"Modish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... part of her body. The ministrants had clothed it in the old black- silk dress, with its spreading seams and panels of different materials. It reminded Peter of the new dress he had meant to get his mother, and of the modish suit which at that moment molded his own shoulders and waist. The pitifulness of her sacrifices trembled in Peter's throat. He pressed his lips together, and nodded silently to the black Ladies ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... himself, and they only could be expected to peruse them, whose passions left them leisure for the contemplation of abstracted truth, and whom virtue could please by her native dignity without the assistance of modish ornaments.' Gent. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... trap-ball for tennis and bowls, good English ale for thin Bordeaux and sour Rhenish, roast-beef and pudding for woodcocks and kickshaws—my bat for a sword, my cap for a beaver, my forsooth for a modish oath, my Christmas-box for a dice-box, my religion for the devil's matins, and mine honest name for—Woman, I could brain thee, when I think whose advice has guided me in ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... modish grace, Delirium of the Carmagnole, Fair France has known. How will she pace This frantic dance, and to what goal? Beginning in triumphant sport, She's tremulous now, with terror cold. The whirl ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... of vehicular sensationalism, a modish wicker-bodied phaeton and a minute pony-cart were seen on a pleasant afternoon to issue from a driveway far up a street that now has a name, but which used to be adequately identified by saying "up toward ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... quarters with blaring horns and shrill fiddles to play for the quality. Alas! the horns and fiddles sound no more, the merry, grinning players are but a pinch of dust like their betters, their haughty master but a scorned memory where once he reigned so royally, while the modish guests who frisked it so gayly in satin and velvet have long, long ago shaken the powder out of their locks, tied up their jaws and packed themselves away in their scant winding-sheets, resigned to the mournful company of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... instant had I jerked M. Radisson back; and down they came—dish-water—and coffee leavings—and porridge scraps full on the crown of my fine young gentleman, drenching his gay attire as it had been soaked in soapsuds of a week old. Something burst from his lips a deal stronger than the modish French oaths then in vogue. There was a shout from the rabble. I dragged rather than led M. Radisson pell-mell into a shop from front to rear, over a score of garden walls, and out again from rear to front, so that we gave ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... artist in prose. We see her in Italy, blind to its natural beauties, blind to its art, unhappy till she gets into the "hurrah" of St. Moritz. We follow her hence, note her trailing her petty misery—boredom because she can't spend extravagantly—through modish drawing-rooms; then a fresh hegira, Europe, a divorce, the episode with Peter Van Degen and its profound disillusionment (she has the courage to jump the main-travelled road of convention for a brief term) and her remarriage. That, too, is a failure, only because Undine so wills it. She ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... heterogeneous modes (says the gigantic critic Johnson) are dissolved by the chance which combined them, but the uniform simplicity of primitive qualities neither admits increase nor suffers decay." And assuredly there was never an age in which man so masked his nature under modish innovations as he does in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... time for many years that Willoughby Hall had been occupied by any other than caretakers; and Fairhaven, to confess the truth, was a trifle ill-at-ease before the modish persons who now tenanted the old mansion; and consoled itself after ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... Scottish mode, that still, when I attempt spelling a word aloud, which is not often,—for I find the process a perilous one,—the aa's and ee's, and uh's and vaus, return upon me and I have to translate them with no little hesitation as I go along, into the more modish sounds. A knowledge of the letters themselves I had already acquired by studying the signposts of the place,—rare works of art, that excited my utmost admiration, with jugs, and glasses, and bottles, and ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... or two may be used for making this pretty jacket, which is extremely modish, and very comfortable for the cool days and evenings sure to be experienced during summer outings. Six skeins of fourfold Germantown will be sufficient; or four skeins of one color for the body and two of white for the border, if made in ...
— Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet • Anonymous
