"Downing Street" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so many times as to give bitterness to the taunt hurled at them by a Radical orator: "Why! the right honorable member for Tamworth (Peel) governs England. The honorable and learned member for Dublin (O'Connell) governs England. The Whigs govern nothing but Downing Street. The right honorable member for Tamworth is contented with power without place or patronage, and the Whigs are contented with place and ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... great capitals of Europe are redeemed more by their past than adorned by their present, but Berlin has no old Berlin to help her. If all that is worth while in London were built in the spirit of Downing Street and Whitehall and the statue of Nurse Cavell, it might be said that London was ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... profile, I have to 'judge' the full face, and vice versa; but if I only succeed in getting the character, I seldom go far wrong—a due appreciation is an almost infallible guide. I had the opportunity of studying Mr. Gladstone's face carefully when he did me the honour of inviting me to dinner at Downing Street, and I have met him since; but I fancy, after my 'Mrs. Gummidge' cartoon and 'Janus,' I don't deserve to be honoured again! His face has much more character and is much stronger than Mr. Bright's. Mr. Bright had fine eyes ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... advantage. The barren results of the Soudan campaigns directed from the War Office in Pall Mall form too painful a subject for discussion. It is only fair to say, that the military officials' hands may have been much hampered from Downing Street. ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... foaming horses drove in upon the pier as the tug pulled the steamer out upon the Hudson. Its single occupant was an English government agent bearing a special message from the British embassador at Washington to Downing Street, London. ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... style—swag over one shoulder and under the other arm—was tried, but it was found to be too hot for the Australian climate, and was discarded along with Wellington boots and leggings. Until recently, Australian city artists and editors—who knew as much about the bush as Downing Street knows about the British colonies in general—seemed to think the horse-collar swag was still in existence; and some artists gave the swagman a stick, as if he were a tramp of civilization with an eye on the backyard ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... feeling that it was expected of him, fell into the hands of the same community of brigands. Diplomacy, while anxious to do its best for a lady in misfortune, showed signs of becoming restive at this expansion of its task; as a frivolous young gentleman in Downing Street remarked, "Any husband of Mrs. Dobrinton's we shall be glad to extricate, but let us know how many there are of them." For a woman who valued respectability Vanessa really ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... take you back into the house. What have you to do with whether or no we are asked to the next garden-party in Downing Street? You are Ariel and can put a girdle round the earth.... I am almost afraid of you. Can't we run away and become strolling players? You may think I am to be envied but my life has been a very unhappy one.... I want ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... a genial Irishman, showed himself most conciliatory in both private intercourse and public discourse. Unfortunately the rash act of the new Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, Sir Francis Bond Head, in publishing the instructions of the Colonial Office, showed that the policy of Downing Street was the futile one of conciliation without concession. The Assembly once more refused to grant supplies without redress of grievances. The Commissioners made their report opposing any substantial change. In March, 1837, Lord John Russell, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Melbourne ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... the very youngest sons merey to put grandmamma in a passion. In this way poor young Cubley (who has two hundred a year of allowance, besides eighty, and an annual rise of five in the Treasury) actually thought that Ethel was in love with him, and consulted with the young men in his room in Downing Street, whether two hundred and eighty a year, with five pound more next year, would be enough for them to keep house on? Young Tandy of the Temple, Lord Skibbereen's younger son, who sate in the House for some time on the Irish Catholic side, was also deeply smitten, and many a night in our ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at home, because I think we are going to change our Town-house. Downing Street most convenient, but question whether I shall be able to get a renewal of the lease next year. Sketched out the scenario of the Drury Lane Pantomime; but Sir AUGUSTUS prefers his own. Well, well, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 31, 1892 • Various
... 1st of October, 1801, preliminaries of peace between France and Great Britain were signed in Downing Street; on the 10th, General Lauriston, aide-de-camp to the First Consul, having arrived with the ratification of these preliminaries, the populace took the horses from his carriage and drew it to Downing Street. That night and the following there ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... the first reading carried by 265 to 24, and the second a few days later by 452 to 35. On the 10th of April the Government had to fill London with troops, and put the Duke of Wellington in command, who barricaded the bridges and Downing Street, garrisoned the Bank and other public buildings, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... and sent to India as commander-in-chief. Like other governors, Lord Dalhousie attempted to govern to the best of his ability, and what mistakes he committed arose from the contradictory and perplexing instructions he received from the officials in Downing Street, who were quite incapable at times of understanding the real condition ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... on some of the younger men. I think in fairness I shall have to step aside to make room after another century or so: that is, if Mimi can be persuaded to give up Downing Street. ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... the youngest British colony? Simple as the question seems, it may be doubted, considering the remarkable increase of late years in the number of John Bull's colonial progeny, whether the most experienced red-tapist of Downing Street could answer it without some hesitation. At least a dozen infant communities occur at once to the recollection. There is Port Philip, lately rechristened by the royal name of Victoria, and now seemingly in a fair way to be smothered in its cradle by a deluge of gold-dust. There is the Hudson's ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... Minister—sent for him directly he arrived," Aaron Thurnbrein announced. "He is to see him to-night at his own house in Downing Street. It makes ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Canada by mismanagement and misapprehension in Downing Street had already given trouble during the very short time when Mr. Gladstone was under-secretary at the colonial office; but they now broke into the flame of open revolt. The perversity of a foolish king and weakness and disunion among his whig ministers had brought ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... his importance in the political world. It was about then, a year since, that he prophesied: "Within nine months there will come such a tide and deluge as will sweep through England and Scotland, and completely wash out and effect a much-needed spring cleaning in Downing Street." ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... a movement was arrested was due largely to the L'Mandi and the influence they were able to exercise upon the European Powers by virtue of their military qualities. Downing Street was all for a permanent occupation of the chief city and the institution of a conventional regime; but the L'Mandi snarled, clicked their heels, and made jingling noises with their great swords, and there was at that moment a Government in office ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... walked up together arm in arm from Downing Street, stood for several moments in Pall Mall before separating. The pressman who was passing yearned for the sunlight in his camera. One of the greatest financiers of the city in close confabulation with Mr. Gordon Jones, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was an interesting, almost ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Sunday, Apr.7,'95. DEAR MR. ROGERS,—..... Stanley is magnificently housed in London, in a grand mansion in the midst of the official world, right off Downing Street and Whitehall. He had an extraordinary assemblage of brains and fame there to meet me—thirty or forty (both sexes) at dinner, and more than a hundred came in, after dinner. Kept it up till after midnight. There were cabinet ministers, ambassadors, admirals, generals, canons, Oxford professors, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ten-Bosch points to Wilhelmstrasse. Nothing can be done here. They suspect Downing Street.'—Ah, at The Hague, and at the ten-Bosch too, where the Czar and Andrew Carnegie held their first Peace Conference in ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... occasions of entertaining my humble opinion that all this is complete "bosh;" and of asserting to myself my strong belief that the neighbourhoods of Trafalgar Square, or Suffolk Street, rightly understood, are quite as important to the welfare of the empire as those of Downing Street, or Westminster Hall. Ladies and Gentlemen, on these grounds, and backed by the recommendation of three hundred artists in favour of the Benevolent Fund, I beg to propose its prosperity as a toast for ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... more cigarettes, and rang one another up on the telephone with futile questions, and invented new ways of preventing something from being down somewhere. The war to them was a far-off thing essential to their way of life, as miners in the coal-fields are essential to statesmen in Downing Street, especially in cold weather. But it did not touch their souls or their bodies. They did not see its agony, or imagine it, or worry about it. They were always cheerful, breezy, bright with optimism. They made a little work go a long way. They were haughty ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... at Caxton Hall, to hear one more ambiguous, tricky, many-ways-to-be-interpreted promise of the then Prime Minister. Mrs. Pankhurst pointing out the vagueness of these assurances announced her intention then and there of going round to Downing Street to ask for a more definite wording. Vivie and many others followed this dauntless lady. Their visit was unexpected, the police force was small and the Suffragettes had two of the Cabinet Ministers at their mercy. They contented themselves by shaking, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... Pitt, but lacked the means to win an election, and yet refused to be brought in by any individual—a reference, seemingly, to an offer made to him by the Duke of Portland. In reply, Pitt proposed an interview at Downing Street on Wednesday, 15th August.[57] ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... is true that the other side thought we were acting Legion and the Gadarene Swine, but that must have been because of something faulty in our make-up. The sound of this great anthem was sufficiently impressive to make one long to hear the real Coalition shouting it all along Downing Street. It is a solo with chorus, you understand, and the Coalition come in with a great roar of excitement and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... when we throw back our eyes upon our own share in these warlike preparations, with all the advantages of an unparalleled marine. Six months have slipped away since Lord Clarendon, our Foreign Secretary, received, in Downing Street, Sir J. Bowring's and Admiral Seymour's reports of Yeh's atrocities. Six calendar months, not less, but more, by some days, have run past us since then; and though some considerable part of our large reinforcements must have reached their ground in April, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... timekeeper of London for the West End. A carriage-way leads through the centre of the building to St. James Park, a route which only the royal family are permitted to use. Not far away are the other government offices—the Admiralty Building and also "Downing Street," where resides the premier and where the secretaries of state have their offices and the Cabinet meets. Here are the Treasury Building and the Foreign Office, and from this spot England may be said to be ruled. In this neighborhood also is Scotland Yard, the headquarters ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... (by Hearing and by Vision); it is a thing aeriform, impalpable, of quite spiritual sort. In like manner, ask me not, Where are the LAWS; where is the GOVERNMENT? In vain wilt thou go to Schoenbrunn, to Downing Street, to the Palais Bourbon: thou findest nothing there but brick or stone houses, and some bundles of Papers tied with tape. Where, then, is that same cunningly-devised almighty GOVERNMENT of theirs to be laid hands on? Everywhere, yet nowhere: seen only in its works, this too is a thing aeriform, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle |
