"Dinner party" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... however, be supposed, that they dined tete-a-tete; no, no—the corporal and his wife were not so churlish as that. The dinner party consisted of a chosen set, the most particular friends of the corporal. Mr Short, first officer and boatswain, Mr William Spurey, Mr and Mrs Salisbury; and last, although not the least important person in this history, Peter Smallbones, ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... bit. Uncle Willoughby pottered about the room, registering baffledness, while I sat sucking at a cigarette, feeling rather like a chappie I'd once read about in a book, who murdered another cove and hid the body under the dining-room table, and then had to be the life and soul of a dinner party, with it there all the time. My guilty secret oppressed me to such an extent that after a while I couldn't stick it any longer. I lit another cigarette and started for a stroll in the grounds, by way of ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... the trick in an instant, and affecting great astonishment at its enormous size, he put it in his waistcoat pocket, as a curiosity, forming in his own mind a little plot for the following day, when he had an engagement to dine out. The dinner party was at Walter Lyndon's house at Moseley, and here he met Gillott. Lawson, at table, was seated next to a gentleman from London, who wore on his forefinger a ring containing a very magnificent diamond; so large, indeed, as to excite Lawson's attention so much that at length he spoke, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... accompanied by a very pretty, modish, affected young lady, Miss Annabella Luttridge, her niece. Her little coquettish airs were lost upon Clarence Hervey, whose eye was intently fixed upon the door, watching for the entrance of Mr. Vincent. He was one of the dinner party, and he came up soon after the ladies. He seemed prepared for the sight of Mr. Hervey, to whom he bowed with a cold, haughty air; and then addressed himself to Miss Annabella Luttridge, who showed the most obvious desire ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... dinner party I ever remember. It would be powerfully hard for me to say which was happier, "Danyul" or his mother. They just beamed upon each other. She was proud of her boy and his pleasant home. "Danyul says ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... After the dinner party domestic matters seemed to run even more smoothly than before, but there was a difference, far below the surface, in Mrs. Salisbury's attitude toward the new maid. The mistress found herself incessantly ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... printer, (which is some clue to the value that is set upon the work,) to launch out into regions of thought and invention never trod till now, and to explore characters that never met a human eye before—this is a luxury worth sacrificing a dinner party, or a few hours of a spare morning to. Who, indeed, when the work is critical and full of expectation, would venture to dine out, or to face a coterie of blue stockings in the evening, without having gone through this ordeal, or at least without, hastily turning over a few of the first pages ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... of an accident. This inevitable crisis was brought on in Mademoiselle de Watteville by the portrait which one of the most prudent Abbes of the Chapter of Besancon imprudently allowed himself to sketch at a dinner party. ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... At a dinner party, at Elizabeth J. Reid's, a few days after, Lady Byron was one of the company; with whom Mr. and Mrs. Mott had a previous acquaintance, through a letter of introduction from George Combe. As Colonel Miller, one of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... most of the other restaurants of Barcelona. There are some very pleasant private rooms at the restaurant, and a large room for banquets. The cuisine is almost entirely French. You can get a very fair dinner, wine and all, at Justin's for about 6s.; but if you are giving a dinner party, and are prepared to pay 30 pesetas or 18s. a head, Justin's will give you such a dinner as the menu I give below, wine ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... which; and another black and brown. And so it was among the insects also: the same sort of taste, both in colour and the arrangements of colour, and even in the proportions of the various colours, seemed to have regulated the style of ornament manifested in the carriages of the dinner party, and of the insect visitors of the pond. Further, I thought I could detect a considerable degree of resemblance in form between a chariot and an insect. There was a great abdominal body separated by a narrow isthmus from a thoracic coach-box, where the directing power ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... that it is difficult to make those omissions which the disinterested reader might wish. The Doctor, like ourselves, saw with the same rose-coloured glasses that we did. We were very pleasantly entertained in Edinburgh by Lord Kintore and others, but the most interesting dinner party I think was when we were the guests of Sir Herbert Simpson, brother of the celebrated Sir James Y. Simpson, the man who discovered the uses of chloroform as an anaesthetic. We dined in the very room where the discovery ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... papa is a shadow, you call a fine, manly person like Gam—Mr. Bliss, corpulent. I always said I would not marry an invalid, (Macgregor died of apoplexy last week, I heard, at a small dinner party; fell forward with his head upon the cheese, and expired without a groan,) and where can you find a more robust and healthy man than Mr. Bliss? Not a gray hair, and gout his only complaint. So aristocratic. You know I've loads of fine old flannel, just the ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... his quiet grin, "this venison dinner party of mine is announced as over. You Mormons take yourselves and your dogs off my place. Frank," to the sheriff, who had been an amused spectator up to this point, "come over here and soothe Scott. He's a right nervous cowman to-day. Dad, you ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... society it has been variously regarded as the consummation of an earthly career most fervently to be desired, and, on the other hand, as that consummation which is most of all to be deprecated. Caesar the Dictator, at his last dinner party, (coena,) and the very evening before his assassination, being questioned as to the mode of death which, in his opinion, might seem the most eligible, replied—"That which should be most sudden." On the other hand, the divine Litany of our English Church, when breathing ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... the question of labour Mr. Grammont was fierce, even for an American business man, and one night at a dinner party he discovered his daughter displaying what he considered an improper familiarity with socialist ideas. This had produced a violent revulsion towards the purdah system and the idea of a matrimonial alliance with Gunter Lake. Gunter Lake, ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... disciplined, he will form the habit of curiosity about words, their stations, their savor, their aptitudes, their limitations, their outspokenness, their reticences, their affinities and antipathies. Thus when he has need of a phrase to fill out a verbal dinner party, he will ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... small breakfast, stood at his desk reading or writing all the morning, eat his dinner of vegetables and pudding, walked with his Skye terrier, and then often finished the day by spending the evening with us or the Bartons. He did not visit with the neighbouring gentlefolks, as he hated a set dinner party.' ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... their financial measures came on, and I was obliged to expose their specious character in the "Times," when our friendly relations ceased temporarily. Political opponents in Italy are more likely to meet with seconds than at a friendly dinner party, as used to be the case in the days of Minghetti and Sella, and this passionate personal antagonism for purely political motives which influences all political and social intercourse in Italy is one of the gravest causes of ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... essential to the dining room. Under usual conditions we are not likely to seat more than a dozen persons at our table, and a dinner party exceeding that number is too large for common enjoyment. Connection with the kitchen should be convenient without having the proximity too obvious. City kitchens are now usually made just large enough to accommodate ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... the rarest aggregation of elegant, intellectual, and accomplished people that have ever been found assembled in our village. Thirty years since, amidst the sincere and unostentatious cordiality which characterized it, at a dinner party, for example, at Judge De Saussure's, eight or ten of his favorite associates wanted to do honor to some distinguished stranger—for such were never permitted to pass through the town without a tender of the hospitality of that ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... me," said Linda, "that this dinner party doesn't come off without my valued assistance, and before I agree to assist, I'll know ONE thing. Are you proposing to entertain these three men yourself, or ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the bungalow—the "Old Man's" quarters not three hundred feet away. The boom of his jovial laughter still rang out upon the air, and presently the tinkle of guitar, the swish of feminine garments, the rasp of chairs and the merry mingling of voices told that the little dinner party, the first the camp had ever known—for what is a dinner party without women—had quit the table and gathered on the porch. By this time, too, an unclouded moon had sailed aloft from behind the screen of eastward heights, and its beams were ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... harm by his riotous example. Indeed, I believe he nearly set fire to Nevil's Court, that beautiful new quadrangle of our college, which Sir Christopher Wren had lately built. He knocked down a proctor's man that wanted to arrest him in a midnight prank; he gave a dinner party on the Prince of Wales's birthday, which was within a fortnight of his own, and the twenty young gentlemen then present sallied out after their wine, having toasted King James's health with open windows, and sung cavalier songs, and shouted, "God save the King!" in the great ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a dinner party and the powers of the Mess President were taxed to the utmost limit. Nearly 40 sat down, the Mess staff rose to the occasion, and the cook turned out things we had never seen before. The next day the Commanding Officer remarked at dinner "Really, P.M.C., I don't at all know why when we have ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... reading this you will wire me at Ventura your full consent to my marriage with Miss Middleton, I think I can guarantee that your dinner party ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... when a husband is present at his wife's dinner party he repeats the mortifying superfluity of a bridegroom at ...
— The Elevator • William D. Howells
... was assured that these acts would be renewed. Shortly after the assembly had met it occurred to them that their peculiar privileges, as an offshoot of the Commons of England, had been assailed. The proceedings of a dinner party given to the representatives of Montreal in that city had been printed and circulated in the Montreal Gazette of the 1st April, 1805. The dinner was given in Dillon's tavern, and the party were particularly merry with the abundant ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Stork William G. Wilcox An Unmusical Neighbour William Thomson The Chalice David Christie Murray Livingstone Henry Lloyd In Swanage Bay Mrs. Craik Ballad of Sir John Franklin G. H. Boker Phadrig Crohoore J. S. Le Fanu Cupid's Arrows Eliza Cook The Crocodile's Dinner Party E. Vinton Blake "Two Souls with but a Single Thought" William Thomson A Risky Ride Campbell Rae-Brown On Marriage Josh Billings The Romance of Carrigcleena Hercules Ellis The False Fontanlee W. C. Roscoe The Legend of St. Laura Thomas Love Peacock David ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... these rules will be a treasure at any dinner party. The awful silence which prevails on the removal of the tablecloth—and an awful silence it surely is—will be dispelled. No ordinary man thinks of speaking, except in monosyllables, till he gets a little "elevated," and then he speaks nonsense as a matter of course. You must keep sober—for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... P. Chase once warned me, when going downstairs to a dinner party at Edgewood, "For God's sake, Kate, don't quote the Atlantic Monthly tonight!" I realized then what a ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... said breathlessly, as she dashed into the library at The Savins, half an hour later; "you are invited to a dinner party at ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... married his cook was giving a dinner party and between the courses the good lady sat with her ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... meal a second helping of a dish is never offered, and should never be asked for; but at an informal dinner party it is not out of place to accept a second helping, if one is offered, but is complimentary to the hostess, who is responsible ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... come up into the drawing-room? Just for a few minutes?" she asked; there was a note of deep, yearning disappointment in her voice, and her face looked grey and tired, very different from the happy, placid air it had worn during the little dinner party. ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... other and taking wine. The talk was becoming more animated. A few bold spirits began to laugh and joke with the geisha. Some had laid aside their cloaks; and some even had loosened their kimonos at the neck, displaying hairy chests. The stiff symmetry of the dinner party was quite broken up. The guests were scattered like rooks, bobbing, scratching and pecking about on the yellow mats. The bright plumage of the geisha stood out against their ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Department appointed by Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt have conducted it with wonderful success in a very difficult time. A day or two after the Inauguration, John Sherman, the new Secretary of the Treasury, gave a very brilliant dinner party to the Cabinet, at which I was a guest. The table was ornamented by a beautiful man-of-war made out of flowers. Just before the guests sat down to dinner a little adopted daughter of Secretary Sherman's attached a pretty ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... way he used to ran towards me when I held out my arms and said, "Come, Billy, let Tattah show you the doves," with such an expectant face, and that little scarlet mouth opened to kiss me—oh, it is nothing to anybody else, but it is home to me, and I was only recalled to London and my dinner party when a fresh attack was made on America, and I was called once more ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... illness of our host had cast a shadow upon the party. I found myself speaking in a church-whisper, whilst Karamaneh was quite silent. That curious dinner party in the shadow desert of the huge apartment frequently recurs in my memories of those days because of the uncanny ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... if not all by the same hand, at least by the same school; one, sketched in bold strokes, of a dinner party in a stately neo-classic dining-room, the table laden with flowers and silver, the bare-throated women with jewels. A more critical eye than Lise's, gazing upon this portrayal of the Valhalla of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the 12,418, and in my case the ballot papers were distributed at the end of a dinner party. No discussion of the various candidates took place with the single exception that, finding my memory of Mr. Arthur Henderson rather vague, I whispered a question about him to my next neighbour. We were all politicians, and nearly all the names were those of persons belonging to ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... had become so intimate with Patience Heatherstone—and, I may add, so fond of her—there was no longer any restraint, and they had a very merry dinner party; and after dinner, Patience went out with Alice and Edith, and looked over the garden and farm. She wished very much to ascertain if there was any thing that they required, but she could discover but few things, and those only trifles; ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... Treadwell did actually come down to Battersby and hold a confirmation there (Christina had her wish, he slept at Battersby, and she had a grand dinner party for him, and called him "My lord" several times), he was so much struck with her pretty face and modest demeanour when he laid his hands upon her that he asked Christina about her. When she replied that Ellen was one of her own servants, the bishop seemed, so she thought or chose to think, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... Cranford," she said. "New England seems to be full of Cranfords, but Hingham is the most Cranfordy of all. And I don't believe even the Old England Cranford could have such elms in such a wonderful street. They are like tall, transparent green wine glasses set for a dinner party of Titans." ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... alone in the drawing-room, where the atmosphere now was stifling—heated by the lights and heavy, as it were, with melancholy silence after all the outbursts of the quarrelling—they looked at one another and let their arms fall, quite heart-rent by the unfortunate issue of their dinner party. Henrietta tried to ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... balm in this argument. All the wounds in his heart were aching, and he could not bring his thoughts to majorities. He passed a night of nerve-racking strain. The jeopardy of election did not concern him. That night at the dinner party he had realized that he had a formidable rival in Fletcher, who had a place firmly fixed in the Winthrop household. Still, against odds, he had determined to ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... this conclusion, the day was far advanced, and the lights were about to be lit; and they came out and watched them once more for a time as they played at dominoes. When they came to settle their accounts Mrs. Ch'in and Mrs. Yu were again the losers and had to bear the expense of a theatrical and dinner party; and while deciding that they should enjoy this treat the day after the morrow, they ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... had elapsed since the aforesaid dinner party took place and day by day Helen grew stronger, till at length Dr. Durham pronounced her to be well enought to get up; in fact he went so far as to say that a drive in the fresh air would do her good. As may be imagined it was ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... under the eye of the office clerk and the waiters he had become another man in every inch of his body, in every instinctive gesture. He strolled among the servants with the absent-minded insolence which they have all seen in their patrons. It was no new thing to them that a swell from the dinner party should pace all parts of the house like an animal at the Zoo; they know that nothing marks the Smart Set more than a habit of walking where one chooses. When he was magnificently weary of walking down that particular passage he would wheel round ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Digby from the opposite side of the table, in a tone as if he had been speaking to some one behind him. "Fudge has a dinner party to-night, ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... paltry by all the powers, masculine or feminine, whom we consulted. The light thrown upon these delicate matters by the contributions of certain persons suggested to us the idea of gathering together certain savants at a dinner party, and taking their wise counsels for our guidance in these important investigations. The gathering took place. It was with glass in hand and after listening to many brilliant speeches that I received for the following ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... she had heard that the English clergy were more free than our own, and then she had been accustomed to think every thing English of the purest water. A little reflection reconciled her to the innovation; and the next day, at a dinner party, she was heard defending the usage as a practice that had a precedent in the ancient incense of the altar. At the moment, however, she was dying to impart her discoveries to others; and she kindly proposed to the captain and Aristabulus to introduce them to ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... more, and is hurriedly bundled out of the house. The silent woman finds her voice immediately after the marriage, begins to talk loudly and to make reforms in the household, driving Morose to distraction. A noisy dinner party from a neighboring house, with drums and trumpets and a quarreling man and wife, is skillfully guided in at this moment to celebrate the wedding. Morose flees for his life, and is found perched ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... have just sent for you to come home." Then she rose and took Ethel in her arms. "How delightfully cold you are! And what rosy cheeks! Do you know that we have a little dinner party?" ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... struck Sir George, and it gratified him to have the Duke in agreement. He was supported by another eminent soldier, when, at a London dinner party, being asked to give his opinion of the conduct of the Crimean War, he answered, 'I should have attacked upon the St. Petersburg side, where you could really get at Russia, instead of on the Crimean side, with ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... it, Mother," the oldest son protested. "Poor old Claude wouldn't know what it was all about,—and one stick can spoil a dinner party." ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... with bad manners. One lady, who knew him well, said that, though he only met you in a crowd and made some commonplace remark, you went for the rest of the day with your head up. Another lady who did not know him, and therefore disliked him, asked after a dinner party, "Who was that too-exuberant financier?" These are the diversities of feeling about him. But they all agree in one point—that he did not talk cleverly, or try to talk cleverly, as that proceeding is understood in literary circles. He talked positively, ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... assumed that the overelaborateness was due to the festive occasion, but Patty now perceived that the same formality of service was observed with only the two girls at the table. And the menu was long and varied enough to have served a dinner party. ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... came down to dinner, feeling more on level terms with royalty (though his dress-suit was four years old and his patent shoes, good enough for such mild society functions as came his way, looked horribly cracked and shabby), he dismissed the matter from his mind. The dinner party was a large one. There were two bishops, innumerable popes, several bejewelled women, an officer or two and the inevitable duenna. He was introduced to them all, but remembered only Colonel Malinkoff, a quiet man whom ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... and thou must talk to me. There has come news, and I want thy opinion on it. The Ragnors had a dinner party today, and we were ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... understood the letter as vaguely and incompletely as he did to-day. We read our sympathies and antipathies in all we look upon, and Frank read in this letter an old woman with diamonds and dyed hair. He had met her twice. The first time was at a ball where he knew nobody; the second was at a dinner party. She had fixed her eyes upon him; she had prevented him from talking after dinner to a young girl whom he had admired across the table during dinner. He did not like her, and he thought now of the young girls he would meet if he accepted her invitation. Lady Seveley was a shadow; and when ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... ludicrous grievance (both Mr. Forster and the writer have often amused themselves with it) against a good-natured nobleman, doubtless perfectly unconscious of having ever given him offence. The offence was, that on the occasion of some dinner party in another nobleman's house, many years before, this innocent lord (then a commoner) had passed in to dinner, through some door, before him, as he himself was about to pass in through that same door with a lady on his arm. Now, ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... position in the land," he told himself, one night, when, at his request, she had presided over his table at a select dinner party, bearing herself with so much ease and grace, and displaying so much tact, that he was charmed and his guests eloquent in their ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... was ready to believe that her costume might be reasonably fit to wear to a dinner party, she was certain that something more than tights and a pair of short, red velvet trousers was necessary for ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... happen to be an impromptu luncheon or drinking party at your house, or a dinner party, perhaps— the ordinary thing at resorts like yours—where would my place ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... understand that it was their duty to support the unique experiment which some poor Jesuits in Southwark were making, and the fact that he had come forward with a subscription of one thousand a year enabled him to ask his friends for their money. He had told Mr. Innes that a dinner party which did not produce a subscriber he looked upon as a dinner wasted. Monsignor knew how to carry a thing through; his influence was extraordinary; he could get people ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... messes, Jo, for you can't make anything but gingerbread and molasses candy fit to eat. I wash my hands of the dinner party, and since you have asked Laurie on your own responsibility, you may just ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... and philosophers have made much of associations as a restorer of dim memories. Porter has a story of a dinner party in which a reference to Benedict Arnold was immediately followed by someone asking the value of the Roman denarius. Reflection shows that the question was directly suggested by the topic under discussion. Benedict Arnold suggested Judas Iscariot ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... when her father told her on his return in the evening that he was anxious to meet Signor Diotti, and suggested a dinner party within a few days. He said he would invite Mr. Sanders, as that gentleman, no doubt, would consider it a great privilege to meet the famous musician. Mildred immediately sent an invitation to Diotti, adding a request that he bring his violin ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... pleasant, steaming slowly about; and, as the sun went down, gorgeous effects were produced behind the rocks and hills. Prettier still when it became dark and the lights began to twinkle on the hillsides, and in the tents, pitched in readiness for a dinner party to be given by Sir Salar Jung this evening. The drive home through the densely crowded tortuous streets was most amusing; though one never ceased wondering how the drivers, even with the aid of the active syces, managed to avoid running over somebody, so thoroughly careless did the throng of people ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... few grave sentences in English, and I was master of the situation. This method of speaking often reminded me of that employed by a Cornish lady of high family whose husband was a colleague of mine in Spain. She had been many years in Andalusia, but had never succeeded in mastering Spanish. At a dinner party given by this lady, at which I was present, she thus addressed her Spanish servant, who did not "possess" a single word of English: "Bring me," she said in an angry aside, "bring me the cuchillo with the black-handled heft," adding, as she turned to us and thumped ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... having given a dinner party at this sand-bag castle on the plains, miles and miles from a white man or woman! The number of guests was small, but their rank was immense, for we entertained Powder-Face, Chief of the Arapahoe Nation, and Wauk, his young squaw, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... lost to history; but Lincoln Lang, who was with him when he rode back to camp that afternoon, reported that Roosevelt's comments on the dinner party were "blistering." "He told my mother afterwards," said Lang in later times, "that Mrs. Cummins was out of place in the Bad Lands"; which was Mrs. Cummins's tragedy ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... with an apology. They were so sorry they could not ask him down that night; but they had a large dinner party on, and he would have made an odd man. Doubtless, too, he would be tired after his journey and disinclined for such a function. The following day, however, they would be glad to have him. It was forty minutes' run from Victoria Station, ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... The dinner party motored back to town. Dinner was more like a reception that evening, for the news of Tom's plucky fight against the rough element had spread through the town. Nearly two score of men representing the better part of the population of Paloma called at the ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... just that feeling in me. I remember with the utmost distinctness my first meeting with him. It was just after the Boer war and old Johnny Beaminster gave a dinner party to some men pals of his at the Phoenix. Johnny was not so old then—none of us were; it was a short time after the death of that old harpy, the Duchess of Wrexe, and some wag said that the dinner was in celebration of that happy occasion. Johnny was not ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... shouldn't be a Socialist as well. I pity those poor, benighted beings that have room in their narrow souls for only one set of opinions. I like to be everything, to hold every 'ism,' and to be labelled all over with every 'ist,' like the window of that 'eating-house' yonder. Which reminds me of my dinner party to-night. Isn't it terrible to eat in Belgrave Square when some people have to eat in a place like that. It's positively wicked. I have an idea. I think I can't do better than inaugurate my new 'ism' by lunching there to-day. Suppose we do so on ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... few weeks after this modest first appearance on the boards of "The Man with an Aneurism," that, happening to be at dinner party of practical business men, I sought to interest them with the details of the above story, delivered with such skill and pathos as I could command. I regret to say that, as a pathetic story, it for a moment ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... vexation and Dale his problem with his wooden toy in pleasant anticipation of the "dinner party," as Mrs. Moira grandly called it, out of respect to the pot roast and the fruit cake which Miss Lewis had sent them and which was hidden away in a ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... poet, was lately knocked down by a cab, as he was returning from a dinner party, and so seriously injured as very much to alarm his friends. He was not restored sufficiently to see visitors at the last dates. Rogers, Montgomery, Moore, Hunt, Wilson, Savage Landor, and De Quincey, are "listening to the praises ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... way of looking round when they make a point, as if they were addressing a jury, that is mighty aggravating—as I once had occasion to see when one of 'em, and a pretty famous one, put me on the witness stand at a dinner party once. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... coverings were of costly fabrics, richly dyed and embroidered or damasked. The method of serving and eating a dinner is a subject which belongs to our later treatment of a social day, and it must here suffice to picture the ordinary arrangement of a dinner party. ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... can be easily detected by the way in which the conversation is carried on, and the manner in which the food is handled. It has sometimes happened that the affianced have cancelled their engagement after a dinner party. On the other hand, matters of great import can often be arranged at the dinner table better than anywhere else. Commercial transactions involving millions of dollars have frequently been settled while the parties were sipping champagne; even international problems, ending in elaborate ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... illustrates both his iron composure and the gusts of passion under which it sometimes gave way. The details are unquestionably authentic, as they were communicated by Washington's secretary who witnessed the scene. Washington was having a dinner party when an officer arrived at the door and sent word that he was the bearer of dispatches from the Western army. The secretary went out to him, but the officer said his instructions were to deliver the dispatches to the President in person. Washington then went to the officer ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... like The Lady, or the Tiger? was, of course, whetted by the publication of literary notes as to the real denouement the author had in mind in writing the story. Whenever Mr. Stockton came into the office Bok pumped him dry as to his experiences with the story, such as when, at a dinner party, his hostess served an ice-cream lady and a tiger to the author, and the whole company ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... informed by Joseph Mitchell, Esq., C.E., of the origin of this practice. Mr. Mitchell was a pupil of Mr. Telford's, living with him in his house at 24, Abingdon Street. It was the engineer's custom to have a dinner party every Tuesday, after which his engineering friends were invited to accompany him to the Institution, the meetings of which were then held on Tuesday evenings in a house in Buckingham Street, Strand. The meetings did not usually consist of more than from twenty to thirty persons. Mr. Mitchell ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... business of government; and he had occupied himself in other ways. Nor could it be denied that he enjoyed himself—out of her sight; but, in that redoubtable presence, his abounding manhood suffered a miserable eclipse. Once, at Osborne, when, owing to no fault of his, he was too late for a dinner party, he was observed standing behind a pillar and wiping the sweat from his forehead, trying to nerve himself to go up to the Queen. When at last he did so, she gave him a stiff nod, whereupon he vanished immediately behind another pillar, and remained there until the party ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... of these islands began January, 1865, when Secretary of State Seward and General Raasloff, the Danish Minister to the United States, met at a dinner party.[391] Seward wanted them for a naval station. The minister was not in favor of it and did not think the King of Denmark would sell, and so Denmark replied. When the unfavorable report came, Seward was confined to his bed and the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... that salt of the earth, the elect of society, represented by that little great world which lies between the narrow circle bounded by Bryanstone Square on the north and by Birdcage Walk on the south, did not consider seven o'clock too early an hour for a dinner party which was to be followed by routs, drums, concerts, conversazione, as the case might be. It was seven o'clock on a lovely June evening, and the Park was already deserted, and carriages were rolling swiftly along all the Westend squares, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... been on a hunting trip through Rhodesia and Barotseland, and a chance meeting at a dinner party with the Rhodesian millionaire had ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... dark clouds of a summer shower. On arriving in New York, the Wyllyses found that Tallman Taylor had been taken suddenly and dangerously ill, during the previous night, the consequence of a stroke of the sun; having exposed himself imprudently, by crossing the bay to Staten-Island for a dinner party, in an open boat, when the thermometer stood at 95 {degrees} in the shade. He was believed in imminent danger, and was too ill to recognize his wife when she arrived. Miss Wyllys and Elinor remained ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... you at home first," he said, "and then I'll go and drag Jones out of that dinner party of his. I'm sure you must ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... is discussed for the first time, the following question invariably arises: What is to be done when anything unusual happens to break the routine of the regular work, as for instance, when sickness occurs, when friends arrive unexpectedly, when a dinner party is given? ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... Write notes of invitation for a luncheon, dinner party, and write a letter inviting a friend ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... was out with him, and he had been running about for some time. Mrs. Ripon was picking flowers, for she had a dinner party that evening, and she enjoyed getting her flowers, and arranging her vases, herself. Presently she looked round, but Tom was missing. There were many clumps of ornamental shrubs on the lawn, and Mrs. Ripon thought nothing ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... is the Conductor of Roads and Bridges; then I have the Receiver of Registrations, the First Clerk of Excise, and the Perceiver of the Impost. That is our dinner party. I am a sort of hovering government official, as you see. But away—away from these ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the success of a dinner party depends upon the guests selected; and the first point for consideration by the lady who decides upon entertaining her friends thus, should be the congeniality of those whom she desires to invite, remembering that after the first greetings the guests see very little ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... hour, party lines were drawn against Robert Toombs, and his boast that he had saved the Union in 1850 probably cost him the presidency of the new republic. There was a story, credited in some quarters, that Mr. Toombs' convivial conduct at a dinner party in Montgomery estranged from him some of the more conservative delegates, who did not realize that a man like Toombs had versatile and reserved powers, and that Toombs at the banquet board was another sort of a man from Toombs in ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... the best; so called from the dun-color. Fish was always eaten in New England for a Saturday dinner; and Mr. Palfrey, the historian, says that until this century no New England dinner on Saturday, even a formal dinner party, was ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... switch off a bore at once. We can retire when we are fatigued, without leaving a blank space before the others. And all this without saying anything of the higher spiritual and intellectual effect—freed from material grossness of appetite and show—which the dinner party thus attains. But you are surely joking! You, an American, and not know it! Why, it comes from Boston. Haven't you read that book, 'Jumping a Century'? ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... Netherlanders, when Dirk made up his mind to do anything he did it thoroughly. Thus, having undertaken to give a dinner party, he determined to give a good dinner. In ordinary circumstances his first idea would have been to consult his cousins, Clara and Lysbeth. After that monstrous story about the sleighing, however, which by inquiry from the coachman of ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... snow-storm to hear Mr. Coleridge lecture on Shakspeare, I might have sat as wisely, and more comfortably by my own fire-side—for no Coleridge appeared.——I shall never forget the effect his conversation made upon me at the first meeting, at a dinner party. It struck me as something not only quite out of the ordinary course of things, but an intellectual exhibition altogether matchless. The viands were unusually costly, and the banquet was at once rich and varied; but there seemed to be no dish like Coleridge's ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... direction, the results were so fragmentary, so dislocated and indecisive, but she also rejoiced. She took life, as may have appeared, at a broad and generous level, it quite comprehended the salient points of a Calcutta dinner party; and it was seldom that she failed, metaphorically speaking, to carry away a bone from the feast. If you found this reprehensible, she would have told you she had observed that they do it in Japan, where manners are the best in ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... that lady she had seen two little packets containing sublimate in powder and in paste: she recognised these, because she was an apothecary's daughter. She added that one day Madame de Brinvilliers, after a dinner party, in a merry mood, said, showing her a little box, "Here is vengeance on one's enemies: this box is small, but holds plenty of successsions!" That she gave back the box into her hands, but soon changing from her sprightly mood, she cried, "Good heavens, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... antagonism; for one stands for a universal vigilance and the other for an almost infinite output. Partly through the nature of his moral weakness, and partly through the nature of his physical strength, the male is normally prone to expand things into a sort of eternity; he always thinks of a dinner party as lasting all night; and he always thinks of a night as lasting forever. When the working women in the poor districts come to the doors of the public houses and try to get their husbands home, simple minded "social workers" always imagine that every ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... the French creoles of New Orleans: the dinner was excellent, a mixture of English and French cooking, both good, and admirably served; whilst for wines, we had Chateau Margarot of 1825, with frozen champagne, and Madeira, such as can only be produced in this country. The dinner party, with the exception of a couple of creole French gentlemen, was composed of my own countrymen; and little was here to remind one of a strange land, save the plates of clear ice sparkling on the table, and the faces of ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... Gorman's dinner with the King I happened to meet Sir Bartholomew Bland-Potterton at another, a much duller dinner party. Sir Bartholomew was not yet Secretary of State for Balkan Problems, but he was well known as an authority on the Near East, and was in constant unofficial touch with the Foreign Office. He is a big man in his way, and I was rather surprised when he buttonholed ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... employ particular materials in the fabrication of their clothing, to ride in a coach, to decorate their apartments as they chose, to purchase certain articles of furniture, and even to give a dinner party when and in what style they chose. Under the Valois regime strict limits were assigned to the expenses of the table, determining the number of courses of which a banquet should consist, and that of the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... precedent. Just now it is a fad to put ice in champagne. The idea was originated by a visiting Prince of Tartary while dining at the Waldorf. It will soon give way to some other whim. Just as at a dinner party this week on Madison Avenue a green kid glove was laid by the plate of each guest to be put on and ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... there was a dinner party—a formal affair, to which the I.G.'s wife went in state and, as became her rank, in a big green box of a sedan chair with four bearers. Indeed this was the only possible means of going about comfortably at night ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... only to name the week that suited him to be a welcome guest at scores of country houses. Nothing would have been more difficult than to explain why it was that Pansey Cottrell should be as essential to a fashionable dinner party as the epergne. Nothing more puzzling to account for than why his volunteering his presence in a country house should be always deemed a source of gratulation to the hostess. He was a man of no particular birth and no particular conversational powers; and unless ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... Nekhludoff, evinced by the usually self-controlled Selenin, was due to his knowledge of the director's shabbiness in money matters, and the fact, which had accidentally come to his cars, that Wolf had been to a swell dinner party at the swindler's house only a few ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... board of my ship are all in excellent health and spirits. By the way, we have a dinner party at six, and you and your wife must assist; and it will be a ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... the curtain, Juanita, please! I like it so, I can look out. The moonlight is nice. Somebody is very late, going home from a dinner party." ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... had her Note Book full of useful Directions she found a Chance to try out her System. She was invited to a Swell Dinner Party at which all the Nice Men in Town were to be rounded up. She put on a simple White Gown and wore a Rose in her Hair, and just before starting she locked all of her Slang words in the Escritoire, whatever ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... about that the little dinner party of Mr. Lucullus Fyshe dissolved itself into its constituent elements, like broken pieces of society in the great cataclysm portrayed ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... also of the party a Venetian nobleman, Count Morano, and a Signora Livona, whom Montoni had introduced to his wife, as a lady of distinguished merit, and who, having called in the morning to welcome her to Venice, had been requested to be of the dinner party. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... We don't miss him much, as he lived in London, and was not often down at his place. I don't remember his being there since you came back from the Crimea. Anyhow, I do not think that I ever saw you and him together, either in a hunting field or at a dinner party; which, of course, you would have been had you both been down here at the same time. If I remember right, you ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... told you my lungs were my weak point. I am turned down—and I am going abroad. It's not very pleasant to find oneself staying on in London, going to a little dinner party here and there where all the men are oldish, when all of ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... dinner party. The young fellows Red had picked up in the blacksmith's shop were not the ordinary quality of loungers. They were boys of good country parentage, with a common school education, who, unfortunately, could ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... added the record of a talk which passed in June of the same year at a dinner party, where Sir Charles, 'along with Matthew Arnold, Bowen, afterwards Lord of Appeal, and Frederick Pollock,' discussed 'what is known ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... while I stood there, the music, the lights, and the gaily dressed, laughing women produced in me the old boyish consciousness of the disadvantage of my size, of my awkwardness, of my increasing weight. I remembered suddenly the figure of President as he had loomed on the night of our first dinner party between the feathery palm branches in the brilliantly lighted hall; and a sense of kinship with my own family, with my own past, awoke not in my thoughts, but in my body. Across the threshold, only a few steps away, I could see Sally ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... much harder to face that he almost forgot, for the time, he had ever hated his son's wife at all. And in a strange and startling way it happened. One evening, just before the Earl's Court cottages were completed, there was a grand dinner party at Dorincourt. There had not been such a party at the Castle for a long time. A few days before it took place, Sir Harry Lorridaile and Lady Lorridaile, who was the Earl's only sister, actually came for a visit—a thing which caused the greatest excitement in the village ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a small dinner party gathered, and Dolly was taken in to table by young Mr. St. Leger, the son of their host. Dolly had seen this gentleman before, and so in this concourse of strangers she felt more at home with him than with anybody. Young Mr. St. Leger was ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... dinner party at Folsom's that evening. At two a messenger trotted out to the post with a note for Miss Folsom to apprise her of the fact, and without a word or change of color she put it into her pocket. The garrison girls were bent on having them spend the ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... an appetizer) Clear soup (a dinner party helping, and no substance) Smelts (one apiece) Individual croutards of sweetbreads (holding about a dessert-spoonful) Broiled squab, small potato croquette, and string beans Lettuce salad, with about one ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... no company, and the dinner party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart, Miss Scott, and myself. Sir Walter did not join us till the dessert, when he entered, assisted by his servant, and took his place at the foot of the table. His grandchildren were then brought in, and his favourite, Johnnie Lockhart, was seated by his side. ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... rubbing his delicate hands in front of the fire, telling himself what a really great pleasure it was to have Mrs. Witherspoon staying with him over the week-end. He was having a dinner party for her that evening—of forty-eight. All that it had been necessary for him to do to have the party was to tell Mr. Sadducee, his secretary, that he wished to have it and direct him to send the invitations from List Number One and then to tell Bibby the same thing and to order the chef to ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... I became acquainted with Murray, he had quarreled at a dinner party with a Mr. Reed, the manager of a coffee plantation. The lie was exchanged, a blow was struck; a challenge was given and accepted on the spot. The next morning the parties met, with their seconds, firmly ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... looked at his watch. "Conn, we've planned a little celebration for you. We only had since day before yesterday, when the spaceship came into radio range, but we're having a dinner party for ...
— Graveyard of Dreams • Henry Beam Piper
... nuts from the cocoanut palms and the fruit from the breadfruit trees, while the taro was not yet ripe. We passed the village daily. The chief was my brother's dear friend; the girls often came up to decorate the place for a dinner party, but we had no hint of any distress ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... on the top of the wagon, after having put Mr. Stubbs inside, with the others of his tribe, and in a very few moments the boy was sound asleep, dreaming of a dinner party at which Mr. Stubbs made a speech and he himself scampered up and down the ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... few months ago I was a guest at a dinner party at which men only were present, and that I was seated next to a very brilliant young American physician who was devoting himself especially to the study of Heredity. It being his hobby, he soon contrived to turn the conversation toward that topic, and, after a few general remarks, told several ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... of forty-five." The student of surgery descants upon the comparative anatomy of the joint he is carving, and asks whether "a slice of adipose tissue will be acceptable." The trade apprentice "takes stock" of a dinner party, and endorses the observation of "ditto." The young chemist gives a "prescription" for the way you should go to town. The student of logic "syllogizes" his statement, and before he draws a conclusion he always lays down his "premise." The architect gives you a "plan" of his meaning, ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... It is, however, less a dance than an exhibition, and its patrons are the wicked, the dissolute and the European. It is commonly given at some entertainment to which respectable women have not the condescension to be invited—such as a dinner party of some wealthy gentleman's gentlemen friends. The dinner-served on the floor—having been impatiently tucked away, and the candies, cakes, hot saki and other necessary addenda of a Japanese dinner brought ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... Smith cursed the necessity of reading his evening paper by candle-light; and Mary, the cook, grumbled because she could not telephone the grocery for some forgotten ingredient; and Jones' dinner party was very hilarious over the joke on their host; and men swore and their wives worried because they had perforce to be ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... half a foot, and crashed into the middle of a mouse dinner party, breaking three glasses.—"Who in the world is this?" inquired Johnny Town-mouse. But after the first exclamation of surprise ...
— The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse • Beatrix Potter
... evening, Agnes had been invited out to a dinner party; they had sent me an invitation, also, but I declined going, for I knew I should not feel at home among so many strangers, and they so far above me; so I remained with ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... frequency of corporal punishment. The Duke of York, with all his zeal for the service, never loses sight of the comfort of the soldier and is indefatigable in his exertions to ameliorate his conditions. We had a pleasant dinner party at General Adam's, and at night I went to sleep at the house occupied by Captain C., one of the aides-de-camp of the General,[10] an active, intelligent officer who had formerly served in the marines, which service he had quitted in order ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... pose him in a minute—indolent and procrastinating to the last degree. Yet men would give him credit for vast application in spite of himself. He was not to be trusted with himself with impunity. He never dressed for a dinner party but he forgot his sword—they wore swords then—or some other necessary part of his equipage. Lovel had his eye upon him on all these occasions, and ordinarily gave him his cue. If there was anything which he could speak unseasonably, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... p. 71.) is indeed, I believe, an imposition. The last line quoted (and I suppose all the rest) can hardly be Porson's, for Mr. Langton amused Johnson, Boswell, and a dinner party at General Oglethorpe's, on the 14th of April, 1778, with some macaronic Greek "by Joshua Barnes, in which are to be found such comical Anglo-hellenisms as [Greek: klubboisin ebagchthae] they were banged with clubs." Boswell's ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... Peritania (Britain) fight Germany, and send her away from Samoa?" They have no complaint against the Germans. They have merely a sentimental and highly flattering preference for the English. On a recent visit of an English gunboat to Apia, the officers were entertained at a Samoan dinner party, with music and dances, by an eminent and very charming young princess. The princess is a famous beauty, with the keen intelligence Samoans have if they care, a wonderful dancer, possessed of a glorious ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... dinner party? Three or four angry Londoners, who might have gone to a dozen different dinners, are sulkily sitting about waiting for these Americans who take a dinner ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... knew, an angel could not reach its heart; and here one of his eccentricities broke out. He drew a line, in his dictatorial way, between dinner and feeding parties. "A dinner party is two rubbers. Four gentlemen and four ladies sit round a circular table; then each can hear what anyone says, and need not twist the neck at every word. Foraging parties are from fourteen to thirty, set up and down a plank, each separated from those he could talk to ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... enter the house. In a moment he heard her talking in her sweet voice to one of the servants before she mounted the stairs to her own room. She would then, Graham knew, be in the hands of her maid for a long time, since she was giving a formal dinner party that evening. ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... popularity was their intense and obvious desire to be popular. They kept open house in such an insistently open manner that they created a social draught. The people who accepted their invitations for the second or third time were not the sort of people whose names gave importance to a dinner party or a house gathering. Failure, in a thinly-disguised form, attended the assiduous efforts of the Shalems to play a leading role in the world that they had climbed into. The Baron began to observe to his acquaintances ...
— When William Came • Saki
... dinner party this evening," beamed Mrs. Samuelson, an hour later when the girl had finished recounting her part in the night's adventure, "there'll be you and Mr. Christie, and Doctor Mallory, and the boys from the bunk house, and Vil Holland, ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... Senator told me that he was at a dinner party in Sir John Macdonald's house in Ottawa, when a telegram was delivered to the Premier at the table. He read it and put it under his plate. Nothing could be gained by throwing that bombshell in the midst of his guests. But in a few minutes, as the ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... many years a priest of Apollo at Delphi. The scene of some of his 'Table Talk' is laid there, when he in his priestly capacity gives a dinner party in honour of the victor in the poetic contest at the Pythian games. Probably this office was a source of considerable income, and as the journey from Chaeronea to Delphi, across Mount Parnassus, is a very short one, it interfered but little with his literary and municipal business. In his ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... it his duty to resume his costume, nor did his wife. They were dressed merely for the grand dinner party which took place at eight o'clock in the evening—the dinner given by Ephrinell to his witnesses and to the chief first-class passengers. Our actor, puffing out his left cheek, informed me that he had a surprise for us at dessert. What? I thought it ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... several questions to him about his instruments, related to him the cause of the counter-order; upon which Mr. Watson showed him the progress he had made, and which I have also seen. This story I heard related by Mr. Watson at a dinner party at Mr. Arnold's, at Well Hall, near Eltham, where were also Mr. Dollonds, and Mr. J. R. Arnold, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... speaker may be or how stammering his utterance, if he can tell a good story, the average dinner party will pronounce him a success, and he will be able to resume his seat with a feeling of satisfaction. The efforts often made to bring in an entertaining story or a lively anecdote are sometimes quite ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... the partnership and not be an utter dependent. There will be also another advantage in this arrangement—if he prove unworthy she can ask him to walk out." It will be seen by this original and daring reply that Miss Anthony could not attend a dinner party even ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... and the dinner party was divided into two forces. Some were left on guard, while the others set off on a run after the Upside ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... stop. So it was Shere Ali, after all, who was at the bottom of the trouble. It was Shere Ali who had sent the present, and had sent it to one of the Mullahs. Ralston looked back upon the little dinner party, whereby he had brought Hatch and Shere Ali together. Had that party been too successful, he wondered? Had it achieved more than he had wished to bring about? He turned in doubt to the letter which ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... views on foods were very strong, and he had a great dislike for the custom of rearing cattle for food. Once he gave a dinner party to show how many choice courses could be served with vegetarian recipes only. As my mother was ill at the time, I was invited to go with my father. I remember the delightful way in which he received us. He presented the "youngest lady" (myself) to the "oldest gentleman"— the late Professor ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... Chancellor) related of his predecessor, Lord Erskine, that, being at a dinner party with Captain Parry, after his first voyage of discovery, he (Lord Erskine) asked the intrepid navigator, what himself and his hardy crew lived on, when frozen up in the polar seas. "On the Seals, to be sure," replied Parry. "And a very good living, too," said the ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... dozen persons, the tea and toast and other eatables are never aggregated into a common stock. Each person if he is a single guest, has his own allotment, even to a separate tea-pot. The table d'hote, if there be one at all, is made up like a select dinner party, rather early in the morning. If the guests of the house are not directly invited, they are asked, in a tone of hospitality, if they will join in the social meal, the only one got up by the establishment at which the table is not mapped out in separate holdings, or little independencies of dishes, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt |
