"Backstairs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shut. And, listening, he learned. For some things said in his hearing were distinctly not pretty, and made one wonder if Prince Victor's deep-rooted confidence in an England mortally cankered with social discontent were not grounded in a surprising familiarity with backstairs morale. Other observations, again, were merely ribald, some were humorous, while ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... a sort of backstairs knowledge; for in my teens I struggled for life in the office of an Irish gentleman who acted as land agent and private banker for many persons of distinction. Now it is possible for a London author to dine out in the highest circles for twenty years without learning as much ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... find Socialists about, or at any rate men calling themselves Socialists, who will pretend that this is not so, who will assure you that some odd little jobbing about municipal gas and water is Socialism, and backstairs intervention between Conservative and Liberal the way to the millennium.... Socialism aims to change, not only the boots on people's feet, but the clothes they wear, the houses they inhabit, the work they do, the ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... that the loyalty of the minister, who was then generally regarded as the most heroic champion of his Prince, was lukewarm indeed when compared with the boiling zeal which filled the pages of the backstairs and the women of the bedchamber. Of the Regency bill, Pitt's own bill, Miss Burney speaks with horror. "I shuddered," she says, "to hear it named." And again, "Oh, how dreadful will be the day when that unhappy ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... picked up a prominent man for a father, and instead of his losing so many marks on the score of that advantage, it was counted to him for righteousness! And while Hill had to introduce himself and talk to Miss Haysman clumsily over mangled guinea-pigs in the laboratory, this Wedderburn, in some backstairs way, had access to her social altitudes, and could converse in a polished argot that Hill understood perhaps, but felt incapable of speaking. Not, of course, that he wanted to. Then it seemed to Hill that ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... He would pose as a President-maker. When the President was made, and the world was saying "President Hanway," that man should be dull indeed who did not look upon John Harley as the power behind the curtain. He would control the backstairs; he would wear a White House pass-key as a watch-charm! John Harley as well as ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... only, whose enthusiasm and health enable them to surmount all obstacles. When a gentleman, through zeal for the public service, undertakes to do the public business, we know that we shall hear the cant of backstairs counsellors. But we never heard this while the declaimer was himself a backstairs man, as he calls it, but in the confidence and views of the administration, as may more properly and respectfully be said. But if the members are to know nothing ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... you know that they never mean to do it, they only mean to get the millions from the public. I have lived with my uncle for ten years, ever since my poor father died, and I know the backstairs of the business. There have been half a dozen schemes like this, and although they have had their bad times, very bad times, he and Sir Robert have grown richer and richer. But what has happened to those who have invested in them? Oh! let us drop the subject, ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard |
