"Levee" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the melancholy object before him, stopped, and hastily demanded what had been done for him. "Half-pay," replied the lieutenant, "and please your majesty." "Fie, fie, on't," said the king, shaking his head, "but let me see you again next levee-day." The lieutenant did not fail to appear at the place of assignation, when he received from the immediate hands of royalty, five hundred pounds, smart money, and a pension of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... High Commissioner and the Marchioness of Heatherdale will arrive to-day at Holyrood Palace, there to reside during the sittings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and to-morrow the Royal Standard will be hoisted at Edinburgh Castle from reveille to retreat. His Grace will hold a levee at eleven. Directly His Grace leaves the palace after the levee, the guard of honour will proceed by the Canongate to receive him on his arrival at St. Giles' Church, and will then proceed to Assembly Hall to receive him on his arrival there. The Sixth Inniskilling Dragoons and the First ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Halifax, in his character of Charles II., has exhibited a trait in the royal character of a good-natured monarch; that trait, is sauntering. I transcribe this curious observation, which introduces us into a levee. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... night without being able to sleep for the vivid imagination of African discoveries, I hastened to the levee of my illustrious friend Hilaro Frosticos, and having mentioned my intention with all the vigour of fancy, he gravely considered my words, and after some awful meditations thus he spoke: Olough, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... treated all the members of these different petty courts with imperial munificence. In return there were universal manifestations of homage and devotion. The kings and princes every morning attended his levee. He arranged the entertainments that were to take place, and designated those who were to participate in them. All bowed to him, even the Emperor Alexander himself. The most cordial feeling prevailed between the two emperors. They were always seen arm in arm, like two loving ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... (observed our squire) to rank me among the number — Whilst I sat in parliament, I never voted with the ministry but three times, when my conscience told me they were in the right: however, if he still keeps levee, I will carry my nephew thither, that he may see, and learn to avoid the scene; for, I think, an English gentleman never appears to such disadvantage, as at the levee of a minister — Of his grace I shall ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... frivolity of the century were of almost as much account as its politics and culture. There was no room for great distinctions. Hair-dressers and tailors found as much consideration as philosophers and statesmen at a lady's levee. People were delighted with their own occupations, their whole lives; and whatever people delight in, that they will have represented in art. The love for pictures was by no means dead in Venice, and Longhi painted for the picture-loving Venetians their own lives in all their ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... agricultural interests of Louisiana by the overflow of the Mississippi, the levees being so badly broken as to require extensive repairs, and the Legislature of 1866 had appropriated for the purpose $4,000,000, to be raised by an issue of bonds. This money was to be disbursed by a Board of Levee Commissioners then in existence, but the term of service of these commissioners, and the law creating the board, would expire in the spring of 1867. In order to overcome this difficulty the Legislature passed a bill continuing the commissioners in office but as the act was passed inside of ten ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... the latest volume of Artemus Ward, the irate War Minister felt that the overthrow of the nation was impending. But in this respect, the President was incorrigible. He had been known to stop the line of his guests at a public levee, while he talked for some five minutes in a whisper to an important personage; and though all the room thought that jupiter was imparting state secrets, in point of fact, he was making sure of a good story the great ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... after this, one evening when the queen was holding a sort of levee in a brilliant saloon, surrounded by her Portuguese ladies, and receiving English ladies, as they were one after another presented to her by the king, the company were astonished at seeing Lady Castlemaine appear ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... after which there was a review of all the troops that were here by his Majesty, a grand "tomasha;" but such, I am told, was the unpopularity of the Shah that out of the whole population of Candahar very few persons were looking on, though the Easterns are devoted sight-hunters. On the — he held a levee, where every officer had the honour of making his leg to his Majesty. I was not present at either of these grand occasions, being at the time still on the sick-list. I, however, had a glimpse of his Majesty the other morning as he was taking his airing. He ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... rupture, in case of which the rush of the waters through the breach is more destructive than the natural flow of the highest inundation. [Footnote: To secure the city of Sacramento, in California, from the inundations to which it is subject, a dike or levee was built upon the bank of the river and raised to an elevation above that of the highest known floods, and it was connected, below the town, with grounds lying considerably above the river. On one occasion ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... After his levee, that is to say, giving directions about the labors of the next day, and seeing all the peasants who had business with him, Levin went back to his study and sat ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... held a general levee. About twenty headmen, or sheiks of principal villages, attended by many of their people, came to present themselves and to sue for peace. I received the chiefs on my diahbeeah, and each received a present of a long blue shirt as he stepped ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... etc., to a certain extent. We are not sure how far it would prevent bank cutting by the flowing water, for it makes a bunchy and not a sod-like growth. It would not live through the summer unless the levee soil keeps somewhat moist. The only way to determine whether you can get a permanent growth of it, will be by making a trial. Seed should be sown as soon as the ground becomes moistened by rain. It ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... of the silk, the richness of the pattern, and at seeing so early a product from that colony;" and to express her pleasure at such a favorable result, a complete court-dress was made from it, and on His Majesty's next birth-day, she appeared at the levee in a full ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... over [nine o'clock or so], his Majesty got a fresh horse, and set out for Potsdam, after receiving the compliments of those present, or rather holding a kind of short Levee in the field. I can't say how much, in my particular, I am obliged to his Majesty for his extraordinary reception, and distinction shown me throughout. Each day after the Manoeuvre, and giving the Orders of the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the appointment of proper officers, and accepted, paid, equipped, armed and rationed as are other volunteer troops of the United States, subject to the approval of the President of the United States. All such persons are required at once to report themselves at the Touro Charity Building, Front Levee St., New Orleans, where proper officers will muster them into the ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... the levee, and I applied to His Majesty for leave to absent myself. But upon hearing that it was into Languedoc I went, he frowned inquiry. Trouble enough was his brother already making in that province. I explained that I went to seek a wife, and deeming all subterfuge dangerous, since it ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... of human labor, the din of congregated thousands; and where the great river rolls down through the forest, in lonely grandeur, he saw the waters lashed into foam beneath the prows of panting steamboats, flocking to the broad levee." ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... continual stir and bustle existed at this river point. A great military party was embarking here for the West—two companies of dragoons, their officers and mounts. I managed to get passage on this boat to Louisville, and thence to the city of St. Louis. Thus, finally, we pushed in at the vast busy levee of this ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... polish off some batches Of political despatches, And foreign politicians circumvent; Then, if business isn't heavy, We may hold a Royal levee, Or ratify some Acts of Parliament. Then we probably review the household troops— With the usual "Shalloo humps!" and "Shalloo hoops!" Or receive with ceremonial and state An interesting Eastern potentate. After that we generally Go and dress our private valet— (It's a rather nervous ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... thrice as much time in speaking them as the most formal, deliberate, or pompous prig of an orator would employ upon them? Why will not actors condescend to speak "like the folks of this world," particularly as they pretend to imitate them? We never were at a royal levee—but we have been at the pains to ask several persons who have been, whether any king, or prince, or peer spoke there, as Mr. Kemble or as Mr. Holman, or Mr. Pope after him, speak in Hamlet, Richard, Macbeth, &c. and the uniform answer has been that the great men at court speak just ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... that in London I used to think him not remarkable for wisdom,—and his travels have infinitely improved him—in folly. He boasted to us triumphantly that he had run over sixteen thousand miles in sixteen months: that he had bowed at the levee of the Emperor Alexander,—been slapped on the shoulder by the Archduke Constantine,—shaken hands with a Lapland witch,—and been presented in full volunteer uniform at every court between Stockholm and Milan. Yet is he not one particle wiser ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... first for no one but Madame Bonaparte (since coming to live at the Tuileries she was no longer called Citizeness Bonaparte), whom I had not yet seen, this being my first levee, and of whom I had heard almost as much as of the First Consul. I had heard that she was not faultlessly beautiful, but of great charm, and I could see at once that this was true. I do not know why she was not perfectly beautiful—perhaps her features ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... and laughing and Janshah's heart kept fluttering for stress of passion: but he hid behind the tree so that he saw without being seen. Presently they swam out to the middle of the basin leaving their clothes on the bank. Hereupon he sprang to his feet, and running like the darting levee to the basin's brink, snatched up the feather-vest of the youngest damsel, her on whom his heart was set and whose name was Shamsah the Sun-maiden. At this the girls turned and seeing him, were affrighted and veiled their shame from him in the water. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... returned home in order to dress ourselves for the ball at the French Ambassador's, to which we had received an invitation a fortnight before. He has been absent ever since our arrival here, till three weeks ago. He has a levee every Sunday evening, at which there are usually several hundred persons. The Hotel de France is beautifully situated, fronting St. James's Park, one end of the house standing upon Hyde Park. It is a most superb building. About half-past nine we ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... General's arm and be piloted safely between the hay-wagons and the sprinkling-cart to the other side of the street. Proceeding to the post-office in the care of his friend, the esteemed statesmen would there hold an informal levee among the citizens who were come for their morning mail. Here, gathering two or three prominent in law, politics, or family, the pageant would make a stately progress along the Avenue, stopping at the Palace Hotel, where, perhaps, would be found upon the register ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... sole and supreme. If a stranger were to inquire here for the monuments of the fathers of the Revolution, the American would proudly point to the Capitol, with the national Congress in full session, and to the levee of the President, crowded by free citizens, and representatives of foreign nations. The United States were thirteen dependent colonies, they are now twenty-six sovereign States, rich and populous, covering ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... few moments, more than the usual levee of Norman nobles thronged into the room; and what with the wonted order of the morning, in the repast, the church service of tierce, and a ceremonial visit to Matilda, who confirmed the intelligence that all ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Saintonge had taken steps to strengthen his house and was lying at home, refusing to show himself, placed a different and more serious aspect on the mystery. Before noon next day M. de Clan, whose interference surprised me not a little, was with me to support his son's petition; and at the King's LEVEE next day St. Germain accused his enemy to the King's face, and caused an angry and indecent ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... time or place in which to speak of such things. Come tomorrow morning early to my lodgings in the Mall—any man will direct you to them—and there we will speak at ease. Forget not—tomorrow morning by ten o' the clock, ere my levee has begun. I shall expect you. Farewell, good youth, and keep your distance with those gentlemen you have just left. They would like to spit you as a goose is spitted, but I would see you again ere that ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that I cannot resist my impatient desire to have it satisfied. To this end, I am resolved to withdraw alone from the camp, and I order you to keep my absence secret: stay in my pavilion, and to-morrow morning, when the emirs and courtiers come to attend my levee, send them away, and tell them, that I am somewhat indisposed, and wish to be alone; and the following days tell them the same ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... sent me forth into the wide world a traveller for gain or pleasure, an adventurer in quest of wealth or happiness. I have since travelled among the Chickasaws, the Cherokees, the Creeks, and the Shawanos, besides the nondescripts who figure in the drunken riots which daily occur on the Levee of the city of New Orleans. And my frequent visits to the scenes of my childhood, and renewal of acquaintance with the red associates of my youth, have served to keep alive and vivid the recollections of the period which may be said to have afforded ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... these pompous geese, who were not the first fools whose solemn air has deceived a few old females, that as soon as they perceived them in the train of the horseman they also trotted up to pay their respects at his levee. ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... a drink—for under some trees lay, in the old-gold, yellow, black-shade-streaked, tawny-red grass, a sleek and glistening, banded, blotched, and spotted, newly painted python. Yes, sirs, a python snake; and you couldn't see it in its new levee uniform—the old one lay not fifty yards away—any more than you could see the other, and plainly attired, bad dreams—so long as it did not move. Its length was not apparent, because it was coiled up; but it would have uncoiled out into something most ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... to 1814 was ignored on principle, and the Bourbons seemed really to have quite forgotten that more than one night lay between the last levee of King Louis XVI. and the levee of to-day of King Louis XVIII. They seemed astonished that persons they had known as children had grown up since they last saw them, and insisted on treating every one as they ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... distance, out of compliment to the country, her traditions, "his most gracious majesty," and himself, put his own corpulent form into fancy costume, and likewise donned the Highland garb. The absurdly ludicrous result is told us by Lockhart. "The king at his first levee diverted many, and delighted Scott by appearing in the full Highland garb—the same brilliant Stewart tartans, so-called, in which certainly no Stewart, except Prince Charles, had ever before presented himself in the saloons of Holyrood. His ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... a levee that lasted the greater part of the evening; and in the men's house a ball was got up in honour of the giant's ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... know my Lady is very thick with my Lady Suffolk, and she persuaded the King to speak to him at the levee. 'Comment', says his majesty in French, 'are you a young rebel, sir, that refuse the good things your mother provides you?' Not a whit was my young gentleman moved. He bowed, and answered that he was acting by the desire ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to be vulgarised; a sordid bloom come upon it, the lines coarsened with a touch of puffiness. He was dressed, as for a gala, in peach-colour and silver; his breast sparkled with stars and was bright with ribbons; for he had held a levee in the afternoon and received a distinguished personage incognito. Now he sat with a bowed head, now walked precipitately to and fro, now went and gazed from the uncurtained window, where the wind was still blowing, and the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... carved the figure of a crocodile, the totem of the Basutos. When a chief sits to administer justice among the tribesmen, as he does on most mornings, he always sits in the open air, a little way from his sleeping-huts. We found a crowd of natives gathered at the levee, whom Lerothodi quitted to lead us into the reception-room. He was accompanied by six or seven magnates and counsellors,—one of the most trusted counsellors (a Christian) was not a person of rank, but owed his influence to his character and talents,—and ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... to your work's immortal credit The Prince, good Sir, the Prince has read it (The only Book, himself remarks, Which he has read since Mrs. Clarke's). Last levee-morn he lookt it thro', During that awful hour or two Of grave tonsorial preparation, Which to a fond, admiring nation Sends forth, announced by trump and drum, The best-wigged ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the Commandant and British Resident held a state levee. It was attended by all the friendly and submitted kings. These vied with each other in their pomp; they were dressed in gorgeous robes and carried their state umbrellas, while their attendants danced round them, beating drums and blowing horns. After the ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... the unprejudiced testimony of those who, before the war, in his own country, had owned slaves, those of the "Southland" were always content, always happy. When not singing close harmony in the cotton-fields, they danced upon the levee, they twanged the old banjo. But these slaves of the Upper Congo were not happy. They did not dance. They did not sing. At times their eyes, dull, gloomy, despairing, lighted with a sudden sombre fire, and searched the eyes of the white man. They ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... Louisiana, commanded by Major Wheat. These detached companies had been thrown together previous to the fight at Manassas, where Wheat was severely wounded. The strongest of the three, and giving character to all, was called the "Tigers." Recruited on the levee and in the alleys of New Orleans, the men might have come out of "Alsatia," where they would have been worthy subjects of that illustrious potentate, "Duke Hildebrod." The captain, who had succeeded to the immediate command of these worthies on the advancement ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... nurse was loved by everybody on the plantation, both white and black. Mother Bunker said that Mammy held "quite a levee" at the quarters, sitting in state in her phaeton where she could see all that ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... them, I expect, of a golden age, based on their accumulated wealth of high pay. We passed Piquetberg Road about midnight of October 6th. Plumbley, the store-keeper, was there, and the belle of the village was holding a moonlight levee at the end of the train. There was a temporary clear from the rain here, but it soon thickened down again. When we steamed away I climbed out on the buffers (the only way of getting a view), and had a last look at the valley, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... opinion that he had uttered (of course much magnified) was circulated that evening through the whole ship; it was canvassed in the gun-room by the officers; it was descanted upon by the midshipmen as they walked the deck; the captain's steward held a levee abreast of the ship's funnel, in which he narrated this new doctrine. The sergeant of marines gave his opinion in his berth, that it was damnable. The boatswain talked over the matter with the other warrant officers, till the grog was all gone, and then dismissed it as ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... to stay many days; but in the end he was up and on his way again. He left the Atchafalaya behind him. It was easier going now. There was shade. Under his trudging feet was the wagon-road along the farther levee of the Teche. Above him great live-oaks stretched their arms clad in green vestments and gray drapings, the bright sugar-cane fields were on his left, and on his right the beautiful winding bayou. In his face, not joy, only pallid eagerness, desire fixed upon fulfilment, and knowledge ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... chosen that as fittest, the waters being out;—not arriving at Court till 9. Nor finding very much to comfort them, except on the side of curiosity, when there. Ushers, INTRODUCTEURS, Cabinet Secretaries, were indeed assiduous to oblige; and the King's Levee will be: but if you follow it, to the Chapel Royal to witness high mass, you must kneel at elevation of the host; and this, as reformed Christians, Reuss and his Tutor cannot undertake to do. They accept a dinner invitation (12 the hour) from some good Samaritan of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... at the funny boats!" exclaimed Tom, pointing to the long line of river steamers that were tied up at the levee. "What are those things on ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... of giving a general and comprehensive account of the late actions around and on Spion Kop prevented me from describing its scenes and incidents. Events, like gentlemen at a levee, in these exciting days tread so closely on each other's heels that many pass unnoticed, and most can only claim the scantiest attention. But I will pick from the hurrying procession a few—distinguished for no other reason than that they have caught my eye—and from ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... bumped along on top of the levee, and the young boys and girls in it cried, "Oh, you kid!" to Saxon and Billy, and Hastings, who was rowing them ashore in the skiff. Hastings called, "Oh, you kid!" back to them; and Saxon, pleasuring in the boyishness of his sunburned ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... is it you or I that is about to hold a little levee in my humble parlor to-day? But I suppose I need not ask. Consider yourself at home here, my good neighbor—you are now up, and I am down; so we must only allow you to have ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... time, which is perhaps our safest guide, "The Bengal Levee" is a large print, full of clever portraits, "made on the spot by an Amateur"; and "The Dagger Scene, or the Plot discovered," is a political print which must not be omitted. But now we find ourselves suddenly launched into the midst of the ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... triumphal arch. The governor then addressed him in a Greek speech, to which his Majesty replied; but in what language the court newsman has not thought fit to inform us. After parading through the town, the procession arrived at the governor's, where the King held a levee. In the afternoon, he returned to the vessel, on board of which a dinner was given to the principal inhabitants; and again the poor Greeks illumined ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... the King has had his levee, which was crowded beyond all precedent. He was very civil to the people, particularly to Sefton, who had quarrelled ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... happy that you haf a home to go in," he said, when she told him, and sat silently pulling his beard in the corner, while she held a little levee ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... something dark loomed up along shore and they knew they had struck one of the numerous levees, or artificial banks, along the Mississippi, put there to prevent the country from being inundated during the freshets. The levee was very high and looked strong enough to withstand almost any pressure that could be brought to ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... drop; I walked. More than that, I kept step with you all the way from Chaudiere's to the levee. You'd be dead easy game ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... the Reformation are nearer to us than Greeks or Romans; and yet there is a large interval between the baron who fought at Barnet field, and his polished descendant at a modern levee. The scale of appreciation and the rule of judgment—the habits, the hopes, the fears, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... drainage of the bottom lands could scarcely have raised the river to such a height. "Though Heaven alone can tell," grumbled the friar, "what the Mississippi will do for its own amusement. All the able slaves in Kaskaskia should be set to work on the levee before this ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... 28th there was a Levee, at which d'Aunay, of the French Embassy, told me that the act of the fishermen at Ecrehous was disavowed by France. "But," he added, "there is perhaps some Challemel in it," an admission which rather weakened the other statement, and it again struck me that it ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... half I am possessed of rather rather than go before the commissioners," said Miss Buff. "Old Phipps is one of them; and here he is. Come to see you, Bessie; you are having quite a levee. I shall be off now." Miss Buff rose, and Miss Wort with her, but before they went there were some rallying speeches to be exchanged between Miss Buff and the quaint old bachelor. They were the most friendly of antagonists, and their animosity was not skin-deep. ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... there was a levee at the White House which he attended. The crowd were very eager to see him, and he was persuaded to mount a sofa, which he did blushing, so that they might have a glimpse of him, but he could not be prevailed on to make a speech. On parting ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... gave great weight to the proposals of M. Werner. The Emperor thought them sincere; and in one of those moments of openness, which he was not always sufficiently master of himself to suppress, he said at his levee: "Well, gentlemen, they offer me the regency already: it depends only on myself, whether I shall accept it." These inconsiderate words made some impression; and they who remembered them have since asserted, that, if the ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... beauty in her youth—one of the belles of the Irish court, and when she heard "a gentleman from Dublin Castle" was in the house she desired to see him. To see any one from the seat of her juvenile joys and triumphs would have given her delight, were it only the coachman that had driven a carriage to a levee or drawing-room; she could ask him about the sentinels at the gate, the entrance-porch, and if the long range of windows yet glittered with lights on St. Patrick's night; but to have a conversation with an official from that ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... were manned by the Barratarians, who served their pieces with the steadiness and precision of veteran gunners. In the first attack of the enemy, a column pushed forward between the levee and river; and so precipitate was their charge that the outposts were forced to retire, closely pressed by the enemy. Before the batteries could meet the charge, clearing the ditch, they gained the redoubt ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... witnessed a spectacle which, for utter brutality and blindness of heart, I hope never to see duplicated. Chicago had for some time been in the midst of a vigorous crusade against organized vice. Too long neglected by the authorities and the public, the so-called levee districts of the city had fallen into the hands of grafting police officials, who, working with the lowest of degraded of men, had created an open and most brazen vice syndicate. Without going into details, it is enough to say ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... precedence;"—now of "questions betwixt the Imperial and Venetian ambassadors, concerning titles and visits," how they were to address one another, and who was to pay the first visit!—then "the Frenchman takes exceptions about placing." This historian of the levee now records, "that the French ambassador gets ground of the Spanish;" but soon after, so eventful were these drawing-room politics, that a day of festival has passed away in suspense, while a privy council has been hastily summoned, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Baiae. And so Cornelia, without ceasing to be admired, became less courted; and presently, quite tiring of the butterfly life, was thrown back more and more on herself and on her books. This did not disturb her. A levee or a banquet had never given her perfect pleasure; and it was no delight to know that half the women of Baiae hated her with a perfect jealousy. Cornelia read and studied, now Greek, now Latin; and sometimes caught herself half wishing to be a man and able to expound a cosmogony, or to decide ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... per skiff at twelve o'clock. If there was one drawback, it was the fact that the oar-locks of the boat had been mislaid. After consuming an hour in not finding them, Frank Hatch became discouraged at seeing us lay around the levee, so he tied the oars on with tarred rope and we got off, three of us besides the other dogs. The water was so high that we crossed Barron's island, only having to get out and pull the boat over two or three sand-bars and a raft or two. Every ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... their gladness. It is like a summer picnic of school-children suddenly let loose in a wood; they sing, shout, whistle, squeal, call, in the most blithesome strains. The warm wave has brought the birds upon its crest; or some barrier has given way, the levee of winter has broken, and spring comes like an inundation. No doubt, the snow and the frost will stop the crevasse again, but ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... entertainments go, in the ball given here on St. Patrick's Day (March 17). On such occasions it is de rigueur to wear a court-dress. Even those who venture to appear in the regulation trowsers admissible at a levee at St. James's are seriously cautioned "not to do ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... carriage. (At the inauguration four years ago, he rode down and back again surrounded by a dense mass of arm'd cavalrymen eight deep, with drawn sabres; and there were sharpshooters station'd at every corner on the route.) I ought to make mention of the closing levee of Saturday night last. Never before was such a compact jam in front of the White House—all the grounds fill'd, and away out to the spacious sidewalks. I was there, as I took a notion to go—was in the rush inside with the crowd—surged ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... simplicity of feeling in some phases of functions exalted far beyond the range of republican experiences or means of comparison. In the polite intelligence which we sometimes have cabled to our press at home, by more than usually ardent enterprise, one may have read that the king held a levee at St. James's; and one conceived of it as something dramatic, something historic, something, on the grand scale, civic. But if one happened to be walking in Pall Mall on the morning of that levee, one saw merely a sort of irregular coming and going in ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... same feeling has been known to overcome one in Church when a hen, side-tracking through the open door, takes a constitutional up the aisle on a Sunday morning in the country; also it has been known to seize you in its grip at a levee, when your predecessor's shoe-buckles, not having been properly adjusted, flip up and down like shutters as their owner, in solitary state, stalks up the audience chamber; worse and stronger still is it when your revered bishop uncle, of ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... take a look at the place as it appeared the first day of February, 1862. Stand with me on the levee, and look up the broad Ohio,—the "la belle riviere," as the French called it. There are from fifty to a hundred steamboats lying along the bank, with volumes of black smoke rolling up from their tall chimneys, and puffs of steam vanishing in the air. Among them are the gunboats,—a cross ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... consumed by the tedious trip when they drove into the busy and bustling town of Leavenworth, one bright autumnal morning. All along the way they had picked up much information about the movement of steamers, and they were delighted to find that the steamboat "New Lucy" was lying at the levee, ready to sail on the afternoon of the very day they would be in Leavenworth. They camped, for the last time, in the outskirts of the town, a good-natured border-State man affording them shelter in his hay-barn, where they slept soundly all through ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... in all places of public amusement—the theatre, circus, or amphitheatre. In a court of justice the president certainly could not "see" a pleader unless he wore it. You cannot be present at a formal social ceremony—a wedding, a betrothal, a coming of age, a levee—without this outward and visible mark of respect. Nor was it sufficient that you should wear it. It must be properly draped and must fall to the right point, which, in front, was aslant over the lower part of the shin, while behind it fell to the heel. Your wardrobe slave must ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... ex stultis facit insanos." "This fellow," says he, "has an art of converting fools into madmen." When I was in France, the region of complaisance and vanity, I have often observed that a great man who has entered a levee of flatterers humble and temperate has grown so insensibly heated by the court which was paid him on all sides, that he has been quite distracted before he ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... neighbour prosecute, Bring action for assault or battery, Or friend beguile with lies and flattery? O'er plains they ramble unconfined, No politics disturb their mind; They eat their meals, and take their sport Nor know who's in or out at court. They never to the levee go To treat, as dearest friend, a foe: They never importune his grace, Nor ever cringe to men in place: Nor undertake a dirty job, Nor draw the quill to write for Bob.[1] Fraught with invective, they ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... delighted at the news of his voyage. George III., who had broken off an important state conference to peep through his telescope at the wonderful balloon, afterwards allowed the young Italian to kiss his hand at a brilliant levee. Military honours were bestowed upon him, and with fewer obstacles in his way he ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... unbars his windows; the flower-girls troop gayly to their haunts; busy feet are tramping to the daily drudgeries that revolutions which strike down kings and kaisars, leave the same Cain's heritage to the boor; the wagons groan and reel to the mart; Tyranny, up betimes, holds its pallid levee; Conspiracy, that hath not slept, hears the clock, and whispers to its own heart, "The hour draws near." A group gather, eager-eyed, round the purlieus of the Convention Hall; to-day decides the sovereignty of France,—about the courts of the Tribunal their customary ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... particularly pleases me is, there is no place where women are of such importance: not one of the sex, who has the least share of attractions, is without a levee of beaux interceding for the honor of attending her on some party, of which every day produces ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... thinking that it would be a more graceful act for the King to help a poor cavalier who had ruined himself for the sake of his family without solicitation on his part. I waited and waited, but no word came, so at last I betook myself to the levee and was duly presented to him. "Ah," said he, greeting me with the cordiality which he could assume so well, "you are, if I mistake not, Sir Jasper Killigrew?" "Nay, your Majesty," I answered, "I am Sir Jacob Clancing, formerly of Snellaby Hall, in Staffordshire;" and with that I reminded ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of being presented were gone through, I amused myself with examining the company. This was a levee, not a drawing-room, and there were no women among the visitors. The men, who did not appear in uniform, were in common evening dress, which has degenerated of late into ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in perfect order when the bombardment commenced, the dirt which now disfigures everything is the accumulation of a few days. The water did not enter the fort until the levee had been broken by the bombs; during the summer of 1861, when the Mississippi was even higher, the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... further remark, that Fox, having on a former occasion sought to trespass on the royal just prerogative, had now completed his attack on the Constitution, in denying the rights of Lords and Commons, is worthy observation. Talbot, who made one of my morning's levee, told me that at White's last night, all was hurra! and triumph. Charles Sturt and other youngsters took part at the bar, to echo the "Hear, hear," from Fitzpatrick and Burke, of Fox's doctrine; yet the "Hear, hear," was but little caught or repeated, though given loudly. ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... Lord Dartmouth opened auspiciously. Franklin waited upon him at his first levee, at the close of October, 1772, and was received "very obligingly." Further Franklin was at once recognized as agent for Massachusetts, with no renewal of the caviling as to the manner of his appointment, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... a Levee, and on Thursday a ball in our fine new room, which we open on that day; and on Friday there is a Peace Fete at the Crystal Palace. On Saturday we go out of town; and now I must end, begging to be forgiven for so hurried a scrawl, but I had to write a long letter and to sit ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... presentations with the freedom and ease (except when there is a jam) of our Presidential receptions—when I remember that any whole dress is good enough for the White House, and any honest man or woman (with some not so honest) may go up on a levee night and be introduced to the President and his lady, saunter through the rooms, converse with friends and pass in review half the notables of the Nation—I deeply realize the superiority of Republicanism to Royalty, but without seeking to put the new ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... that day with Mrs Rothschild, at whose house he met several political friends, as well as Mr I. L. Goldsmid, who told him that Lord Auckland had requested the Marquis of Lansdowne to introduce him (Mr Goldsmid) at the levee. ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... Janders—old Subadar Goordit Singh. It myde me sick to see them Bengalesey, some of 'em 'ookin' it to Suakim, some of 'em retirin' on the seraphim, which is another name for Berkshires. It ain't no sweet levee a-tryin' to rally 'eathen 'ands to do their dooty. So we 'ad to cover 'em back into the zeriba of the seraphim—which is our glorious selves. A bloomin' 'asty puddin' was that tournamong, but it wasn't so bloomin' 'asty that the Subadar and William Connor didn't ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... are full of sleeping coolies, cat-and-dog hucksters and travellers, when I descend at day-break to start. The first two hours are wasted in wandering along a levee that leads up a tributary stream, coming back again and getting ferried to the right embankment. The riding is variable, and the zigzagging of the levee often compels me to travel three miles for the gaining ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... rain, the low gurgle of water, and a leaden sky greeted us the next morning as we lay beside the half-submerged levee of Sacramento. Here, however, the novelty of boats to convey us to the hotels was an appeal that was irresistible. I resigned myself to a dripping rubber-cased mariner called Joe, and wrapping myself in a shining cloak of the like material, about as suggestive of warmth ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... After supper Grant retired to a book from the Sea-side Library, borrowed of Mr. Brotherton from stock—"Sesame and Lilies" was its title. Jasper plunged into his bookkeeping studies and by the wood stove in the sitting-room Rhoda Kollander held her levee ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... fully the value of that interdependence of each part of our organism, which often, owing to a want of equilibrium of strength and resistance in some part when compared to the rest, causes the whole to give way, just as a flaw in a levee will cause the whole of the solidly-constructed mass to give way, or a demoralized regiment may entail the utter rout of an army. As described by George Murray Humphry, in his instructive work on "Old ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... whose company he happened to be. "Was your Leedyship in the Pork to-dee?" he would demand of his daughter. "I looked for your equipage in veen:—the poor old man was not gratified by the soight of his daughter's choriot. Sir Chorlus, I saw your neem at the Levee; many's the Levee at the Castle at Dublin that poor old Jack Costigan has attended in his time. Did the Juke look pretty well? Bedad, I'll call at Apsley House and lave me cyard upon 'um. I thank ye, James, a little ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... finished at last, and if it was a little formal or high-flown, or stilted, is not a certain formality postulated on momentous occasions? Who would write that he was "delighted" to accept a bishopric? Who would go to a levee in a straw hat? ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... later I set out to be presented at the first court in Europe. I remember my emotion when I saw the king at Versailles. When the king's levee was announced, the persons not presented withdrew. I felt an emotion of vanity; I was not proud of remaining, but I should have felt humiliated at having to retire. The royal bed-chamber door opened; I saw the king, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... and agility. However, Eads was more on his own ground on the river than on the shore, and his business so increased that he was soon running four diving-bell boats. In 1849 twenty-nine boats were burned at the levee in Saint Louis in one big fire, and most of their remains were removed by him. Winter as well as summer the work went on; and the task of cutting out a vessel wrecked in an ice-gorge, or of raising one from beneath the ice, must have ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... part," urged Betty. "Think of the funny things Mrs. Brown told, of the time the levee broke at Shawneetown. The table all set for supper, and the water pouring in until the table floated up to the ceiling, and went bobbing around ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Warwhoop is speshul fretful ag'inst all forms of gamblin'. Wherefore the Jedge, an' the state's attorney, an' mebby five other speculators, at night adjourns to the cabin of a flat-boat which is tied up at the foot of the levee, so's they can divert themse'fs with a little draw-poker without shockin' the hamlet an' gettin' themse'fs arrested an' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis |
