she became aware of the free-and-easy familiarity of Truide's manner toward her betrothed lover, Jan. It was some very slight and trivial thing that led her to notice it, but in an instant the whole truth ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... hearing, laughed at the recital of their own irregularities and expressed their admiration when they reflected on the almost miraculous preservation of the army from destruction.' Men off duty amused themselves with free-and-easy musketry, which would have been all very well if there had not been such a dearth of powder for the real thing. Races, wrestling, and quoits were better; while fishing was highly commendable, both in the way of diet as well as in the way of sport. Such entries as 'Thritty ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... half minute they stood without speaking. "Oh, good afternoon," Diantha said at last, and veiled her eyes from his fascinated stare. Formerly she had treated him with the free-and-easy pertness of a precocious child. Now the exquisite shyness of maidenhood enveloped her. Instinct drew her back from the man's inevitable advance. "I didn't know it was so late," she said to Persis, oblivious to Thad's gasping greeting. "I ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... all!" Deb broke in warmly. "And don't you talk about his infirmities in that free-and-easy way; he is no more infirm than you are. Did I say he was? That was my joke. He always was the handsomest man that I ever set eyes on, and he is the same still. No, my dear, I have not married him to take care of him, but so that he may take care of me. I'm lonely. ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... she saw that Mrs Hensor and her boy—the yellow-headed urchin of about six—were hastening towards the Bachelors' Quarters. The woman carried a basket of vegetables, the boy hugged a big pawpaw fruit which he held up proudly as his mother responded in her free-and-easy, rather sulky fashion to Lady Bridget's stiff nod. 'It's for the House,' cried the child. 'Fo Wung said I was to bring ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... ventured to look at Tom, feeling glad that her back was toward the light, and his was not. It was not a large room, and Tom seemed to fill it entirely; not that he had grown so very much, except broader in the shoulders, but there was a brisk, genial, free-and-easy air about him, suggestive of a stirring, out-of-door life, with people who kept their eyes wide open, and were not very particular what they did with their arms and legs. The rough-and-ready travelling suit, stout boots, brown face, and manly beard, changed him so much, that Polly ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... remained to be effected. Specht looked at him all evening mistrustfully, as he sat on the sofa-bed, stroking old Pluto, who had come with him to the party. Specht now poured out another glass for Pix, and laid it down beside him. Pix quaffed it in silence; Specht refilled it, and began in a free-and-easy tone—"Now, Pix, what do ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... complete in itself. It was for this reason that he gave it a distinctive meter, having convinced himself that meter of some kind was essential if he would avoid banality. With a wise instinct he chose the old free-and-easy tetrameter, which Goethe had used with excellent effect in some of his early plays. In German this meter lends itself beautifully to the bluff, off-hand discourse of soldiers. It gives an illusion of realism while preserving the effect ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... resort for relieving themselves of accumulated thirst and passion; as the home of mixed races, some of which were but a few decades removed from savagery; this city could not avoid its reputation for lax principles, and free-and-easy vice. ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... his study. I am very glad to hear you say that you "don't seem to like him." He is very familiar, it seems to me, for so new an acquaintance. What business had he to be laying his hand on your shoulder? I should like to see him try these free-and-easy ways in my presence! He would not have taken that liberty, my dear! No, he was alone with you, and thought it safe to be disrespectfully familiar. I want you to maintain your dignity always with such persons, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... landowner and, moving in a free-and-easy way to the middle of the room, he spoke ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... nests than even this. When the sailor flinched, and hung back, Philip strode forward, determined to conquer, unheeding the battery of stares turned upon himself and his companion by the inhabitants, and the free-and-easy comments, of which they were by no ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... nothing of young men besides the awkward and blushing clodhoppers of Chaney Creek, was somewhat dazzled by the free-and-easy speech and manner of the hard-cheeked bagman. Yet there was something in his airy talk and point-blank compliments that aroused a faint feeling of resentment which she could scarcely account for. Aunt Abigail was ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... EASY THEATRES.—We have no sympathy whatever with the idea of a Theatre Libre or with a Free-and-Easy Theatre, but we shall be very glad when all Theatres are made Easy, Easy, that is, as to sitting accommodation, and Easy of egress and ingress. But if the space is to be enlarged, will not the prices have to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... replied: "Immortality." At another time, he remarked: "I shall not make her commit any follies, but I shall teach her a great many." On his deathbed he said: "My only regret is that I cannot leave anything to my wife with whom I have every imaginable reason to be content." In this free-and-easy salon, a young noble said, soon after the marriage of Scarron: "If it were a question of taking liberties with the queen or Mme. Scarron, I would not deliberate; I would sooner ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... the speaker's side. There is none of the rude beating of the gavel, nor any paraphrase of "The gentleman's time is up," which marks the stiff proceedings of men "in congress assembled." To an unprejudiced eye this free-and-easy method of procedure might lack symmetry and dignity, but there is not the slightest doubt that Miss Anthony has been as wise as a serpent while being as gentle as ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... not fail to mark that she had given him no ready smile by way of welcome, that now she regarded him coolly and critically. In her morning attitude there was little to lead him to hope for a free-and-easy chat across ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... There was a delightfully free-and-easy, laisser-aller air about everybody and everything at Nome City, which would, perhaps, have jarred upon an ultra-respectable mind. Most of the ladies at the Golden Gate Hotel were located there in couples, unattended, permanently at any rate, by male ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... out about them," Nekhludoff said, more and more astonished by her free-and-easy manner. "But I was going to speak to you about myself. Do you remember what I told you ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... sociably (for an Empress) with various ladies around the circle; several gentlemen entered into a disjointed general conversation with the Emperor; the Dukes and Princes, Admirals and Maids of Honor dropped into free-and-easy chat with first one and then another of our party, and whoever chose stepped forward and spoke with the modest little Grand Duchess Marie, the Czar's daughter. She is fourteen years old, light-haired, blue-eyed, unassuming and pretty. Every body ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Frances was walking up-hill. She had now reached the summit of a long incline, and, looking ahead of her, saw a dusty traveler walking quickly with the free-and-easy stride of a man who is accustomed to all ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... recorded, was a remarkably dapper personage; wore hair powder, a formidably tall and stiff white "choker," and upon all occasions of ceremony, black shorts and silks, with gold buckles. Remarkably upright and somewhat pompous in his gait, and abominating the free-and-easy manners of the modern school, his bow would have graced the court of Versailles, and his step was a subdued minuet. Equipped with somewhat more than his wonted care, the rev. junior bursar of Oriel was introduced into Mrs Phillips's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... night at the theatre passed much like the first, except that the ladies were visited between the acts by a group of fellow-artistes from another company, and then the free-and-easy manners of familiar intercourse gave way to a style that was most circumspect and precise, and, after the fashion of great ladies, they talked together of morning calls and leaving cards ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... records of pleasant occasional junketings—'shoe-maker's holidays' he called them—in the still countrified suburbs of Hampstead and Edgware; there was the gathering at the Turk's Head, with its literary magnates, for his severer hours; and for his more pliant moments, the genial 'free-and-easy' or shilling whist-club of a less pretentious kind, where the student of mixed character might shine with something of the old supremacy of George Conway's inn at Ballymahon. And there must have been quieter and more chastened resting-places of memory, when, softening ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... occupy. He would pay their state dividends to Granoux, Roudier, and all those people who now came to her house as they might come to a cafe, to swagger and learn the latest news. She had noticed the free-and-easy manner in which these people entered her drawing-room, and it had made her take a dislike to them. Even the marquis, with his ironical politeness, was beginning to displease her. To triumph alone, therefore, to keep the cake for ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... as good as a play, and every glimpse they had of the little pair gave fresh food for mirth. Everything was so formal and polite, so utterly unlike the free-and-easy customs of their native land, that they were kept in alternate states of indignation and amusement the whole time. Jules never was alone with his Pelagie for an instant; such a breach of etiquette would have shocked the entire town. In the walks and drives which ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... breaks forth when he speaks of Roscius instructing Cicero in acting; and in the very commencement of his grave labour he rambles back to the theatre to quote a scene from Vanbrugh's Relapse, as a proof how little fashionable readers think while they read. Colley's well-meaning but free-and-easy reflections on the gravities of Roman history, in the progress of his work, are remarkable, and have all the author's coarse common sense, but very ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... scarcely anything in the room definitely Jewish, except, perhaps, a big picture of the meeting of Jacob and Esau. The lieutenant looked round about him, and, shrugging his shoulders, thought of his strange, new acquaintance, of her free-and-easy manners, and her way of talking. But then the door opened, and in the doorway appeared the lady herself, in a long black dress, so slim and tightly laced that her figure looked as though it had been turned in a lathe. Now the lieutenant saw not only the ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... particular difference of temperament that I have in mind in making these remarks is one that has counted in literature, art, government and manners as well as in philosophy. In manners we find formalists and free-and-easy persons. In government, authoritarians and anarchists. In literature, purists or academicals, and realists. In art, classics and romantics. You recognize these contrasts as familiar; well, in philosophy we have a very similar contrast expressed in the pair of terms 'rationalist' and ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... abstinence from illicit pleasures is there moral safety and health, while integrity, peace, and happiness, are the conscious rewards of virtue. Impurity travels downward with intemperance, obscenity, and corrupting diseases, to degradation and death. A dissolute, licentious, free-and-easy life is filled with the dregs of human suffering, iniquity, and despair. The penalties which follow a violation of the law of chastity are found to ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... is a cent gained, hackney coaches are comparatively little used by the men; for it must be remembered that idlers in this country are an invisible minority of the community! The natural consequence is, that they are clean and expensive. The drivers are charmingly independent and undeniably free-and-easy birds, but not meaning to be uncivil. One of them showed his independence by asking two dollars one night for a three-mile drive home to the hotel. I inquired of the master, and found the proper charge was a dollar and a half; but, on my sending out the same, Jarvey ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... particularly riotous to-night, wasn't it? Yes, she understood! A great many of the men were wearing little badges. Some society or other was celebrating—and was doing it with abandon. Most of the men were half drunk. It was certainly a free-and-easy night! Everything went! ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... the immobility and deathlike pallor of the objects, was awful—they were as breathing corpses. The clay-cold nuns evoked from their tombs, presented not a more unearthly spectacle to Robert of Normandy. The free-and-easy expressions of Dr B., however, which first broke the silence, instantly dissolved the spell. "That woman," he said, pointing to her on the floor, "has a disease of the liver, and her left lung is somewhat affected. I think we shall do her good. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... which fruits and other luxuries—to say nothing of books and newspapers—were procurable by the working-classes, presented, at that time at least, a striking contrast to the state of things in the 'old country.' I liked, too, at first, the sort of free-and-easy intercourse of the working-men with those, conventionally speaking, above them. Jack considered himself as good as his master, though not without occasional mortifications at not finding the sentiment reciprocated. The feeling, however, imparted a show of independence, rather ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... embarrassment. They accordingly chatted sociably with him about matters in Bath, until, breakfast being served, they invited him to partake. The truth at once flashed upon poor heedless Goldsmith; he started up from the free-and-easy position, made a confused apology for his blunder, and would have retired perfectly disconcerted, had not the duke and duchess treated the whole as a lucky occurrence to throw him in their way, and exacted a promise from him to ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... done this, I believed, of course, that my fortune was to be made out of hand. Nothing came of it, however. People in search of Dessoulavy's rooms knocked occasionally to ask their way, and a few English and Americans dropped in from time to time to stare about them, after the free-and-easy fashion of foreigners in Rome; but, for all this, I found no patrons. Thus several months went by, during which I studied from the life, worked hard at the antique, and relieved the monotony of study with occasional trips ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... by several servants. The one given to Isabelle was a little apart from the others—those in their immediate vicinity being occupied—which was not displeasing to the modest young girl, who was often greatly annoyed and embarrassed by the promiscuous, free-and-easy way of getting on, inseparable from such a Bohemian life. She always accepted the inevitable with a good grace, and never complained of the vexation she felt at being obliged to share her bed-chamber with Serafina or the duenna, or perhaps both; but it was a luxury she had scarcely dared ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... This free-and-easy bear then continued his stroll. But the crowd behind him grew larger and larger, and he again turned upon them, and made them run, all laughing and shouting, in ...
— The Nursery, May 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... nature never forsook him, and he always had his temper well under control. He knew to a nicety the side his bread was buttered on. That happy-go-lucky disposition of his stood him in good stead many a time, and his free-and-easy manner of drawing people out frequently served as an aid to determine his future course of action. The limited exchange of conversation he had with the loungers satisfied him that he was right in his estimate that there would be a hot ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... I took to the road, and I've never regretted it. Human nature is what I like to look at; and if I may make so bold as to say it, I guess there's more human nature among the poor folk than among the rich. But I'll tell you about that some other time,' she added, returning to her ordinary free-and-easy manner. 'I see you want to go. You've ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... uncommon thing to hear them speak of "Allie and Marjorie and the other boys," and neither Mrs. Burnam nor Mrs. Fisher felt any desire to have it otherwise. They were too sensible mothers to force their little daughters towards womanhood, and much preferred the tone of free-and-easy companionship to the childish flirtations so commonly indulged in. They could trust to their influence over their children to keep them gentle and womanly, and the boys were all gentlemen, largely sons of Eastern ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... dealers in provisions bought full supplies from one of the best markets in America. And the people of the place, largely made up of Loyalists, vied with each other in providing entertainment for the British army. There were fashionable balls for the officers and free-and-easy revels for the soldiers. Almost at any time the British army might have marched out to Valley Forge and dealt a final blow to Washington's naked and starving troops, but it preferred the good food and the dissipations ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... proudest names, were mostly "hearses." Their husbands were the forceful, able men of the city, but they themselves were conventional as only conventional women can be when goaded into it by a general free-and-easy, unconventional atmosphere. That was their only method of showing disapproval. The effect was worthy but dull. It was a pity, for among them were many intelligent, charming women who needed only a different atmosphere, to expand. The Keiths never saw them, and gained their ideas ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... gay, noisy time of it at the Hall, the strange gentleman, in particular, making himself as much at home as if the place belonged to him. I was surprised at Mrs. Norcross putting up with him as she did, but I was fairly thunderstruck some months afterward when I heard that she and her free-and-easy visitor were actually going to be married! She had refused offers by dozens abroad, from higher, and richer, and better-behaved men. It seemed next to impossible that she could seriously think of throwing herself away upon such a hare-brained, headlong, penniless young ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... your own 'Life's a Dream,' you won't wonder at my sending the present one on Trial, both done as they are in the same lawless, perhaps impudent, way. I know you would not care who did these things, so long as they were well done; but one doesn't wish to meddle, and in so free-and-easy a way, with a Great Man's Masterpieces, and utterly fail: especially when two much better men have been before one. One excuse is, that Shelley and Dr. Trench only took parts of these plays, not caring surely—who can?—for the underplot and ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... end of eight years, in 1859, Bismarck was transferred to St. Petersburg as the Prussian ambassador to Alexander II. He was then forty-three years of age, and was known as the sworn foe of Austria. His free-and-easy but haughty manners were a great contrast to those of his stiff, buttoned-up, and pretentious predecessors; and he became a great favorite in Russian court circles. The comparatively small salary he received,—less than twenty thousand dollars, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... the late war wherever the rebel flag was raised it was necessary to silence "Yankee Doodle." Like the "Marseillaise," it was an institution before which its enemies trembled; and when we have produced or annexed something infinitely grander we shall not forget the saucy, free-and-easy, mind-your-own-business melody that carried the nation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... until the Third Act, does Erda the witch "rise from below," and we all saw her and 'Erd 'er. Then, later on, appears Bruennhilde, asleep, "in a complete suit of gleaming plate-armour, with helmet on her head and long shield over her body," a style of free-and-easy costume which, as everyone knows, is highly conducive to sleeping in perfect comfort. No wonder Siegfried mistakes her for a man-in-armour out of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various
... progressing a number of young fellows, who found more congenial enjoyment in their glasses and cigars, were seated at a table in a room down stairs, which Mrs. Chapman had provided as a sort of free-and-easy for such of her guests as were inclined to enjoy themselves in their own way. Chapman had provided generously, both of wines and cigars, which might have seemed strange to one of his Dogtown acquaintances. He had, however, so modified ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... all there; they had come down in a body. Oh, how shabby I felt as I saw them there with their fine clothes and free-and-easy manners! ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... one group of soldiers at rest by their stacked muskets. They sat upon their haunches, and clapped their hands as he passed, exclaiming and laughing, "Just see the old fellow! just look at him!" Burnside laughed at their fun as jollily as they did themselves, and took no offence at the free-and-easy way in which they showed their liking for him. There was no affectation in all this, but an honest enjoyment in following his own whim in style and in accoutrement. His sincere earnestness in the cause for which he was fighting was apparent to all who ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... could come into play. Mickey was the best hurler in the barony, no mean performer on the violin, could dance the national bolero of "Tatter Jack Walsh" in a way that charmed more than one soft heart beneath a red woolsey bodice, and had, withal, the peculiar free-and-easy devil-may-care kind of off-hand Irish way that never deserted him in the midst of his wiliest and most subtle moments, giving to a very deep and cunning fellow all the apparent frankness and openness of a ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... to him with alacrity, and wedging in between his legs, placed his little black hands in a free-and-easy way on his master's knees, and looking up trustfully in his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... company. Soup and fish are brought for him, and meat, which he leisurely eats, while twelve other gentlemen are kept waiting. We mark Mr. Binnie's twinkling eyes, as they watch the young man. "Eh," he seems to say, "but that's just about as free-and-easy a young chap as ever I set eyes on." And so Mr. Barnes was a cool young chap. That dish is so good, he must really have some more. He discusses the second supply leisurely; and turning round simpering to his neighbour, says, "I really hope ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray |
