"Levee" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... elder sisters, who could with difficulty be got rid of even when I retired to bed the night before, introduced the whole of the nuns in rotation, beginning with the elder, and ending with those who last took the vow of chastity. I felt little interest, I must confess, at the commencement of my levee; but as it came near to a close, many beautiful countenances attracted my attention and I gave the kiss of peace with more zest than prudence would have justified. The last of the sisterhood came forward, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... The levee over, waiving further civilities, we took courteus leave of the Begum and Nimni, and proceeding to the ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... often been disappointed in our hopes of a final "lay-public," that on this occasion much was not expected. However, about 6 A.M., we were all summoned, and entering the Gerad's levee-room were, as usual, courteously received. I had distinguished his complaint,—chronic bronchitis,—and resolving to make a final impression, related to him all its symptoms, and promised, on reaching Aden, to send the different remedies employed by ourselves. He clung to the hope of escaping ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... was next day ordered for our entertainment ashore, on Point Venus, and on our landing we were preceded by a band of music, and led to where the king and his levee were in waiting to receive us. The course was soon cleared by the chiefs, and the entertainment began by two men, who vied with each other in filthy lascivious attitudes, and frightful distortions of their mouths. These having performed their part, two ladies, ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... is a pretty brick colonial building, backed by a neat if tiny park maintained by the railroad company, and facing the levee (pronounce "lev-vy"), along which the tracks are laid. Beyond the tracks untidy landing places are scattered along the water front, with here and there a tall, awkward, stern-wheel river steamer ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... 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
... had stayed several days in town with the Donnellys, who "take as much care of me as if I were a piece of old china," and had attended a levee and a meeting of his London University Association, had listened with interest to a lecture of Professor Dewar, who "made liquid oxygen by the pint," and dined at Marlborough House, the influenza ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... Louisiana and stayed there one year and made one crop. Then I came here with my wife and children. I don't know how long I been here. We came up here when the high water was. That was the biggest high water they had. I worked on the levee and farmed. The first year we came here, we farmed. I lived out in ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... incredulity. The Governor would take the 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 ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... palace has ceased to be the royal residence. The King still holds there his levees, to which only gentlemen are admitted. But the formal Drawing Rooms are held at Buckingham Palace. To those who have seen St. James's during a levee, or to those London tourists who have watched the Scots Guards, or the Coldstream or the Grenadiers, preceded by a splendid band, swinging into the old Friary Court to perform the impressive ceremony of changing guard, the change in ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... And can we believe that you really feel a horror of open questions when we see your Prime Minister elect sending people to prison overnight, and his law officers elect respectfully attending the levee of those prisoners the next morning? Observe, too, that this question of privileges is not merely important; it is also pressing. Something must be done, and that speedily. My belief is that more inconvenience would follow ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... napping, as the first had done. In its gray light the skiff drifted past the little city of Dubuque, perched high on the bluffs of the western bank, but no one saw it. There were several steamboats and trading scows tied to the narrow levee, but their crews were still buried in slumber. Even had they been awake they would hardly have noticed the little craft far out in the stream, drifting with the hurrying waters. In a few minutes it was gone, and the sleeping city was none the wiser for its passing. So for hours ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... spendthrift, and the leech That sucks him. There the sycophant, and he That with bare-headed and obsequious bows Begs a warm office, doomed to a cold jail And groat per diem if his patron frown. The levee swarms, as if in golden pomp Were charactered on every statesman's door, 'BATTERED AND BANKRUPT FORTUNES MENDED HERE.' These are the charms that sully and eclipse The charms of nature. 'Tis the ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... 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 ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... 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 down ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... greatest enjoyment and pleasure being the receipt at last of two sets of letters from home.... I have a great heap of despatches, some of which seem rather likely to perplex me. I daresay, however, that I shall see my way through the mist in a day or two.... I had a levee last evening, which was largely attended. The course which I am about to follow does not square with the views of the merchants, but I gave an answer to their address, which gave them for the moment wonderful satisfaction.... A document, taken in one of the Chinese ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... 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 corrected her; history, it appeared, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... he, in a sort of grave tone which did not however mean gravity. "Holding a levee?—and do you receive your courtiers at different hours according to their ages? in that case. I have come ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... clapped the Princess under his arm and walked away, dragging his leg painfully, towards the house where he knew Mademoiselle de Doucine was waiting for him to attend her morning levee. ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... deep and abiding was their faith in the justice of the cause and in the ability of the government to maintain the union; and how determined that nothing must be held back that was needed to accomplish that result. For some days there was a regular levee beneath my father's roof and the good people of the town gave the union soldier much cause to remember them with gratitude as long as ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... manage this for you better than any one; they all visit me; and I may say that I never rise without having half-a-dozen wits at my levee. ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... occupied exactly an hour in the delivery, and was listened to throughout with profound attention. When it was over, Mr. Spurgeon held a sort of levee from the pulpit, the people pressing round to shake his hand, and it was nearly nine o'clock before the last of the congregation had passed away, leaving Wycliffe's ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... Rome, we learn from these lessons. It was the very essence of a great Roman's life that he should live in public; and to such an extent was this carried that we wonder how such a man as Cicero found time for the real work of his life. The Roman patron was expected to have a levee every morning early in his own house, and was wont, when he went down into the Forum, to be attended by a crowd of parasites. This had become so much a matter of course that a public man would have felt himself ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... 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
... that gentleman's arrival, we soon come to a more perfect understanding of each other all round, and a very pleasant evening is spent in receiving crowds of visitors in a ceremonious manner, in which I really seem to be holding a sort of a levee, except that it is evening instead of morning. Open door is kept for everybody, and mine host's retinue of pages and serving men are kept pretty busy supplying coffee right and left; beggars in their rags are even allowed to ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... of 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 ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... 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 of Pullman's palace-cars. And lo! ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... 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 ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... power and place your passion lie, If in the pomp of life consist the joy; Then hire a slave, or (if you will) a lord 100 To do the honours, and to give the word; Tell at your levee, as the crowds approach, To whom to nod, whom take into your coach, Whom honour with your hand: to make remarks, Who rules in Cornwall, or who rules in Berks: 'This may be troublesome, is near the chair: That makes three members, this can choose a mayor.' Instructed thus, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... have 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 ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... 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
... himself at the Commander-in-Chief's levee, his Grace had not the least remembrance of General Lumley's aide-de-camp, and though he knew Esmond's family perfectly well, having served with both lords (my Lord Francis and the Viscount Esmond's father) in Flanders, and in the Duke of York's Guard, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... me, 'you will see that lovely creature I once told you about; I can hear a fine lady's step in the corridor; it is she, no doubt;' and, as a matter of fact, the young man came in with a woman on his arm. I recognized the Countess, whose levee Gobseck had described for me, one of ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... airs and forms of familiar and respectful salutation, from the clap on the shoulder to the humble bow; he practises the stare of strangeness, and the smile of condescension, the solemnity of promise, and the graciousness of encouragement, as if he had been nursed at a levee; and pronounces, with no less propriety than his father, the monosyllables of coldness, and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... accepted by the country have been brought about chiefly through the change which has gradually been made in the words and stories accompanying the music. Once the text of all Ragtime songs was written in Negro dialect, and was about Negroes in the cabin or in the cotton field or on the levee or at a jubilee or on Sixth Avenue or at a ball, and about their love affairs. To-day, only a small proportion of Ragtime songs relate at all to the Negro. The truth is, Ragtime is now national rather than racial. But that does not abolish in ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... the Major, 'is, in her way, a Lucifer. Joey B. has had his day, Sir, but he keeps his eyes. He sees, does Joe. His Royal Highness the late Duke of York observed of Joey, at a levee, that he saw.' ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... the police of New Orleans. In a single paper we find an account of the execution of one man for robbery and intent to kill, of the arrest of another for stabbing a man to death with a carving knife; and of a third found murdered on the Levee on the previous Sunday morning. In the last case, although the murderer was known, no steps had been taken for his arrest; and to crown the whole, it is actually stated in so many words, that the City guards are not permitted, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... 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 awake in the cedar-roofed garret, and harks to the ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... had rounded the corner by an old hop-house and kept on down the levee. Now that the presence of the others was withdrawn, the two looked about them differently and began themselves to give off an influence instead of being pressed upon by overpowering personalities. Frogs were chorusing in the near swamp, and Bobby wanted one. He was off after it. ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... sailing-vessels, no enemy could breast the waters of the rolling Mississippi and crush the resistance of the city's defenders, as did Farragut in 1862. Knowing that they could not hope to take their ships up to the levee of the city, the enemy determined to cast anchor near the entrance of Lake Borgne, and send through a chain of lakes and bayous a mammoth expedition in barges, to a point within ten miles of the city. But this well-laid plan had been betrayed to the Americans by ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... 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 went, and found some ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... that defindin' coons in th' polis coort, an' now an' thin bein' mintioned among th' scatthrin' in raypublican county con-vintions, an' thin he dhropped out iv sight. 'Twas years befure I see him again. Wan day I was walkin' up th' levee smokin' a good tin cint seegar whin a coon wearin' a suit iv clothes that looked like a stained glass window in th' house iv a Dutch brewer an' a pop bottle in th' fr-ront iv his shirt, steps up to me an' he says: 'How dy'e do, Mistah Dooley,' ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... 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 on the part ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... not hesitate to show his dislike of the ceremony that prevailed around him. He stopped the weekly levee at the White House, and the system of precedence in force at the present time; also the appointment of fast and thanksgiving days. He dressed with severe simplicity and would not permit any attention to be paid him as ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... composed of the scum of the city, men and women, broke and smashed without restraint. Toward noon of the 25th, as the fleet drew round the bend where the Crescent City first appears in sight, the confusion and destruction were at their height. "The levee of New Orleans," says Farragut in his report, "was one scene of desolation. Ships, steamers, cotton, coal, etc., were all in one common blaze, and our ingenuity was much taxed to avoid the floating conflagration. The destruction of property was awful." Upon ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... 