"Levee" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 was a pity ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... was no one in sight, but he heard the sound of a steamer's bell, followed by the hoarse commands of the mate, and when he reached the door, he found the whole yard lighted up by a torch which the steamer had placed in her bow. The boat was made fast to the levee when he got there, and her crew were making ready to carry on her load of wood, but Tom paid no attention to them. More than half asleep, he made his way on deck and into the saloon, which he found deserted by all save a party of men who were engaged ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... being, but even all those whose memory has come down to us. He has more unaffected dignity than I could conceive in man. His address is the gentlest and most prepossessing you can conceive, which is seconded by the greatest fund of levee conversation that I suppose any person ever possessed. He speaks deliberately, but very fluently, with particular emphasis, and in a rather low tone of voice. While he speaks, his features are still more ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... plan, never let the grass grow under his feet, induced Philip Vaughan to quit Oxford without waiting for a degree, made him address "Market Ordinaries" and political meetings at Bilton, presented him at the Levee, proposed him at his favourite clubs, gave him an ample allowance, and launched him, with a vigorous push, into society. In all this Lord Liscombe did well, and showed his knowledge of human nature. The air of politics stirred young ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... depended on his breath. Though never prime minister, Farinelli's political advice had such weight with Ferdinand, that generals, secretaries, ambassadors, and other high officials consulted with him, and attended his levee, as being the power behind the throne. Farinelli acquired great wealth, but no malicious pen has ever ascribed to him any of the corrupt arts by which royal favorites are wont to accumulate the spoils of ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... permanent for about a week, during which time the game become so excessively lively, that the creatures require stirring up with the long hair-pin or skewer whenever too unruly; this appears to be constantly necessary from the vigorous employment of the ruling sceptre during conversation. A levee of Arab women in the tent was therefore a disagreeable invasion, as we dreaded the fugitives; fortunately, they appeared to cling to the followers of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... pretty fast, and one afternoon Merritt was just going to give the 'All out' signal, which cleared the exhibition hall for the next performance, when up steps a big husky black roustabout from the levee and commences to strip ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... make visits together, nor see a play, but always apart; you shall be every day at the king's levee, and I at the queen's; and we will never meet, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... dawn of the day whose noontide cannot now be long in coming. If the colored people had taken hands and danced around the White House, with a few cheers for the much abused gentleman who has immortalized himself by one just act, no President could have had a finer levee, or ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... colleague Goldwin Smith, the former Oxford professor and historian, who expressed his surprise and delight at the perfect order and decorum of the crowd, numbering nearly five thousand persons, at the presidential levee the night before. In order to understand what an American crowd was like, instead of going into the White House by the easier way, as he was entitled by his invitation to do, he had taken his place in the long procession far outside ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... it is the lesson of history, that real wrongs, unredressed, grow into preposterous demands. Men are much like nature in action; a little disturbance of atmospheric equilibrium becomes a cyclone, a slight break in the levee a crevasse with ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... its doorway a native sculptor had 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 among these one spoke English and interpreted ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... On the levee was a little pothouse of the lowest sort; yet from that unclean and smoky hole was destined to come one of the finest fortunes in Louisiana. They called the proprietor "Pere la Chaise."[7] He was a little old marten-faced ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... 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 ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... at his house—always a place of good company even if the aura was markedly Victorian. Reeve was full of stories of how Wordsworth used to stop with him when he came up to London in his later years. He lent his Court suit to Wordsworth in order that the Poet-Laureate should present himself at a Levee in proper form. But again these remembrances must be repressed for ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... intrigue to obtain, and which will be granted to them according to the seniority of their degradation, sneaking into the Regicide presence, and, with the relics of the smile which they had dressed up for the levee of their masters still flickering on their curled lips, presenting the faded remains of their courtly graces, to meet the scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of a bloody ruffian, who, whilst he is ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... heifers, steers, and bullocks better than a Leicestershire drover, was an excellent judge of horse flesh, and, during his father's life, had several times proved he knew the exact moment of striking earnest. Had fate sent him to a minister's levee instead of a market for quadrupeds, he would have been a great politician! He would have bought and sold with as much dexterity as any dealer in black cattle the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... hint to continue his pension, which, however, he did not receive at the usual time, and there was some reason to think that it would be discontinued. He did not take those methods of retrieving his interest, which were most likely to succeed, for he went one day to Sir Robert Walpole's levee, and demanded the reason of the distinction that was made between him and the other pensioners of the Queen, with a degree of roughness which, perhaps, determined him to withdraw, what had only been delayed. This last misfortune he bore not only with ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... the signora was in her pride. She was dressed in her brightest of morning dresses, and had quite a levee round her couch. It was a beautifully bright October afternoon; all the gentlemen of the neighbourhood were in Barchester, and those who had the entry of Dr Stanhope's house were in the signora's back drawing-room. Charlotte and Mrs Stanhope were in the front ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... 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, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... churches, and cabinets, as if they were the titular dignitaries of the chessboard! Amid all these changes, he stood immutable as adamant. It mattered little whether in the field, or in the drawing-room; with the mob, or the levee; wearing the Jacobin bonnet, or the iron crown; banishing a Braganza, or espousing a Hapsburg; dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic he was still the same ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... 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 ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... my Favour speak, Your Levee is but twice a Week; From mine I can exclude but one Day, My Door is quiet ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... haalf his feed. Ha'n't been daown on his straw. Must ha' been took aout somewhere abaout ten 'r 'levee o'clock. I know that 'ere critter's ways. The fellah's had him aout nights afore; b't I never thought nothin' o' no mischief. He 's a kin' o' haalf Injin. What is 't the chap's been a-doin' on? Tell ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... meritorious minister begging his bread at the door of that Treasury from whence his father dispensed the economy of an empire, and promoted the happiness and glory of his country! Why should he be obliged to prostrate his honor and to submit his principles at the levee of some proud favorite, shouldered and thrust aside by every impudent pretender on the very spot where a few days before he saw himself adored,—obliged to cringe to the author of the calamities of his house, and to kiss the hands that are ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... mother of North and South, and had alluded to the engagement between the Essex and the Arkansas, on the Mississippi, as a brilliant victory for the Federal navy. My mother protested, at once; said that she and her sister Miriam, and several friends, had been witnesses, from the levee, to the fact that the Confederates had fired and abandoned their own ship when the machinery broke down, after two shots had been exchanged: the Federals, cautiously turning the point, had then captured but a smoking hulk. The Philadelphian gravely ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... confectionary, when he transacted business with the first minister, consulting with, or directing, him in the weighty matters of state, previous to their appearing in regular form before the respective departments to which they belonged. He had then a kind of levee, which was usually attended by the Collaos, or ministers, and the presidents of the departments or public boards. At eleven refreshments were again served up and, after business was over, he either amused himself in the women's apartments, or walked round his palace ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... that had been impoverished by war and reconstruction. In 1879 Congress created a Mississippi River Commission. Unusual floods in 1882 attracted attention to the danger, and thereafter Congress found the money for a levee system that restrained the river between its banks from Cairo to ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... discover, perhaps, the very information you seem to desire. It is now, to be sure, growing rather dark—but you can examine it at your leisure in the morning. In the meantime, you shall be my escort home to-night. My friends are about holding a little musical levee. I can promise you, too, some good singing. We French are not nearly so punctilious as you Americans, and I shall have no difficulty in smuggling you in, in the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to salute me as if I were Corporal John himself! I was on the high road to fortune. Charley Mordaunt used to call me Jack, and drink canary at my chambers; I used to make one at my Lord Treasurer's levee; I had even got Mr. Army-Secretary Walpole to take a hundred guineas as a compliment: and he had promised me a majority: when bad luck turned, and all my fine hopes ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Langley, Captain Claude Larceny, laws concerning Laws, Sir Nicholas Law terms Leadenhall Street Leather Lane Leeds, the Duke of Leghorn, Italy Leonard, Christopher, and Kate Levee, John, a highwayman Peter, a street-robber Lewis, John, a thief Lincoln, James, a murderer Lincoln's Inn Fields Lion, Elizabeth, or Edgeworth Bess Lipsat, William, a thief Little, James, a footpad John, a housebreaker Queen Street, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... of a few moments brought him to the levee of the river,—a favored district, where his counting-house, with many others, was conveniently situated. In these early days only a few of these buildings could be said to be permanent,—fire and flood perpetually threatened them. They were merely temporary structures of wood, or in the ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... furnaces and of waterpipes, a land of beggars and of caucuses, a land of gas-meters and of liars, a land of pasteboard and of cards, a land of etiquettes and of bad spelling, but still their country! A land of telegraphs, which told in an instant, as they landed on the levee, that all the twenty-nine were well, and begged them to be at the college on Tuesday evening, so as to see "Much Ado about Nothing." For at Antioch they act a play the night before Commencement. A land ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... She was, however, considered fit to go to sea again after an ordinary repair, and was recommissioned by Captain Bonham. Pearce was sent for by the First Lord of the Admiralty to attend the King's levee. He was presented to his Majesty, that good old king who truly loved a sailor, and knew how to appreciate honour and valour. On kneeling to kiss his sovereign's hand he felt a touch on his shoulder, and with astonishment, gratitude, and delight, heard ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... circuit comes trailin' into camp. This yere outfit of 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' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... 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 ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I accept. Whatever may result or happen, I shall go on following the course that he has set for me. So help me, God!" Sir Colin stood up, and I must say a more martial figure I never saw. He was in full uniform, for he was going on to the King's levee after our business. He drew his sword from the scabbard and laid it naked on the table before Rupert, ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... us. I've forty Chiefs at my heel, and passed and raised according to their merit they shall be. Billet these men on the villages, and see that we run up a Lodge of some kind. The temple of Imbra will do for a Lodge-room. The women must make aprons as you show them. I'll hold a levee of ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... bread, he might have starved. Refreshed, however, with this dainty, he prosecuted his rambles. Among other wonderful sights, he saw the splendid equipages of many of the nobility, drawn up in the street before the mansion of the minister, who was holding a levee. Fortune seemed to have directed his steps thither, for he saw a familiar face among the splendid throng who glided in and out at the great man's portals. This was no other than the Marquis de Secqville, who was ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... argument that he and I had about the famous old Mississippi steamboat. That night when I came back to the office we shared, Gilbert read me his lyric. From the first the original novelty of the song was apparent, and in a few days the country was whistling the levee dance of 'Daddy' and 'Mammy,' and 'Ephram' and 'Sammy,' as they waited for the Robert E. Lee. Had Gilbert ever seen a levee? No—but out of his genius grew a song ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... a season of high water, and the low lands beyond the levee on either side were overflowed. Occasionally we passed a vessel going down the stream, or a powerful skeleton-tug dragging a ship against the rapid current. There was little to be seen besides the muddy flow of the stream all around us, and ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... looking out of the carriage window when he answered her, across to the levee and beyond it to the farther shore of the great river, and his eyes were the eyes of a man who has seen of the travail of his soul ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... address in answer is moved in both Houses. The government of the day selects two of its supporters in each House to move and second the address, and when carrying out this honourable task they appear in levee dress. Previous to the session of 1890-1891, the royal speech was answered paragraph by paragraph, but "the address'' is now moved in the form of a single resolution, thanking the sovereign for his most gracious speech. The debate on the address is used as a means of ranging over the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... This levee lasted till the bell rang for lunch, when we went into the dining-room, and found Sir Peter and his secretary, young Arkwright, already seated. He—Arkwright—was a good-natured, tender-hearted lad, devoted to Adelaide. I do ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... the next morning I had quite a levee of the Ho-tshung-rah matrons. They seated themselves in a circle on the floor, and I was sorry to observe that the application of a little soap and water to their blankets had formed no part of their holiday preparations. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... have thought I was to be the man to find out the secret of the Carmi Chums? Guess I'll be the biggest man on the New Orleans levee, after all. Yes, certainly—of course some ladies'll go—and a preacher, too, if there's such a man aboard. Hold up, though—we'll all go. Take your soundings, quick, and we'll drop the steamer just below the point, and tie up. I wonder ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Dillon, ex lord mayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the highest... Queens of Dublin society. (Carelessly) I was just chatting this afternoon at the viceregal lodge to my old pals, sir Robert and lady Ball, astronomer royal at the levee. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... him to reach the bayou levee. The quarry was already in midstream, wielding an efficient canoe paddle. On impulse Val shouted after him, but he never turned. A rifle lay across his knees and there were some rusty traps in the bottom of the flimsy canoe. Then Val remembered that Pirate's Haven lay upon the fringe ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... Babu aside, and told him in a whisper: "Thakur Dada, I was at the Levee yesterday, and the Chota Lord happened to mention the Babes of Nayanjore. I told him that Kailas Balm had come to town. Do you know, he was terribly hurt because you hadn't called. He told me he was going to put etiquette on one side, ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... doing what she could to aid us. She held, every morning, a levee in the cabin for the lame and sick, all who could drag themselves aft, and tended them skillfully. But this did not help the bedridden ones. It did not ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... allied sovereigns of Grub Street, the other day, Mawman the Great, by whom I sent due homage to your imperial self. To-morrow's post may perhaps bring a letter from you, but you are the most ungrateful and ungracious of correspondents. But there is some excuse for you, with your perpetual levee of politicians, parsons, scribblers, and loungers. Some day I will give you ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... the President's levee that evening, Rosa said. A sort of raree-show—was it not? with the Chief Magistrate for head mountebank. He was worse off in one respect than the poorest cottager in the nation he was commonly reported to govern, inasmuch as he ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... certain drunken, foolish or witless women, who have no care for their honour, nor for the honesty of their estate or of their husbands, and who walk with roving eyes and head horribly reared up like a lion (la teste espoventablement levee comme un lyon!), their hair straggling out of their wimples, and the collars of their shifts and cottes crumpled the one upon the other, and who walk mannishly and bear themselves uncouthly before folk without shame. And if one speaks to them about it, ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... said M'Loughlin, "whether 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
... half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race, The western turkey-shooting draws old and young—some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs, Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece; The groups of newly-come emigrants cover the wharf or levee, As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his saddle, The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their partners, the dancers bow to each other, The youth lies ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... endeavour to banish, especially when one is surrounded by so many sources of happiness! But that is the King's way; he loves to talk about death. He said, some days ago, to M. de Fontanieu, who was, seized with a bleeding at the nose, at the levee: 'Take care of yourself; at your age it is a forerunner of apoplexy.' The poor man went home ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Paris, reception there, to be deposed? reinstated, reception of Legislative, position of, proposes war, with tears, vetoes, dissolves Roland Ministry, in riot of, June 20, and Petion, at Federation, with cuirass, declared forfeited, last levee of, Tenth August, quits Tuileries for Assembly, in Assembly, sent to Temple prison, in Temple, to be tried, and the Locksmith Gamain, at the bar, his will, condemned, parting scene, and execution ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... in New Orleans that Farragut's fleet was coming, the cotton in the yards and in the cotton presses was hauled on drays to the levee and burned to prevent its falling into Union hands. The capture of the city had a great effect on Great Britain and France, both of whom the Confederates hoped would intervene to stop the war. Slidell, who was in France seeking recognition for the Confederacy as an independent nation, wrote that ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... nice bed to sleep in. In such a bed Mme. du Barry might have stretched her arms and yawned, or the beautiful Duchesse de Mazarin might have held her morning levee. A British general, with his bronzed face and bristly mustache, would look a little strange under that blue-silk canopy, with rosy cherubs dancing overhead on the flowered ceiling. His top-boots and spurs stood next to a Louis Quinze toilet-table. His leather belts and field-glasses lay on the ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... law his neighbour prosecute, Bring action for assault and 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. Fraught with invective they ne'er go To folks at Paternoster Row: No judges, fiddlers, ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... along the levee has done wondering at the smoke, his eye is caught by the new wire suspension bridge, which springs out from the summit of the broad, steep levee to a lofty tower (two hundred feet high) near the water's edge, and then, at one leap, clears the whole river, and lands ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... extravagance. Brissot de Warville, for example, writing in 1788, declared: "If there is a town on the American continent where English luxury displays its follies, it is New York." And James Pintard, after attending a New Year levee, given by Mrs. Washington, wrote his sister: "You will see no such formal bows at the Court of St. James." If we may judge by the dress of ladies attending such gatherings, as one described in the New York ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... the levee of Prince Kaunitz. Not personally known to him, he viewed in me a crawling insect. I thought somewhat more proudly; my actions were upright, and so should my body be. I quitted the apartment, and was congratulated by the mercenary ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... old master, and beg for some relief. By the locksmith's advice and aid, he was established in business as a shoeblack, and opened shop under an archway near the Horse Guards. This being a central quarter, he quickly made a very large connection; and on levee days, was sometimes known to have as many as twenty half-pay officers waiting their turn for polishing. Indeed his trade increased to that extent, that in course of time he entertained no less than two apprentices, besides taking for his wife the widow of an eminent bone and rag collector, formerly ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... have been a couple of hours later, when Captain Blood, as spruce and cool as if he had just come from a levee, stepped upon the quarter-deck of the Victoriense, to confront M. de Rivarol, still ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... now no recollection of having, when a child, seen the king with any of the appendages of royalty, except when he went to town, once a week, to hold a levee; and then ten dragoons rode before, and ten after his carriage, and the tradesmen in the streets through which he passed duly stood at their doors, to make the most profound reverences, as in duty ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... his hands in a convulsive grasp, and passed on as if they had not the remotest idea who, what, or where they were.' The President at last escaped, and took refuge in the Governor's residence, although he held a levee at the State House in the evening, where in a more quiet way he met ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... 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
... the following year a governor of a different temperament was sent from Spain, attended by a strong military force, with a large supply of arms and ammunition. On the 24th of July, Don Alexander O'Reilly landed on the levee. "The inhabitants immediately came to a resolution to choose three gentlemen to wait on him, and inform him that the people of Louisiana were determined to abandon the colony, and had no other favour to ask from him, but that he ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... managers of the affair would not permit any but their own party to board the ferry-boat. Skiffs were very scarce, and but a few could avail themselves of the opportunity in this way. I had to content myself with standing on the levee and watching ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... More than that, I kept step with you all the way from Chaudiere's to the levee. You'd be dead ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... time to swallow a potion recommended by Celsus in my perilous case, to answer with the most perfect sincerity every question which you can put to me upon that subject." So saying, he called upon a monk who had attended at his levee, and giving him a large key, whispered something in his ear. The cup which the monk brought was of such capacity as proved Celsus's draught required to be administered in considerable quantity, and a ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... confidence which the hens placed in 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
... great misfortune has come upon us all. For several days every one has been uneasy about the unusual rise of the Mississippi and about a rumor that the Federal forces had cut levees above to swamp the country. There is a slight levee back of the village, and H. went yesterday to examine it. It looked strong, and we hoped for the best. About dawn this morning a strange gurgle woke me. It had a pleasing, lulling effect. I could not fully rouse at first, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... paying a state visit to Anacaona, who thereupon summoned all her tributary chiefs to a kind of levee held in his honour. In the midst of the levee, at a given signal, Ovando's soldiers rushed in, seized the caciques, fastened them to the wooden pillars of the house, and set the whole thing on fire; the caciques being thus miserably roasted alive. While this was going on the atrocious ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... 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 ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... the movements of the enemy, the major part embarked, with forty men of the Fifteenth Illinois Cavalry, on the evening of the 13th, on the steamboat Dove, and proceeded up the Mississippi River, reaching Buck Island (No. 52) on the next day, and searched it as ordered. Returned to the levee at Helena the same night, and lay there. Next day, the 15th, went up the St. Francis River, some thirty-five miles, to Alligator Bayou, then returned to Helena and into camp again. The Mississippi River part of this trip was under command of Captain Schoenemann, and the other under that ...
— History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry • Alfred J. Hill
... York is built almost close to the water's edge, with a broad levee or wharf running round a great portion of it. Its general appearance gives to a stranger an impression of its extent and importance. It has been aptly and accurately described as a dense pack of buildings, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... 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 ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... as first clerk on the side-wheel packet Frank Steele, a new boat about the size of the War Eagle. The Captain is Letter A, No. 1, and I think I shall go with him. If not, I have two or three good offers for coming season on the levee, besides my present berth, which is nevertheless ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... had seen them naturally called on the Mayor to talk over the exhibition. Persons who had not seen them, still more naturally dropped in just to learn what was really Mr. Mayor's private opinion. The little parlour was thronged by a regular levee There was the proprietor of a dismal building, still called "The Theatre," which was seldom let except at election time, when it was hired by the popular candidate for the delivery of those harangues upon liberty ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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
... her riddle. Wherever he went these "lost adventurers" walked the streets with him, gliding between the Princes of the Church in the ceremonies of Saint Peter's and the Lateran, or mingling in the company that ascended the state staircase at some cardinal's levee. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... January all were early astir, for the father, dressed at dawn in full European evening dress,[10] as is customary on such occasions, had to pay his respects at the levee of the Emperor. When this duty was over, he returned home and received visitors of rank inferior to himself. Later in the day and on the following day he paid visits of New Year greeting to all his friends. He took a present to ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... morning, he donned his miner's costume in earnest, for the day of the start had come. The trunk and bundle were sent down to the levee in a wagon. On this day, at ten o'clock, the steamboat Robert Burns would ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... jealousy alone. Braxton had imagination, and his rival did not soar above fancy. But the point is that Maltby's fancifulness went far and well. In telling how Ariel re-embodied himself from thin air, leased a small house in Chesterfield Street, was presented at a Levee, played the part of good fairy in a matter of true love not running smooth, and worked meanwhile all manner of amusing changes among the aristocracy before he vanished again, Maltby showed a very pretty range of ingenuity. In one respect, his work was a more ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... in observing the countenances and demeanour of the company at the last levee which Madame Napoleon Bonaparte held, previous to her departure with her husband to meet the Pope at Fontainebleau. I had heard from good authority that "to those whose propensities were known, Duroc's information ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the King has had his levee, which was crowded beyond all precedent. He was very civil to the people, particularly to Sefton, who had ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... 'Immediate' by the fair writer, with a strong dash of anxiety under the word, yet the Major had, for reasons of his own, neglected up to the present moment his humble rural petitioner, who to be sure could hardly hope to get a hearing among so many grand folks who attended his levee. The fact was, this was a letter from a female relative of Pendennis, and while the grandees of her brother's acquaintance were received and got their interview, and drove off, as it were, the patient country letter remained ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... love of Melisselda, rapt in heavenly joy, now confidently expecting the miracle that would crown the miracle of his career, prepared to set out for Constantinople to take the Crown from the Sultan's head to the sound of music. He held a last solemn levee at Smyrna, and there, surrounded by his faithful followers, with Melisselda radiantly enthroned at his side, he proceeded to parcel out the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... some artistry. A dark-blue dressing-gown of flowered satin fell open at the waist; disclosing sky-blue breeches and pearl-colored stockings, elegant shoes of Spanish leather with red heels and diamond buckles. His chestnut hair had been dressed with as great care as though he were attending a levee, and Leduc had insisted upon placing a small round patch under his left eye, that it might—said Leduc—impart vivacity to a countenance that looked over-wan ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... my greatest friends, the actual details of the Agra catastrophe were hazy in my memory. Two things, however, had remained firmly imbedded in my mind—first, that a brother officer had told me that he was standing close by Colonel Jones when, as a young officer, the latter attended the Levee to receive his Victoria Cross, and that the Queen was so much agitated by his appearance that she could hardly pin it on. Also, that this brother officer heard her whisper to her husband: "My God, Albert! look at that poor boy! He has ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... increase when * She unveileth and shameth the moonshine bright. Bow down all beings between her hands * As she showeth charms with her veil undight. And she foodeth cities[FN13] with torrent tears * When she flasheth her look of levee light. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... through the West Indies. Returned to America and read law in his father's office. Wandered without money over Europe, and was a sandwichman in London. On the staff of the Paris Herald for a few months. Travelled over the western states as a hobo, was a bartender in a Mississippi levee camp, acted as a general with Coxey's Army, became a crime reporter for the Marion Star, owned by Senator Harding, Sub-editor of the Columbus Dispatch, Labor Editor of the N. Y. Journal, an investigator of crime in the Chicago ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 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 their quality ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... Assemblage. — N. {opp. 73} assemblage; collection, collocation, colligation[obs3]; compilation, levy, gathering, ingathering, muster, attroupement[obs3]; team; concourse, conflux[obs3], congregation, contesseration|, convergence &c. 290; meeting, levee, reunion, drawing room, at home; conversazione &c. (social gathering) 892[It]; assembly, congress; convention, conventicle; gemote[obs3]; conclave &c. (council) 696; posse, posse comitatus[Lat]; Noah's ark. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... how the spring in its beauty is near! How the fences and tules once more re-appear! How soft lies the mud on the banks of yon slough By the hole in the levee the waters ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... Agents of different boats approach the traveller, informing him all about their line of boats, and depreciating the opposition boats. For instance, an agent, or, if you please, a runner of a boat called Lucy— not Long— made the assertion on the levee with great zeal and perfect impunity that no other boat but the said Lucy would leave for St. Paul within twenty-four hours; when it must have been known to him that another boat on the mail line would start that same evening, as was actually the fact. But the activity ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... is no answer," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, and immediately opening her blotting-book, she wrote to Alexey Alexandrovitch that she hoped to see him at one o'clock at the levee. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... had the chief left than a perfect levee commenced, and went on for hours; until it seemed to Roger that every man, woman, and child in the town must have called upon him. Most of them brought little presents as tokens of goodwill. Garlands of flowers were thrown round his neck, baskets of fruit, cakes made from maize flour, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... The next levee day at Versailles, I meant to bring again under the view of the Count de Vergennes, the whole subject of our commerce with France; but the number of audiences of ambassadors and other ministers, which take place, of course, before mine, and which seldom, indeed, leave me an opportunity ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... points of his personal character. This has been so well drawn, and so recently too, that we are induced to adopt the following traits from a contemporary Magazine.[5] The paper whence these are extracted, purports to be a description of the Lord Chancellor's first levee:— ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... he call me Pig-Woman for?" she grumbled, but still half mollified. "What if I did waste my youth and prime in cooking of porkers in a booth; I am no cutpurse. I, I never shoved the tumbler for tail-drawing or poll-snatching on a levee-day.[L] But I will draw for you, and welcome ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... not know," she says, "that Mr. Murray held daily from about three to five o'clock a literary levee at his house. In this way he gathered round him many of the most eminent men of the time. On calling, we sent up our cards, and finding he was engaged, proposed to retreat, when Mr. Murray himself appeared and insisted on our coming ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... levee, isn't it, Phebe?" said one of the last arrivals, looking in vain for a chair, and forced to seat herself on a low table, accidentally upsetting Phebe's medicines as she ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... increased and his lifeterm was fulfilled and he died; whereupon his son, Zayn al-Asnam, arose and donned mourning-dress for his father during six days; and on the seventh he went forth to the Divan and took seat upon the throne of his Sultanate. He also held a levee wherein were assembled all the defenders of the realm, and the Ministers and the Lords of the land came forward and condoled with him for the loss of his parent and wished him all good fortune and gave him joy of his kingship and dominion and prayed for his endurance in honour and his ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... his room, he said: "Lou," as he always called me, "I will see you and Matilda at the boat this evening." We went to the boat at the appointed time and saw the Boss, but he did not come near us. As the boat was about to put off, I looked and saw him walking up and down the levee, apparently much excited, running his hands nervously through his hair—a habit common to him when he was worried. He seemed greatly distressed. The military situation troubled him, for the Union army had conquered nearly everything; ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... 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
... our mats, we now held a kind of levee, giving audience to successive troops of the natives, who introduced themselves to us by pronouncing their respective names, and retired in high good humour on receiving ours in return. During this ceremony the greatest merriment prevailed nearly every announcement ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... on M. de Marboeuf. Signor Buttafoco introduced me to him, and I presented him the letter of recommendation from Paoli. He gave me a most polite reception. The brilliancy of his levee pleased me; it was a scene so different from those which I had been for some time accustomed to see. It was like passing at once from a rude and early age to a polished modern age; from the mountains of Corsica to the banks of ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... little crack'd. (Could poets or could painters fix How angels look at thirty-six:) This drew us in at first to find In such a form an angel's mind; And every virtue now supplies The fainting rays of Stella's eyes. See, at her levee crowding swains, Whom Stella freely entertains With breeding, humour, wit, and sense, And puts them to so small expense; Their minds so plentifully fills, And makes such reasonable bills, So little gets for what she gives, We really wonder how she ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... be a matter of surprise to a good many people to hear of the change that has taken place in the venue of one of the principal functions of Government House. When I first arrived here and for many years afterwards the usual annual levee was held at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. There is also another very marked innovation in respect of the present procedure connected with presentations to His Excellency the Viceroy. Formerly all that one had to do was to send in a card, in response to a notification ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... the world. Possibly steamboats may be utilized on short stretches of rivers, but even on these they will have to compete with railroads having wide-reaching connections which they do not possess. The money expended to levee the Mississippi may be lost by the United States, but the planters will receive some benefit from it in the protection given to their crops. The steamboats in interior waters will be exchanged for iron whalebacks, and new forces of a new nature, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... 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 man had told him a few days previous.(1) His Cabinet meetings ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... that we are asked to take for granted some very unaccustomed supposition and extravagant assumption, does not trouble us more than the usages and sights, so strange to ordinary civil life, of a camp, or a royal levee. All is in keeping, whatever may be the details of the pageant; they harmonize with the effect of the whole, like the gargoyles and quaint groups in a Gothic building harmonize with its general tone of majesty and subtle beauty;—nay, as ornaments, in themselves of bad taste, like much ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... the Kentucky planters, 'Give your tobacco to me, and I will sell it.' He put it in barges, he floated down the river, and, as became a man of such distinction, he was met by Governor-general Miro on the levee at New Orleans. Where is that tobacco now, gentlemen?" Colonel Clark was here interrupted by such roars and stamping that he paused a moment, and during this interval Mr. Wharton leaned over and whispered ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... 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
... he was furnished with the necessary credentials from the king Edward presented himself at the levee of the prince ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... a little after sunset on Decoration Day—May 30, 1865—when young Duncan went ashore from the tow boat at Cairo. The town was ablaze with fireworks, as he made his way up the slope of the levee, through a narrow passage way that ran between two mountainous piles of cotton bales. At other points there were equally great piles of corn and oats in sacks, pork in barrels, hams and bacon in boxes, ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... an objection, which I despair of answering to the satisfaction of those by whom it will be raised. The hardy serjeant would never cringe gracefully at a levee, would never attain to any successful degree of address in soliciting votes; and if he should by mere bribery be deputed hither, would be unable to defend the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... in paroxysms of ill-humor, and this most frequently in the morning, at his levee. There, amid his assembled chiefs, in whose anxious looks he imagined he could read disapprobation, he seemed desirous to awe them by the severity of his manner, by his sharp tone, and his abrupt language. From the paleness of his face, however, it was evident that Truth, whose ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... his disappointment was not the blind and wild fury of his earlier days; it was a deeper, a deadlier wrath, which he governed and concealed in order to wreak a feller vengeance. On the evening of the day on which the election in the House occurred there was a levee at the Presidential mansion, which General Jackson attended. Who, that saw him dart forward and grasp Mr. Adams cordially by the hand, could have supposed that he then entirely believed that Mr. Adams had stolen the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... surveyed the old church of St Genevieve, and the new—now the Pantheon; went onward to the Jardin des Plantes, and explored its tropical bowers. Many things remind me to-day of New Orleans, and its levee, its Mississippi, its cathedral, and the luxuriant vegetation of the gulf. In fact, I seem to be walking in my sleep in a kind of glorified New Orleans, all the while. Yet I return to the gardens of the Tuileries and the Place Vendome, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... are 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 on that last evening. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... within the crescent, lay New Orleans, a town enclosed within palisaded fortifications that faced the levee for about a thousand yards, and that ran back perhaps half as far. The levee was lined with vessels. Already New Orleans was famous for shipping, and they saw the flags of many nations. Schooners there were and brigs and brigantines, and barks and barkentines, and other ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... public office before they were sent to Congress. Senator Revels had held several local offices in Vicksburg, while Senator Bruce, before he came to the Senate, had been sheriff, a member of the Mississippi levee board, and for three years the tax collector of Bolivar County. John R. Lynch, on the other hand, had served not only as justice of the peace, but also two terms in the lower house of the legislature, during the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various |
