"Obsequiously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they went to Queen Victoria Street, to a building which had on each doorpost a brass shield inscribed THE CONOLLY ELECTRO-MOTOR COMPANY OF LONDON, LIMITED. At the offices, on the first floor, they were received obsequiously and informed that Mr. Conolly was within. They then went to a door on which appeared the name of the inventor, and entered a handsomely furnished office containing several working models of machinery, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... for myself, for in another instant I had certainly dragged him from his perch. At the inn, as I entered, I looked about me with so black a countenance as made the attendants tremble; not a look did they exchange in my presence; but obsequiously took my orders, led me to a private room, and brought me wherewithal to write. Hyde in danger of his life was a creature new to me: shaken with inordinate anger, strung to the pitch of murder, lusting to inflict pain. Yet the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... To gratify this superstitious whim, as he considered it, the Israelitish monarch collected together about four hundred false prophets, who were ready to say any thing that would give him pleasure, and asked whether he should or should not go up against the city. Of course, they obsequiously replied, "Go up; for the Lord shall deliver it into the ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... welcome guest at the house of Mere Malheur, who feasted her lavishly, and served her obsequiously, but did not press with undue curiosity to learn her business in the city. The two women understood one another well enough not to pry too closely into ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... been talking about her, she thought, but with a supreme indifference. No petty household slander could trouble her in her great sorrow. She went on towards the inner room, where her darling slept, the head-nurse following obsequiously with a candle. In the night-nursery there was only the subdued ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... scene with a quiet sense of pleasure. He contrasted it in his memory with the weary sameness of the breakfasts served to him in his own palatial London residence, when the velvet-footed butler creeping obsequiously round the table, uttered his perpetual "Tea or coffee, sir? 'Am or tongue? Fish or heggs?" in soft sepulchral tones, as though these comestibles had something to do with poison rather than nourishment. With ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... hurled That dull, punctilious god, whom they That call their tiny clan the world, Serve and obsequiously obey: Who con their ritual of Routine, With minds to one dead likeness blent, And never ev'n in dreams have seen The things ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... custom to go to neighboring meets of hounds and ask the young gentlemen if the saddles he had made for them were satisfactory, insinuate his fingers between saddle-tree and hunter's withers to see if there was plenty of room, and generally render himself obsequiously agreeable. That was good for trade. But then the hunting gradually fascinated him, and he followed on foot throughout the season, halloaing hounds to wrong foxes, standing on banks and frightening horses, being a nuisance to the gentlemen, and coming home to boast that although ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... secretary was full of gross flatteries. They had "just heard read with feelings of unmingled satisfaction and unqualified approval," &c., "from which advantages must accrue to the cause of science"—cause of rubbish! Then, it added, obsequiously, something about "the inestimable benefits from carrying the speculations of that learned man" &c. Mr. Pickwick, in his speech, was certainly self-laudatory and provocative. He talked of his pride in promoting the Tittlebatian theory, and "let his enemies make the most of it." This ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... coming in such style, was, of course, likely to be honoured in every possible way by the landlord of the inn, and accordingly he was shown most obsequiously to the handsomest apartment in the house, and the whole establishment was put upon the alert to attend to any orders ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... so?" I answered in my dream. "Then my absence from their feast will vex the gnats of the river," a saying at which Houman and others with him laughed obsequiously. ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... right to retire before my mistress," returned the girl, obsequiously. "Therefore, I sat in your ladyship's room. to await you, but sleep overcame me, and I humbly crave your pardon. Shall I close the door that leads ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... in?" he said to the managing clerk, who came forward bowing obsequiously to the richest man ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... drowsy world, with sounds grown distant and the perfume and color of the flowers grown nearer. At the door of the inn, which, looked as if it must have been standing right there in the days of dashing cavaliers, the proprietor and his wife were obsequiously bowing a welcome. It was not often that the big ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... would bring down upon themselves a Socialist avalanche which they could not withstand. What set the seal of consecration on his work was his treatment of Labor with equal justice. Unlike the demagogue, he did not flatter the "horny-handed sons of toil" or obsequiously do the bidding of railroad brotherhoods, or pretend that the capitalist had no rights, and that all workingmen were good merely because they worked. On the contrary, he told them that no class was above the law; he warned them that if Labor attempted to get its demands by violence, he would ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... satisfaction. Our friend Gratian gave verbally the Bishop's reply to Mathew Miffins, who, seeing himself deserted by his principal witness and informer, Prateapace, was not sorry to veer round with the weather-cock, and was obsequiously civil. It was characteristic of our friend Gratian, that he should settle it as he did with that huckster. Going through, as it is called, the main street, I saw him engaged with Miffins, in his shop, and went in. He was talking somewhat familiarly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... own ministers, "The Scanty Minister." It was polite to avoid the second person in addressing a foreign prince, who was consequently often styled "your government" by foreign envoys particularly anxious not to offend. The diplomatic forms were all obsequiously polite; but the stock phrases, such as, "our vile village" (our country), "your condescending to instruct" (your words), "I dare not obey your commands" (we will not do what you ask), probably involved nothing more in the way of humility than the terms of our own gingerly ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... the more because the surgeon spoke obviously with a humorous intention, and his brow-beaten dressers laughed obsequiously. It was in point of fact a subject which Philip, since coming to the hospital, had studied with anxious attention. He had read everything in the library which treated of talipes in its various forms. He made the boy take off ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... peeping from one window, and waved a kiss to Susan, who was surreptitiously glancing from another, whereupon both being detected, drew back hastily. Overwhelmed by the appearance of a guest of such manifest distinction, the landlord bowed obsequiously as the other entered the tavern ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... burning cold on his skull, Babbitt's heart thumped, his chest heaved, and his spine was an electric wire. It was a sensation which broke the monotony of life. He looked grandly about the shop as he sat up. The barber obsequiously rubbed his wet hair and bound it in a towel as in a turban, so that Babbitt resembled a plump pink calif on an ingenious and adjustable throne. The barber begged (in the manner of one who was a ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... own copy, to keep sure of the cue; but he was elated and expressive, was evidently even surprised; he coloured and smiled, and when he extended his hand to assist Constance to rise, after the performer, acting out her text, had seated herself grandly on "the huge firm earth," he bowed over her as obsequiously as if she had been his veritable sovereign. He was a good-looking young man, tall, well-proportioned, straight-featured and fair, of whom manifestly the first thing to be said on any occasion was that ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... satisfy the white man's greed, delivering 50,000,000 Pounds worth of minerals every year? Have we not quarried the stones, mixed, moulded and carried the mortar which built the cities of South Africa? Have we not likewise prepared the material for building the railways? Have we not obsequiously and regularly paid taxation every year, and have we not supplied the Treasury with money to provide free education for Dutch children in the "Free" State and Transvaal, while we had to find additional money to pay the school fees of our own children? Are ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... seconds later Melvina, accompanied by the stranger and the wondering Portuguese boy, entered the patient's room, it was Mr. Benton who stepped into the foreground and who came obsequiously forward, pen in hand, ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... woman in a hickory-dyed wool dress moved forward obsequiously. "Mr. Penny!" she echoed the girl's announcement; "and here I haven't got a thing fit for you. Thomas Gilkan has been too busy to get out, and Fanny she'll fetch nothing unless the mood's on her. If I only ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of pictures, which gives you a fresh set every term, and passes on your old ones to some other subscriber. But, in the meantime, it is very delightful, when you admire any thing, to be able to say, "Send that to my room!" and to be obsequiously obeyed, "no questions asked," and no payment demanded; and as for the future, why - as Mr. Larkyns observed, as they strolled down the High - "I suppose the bills will come in some day or other, but the governor will see to them; and though he may grumble and pull a long face, yet ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... villagers, flocks of sheep, children who chased each other, mendicants who, with Swiss independence, demanded alms rather than begged it. He gave to each, imagining in each a mysterious agent. An old woman crossing the bridge on a bucking donkey, who threw her, he picked up obsequiously, not knowing but this fall might be a manoeuvre of state, and the precipitate take the form of the landamman in disguise: he had even the idea of running after the donkey, but the animal was already galloping with great relish outside the assigned ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... describe. I felt an unconscionable hatred for him at once. I can not say why, except that he hung about his master obsequiously, power pack smoothly purring, and he was slim limbed, nickel-plated, and wore, I thought, a smug expression on his viziplate. He represented the new order; the ones who had displaced us on Earth. He knew too much, and showed it ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns
... unconsciously—procrastinating, shrinking from the task he had in hand, putting off the evil moment? He swung on his heel violently and passed out on to the verandah. But at the head of the steps a vigilant figure rose up, bowing obsequiously, announcing blandly ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... with very grand though vague ideas of the personal influence he was to have upon the country's destinies, found it a wholesome exercise to stand in the mud at the gate all day as officer of the guard, and touch his hat obsequiously to the general staff. If there was good stuff in him he soon got over the first disappointment, and learned to put his shoulder more heartily to that of his men, when he found that his time was by no means ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... came Mr. Stone with an account in his hand, which the general stepped forward to receive, and, after one glance at the amount, he took up a pen, wrote, and signed his name to a cheque on his banker. Mr. Stone received it, bowed obsequiously, and assured the general that every copy of the offensive chapter had been withdrawn from the book and burnt—"that copy excepted which you have yourself, general, and that which was sent to Lady Katrine Hawksby, which we expect in every ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... faces around him! Evidently, he told himself, he was a personage of such dignity and consequence that he must not be looked at by profane eyes while dressing. Smiling to himself at the absurdity of the whole adventure, he quickly proceeded with his toilet, obsequiously assisted by the faithful Arima; and when at length he was dressed, a word from Arima caused the escort to rise to their feet. Then, while some of them proceeded to gather branches and light a fire, others set to work ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... class was to pay his debts of honour and to fight a duel whenever he was challenged by one of his own order; towards the lower class his duty was none. Though the forms of government were elective, and Cowper gives us a description of the candidate at election time obsequiously soliciting votes, society was intensely aristocratic, and each rank was divided from that below it by a sharp line which precluded brotherhood or sympathy. Says the Duchess of Buckingham to Lady Huntingdon, who ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... replied the man obsequiously. "Your son wanted a leetle money, and, as I know what a goot mother you are, I lent him joost a leetle to ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... chamber, with the bridal bed in it; Roxana seated—and a great beauty she is—with downcast eyes, troubled by the presence of Alexander, who is standing. Several smiling Loves; one stands behind Roxana, pulling away the veil on her head to show her to Alexander; another obsequiously draws off her sandal, suggesting bed-time; a third has hold of Alexander's mantle, and is dragging him with all his might towards Roxana. The King is offering her a garland, and by him as supporter and groom's-man is Hephaestion, holding ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... Mrs. Kebby obsequiously, "the lady gave me ten, bless her heart, but you've quite forgot ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... door stood king Ithobal looking very huge and sullen in the sunlight. Metem dismounted and prostrated himself obsequiously. ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... Then obsequiously bowing to the professor and Mr Burne, he led the way into the best house in the village, his men holding the horses, and Yussuf stopping back to see that the baggage was taken in, and the horses carefully stabled in a ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... statue showed signs of returning animation, and then said, "Good evening, mum," more obsequiously than usual. ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... the darling favourite of hell, Chose Germany to rule; and rules so well, No subjects more obsequiously obey, None please so well, or are so pleased as they; The cunning artist manages so well, He lets them bow to heav'n, and drink to hell. If but to wine and him they homage pay, He cares not to what deity they pray; What god they worship most, or in what way. Whether ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... Newfoundland. The King was supposed to have, with his wonted and infallible sagacity, made the discovery of Ralegh's knavery long since. That royal hypothesis of stark imposture, and no enthusiasm, was the clue which the Lords Commissioners, with Bacon at their head, had obsequiously borrowed to hale Ralegh to the scaffold. It was the strange sophism out of which Bacon again was set to compose a sedative ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... He bows obsequiously to Marcia, who barely returns the salute. Detestable little man! She finds some consolation in the thought that at all events his time is nearly over; that probably—nay, surely—he is now about to administer law for the last ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... high collar of grey fur, and great fur cuffs, the edge of her dress showed silver and black velvet, her stockings and shoes were silver grey. She moved with slow, fashionable indifference to the door. The porter opened obsequiously for her, and, at her nod, hurried to the edge of the pavement and whistled for a taxi. The two lights of a vehicle almost immediately curved round towards her, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... correct servants were to be seen ascending and descending the area step; a young footman quite as smart as the departed Edward opened the front door and attended Mrs. Gareth-Lawless to her perfect little brougham. The trades-people appeared promptly every day and were obsequiously respectful in manner. Evidently the household had not disintegrated as a result of the death ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... depths of the lining. Twenty-five sen he held in his hand, the sum required to pay for the supper he had eaten. He turned them over to the proprietor, who counted them, grew suddenly calm, and bowed obsequiously—in fact, the whole crowd ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... interest, and a tall woman in sequined black tulle, glittering with diamonds, came slowly up the room. She must have known that all eyes were upon her, yet she appeared unconscious. Her lashes were cast down as she moved toward a chair held obsequiously ready by a waiter at the little empty table, and their dusky length was not second even to Virginia's. As the newcomer sat down, ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... you for a long time, Mr. Dunne," said the congressman obsequiously, after the Judge had introduced him. "We've heard a great deal about you down in Washington since your defeat of the Griggs Bill, and we are looking for great things from you. Of course, we have to keep our eye on what is ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... the elections revealed to him the alarming secret, that the antipathy to his government was more deeply rooted, and more widely spread, than he had previously imagined. In Scotland and Ireland, indeed, the electors obsequiously chose the members recommended by the council; but these were conquered countries, bending under the yoke of military despotism. In England, the whole nation was in a ferment; pamphlets were clandestinely circulated,[a] calling on the electors to make a last struggle in defence ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... irregular proceedings of Ephesus; but as this step was itself irregular, he solicited the convocation of a general council in the free and orthodox provinces of Italy. From his independent throne, the Roman bishop spoke and acted without danger as the head of the Christians, and his dictates were obsequiously transcribed by Placidia and her son Valentinian; who addressed their Eastern colleague to restore the peace and unity of the church. But the pageant of Oriental royalty was moved with equal dexterity by the hand of the eunuch; and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... table, whence Valerius had hurriedly removed himself and his wine, and were served obsequiously by Nicodemus and his wife with the best the house afforded. For a while they ate and drank in silence. Then the tongue of the small old man, loosened by the wine, began to wag. He spoke abruptly, in a ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... two days, and I began to love him. It was plain that he suspected my story in some degree; and I saw him once or twice looking curiously and anxiously at my attendant gloom, which all this time had remained very obsequiously behind me; but I offered no explanation, and he asked none. Shame at my neglect of his warning, and a horror which shrunk from even alluding to its cause, kept me silent; till, on the evening of the second day, some ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... mechanically forth into the passage, just in time to see the hems of a dark-grey dress disappearing within Poole's study, while Poole, who had opened the study-door, and was bowing-in the iron-grey dress obsequiously, turned his eye towards his wife, and striding towards her for a moment, whispered, "Go up-stairs and stir not," in a tone so unlike his usual gruff accents of command, that it cowed her out of the profound contempt with which she habitually received, while ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he said obsequiously, "light, and grace my poor house, I pray you. There be one here who hath waited since ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... of consequences that he finally braved the gallows by attempting the murder of the object of his hate? But even this weak protection never was afforded. Shall it be said that Justice Field ought to have gone to the nearest justice of the peace and obsequiously begged to have Terry placed under bonds? But this he could not have done until he reached the State, and he was in peril from the moment that he reached the State line. The dust had not been brushed from his clothing before ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... for the time being, and we went on deck, where Carera once more obsequiously joined us, much to our disgust; for it seemed probable that, if this sort of thing was to continue, we should find the fellow far too attentive to suit our ulterior plans. We, however, made the best of the ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... with meaner air. Silence gives consent, and Mr. Vane, though he thought a great deal, said nothing; so Pomander rose, and they left the boxes together. He led the way to the stage door, which was opened obsequiously to him; they then passed through a dismal passage, and suddenly emerged upon that scene of enchantment, the stage—a dirty platform encumbered on all sides with piles of scenery in flats. They threaded their way through ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... surveyed myself. "Surely some insanity has fastened on my understanding. My senses are the sport of dreams. Some magic that disdains the cumbrousness of nature's progress has wrought this change." I was roused from these doubts by a summons to breakfast, obsequiously delivered by a ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... the bell the porter opened the gate obsequiously, and sent a messenger to tell the master Dr ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... route, and a solitary crow caws in the tree-top; we hear the loud "tap-tap-tap" of a woodpecker, and see through the sinuous aisles of firs some groups of negroes pattering to church. The men take off their hats obsequiously, and the women duck their heads, and our father says benignantly, "Going to church, boys? that's right! I like to see you honor the Great Master!" At which the younger Africans show their teeth, and the more ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... he asked, poking his head through the curtains obsequiously. McKnight objects that nobody can poke his head through a curtain and be obsequious. But ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... walking along the quay in the direction of the "Admiral's Arms." And presently Stafford, accompanied by a policeman, came hurriedly round a corner and quickened his steps at sight of Copplestone. The policeman, evidently much puzzled and interested, saluted the Squire obsequiously ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... but without a ray of gratitude] Thanks: that will be much the best way. [She goes calmly back to the villa, escorted obsequiously by Malone to the ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... placid and patient temper, such as we commonly associate with moderate desires and the love of retirement and an easy life. To imagine and dare anything, and never to let go the object of his pursuit, is one side of him; on the other he is obsequiously desirous to please and fearful of giving offence, the humblest and most grateful and also the most importunate of suitors, ready to bide his time with an even cheerfulness of spirit, which yet it was not safe to provoke by ill offices ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... survived his strength to hide in the magnificent folds of eloquence the barren darkness of his heart. Oh, he struggled! he struggled! The wastes of his weary brain were haunted by shadowy images now—images of wealth and fame revolving obsequiously round his unextinguishable gift of noble and lofty expression. My Intended, my station, my career, my ideas—these were the subjects for the occasional utterances of elevated sentiments. The shade of the original Kurtz frequented the bedside of the hollow ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad |