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 ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... that I should see how happily they live on very small means indeed. And I must own I am the more tempted to go abroad because there is preparation for a Marriage in my Family (a Niece—but not one of my Norfolk Nieces) which is to be at my Brother's near here; and there will be a Levee of People, who drop in here, etc. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... Anne Scott, and Walter the soldier, and Jane Scott the bride, were also travelling in Sir Walter's train. The reception which Ireland gave Sir Walter was a warm-hearted ovation. 'It would be endless to enumerate the distinguished persons who, morning after morning, crowded to his levee in St. Stephen's Green,' says Lockhart, and he quotes an old saying of Sir Robert Peel's, 'that Sir Walter's reception in the High Street of Edinburgh is 1822 was the first thing that gave him (Peel) a notion of the electric shock of a nation's gratitude.' ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... 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 ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... Brougham, we have quoted but few 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
... 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 their quality the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... 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 ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 two ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... as well as the roan colt and a goodly supply of hay and grain that had been provided for him, were on the levee waiting for the Mollie Able when she turned in for the landing, and Rodney did not fail to notice that in the crowd of lookers-on there was one young fellow who made it a point to keep pretty close to him, although he did not appear to do ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... Capt. W. F. Davidson wrote me from Cincinnati about going with him 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, ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... 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 service ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... said to 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
... no longer young when a low fence came into view; beyond it stretched a levee, and at its base a glint of water showed itself through the great trees, which stretched their mighty arms as though they would ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... or with all their wines? What could they more than knights and squires confound, Or water all the Quorum ten miles round? A statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil! "Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil; Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door; A hundred oxen at your levee roar." Poor Avarice one torment more would find; Nor could Profusion squander all in kind. Astride his cheese Sir Morgan might we meet; And Worldly crying coals from street to street, Whom with a wig so wild, and mien so mazed, Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman crazed. Had Colepepper's ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... brilliant prince (who, by the way, was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge) it is related that once at a levee he noticed a naval friend with a much-tanned face. "How do, Admiral? Glad to see you again. It's a long time since you have been at a levee." "Yes, sir. Since I last saw your Royal Highness I have been nearly to the North Pole." "By G—-, you look more as if you had been to the South Pole." It is ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... glad, and after dinner the whole flock assembled to behold Dan crutch himself up and down the hall a few times before he settled in the porch to hold a sort of levee. He was much pleased at the interest and good-will shown him, and brightened up more and more every minute; for the boys came to pay their respects, the little girls fussed about him with stools and cushions, and Teddy watched over him as if he was a frail creature unable to do anything for himself. ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... unusually alive and excited that evening. Karl Gurtler was the centre of an admiring circle, who soon enveloped him in the incense of their meerschaums. He held a large levee in the common room of the inn, where a succession of very terrific battle-songs kept us up to a late hour, as it was of no use to think of slumber during their explosion. The next morning, at the appointed hour, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... he is fat,—his waistcoat gay, When strained upon a levee day, Scarce meets across his princely paunch; And pantaloons are like half-moons ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... one or two principal patriots, (at the head of whom I name with honour Pistorides.[147]) For these have decided the matter directly against me, by declaring that no person who was ever known to lie under the suspicion of one single Tory principle, or who had been once seen at a great man's levee in the worst of times,[148] should be allowed to come within the verge of the Castle; much less to bow in the antechamber, appear at the assemblies, or dance at a birth-night. However, I dare assert, that ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... come to the top of the Firm, Townshend soon to withdraw, impatient of the bottom] is all-powerful now: O TEMPORA, O MORES!" "I receive universal congratulations, and have to smile" in a ghastly manner. "The King and Queen despise me. I put myself in their way last Levee, bowing to the ground; but they did not even condescend to look." 'Notre grand petit-maitre,' little George, the Olympian Jove of these parts, "passed on as if I had not been there." 'Chesterfield, they say, is to go, in great pomp, as Ambassador ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... invites on Wednesday, Saturday, or Sunday, when there are no debates. We had three dinner invitations for next Wednesday, from Mr. Harcourt, Marquis of Anglesey, and Mrs. Mansfield. We go to the former. The Queen held a levee on Friday, for gentlemen only. Your father went, ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... to hope for some change. The place was decidedly unhealthy. Our men were dropping off rapidly from a species of putrid sore throat which was very prevalent. The soil was so full of moisture that we had to use the levee for a burial ground. Elsewhere a grave dug two feet deep would rapidly fill with water, and to cover a coffin decently, it was necessary that two men should stand on it, while the extemporized sextons ...
— Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops • Joshua M. Addeman
... 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 ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... the shortest way to tide-water. The streets of the city were crowded with flatboatmen, from Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, and with sailors speaking strange tongues, and gathered from all the ports of the world. At the broad levee floated the ships of all nations. All manual work was done by the negro slaves, and already the planters were beginning to show signs of that prodigal prosperity, which, in the flush times, made New Orleans the gayest city in the United States. In 1813 Jackson put the final ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... equivocal in their character. There is not a trait in them that renders them doubtful. They are so originally vice, that they are generated in the dung of other vices, and crawl into existence with the filth upon their back. The fugitives have found protection in you, and the levee-room is ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... conviction of our total inability to make war that the five or six thousand troops now in Canada are considered to be amply sufficient to protect that province against our mightiest efforts."[378] A revolution of sentiment was to be noted even in the minds of former advocates. Castlereagh, at a levee on March 12, said to Russell that the movements in the United States appeared to him to ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Senator from Mississippi, was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, March 1, 1841; as his parents were slaves, he received a limited education; became a planter in Mississippi in 1869; was a member of the Mississippi Levee Board, and sheriff and tax-collector of Bolivar County from 1872 until his election to the United States Senate from Mississippi, February 3, 1875, as a Republican, to succeed Henry R. Pease, Republican, and took his seat March 4, 1875. His term of service ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... 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
... The general held a levee in his tent every morning, from ten to eleven. He was strict as to the morals of the camp. Drunkenness was severely punished. A soldier convicted of theft was sentenced to receive one thousand lashes, and to be drummed out of his ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... The Sheriffs and City Remembrancer had waited upon the Secretary of State (Marquis Wellesley), to ascertain when it would be His Majesty's pleasure to receive it. Upon which the Noble Secretary informed them, that he would take His Majesty's pleasure upon the subject; and at the following levee he let them know, that it was His Majesty's pleasure that it should be presented through the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... he turned pale, and appeared so much more terrified than butlers usually appear when detected in a lie, that Mrs. Pomfret resolved, as she said, to sift the matter to the bottom. Impatiently did she wait till the clock struck nine, and her mistress' bell rang, the signal for her attendance at her levee. ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... to their pleasure being a little attack of bilious fever, from which Prince Albert suffered for a few days. There is a published letter to his stepmother in which the Prince tells his doings in the most unaffected, kindly fashion. There were the King's levee, "long and fatiguing, but very interesting;" the dinner at Court, and the "beautiful concert" which followed, at which the guests had to stand till two o'clock; the King's birthday, with the Drawing-room at St. James's Palace, where three thousand eight hundred ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... that he was exactly and fully equal to what he had to do. He was never hurried; never negligent; but seemed ever prepared for the occasion, be it what it might. In his study, in his parlour, at a levee, before Congress, at the head of the army, he seemed ever to be just what the situation required. He possessed, in a degree never equalled by any human being I ever saw, the strongest, most ever-present sense ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... brightened a little, for there was always a sense of comfort and rest in Melinda's presence, and Richard spent much of his leisure in her society, accompanying her to concerts and occasionally to a levee, and taking pains to show her whatever he thought would interest her. It was pleasant to have a lady with him sometimes, and he wished so much it had been practicable for Ethelyn to have come. "Poor Ethie," he called her to himself, pitying her because, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... punctually by the clock They roost upon or quit their rock, Or swim ashore and hold their levee, Lords of the mixed lacustrine bevy; Or with their slow unwieldy gait Their green domain perambulate, Or with prodigious flaps and prances Indulge in their peculiar dances, Returning to their feeding-ground What time ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... waited 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 ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... Ansarey could not have received them with an air more impassive had she been holding a levee at St. James'. Seated on her divan, she was clothed in a purple robe; her long dark hair descended over her shoulders, and was drawn off her white forehead, which was bound with a broad circlet of pure gold, and ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Bottom was selected. The proposed park was the talk of the town. Dunlap's Creek flowed in a circle, skirting three sides of the bottom land. Levees three feet high were thrown up along the banks of the creek, a rope stretched along the west side. An opening in the levee admitted the water. Two feet of water covered the bottom. The weather turned cold, ice formed, the park was opened, and three-fourths of the public walked in free. Alfred felt that Spaff was about right in his ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... Semple's quarters and passed out compliments to white and native alike, praising them for their daring, their adroitness and their success. A great meeting was then gathered in the Governor's apartments and a levee was held at which all of the servants and employees of the Company were present, and in a speech McLeod told the audience that the English had no right to build upon their lands without their permission—a ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... pleased God to enable her to get the better of it, and she would prefer your never mentioning the subject to her again. She has a great number of pensioners: and on Saturday, after she comes back from market, there is a regular levee of old men and women in the passage, waiting for their weekly gratuity. Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscriptions, and hers are always the most liberal donations to the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... rest was a young gentleman, called the Lord des Cheriots, (3) who wooed her so ardently that he was never absent from her levee and couchee, and was also with her as much as possible during the day. This did not please the Prince of Belhoste, who thought that a man of such poor estate, and so lacking in grace, did not deserve an honourable and gracious reception, and he often made remonstrances about it to the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... 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 ...
— History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry • Alfred J. Hill
... excited by the British troops. The admirable strength, stature, and discipline of the men, and the successes which they had already obtained, made them the first object of universal interest; and the parades of our regiments formed a daily levee of princes and nobles. It was impossible that soldiership could be on a more stately scale. Other times have followed, which have shown the still statelier sight of nations marching to battle; but the hundred thousand men who marched under Cobourg to take up their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... scandals it knows! Oh, the tales it could tell Of Drum and Ridotto, of Rake and of Belle,— Of Cock-fight and Levee, and (scarcely more rare!) Of Fete-days at Tyburn, ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... Theodore Hook, to introduce Goldsmith, during a summer ramble in Hampstead, to a party where he was an entire stranger, and to pass himself off as a friend of the host. "Our Dr. Glover," says Goldsmith, "had a constant levee of his distressed countrymen, whose wants, as far as he was able, he always relieved." Gordon, the fattest man in the club, was renowned for his jovial song of "Nottingham Ale;" and on special occasions Goldsmith himself would ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... flood of 1863, before Marysville was protected by its levee, which is now twenty-five feet high, the family cow swam into the parlor of one of the best mansions of the town, through the window. When the flood waters had subsided, she was found drowned on top of ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... abstraction of the Roman pomps and power, when ascending to their utmost altitude, confront the following representative sketch of a great English levee on some high solemnity, suppose the king's birthday: "Amongst the presentations to his majesty, we noticed Lord O. S., the governor general of India, on his departure for Bengal; Mr. U. Z., with an address from the Upper and Lower Canadas; ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... is at home at this hour, your Excellency," replied De Pean. "But she likes her bed, as other pretty women do, and is practising for the petite levee, like a duchess. I don't suppose she ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... mouth of the Muddy River (as they called the Missouri) in the month of December, and finding no place there well suited to his purpose, he dropped down the stream seventeen miles, and drove the prows of his boats into what is now the Levee of St. Louis. It was too late in the season to begin a settlement. But he "blazed" the trees to mark the spot, and he said to a young man of ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... public reception or levee is held at stated times, at which guests are expected to appear in full dress. They are presented by the usher to the President, and have the honor of shaking hands with him. They then pass on, and are presented ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... 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
... constant rain which it dyed its own black. But early memories stirred joyfully in the two travellers in whose consciousness I was making my tour, at sight of the familiar stern-wheel steamboat lying beside the wharf boat at the foot of the dilapidated levee, and doing its best to represent the hundreds of steamboats that used to lie there in the old days. It had the help of three others in its generous effort, and the levee itself made a gallant pretence ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 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
... courage and affectation of foppery were united, which is less frequently the case, with a spirit of innate modesty. He is thus described in Lord Binning's satirical verses, entitled "Argyle's Levee:" ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... been the fatigues of the preceding night, the Duc d'Orleans still gave his mornings to business. He generally began to work with Dubois before he was dressed; then came a short and select levee, followed again by audiences, which kept him till eleven or twelve o'clock; then the chiefs of the councils (La Valliere and Le Blanc) came to give an account of their espionage, then Torcy, to bring any important letters which he had abstracted. At half-past two the regent had his chocolate, ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... back of a horse of less value than a thousand pounds; and if you want to know really what horses are, you must go down to his villa at Wimbledon, if you are not lucky enough to catch a sight of him proceeding to a levee, or driving his four-in-hand to Ascot or Epsom. All Piccadilly has been seen to stand, lost in silent admiration, as he has driven his splendid britchzka along it, with his perfection of a little tiger by his side; and such cattle as never besides were seen in even harness of such ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the ventilator? So, that's Rowland, of the navy, is it! Well, this is a tumble. Wasn't he broken for conduct unbecoming an officer? Got roaring drunk at the President's levee, didn't he? I ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... thence to Centreville, where the army was to come together for the blow at the rebels. Jack and his friends were a good deal chagrined to learn that they were not as near the enemy as the column to the south of them, whose fires had been mistaken for Beauregard's. Though the levee came to an end at "taps," no one felt sleepy, and the excitement banished the pains of fatigue. Major Mike, sauntering through the dark lines near midnight, heard the tale still going on in drowsy monotone, but, good-naturedly, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... an exceedingly rainy winter, and the streets were often knee deep with mud. The town is built on a level, marshy region of bottom land, and for weeks the roads became almost impassable, and had to be waded on horseback, or the levee followed, and causeways had to be built by the military. But Miss Mann was not to be prevented by these difficulties from visiting the "Contraband Hospital," as it was called, and from going her rounds ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... say the affair was decisive? But Mortier is not captured." Again he pondered. "I am very glad you have brought good news, though Schmidt's death is a heavy price to pay for the victory. His Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I thank you! You must have a rest. Be at the levee tomorrow after the parade. However, I will ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... ridge, dike, heap, drift, embankment, brink, shore, rivage, rim, brim, marge, strand; shallow, shoal, bar; levee; terreplein. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... took up the cry, and a howling mob, mostly of soldiers, were at his heels. He hoped to reach the river, where among the immense piles of stores heaped along the levee, or among the shipping, he might secrete himself, but a patrol guard suddenly appeared a block away, and his retreat was cut off. He gave himself up for lost, and reached for a small pistol which he carried, with the intention of putting a bullet through his own heart; "for," thought he, ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... counselled my lord better than that; as any man may see, who will but open his bible and turn to the book of Job, chap. the 1st, verse 6th, and so on. There Moses informs, that when Satan, whose effrontery is up to any thing, presented himself at the grand levee, the Almighty very civilly asked him, (now mind that, 'saints', in your speech to poor sinners) — the Almighty, I say, very CIVILLY asked him "where he ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... answer was the unpreparedness of the Spanish inhabitants for Anglo-American institutions. To the Western American who floated down the Mississippi, past the cotton-fields and sugar plantations cultivated by African negroes, and who landed his cargo on the levee at New Orleans, among the motley throngs, province and city seemed like a foreign country, and the inhabitants aliens in speech and habits. From the buildings, with their many arcades and balconies and ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... approve. Now that I am satisfied she would approve, 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 ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... A levee was announced for the evening. The hall which had been selected for this gathering was a large, low room in the upper story of a building near the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 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 character ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... looking forward with the keenest interest to the impending season, when Lord Montfort would formally enter its spell-bound ranks, and multiform were the speculations on his destiny. He attended an early levee, in order that he might be presented—a needful ceremony which had not yet taken place—and then again quitted his country, and for years. He was heard of in every capital except his own. Wonderful exploits at St. Petersburg, and Paris, and Madrid, deeds of mark at Vienna, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... morning of April 24, the fleet under command of Captain Farragut succeeded in passing the forts, and a week later the transport Mississippi with General Butler and his troops was alongside the levee at New Orleans. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... "A queen's levee," interrupted the princess; "a love's nest of Marie Antoinette. Yes, we have come to that pass that the fashions are named after the queen, and all acquire a certain frivolous character, so that all the men and all the honorable women of Paris are ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... levee, eh?" he said, glancing about upon the group. "How d'ye, young ladies and gentlemen? Holloa, Ed! so you're the brave fellow that shot his father? Hope your grandfather dealt out justice to you in the same fashion that Wal ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... 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 Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... who proposes to be presented to the queen, must leave at the lord chamberlain's office before twelve o'clock, two days before the levee, a card with his name written thereon, and with the name of the nobleman or gentleman by whom he is to be presented. In order to carry out the existing regulation that no presentation can be made at a levee except by a person actually ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... a stranger to visit Calcutta is during holiday week, for then the social season is inaugurated by a levee given by the viceroy, a "drawing-room" by the vice-queen and a grand state ball. The annual races are held that week, also, including the great sporting event of the year, which is a contest for a cup offered by the viceroy, and a military parade and review and various other ceremonies ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... Waring proposed to sail at ten of the clock; but after breakfasting, I was of two minds whether to see the last of Miss Dorothy, foreseeing a levee in her honour upon the ship. And so it proved. I had scarce set out in a pungy from the dock, when I perceived a dozen boats about the packet; and when I thrust my shoulders through the gangway, there was the company gathered at the mainmast. They made ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... On levee day I saw the reception at the Mikado's palace in Yeddo. Every one presented had to come in European full dress. That dress does not become the Japanese figure. He looks awkward in it. His legs are too short. The tails of his claw-hammer coat drag on the ground, and the black ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of this remark was told to the pope at his levee, and caused him to remark, Laetamini, gentes, quoniam surrexit Dominus. A quotation which the old cardinals abominated as a profanation of sacred texts. Seeing which, the pope reprimanded them severely, and took occasion to lecture them, telling them that if they were good Christians they ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... forfeit five hundred extra rifles and thirty thousand rupees as a fine, and lastly, that they must offer submission to the Queen's rule within a fortnight,—the submission to be given at a full durbar, which is a native Indian term for a levee or reception held by a native prince or officer ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 56, December 2, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... The king is the most absolute despot in the world. He is heir-at-law to all his subjects. He is regarded as a demigod. It is unlawful to indicate that the king eats, sleeps, or drinks. No one is allowed to approach him, except his nobles, who at a court levee disrobe themselves of all their elegant garments, and, prostrate upon the ground, they crawl into his royal presence. The whole people are the cringing lickspittles of the nobles in turn. Every private in the army is ambitious to please the king by valor. The king is literally ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Canal Zone and president of the International Board of Consulting Engineers, restated his views and convictions as opposed to the lock-canal type and in favor of the sea-level project. The last witness, Mr. B.M. Harrod, an engineer of large experience, for many years connected with levee construction and familiar with the flood problems of the Mississippi River, submitted a statement in which he restated his views in favor of a ...
— The American Type of Isthmian Canal - Speech by Hon. John Fairfield Dryden in the Senate of the - United States, June 14, 1906 • John Fairfield Dryden
... top-coat and hat, but he went to the Ohio River, instead of to the Mississippi, where Nelia stood doubtfully staring down at her boat from the top of the big city levee. ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... 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 kingdom ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... exchanged his three or four minutes' conversation with the fair postmistress,—a conversation at times impeded by bashfulness or timidity, on his part solely, or restricted often to vague smiling,—he resignedly made way for the next. It was a formal levee, mitigated by the informality of rustic tact, great good-humor, and infinite patience, and would have been amusing had it not always been terribly in earnest and at times touching. For it was peculiar to the place and ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Creek there are about twenty acres of overflowed land which could easily be reclaimed by dyking. Along Canoe Passage there is a considerably larger tract of tide-land, probably 150 acres, which from two to three feet of levee would protect from overflow. Proceeding northward there is no open country until Deleatlay* is reached, where there are about 900 acres of level land, about one-half of which is subject to overflow at high tides. This produces an ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... it was known 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 ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... how, or why, or what suspicion Could enter into Don Alfonso's head; But for a cavalier of his condition It surely was exceedingly ill-bred, Without a word of previous admonition, To hold a levee round his lady's bed, And summon lackeys, armed with fire and sword, To prove himself the thing ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... 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, as ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... to a great duchess, the Princess Conti, in order to be presented. She played high, and won—not a royal heart, but the royal fancy. Her dress, manners, and extraordinary beauty increased the impression she had once before made at a hunting-party; and after the levee she was sent for, and became virtually the minister of the realm. She was unquestionably a woman of great intellect, as well as of tact and beauty, and even manifested a sympathy with some sorts of intellectual excellence. She was the patroness of artists, philosophers, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... 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 ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... Orleans to Saint Louis; and our walk was constantly on the Levee, whence we could see a hundred of those huge white Mississippi steamers at their moorings in the river: "Look," said my friend Lochlomond to me, as we stood one day on the quay—"look at that post! Look at that coffee-house behind ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the matter before his majesty's return, at the usual hour in the afternoon, from the levee. The Spanish minister had hurried off instantly to Windsor, and was in waiting, at Lady Charlotte Finch's, to be ready to assure her majesty of the king's safety, in case any report anticipated ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... 