... to manhood came, Song from celestial heights had wandered down, Put off her robe of sunlight, dew and flame, And donned a modish dress ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... keynote which was harped upon by a host of theologians and moralists after him, whenever, as was constantly the case, they had occasion to raise their voice against that dreaded enemy, enthusiasm. There were many who inveighed against 'the new modish system of reducing all to sense,' when used to controvert the doctrines of revelation. But while with vigour and success they defended the mysteries of faith against those who would allow nothing ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... In the following year he removed to Bath as oboist in Linley's orchestra, and in October 1767 was promoted to the post of organist in the Octagon Chapel. The tide of prosperity now began to flow for him. The most brilliant and modish society in England was at that time to be met at Bath, and the young Hanoverian quickly found himself a favourite and the fashion in it. Engagements multiplied upon him. He became director of the public concerts; he ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... the powder-closet of its modish day, where Mullins was still pursuing his ostensibly menial avocation. What the master said was inaudible in the library, but the man hurried out in front of him, and was heard clattering down the ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... because too slender his purse is, While his needs are too great; and thus is he constantly hampered. Many things I had done; but then the cost of such changes Who does not fear, especially now in this season of danger? Long since my house was smiling upon me in modish apparel! Long since great panes of glass were gleaming in all of the windows! But who can do as the merchant does, who, with his resources, Knows the methods as well by which the best is arrived at? Look at that house over yonder,—the new one; behold ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... much what periwigged phrase Won the heart of this sentimental Quaker, At what gold-laced speech of those modish days ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... quite knew which of them was the elder, and would sit eating cherries with him out of one paper bag, with an affectionate and ironical smile twisting up an eyebrow and curling his lips a little. And he was always careful to have money in his pocket, and to be modish in his dress, so that his son need not blush for him. They were perfect friends, but never seemed to have occasion for verbal confidences, both having the competitive self-consciousness of Forsytes. They knew they would stand by each other in scrapes, but there was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... suggestion here and there, after the secret freemasonry of her sex. "You are well rid of this forsworn captain, dear Mistress Thankful; and methinks that with hair as beautiful as yours, the new style of wearing it, though a modish frivolity, is most becoming. I assure you 'tis much affected in New York and Philadelphia,—drawn straight back from the forehead, after this manner, as ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... And the law under which Shakespeare uses the word is this: whatsoever is so trivial as to fall into the relation of a mere shape or fleeting mode to a permanent substance, that with Shakespeare is modish, or (according to his form) modern.[29] Thus, a weak, trivial argument (or instantia, the scholastic term for an argument not latent merely, or merely having the office of sustaining a truth, but urged as an objection, having the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Surely there was a clue concealed somewhere among them, if only he could find it. They were poor clothes, and yet, judging by their cut, he fancied the girl had looked exceedingly well in them—nay, even modish. She had evidently spent much time on them, as the beautiful needlework attested. At this point Anderson's mind ran out on to thin ice again, so he reverted to the girl herself for the nth time. She was Canadian, her hands ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... are touched with an indescribable character of place; they are not the throngs of anywhere else. They are not exactly Fifth Avenue; they are not the Great White Way. They are nice throngs, healthy throngs, care-free throngs, modish throngs in the modes of magazine advertisements. And all ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... Montrose applied to the College of Edinburgh for a tutor to educate his sons, Malloch was recommended; and I never heard that he dishonoured his credentials. When his pupils were sent to see the world, they were entrusted to his care; and having conducted them round the common circle of modish travels, he returned with them to London, where, by the influence of the family in which he resided, he naturally gained admission to many persons of the highest rank, and the highest character—to wits, nobles, and statesmen. Of his works, I know not whether I can trace the series. His ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... with the others—radiant with untried health,—some gentle, plaintive spirit from a sadder sphere. Her clinging blue robe appeared too heavy for the frail body; her fair curls and carefully arranged chignon were too modish for the ethereal yet anxious countenance; the massive wedding-ring seemed too coarse a bond for the almost transparent hand which trembled nervously on the cover of the Serious Call. Sara, in black velvet and sable, with ostrich plumes ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... desirous of winding along the banks of the river, as far as the church, that she might see the fine new monument raised to the memory of Lady Modish. Her sisters insisted on going to the next village, as they wanted to buy muslin for a doll's frock. After some little altercation on each side Caroline, with affectionate condescension, gave way to her sisters' inclination, though, as eldest, she had the right of choice, saying ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... expected as a matter of course from an acrobat, a jockey or a pugilist. The women's dresses are prudish and absurd. It is true that Kundry no longer wears an early Victorian ball dress with "ruchings," and that Fresh has been provided with a quaintly modish copy of the flowered gown of Spring in Botticelli's famous picture; but the mailclad Brynhild still climbs the mountains with her legs carefully hidden in a long white skirt, and looks so exactly ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... said simply: "I am, but how did you know? I don't remember ever seeing you," he took note of her modish blue riding-dress with divided skirts and patent-leather boots. There was a clean freshness about her person, a smiling candor in her eyes, and a fine, frank girlishness in her face that attracted him beyond measure. She appeared to be about twenty years of age, and was such a ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... young women whom they endow with good looks. In the half-freedom of the past year she had bought her own clothes, with only the nominal supervision of Miss Waring's assistant; and in her new spring raiment she was very much the young lady, and decidedly a modish one. Dan glanced from her to the young people at a neighboring table. Among the girls in the party none was prettier or more charmingly gowned than Marian. In the light of this proximity he watched her with a new attention, and he saw that ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... forenoons had to be thus occupied. Never forget it! The modish adaptation of woven fabrics to the female contour becomes increasingly complex and minute and exacting and time-occupying in precise proportion as the amount of time increases for which occupation ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... him. But he followed her, albeit still embarrassedly, and with that new sense of respect which had checked his former surliness. There was her strong, healthy, well-developed figure moving before him, but the modish gray dress seemed to give its pronounced outlines something of the dignity of a goddess. Even the firm hands had the ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... I shadowed such a group Of beauties that were born In teacup times of hood and hoop, And when the patch was worn; And legs and arms with love-knots gay. About me leaped and laughed The modish Cupid of the day, And shrilled his ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... modish woman and her smile is very bland In the City as the sun sinks low; And her hansom jingles onward, but her little jeweled hand Is clenched a little tighter and she cannot understand What she wants or why she wanders to ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... fifty. Her face, thin and not much lined, was of the sort that ages gracefully, so that you thought in youth she must have been a much handsomer woman than in fact she was. Her hair, not yet very gray, was becomingly arranged, and her black gown was modish. I remembered having heard that her sister, Mrs. MacAndrew, outliving her husband but a couple of years, had left money to Mrs. Strickland; and by the look of the house and the trim maid who opened the door I judged that it was a sum adequate to keep the ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... Mr. Turner by name, and Mr. Fanshow of Gray's Inn, both lawyers, and of Mr. B.'s former acquaintance, very sprightly and modish gentlemen, have also welcomed us to town, and made Mr. B. abundance of gay compliments on my account to my face, all ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... dear girl, cuts love, they say— Mere modish love perhaps it may: For any tool of any kind Can ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... consonant and congenial to the analogy and principles of its respective language, as to remain settled and unaltered; this style is probably to be sought in the common intercourse of life, among those who speak only to be understood, without ambition of elegance. The polite are always catching modish innovations, and the learned depart from established forms of speech, in hope of finding or making better; those who wish for distinction forsake the vulgar, when the vulgar is right; but there is a conversation above grossness and below refinement, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... are susceptible. This they have described under the figure of a satyr, who has more of the brute than of the man in his composition. By this fabulous animal they have expressed a passion, which is the real foundation of all the fine exploits of modish gallantry, and which only endeavours to glut its appetite with the possession of the object which is most lovely in its estimation: A passion founded in injustice, supported by deceit, and attended by crimes, remorse, jealousy, and contempt. Can such an ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... and suddenly it seemed to him incredible that Megan—his Megan could ever be dressed save in the rough tweed skirt, coarse blouse, and tam-o'-shanter cap he was wont to see her in. The young woman had come back with several dresses in her arms, and Ashurst eyed her laying them against her own modish figure. There was one whose colour he liked, a dove-grey, but to imagine Megan clothed in it was beyond him. The young woman went away, and brought some more. But on Ashurst there had now come a feeling of paralysis. How choose? She would want a hat too, and shoes, and gloves; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... dolls, not even the serious-minded daughters of the Pilgrims; but the only dolls that were advertised in colonial newspapers were the "London drest babys" of milliners and mantua-makers, that were sent over to serve as fashion plates for modish New England dames. A few century-old dolls still survive Revolutionary times, wooden-faced monstrosities, shapeless and mean, but doubtless well-beloved and cherished in the days ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... some none brought, As Men that hold their Brains of powerful sense, Will least on Poet's Tales bestow their pence, Tho he such Dispensations to endear, Had notch'd his Sconce just level with his Ear. An Emblem in these days of much import, When Crop-ear'd Wits had such a Modish Court. Tho some from after-deeds much fear the Fate, That such a Muse may for its Lugs create. As Stars may without Pillories dispence, To slit some Ears for Forgeries of sense, Which Princes, Nobles, and the Fame of Men, Sought to bespatter by a ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... to a woman," returns he. "And, praised be God, some still live who have not learned to conceal their nature under a mask of fashion. If this be due less to your natural free disposition than to an ignorance of our enlightened modish arts, then could I find it in my heart to rejoice that you have lived a captive ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... disproportionately large; the brow was high and sloping; the nose, rather sharp; every curve of the mouth, clear cut and delicate; the eyes, black, bright and piercing. Such was the man who, attired in a suit of black broadcloth, with buff vest, ruffled shirt, and white stock, and with hair tied in a modish queue, revealed himself to the gaze of the throng in ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... heretofore. For all that, she looked no older; her self-assertion, though more elaborate, was not a bit more impressive, and the phrases she used, the turn of her sentences, the colour of her speech, very little resembled anything that would have fallen from a damsel bred in the modish world. Her affectation was shot through with spontaneity; her impertinence had a juvenile seriousness which made it much more amusing than offensive; and a feminine charm in her, striving to prevail over incongruous elements, made clear ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... galliot, an old-fashioned looking gentleman, with hollow waist, high prow and stern, and which, seen lying among crowds of tight Yankee traders, and pert French brigantines, always reminded me of a cocked hat among modish beavers. ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... compare this "quiet felicity" of the artist with the absurd travesties worn on our American stage, we can better understand the pleasure which filled Mr. James's heart. What, for example, would Madame Nathalie have thought of the modish gowns which Mrs. Fiske introduces into the middle-class Norwegian life of Ibsen's dramas? No plays can less well bear such inaccuracies, because they depend on their stage-setting to bring before our eyes their alien aspect, to make us feel an atmosphere ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... so curiously refin'd and defin'd, modern critics and fashionable word-mongers have, in the abundance of their wisdom, made a very nice distinction between them—for my part, I always endeavour to reconcile modish pleasure with real comfort, and custom with reason, as much as is in any way consistent with the obligation one is under to conform a little to ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... her own aggravations: with all her airs Clary was not a match for the indomitable, unhesitating, brazen (with a golden brazenness) women of fashion. Poor Clary had been the beauty at Redwater, the most modish, the best informed woman there; and here, in this world of London, to which Sam had got her an introduction, she was a nobody; scarcely to be detected among the host of ordinary fine women, except by Sam's reflected glory. This was a doubtful boon, an unsatisfactory rise in the social scale. Then ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... came leisurely down a path, her books under one arm, the other hand holding a class paper which she examined in a cursory way as she walked. She wore a dark skirt and a simple shirtwaist, both quite modish and becoming, and her shoes were the admiration and envy of half the girls at the school. Dorothy Knerr used to say that "Mary Louise's clothes always looked as if they grew on her," but that may have been partially accounted for by the grace of her ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... Adonais, pray, That on this memorable morning We twist those lovely lines astray, As modish maid, her charms adorning A trail may twine of eglantine Into the formal "set" of Fashion. Yet wouldst thou gladly lend thy line To present need; for patriot passion, Love of the little sea-girt land, Has ever fired our English singers. Of England's fame, from strand to strand, Their songs have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... woman of eloquent silences when there was any need of them; and thus the fop and the coquette traversed the remainder of that solemn wood without any further speech. Modish people would have esteemed them ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... half-daring smiles of all the little caramel-chewing Floras and Faunas who have made it a point to be on Main Street at this hour! With what careless grace does he doff his laurel wreath, which is of the latest and most modish fall block, with the bow at the back, in response to the waved greeting of Mrs. Belladonna Capsicum, the acknowledged leader of the artistic and Bohemian set, as she sweeps by in her chariot bound for Blumberg Brothers' to do a little shopping. She is ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... by the Seine found fitter place For courtly wit and modish grace, Than by the Indus. There right well His facile talent served his Chief; And England hears with genuine grief ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... pleasaunce, nor parades of fashion Tempted his genius; his the great highway Where, free from courtly pride and modish passion, Toil tramps, free humours ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... want from me?" Mrs. Feinermann gasped. Her hat was awry, and what had once been a modish pompadour was toppled to one side and shed hairpins with every palsied nod of her head. "I ain't ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... low to the newcomer. The dim candle-light afforded him a most unsatisfactory glimpse of her features. He took in at a glance, however, her tall, trim figure, the burnished crown of hair, and the surprisingly modish frock she wore. He had seen no other like it since leaving the older, more advanced towns along the Ohio,—not even in the thriving settlements of Wayne and Madison Counties or in the boastful village of Crawfordsville. He was startled. In all his journeyings through the land he had seen no ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... author of the "Faery Queen," translated and admired Du Bellay and Ronsard; to some critics of our own time this taste seems a modish affectation. For one, I have ever found an original charm in the lyrics of the Pleiad, and have taken great delight in Hugo's amazing variety of music, in the romance of Alfred de Musset, in the beautiful cameos of Gautier. What is poetical, if not the "Song of Roland," ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... no modish thing, The bookman's tribute that I bring; A talk of antiquaries grey, Dust unto dust this many a day, Gossip of texts and bindings old, Of faded type, and ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... little Henry Rooter") was of a pure, smooth, fair-haired appearance, and strangely clean for his age and occupation. His profile was of a symmetry he had not yet himself begun to appreciate; his dress was scrupulous and modish; and though he was short, nothing outward about him confirmed the more sinister of Florence's two adjectives. Nevertheless, her poor opinion of him was plain in her expression as she made her present intrusion upon his working hours. He ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... fine-shaped, expressive face, to which great speaking eyes and a mouth half pensive, half smiling, lent an air of rare distinction. These were the eyes which in after years Anne would half close in a roguish way, as when, for instance, she meditated a brilliant stroke as Lady Betty Modish, and then, opening them defiantly, would make them glisten with the spirit of twinkling comedy. These were the eyes, too, which would shine forth such unutterable love when she played Cleopatra that one might well pardon the peccadilloes ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... up" of Love; For Love and Commerce hold a common creed— The scale of business varies with the speed; For Queen of Beauty or for Sausage King The Customer is always on the wing— Then praise the nymph who regularly earns Small profits (if you please) but quick returns. Our modish Venus is a bustling minx, But who can spare the time to woo a Sphinx? When Mona Lisa posed with rustic guile The stale enigma of her simple smile, Her leisure lovers raised a pious cheer While the slow mischief ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... Marg'ret's door. There is indeed no comparison. The changes made are nearly all either tinsel ornaments or mutilations of the traditional text, which an eighteenth century poetaster had sought to dress up to please the modish taste of the period. Nothing can be more out of key with the simple, direct, and graphic style of the Scottish ballads, dealing with elemental emotions and the situations arising therefrom, than a style founded on that of Pope, ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... writing another poem, called the Progress of a Freethinker, whom he intended to lead through all the stages of vice and folly, to convert him from virtue to wickedness, and from religion to infidelity, by all the modish sophistry used for that purpose; and, at last, to dismiss him by his own hand into the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... three fountains done on the grounds by women, and decidedly the most feminine. "Mrs. Longman hasn't quite caught the true note," the architect remarked. "The base of the fountain is interesting, though I don't care for the shape. But the figure itself is too prim and modish. Somehow I can't think of Ceres as a proper old maid, dressed with modern frills. The execution, however, shows a good deal of skill. The frieze might be improved by the softening of those sharp lines that cut out the figures like pasteboard. And these women haven't as ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... buttons and jeweled cuff-links, to say nothing of silk underwear and sky-blue pajamas. Being on the eve of adopting civilian clothes for the first time in two years, he took a lively interest in every detail of his patient's attire, from the modish cut of his coat to the smart ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... of Command, a Woman of a tolerable Genius, who will apply herself diligently to her Exercise for the Space of but one half Year, shall be able to give her Fan all the Graces that can possibly enter into that little modish Machine. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... like a modish wife, Thy winds and rains for ever are at strife; So termagant awhile her thunder tries, And when she can no ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... a day, many a day! Ah, we are a sad, naughty court, I fear," answered my Lady, with a penitent sigh. Her chief desire was to be a modish person; therefore she would not be left out of the iniquitous monde, though her face, if nothing else, placed her safely beyond the pale of Whitehall sin. One of the saddest things in life is to be balked in an honest desire ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... and fear not, if the action of the play demand a lion, but that he shall be a beast of Peter Quince's picking. The ladies shall not be frighted, for our chief comedians will enact modish people of a ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... care for dogs," said Rhoda. "Mrs Vane is the one for pets; that is, whenever they are modish. She carries dormice in her pocket, and keeps a lapdog and a squirrel. When the mode goes out, she gives the thing away, ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... death; and his tone implied that it was the pride of the town, its real treasure. Even to Agatha's absorbed and preoccupied mind it presented a striking contrast to the old red house, which had received her so graciously into its spacious comfort. She marveled that anything so fresh and modish as the house before her could have come into being in the old town. It was next to a certainty that there was a model laundry with set tubs beyond the kitchen, and equally sure that no old horsehair lounge subtly invited the wearied ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... was already well known in the modish world of town for his beauty and adventurous spirit. He was indeed already a beau and conqueror of female hearts. It was suspected that he cherished a private ambition to set the modes in beauties and embroidered waistcoats himself in time, and be as renowned abroad and as much the town ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... pretty girl, and it is enough. He seats her comfortably in a chair and paints her as she is. One cannot imagine him turning her into a nymph, a shepherdess, or a priestess of Hymen, or painting her with a very modish coiffure on her head and a pair of blue-ribboned sandals on her bare feet. These things Reynolds did habitually and moreover put his figures in attitudes with up-rolled eyes and extended arms and filled out his larger canvases with altars and tombs and allegorical ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... is too narrow, And the sum wanted too great; and so he is always prevented. I have had plenty of schemes! but then I was terribly frighten'd At the expense, especially during a time of such danger. Long had my house smiled upon me, decked out in modish exterior, Long had my windows with large panes of glass resplendently glitterd. Who can compete with a merchant, however, who, rolling in riches, Also knows the manner in which what is best can be purchased? Only look at the house up ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... four girls, ranging in age anywhere from sixteen to twenty—three very pretty, obviously conscious of their modish garments and wanting everyone else to be conscious of them, too; another, Rosalyn Crane, tall and tanned and strong in limb and shoulder, with frank dark eyes and red lips which smiled and displayed regular, gleaming-white ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... smooth 's a bead, Wi' virls and whirlygigums at the head. The Goth was stalking round with anxious search, Spying the time-worn flaws in every arch; It chanc'd his new-come neibor took his e'e, And e'en a vexed and angry heart had he! Wi' thieveless sneer to see his modish mien, He, down the water, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... this disguise for more than seventy years; in fact, not since he had so frightened pretty Lady Barbara Modish by means of it, that she suddenly broke off her engagement with the present Lord Canterville's grandfather, and ran away to Gretna Green with handsome Jack Castleton, declaring that nothing in the world would induce her to marry ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... he wished us to believe that he hesitated to shock us with his "archaic sympathies." Of course we laughed and challenged him to reveal himself. Shortly afterwards I got an article from him written with curious felicity of phrase, in modish polite eighteenth-century English. He had reached personal expression in a new medium in a month or so, and apparently without effort. It was Beardsley's writing that first won Oscar to recognition of his talent, ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... I serv'd a Goldsmith's Prentice a pretty Trick; For having been abroad about some business, and coming home i'th' evening, a young Spark, exceeding Beauish, (with a New Modish Suit of Cloaths on) that had been drinking hard all Day, would need be picking of me up, when I did'nt at all intend it. But seeing him so earnest for a Bout, that I cou'd'nt get rid of him, I had him to a House I was acquainted with by th' way, and there after a heartening Cup or two, ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... something about me that, lacking a reference, impressed my would-be employers unfavorably; possibly it was the modish cut of the hundred-dollar spring suit I wore, or the shape of my hat. Anyhow, they all decided against me. If I had persisted long enough, I might have found some sort of place, but on the fourth or fifth day of my ordeal in ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... in New York." Thurston smiled in sickly fashion. He had all along been uncomfortably aware of the sharp contrast between his own modish attire and the somewhat disreputable leathern chaps of his ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... we can acquit ourselves to our friends of the great world for the details of such an unfashionable courtship, so well as by giving them, before they retire for the night, a dip into a more modish ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Alley," having disappeared from the auditorium, the modish thing for unattached men was to make up a party and hire an omnibus-box; and from that position to pronounce judgment upon the legs of the dancers pirouetting in wispy gauze on the stage. Then, when the curtain fell, they would be privileged to go behind ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... it is impossible to read a page in Plato, Tully, and a thousand other ancient moralists, without being a greater and a better man for it. On the contrary, I could never read any of our modish French authors, or those of our own country who are the imitators and admirers of that trifling nation, without being for some time out of humour with myself, and at ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... with him?" said a flippant modish lady to his Grace of Osmonde one morning. "How will she know how to bear herself like a woman ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the first time present those which have been published in a complete form. I think that it may not be uninteresting for readers to have an opportunity of comparing with the undoubted work two plays, "The Mistaken Husband," and "The Modish Lovers," which good authorities have suspected to be possibly Dryden's. These will accordingly be given in the last volume of the plays. A bibliography of Dryden, and writers on Dryden, and a certain number of pieces justificatives of various ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... rural population, and the claim is also more imperative. The result is that, in order to keep up a decent appearance, the former habitually live hand-to-mouth to a greater extent than the latter. So it comes, for instance, that the American farmer and his wife and daughters are notoriously less modish in their dress, as well as less urbane in their manners, than the city artisan's family with an equal income. It is not that the city population is by nature much more eager for the peculiar complacency that comes of a conspicuous consumption, nor has the rural population less regard ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... dizzy years it was wildly surmised that to found a civilization might be as thrilling as to found a family, and that one could be as romantic and snobbish about Art as about bull-dogs or battleships. To be open-minded became modish; people with interesting, subversive things to say were encouraged to talk—always provided they talked with an air of not taking quite seriously what they said. The poor were repressed as firmly as ever, but the job was left to such paid ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... after all when they arrived at the theatre, the Sphinx and Lady Dolly. The older feminine presentment sent her belittling gaze over their heads and beyond them from the curtain; Lady Dolly turned a modish head to greet them from the front of the box. Lady Dolly raised her eyes but not her elbows, which were assisting her a good deal with the house in exploring and being explored, enabling Colonel John Cummins, who ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... Her hand, held fast in Guy's, rested on his knee; Nan's charming head, with its modish dressing, lay against her shoulder. What more could a mother ask? Across the fireplace, Sam Burnett, most satisfactory of sons-in-law, and Margaret, Guy's best beloved, who had made the year one long honeymoon to him—so he declared—completed ...
— On Christmas Day In The Evening • Grace Louise Smith Richmond
... I had vaulted forth from between the high posts, splashed into a funny old wooden tub bound together with brass rims, whirled my black mop into a knot, slipped into the modish boots, corduroys, and a linen smock, and was running out into the peculiar moon-dawn with ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... fall—to the modish dress, with its touches of lace; to a pearl-and-amethyst brooch that held Mrs. Milo's collar; to the fresh gloves and the smart shoes. She recognized good taste even though she did not choose to subscribe to it; also, she recognized cost values. She looked up with a mysterious ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... Jimsy observed the boy from across the street, a slim, modish person. "Gee," said Jimsy, "it must be fierce to be lame!—to have your body not—not do what you tell it to! I wonder what he does? He can't do anything, can he?" His eyes ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... mind to; by that means making her self Mistriss of the Mony-Chest, beyond his knowledge, though he hath the name, and carries the keys in his Pocket: for if she have a mind to new Stays for her self or daughter; away she goes to a Silk-shop, buies Stuf to her mind, and causeth it to be made as modish as possible may be; and having tried that it fits and pleases her fancy fully; then it is brought home by one or other of her trusty acquaintance, who come at a convenient time appointed, just like some petty ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... Do honeymooners ever come to Waterloo Bridge? I doubt it. Imagine turning from that sublime sweep of greys and sombre gilts, that perfect arrangement of blank masses and sweeping lines, to the mottled pink of a cheek lately virgin, the puny curve of a modish eyebrow, the hideous madness of ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... powder makes every head of hair of the same colour; and no woman appears in this country, from the moment she rises till night, without being compleatly whitened. Powder or meal was first used in Europe by the Poles, to conceal their scald heads; but the present fashion of using it, as well as the modish method of dressing the hair, must have been borrowed from the Hottentots, who grease their wooly heads with mutton suet and then paste it over with the powder called buchu. In like manner, the hair of our fine ladies is frizzled into the appearance of negroes wool, and ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... streamers, the extraordinary number of omnibuses, horsecars, and other democratic vehicles, the vendors of cooling fluids, the white trousers and big straw hats of the policemen, the tripping gait of the modish young persons on the pavement, the general brightness, newness, juvenility, both of people and things. The young men had exchanged few observations; but in crossing Union Square, in front of the monument to Washington—in the very shadow, indeed, projected ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... Lord? She did not quite know what he meant. She went back over the morning's experience, beginning with her dressing-room, when before her mirror she donned her new and very pretty silk dress and arranged all her faultless toilet, adjusting the modish hat that became so well her own type of beauty, fitted on the fresh, dainty gloves that should clasp her beloved music when she should open her throat and sing like a glad bird, delighting in its song, however ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... improving, in a way. He had bought new clothes and a supply of linen, and although he did not wear them with the ease of one accustomed to modish dress they certainly improved his appearance. He was quiet and unassuming; he made no friends and few acquaintances; he never mentioned himself or his personal history and never referred to his wife except when forced to do so by some of "her meddling friends"—well meaning people ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... cleanness and his ignorance of the traditions of the place, strode through the onyx-pillared lobby peopled with well-fed, modish human beings who conversed in modulated voices or bustled in and out, engrossed with affairs which might or might not be of national importance. At the desk a perfectly groomed, worldly wise aristocrat proffered a pen well inked and gave Johnny what Bland would ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... looked as if it had once been a handsome loose paletot now shrunk with washing; and this change of clothing gave a still stronger accentuation to his dark-haired, eager face which might have belonged to the prophet Ezekiel—also probably not modish in the eyes of contemporaries. It was noticeable that the thin tails of the fried fish were given to Mordecai; and in general the sort of share assigned to a poor relation—no doubt a "survival" of prehistoric practice, not yet ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... set forth of such perfection, Will praise it self, and doth not beg protection From flatter'd greatness. Industry and pains For gen'ral good, his aim, his Countrey gains; Which ought respect him. A good English Cook, Excellent Modish Monsieurs, and that Book Call'd Perfect Cook, Merete's Pastery Translated, looks like old hang'd Tapistry, The wrong side outwards: so Monsieur adieu, I'm for our Native Mays Works rare and new, ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... fellows in Bristol are numbers, some Who so modish are grown, that they think plain sense cumbersome; And lest they should seem to be queer or ridiculous, They affect to believe ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull |