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 ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... never asked any of us a second time to his table. He expected us once a fortnight to be at his levee, which we never failed, and he always received us very politely. He was a man of a very amiable character, and much respected by every body in Chili, and some time after we left that country ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... levee. Livingston shared the couch with him. Foster reclined in Paul's armchair. Sydney Burr sat in the protesting wicker rocker, his crutches beside him, and South, his countenance much disfigured by strips of surgeon's plaster, ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... small party of horsemen, galloped around the corner of a warehouse and pulled up on the levee at Bismarck as the mate of the Far ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... performer upon the piano and harp, but also a linguist of considerable proficiency, while her grace of manner and brilliant powers of repartee added greatly to her social charms. On one occasion during Polk's administration she attended a levee at the White House, and as she passed down the line with the other guests she received an enthusiastic welcome and was soon so completely surrounded by an admiring throng that for a while Mrs. Polk was left very much to herself. It was Mrs. Scott who wrote in the ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... the night of a levee at the White House. The East Room was crowded with smartly dressed men and women of the capital, quaintly simple legislators from remote States in bygone fashions, officers in uniform, and the diplomatic circle blazing with orders. The invoker ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... levee once a week, and, from what is now recollected, they were generally well attended, but confined to men in public life and gentlemen of leisure, for at that day it would have been thought a breach of decorum to visit the President of the ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... good omens seemed to usher in the 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 one to ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... "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 ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Above is that indispensable appurtenance to the pander's trade—the private dining room. Above that is what, in the infinite courtesy of the police, is called a hotel. And behind and beyond lies the Levee itself—naked and unashamed, blatantly vicious, consuming itself in the caustic of its ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... being unable to attend the LEVEE, had appointed me to wait upon him at six in the evening; at which hour I presented myself at his lodgings, attended by Simon Fleix. I found him in the midst of half a dozen gentlemen whose habit it was to attend him upon all public occasions; and ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... 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 Mahomet in preference ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... full levee, and fine smell of greatcoats. 'Oh! would you put your hats on the silk cushions?' said the widow to some men in the doorway, who were throwing off their greasy hats on a damask sofa.—'Why not? where else?' 'If the lady was in it, you wouldn't,' said she, sighing.—'No, ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... arms, and giving instructions to their agents amongst the populace. An agitation of the same sort prevailed at the Louvre; the king, too, was deliberating with his advisers as to what he should do on the morrow: Guise would undoubtedly present himself at his morning levee; should he at once rid himself of him by the poniards of the five and forty bravoes which the Duke of Epernon had enrolled in Gascony for his service? Or would it be best to summon to Paris some troops, French and Swiss, to crush the Parisian rebels and the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... his mistake instantly, and had experience enough of Western humor not to prolong the disadvantage of his unfortunate adjuration. He colored slightly and said, with a smile, "You know what I mean; you could have protected yourselves better. A levee on the bank would have kept you clear of ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... English; they were learning to pick up cigar stumps and smoke them, to pass hours of their time gambling with pennies and dice and cigarette cards; they were learning the location of all the houses of prostitution on the "Levee," and the names of the "madames" who kept them, and the days when they gave their state banquets, which the police captains and the big politicians all attended. If a visiting "country customer" were to ask them, they could show him which was "Hinkydink's" ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... crowded with men. The size of that levee astonished the two new arrivals. The General was not in sight. He was closeted with some one in the bedroom. Harlan and Linton noted that the men in the parlor did not wear the demeanor of ordinary visitors calling to pay their respects ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... 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 red with his father's blood?—No, Sir, these things ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... declaring his intention to retire. The pattern of two terms which he set no President has ever dared attempt to exceed. The opponents of his administration, those who had foreseen the coming royal reception in the simple levee which marked his social life, or who objected to the growing custom of celebrating his birthday as if he were a monarch, were compelled to cease their evil prophecies when he attended, as a spectator, the inauguration of his successor in the ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... again yesterday, and was surprised to find the levee-room had lost so entirely the air of the lion's den. This sovereign don't stand in one spot, with his eyes fixed royally on the ground, and dropping bits of {80} German news: he walks about, and speaks to everybody. I saw him afterwards on the throne where he is graceful and genteel, sits ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... 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 until bedtime ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White |
