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More "Deferential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was an extensive, though somewhat mild, profanity which took no account of ladies' presence, although he was almost exaggeratedly deferential to them, as well as cordially courteous to all. His speech was like his gait, tripping. I remember the arrival of the first steamer of a new French line to Rio. Steam mail-service was there and then exceptional; most of our home letters still came by sailing-vessel; consequently, this ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... her with a deferential bow, and she ran to tell Patricia and Ilga of her blunder. How Harold would have laughed! But he had left for home as soon as it had been ascertained that the trains were running ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... broke off a bit of fern from one of the flower-pots, to stick in the pork-pie, she set the table with its ugly knives and forks and glasses. All the time her rings sparkled, her red brooch sent out beams, she laughed and was gay, she was quick, and she flattered Madame by being very deferential to her. Whether she was herself or not, in the hideous, common, stuffy sitting-room of the lodging-house she did not know or care. But she felt excited and gay. She knew the young men were watching her. Max gave ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... more, sat close to Tant Sannie drinking coffee all the evening, and walked about loftily with his hands under the coat-tails of the German's black cloth and failed to see even a nigger who wished him a deferential good morning. It was therefore with no small surprise that the German perceived Bonaparte's red nose ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... sounds for luncheon. Madame goes to meet her guest and escorts her on the one side, while her son is on the other. It is a charming and deferential attention, and Mrs. Grandon rises in her own estimation, while the dreadful sacrifice her son has ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... could see the whole of the ceremony. The Queen was absent as she had caught cold at the Princess of Wales's ball. The ladies, in consequence, only passed with a side step and solemn demeanour, making en passant a low, deferential bow to the King. But I was extremely amused at their manner directly this was over. As soon as they arrived within a short distance of our door, their solemn and respectful countenances relaxed into a smile of mockery, their side swimming steps into a ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... see him. Alone of the household Tanaka was still deferential in his attitude towards his late mistress. He was always ready to talk about the old times which gave ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... into the room, and bore down upon the pair with deferential disdain. Mr. Anthony gave his fingers a parting wipe, and took ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... words to Magdalen with a gentle motherly interest in her youth and beauty, chastened by the deferential amiability which became her situation in Noel Vanstone's household. Not the faintest token of suspicion or surprise betrayed itself in her face, her voice, or her manner, while she and Magdalen now looked at each other. It was plain at the outset that ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... When we find him speaking of a young Roman of fashion standing for hours in a crowd to listen to his pleading in the courts, or of his audience pressing him not to omit a single line of his poems, or of the deferential way in which certain young barristers of promise hang on his lips, copy his gestures and bow to his judgment, one cannot resist a smile. When he tells us that he went on calmly reading and taking notes during the ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... in one of his stage asides, "this is a revelation indeed. Always thought OLD MORALITY was an easy-going gentleman, deferential in manner, unassertive in action. It seems he's a regular tyrant, a sort of unapproachable Padishah. In his bosom are looked all the secrets of State, all the purposes of the Ministry. He takes no one into his ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... of the reasons of the quite peculiar hostility with which most men regarded him, but with Madame de Corantin his manner was deferential, and it was clear that he was doing everything in ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... triumphant. Still remained public business; OLD MORALITY led off with proposal to take Tuesdays and Fridays for morning sittings and Opposition mustered in great force; Mr. G. present, glowing with his own eulogy on ARTEMIS. OLD MORALITY moved Resolution with deprecatory deferential manner; only desire was to do his duty to QUEEN and Country and meet the convenience of Honourable Gentlemen sitting in whatever part of the House they might find themselves. Evidently expected outburst of indignant refusal, long debate, and a big division. Some indignation, but little ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 28, 1891 • Various
... Miss Darrow, for not making my meaning clearer to you," said Maitland with a deferential inclination of the head. "The theory of exclusive opportunity, to state it plainly in this case, means simply this: if Mr. Darrow were murdered, some one of us five, we being the only ones having an opportunity to do the deed, must be the assassin. Whether this view be taken, or that ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... manageable, subservient, controllable, dutiful, obedient, tractable, deferential, gentle, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... conductors have contracted to take them. How accurately everybody in England knows his own place!—and he accepts it, however humble, with a determined feeling that it is inevitable. The audience is so packed that everybody remains quiet. The demeanor of the servants is as settled and universally deferential as Westminster Abbey is Gothic. Mr. Lindsay or Mr. Roebuck might forget to revile America, or Lord Palmerston, England's right hand, forget his cunning, as soon as a servant might forget his place. A thousand years have settled him in it; and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... difference; and Johnny had but lately left behind what might be described as a condition of servitude. So Johnny yielded the right of way. He lowered his little snub nose by a few degrees, took some of the gay smile out of his twinkling blue eyes, and waited with an upward glance of friendly yet deferential sobriety until Raymond should ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... the deferential homage paid this great citizen by even the Federal soldiers, as with uncovered heads they contemplated in mute admiration this now captive hero as he rode through their ranks. Impressed forever, daguerreotyped on my heart is that last parting ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... showed a firm mouth with bloodless lips so thin as to be hardly perceptible. His eyes, when they could be seen at all, were greenish in color, and small and restless as those of a ferret. He advanced into the room with the obsequious deferential manner which in all well-trained servants becomes second nature, moving across the thickly carpeted floor with the rapidity ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... do, woman, lovely woman, is rocks It is difficult to be idle—and important too It is hard to be polite to cowards Jews everywhere treated worse than the Chinaman One always buys back the past at a tremendous price One doesn't choose to worry Saying uncomfortable things in a deferential way Slow-footed hours wandered by, leaving apathy in their train That anxious civility which beauty can inspire The ravings of a sick man are not always counted ravings The sea is a great breeder of friendship The tender care of a woman—than many pharmacopoeias Vanity; and from this ...
— Quotations From Gilbert Parker • David Widger
... perfect. To my mother, gentle and deferential; to my father, respectful, with just a dash of quiet independence; to me kind and loving. Looking at her critically, it was almost impossible to find a finer woman—her head was beautifully shaped, her hair raven black and smooth as satin, little ears like pretty pink shells, ...
— My Mother's Rival - Everyday Life Library No. 4 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... absences his locum tenens was usually a gentleman of very opposite characteristics. He was tall, thin, modest, and even diffident. He slipped into your cell, as I said before, with the deferential air of an undertaker. His speech was extremely soft and rapid, although he stuttered a little now and then from nervousness. "I suppose you know," I asked on his first visit, "what I am here for?" "Y-e-s," he stammered, with something like a blush. I said no more, for it was evident he wished to ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... was governed by the most subtle policy; his bearing towards the monarch was at once deferential and familiar; his liberality was unbounded; and his courtesy towards the great nobles and the officials of the Court untiring ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... certain uneasy sensation—amounting almost to a superstitious awe—convinced me that I was the object of her undivided attention. Suddenly the priests, in procession, came down from the altar; and as they passed us, I instinctively raised my veil again, through motives of deferential respect. At the same instant I glanced toward the stranger lady; she also drew back the dark covering from her face. Oh! what a countenance was then revealed to me—a countenance of such sovereign beauty that, though ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... forsooth, was that Irish 'landlord,' in the estimation of himself and customers.—None dare address him without prefixing a deferential 'Mr.' to his name; and Frank Sydney was both amused and irritated as he observed the brutal insolence with which the low, ignorant ruffian treated the poor miserable wretches, from whose scanty pence ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... The deferential Nepaulese did not wait to be asked. "Salaam, sahib," he said, bowing again very low till his forehead almost touched the ground. "You are ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... the roost, and, his temper soured by his trials, ruled it with a rod of iron. The crew, with the exception of Dowse, were small men getting into years, and quite unable to cope with him. His attitude with the skipper was dangerously deferential, and the latter was sorely perplexed to think of a way out of the mess ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... of them the most daring and rebellious pratiques of the regiment; and Cecil would have let the coarsest upbraidings scourge him rather than put the temptation to mutiny in their way which one insubordinate or even not strictly deferential word from him would have given. Hence the inspection passed off peaceably; as the Marquis turned on his heel, however, he ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... reflections, this dignified and delightful old gentleman said he thought the young people of to-day were less mannerly than in the olden time, less deferential, less decorous. This may be true, and I tried to be sufficiently deferential to my courtly host, not to disagree with him. But when I look upon the young people of my own acquaintance, I recall that William went, as a matter of course, to put ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... mat below the window, and these scrapings of the window-sill, Tom carried off, and also the scrapings of the top bar of a stile between the mill and the Three Goblets. That evening, all were submitted to the microscope. Dr. May was waked from a doze by a very deferential 'I beg your pardon, sir,' and a sudden tweak, which abstracted a silver thread from his head; and Mab showed somewhat greater displeasure at a similar act of plunder upon her white chemisette. But the spying was followed by a sigh; and, in dumb show, Ethel was made to ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... firmly closed and the teeth were already somewhat defective. His countenance as a whole was pleasing, benevolent and commanding, and in conversation he looked one full in the face and was deliberate, deferential and engaging. His voice was agreeable rather than strong. His demeanor at all times was composed and dignified, his movements and gestures graceful, his walk majestic and he was ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... not do it till I can help you," said Karen. "To-morrow morning." She had a manner at once deferential and masterful of addressing the old lady. They were friendly without being intimate. "Now promise me that you will wait till I can ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... at his station, with the bright sunlight heightening the colors of his play cowboy attire, his weight on the ball of his right foot thrown well ahead of the other, his head up, but the whole effect languid, even deferential. He seemed about to take off his hat to the joyous sky of a fair day in May. His shadow expressed the same feeling as his pose, that of tranquil youth with its eyes on the horizon. Leddy had the peculiar slouch of the ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... as if they were some sort of animal, aunt," laughed Peggy. "I daresay there is no reason to be alarmed at them. I've always heard that they were very courteous and deferential to ladies." ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... deliberate, intentional act on her part. She desired to terminate the conversation and took this rude, insolent means of doing so. Never had he been so flagrantly insulted,—and for what reason? He had been courteous, deferential, friendly. What right had she,—this insufferable peacock,—to consider herself his superior? Hot words rushed to his lips, but he checked them. He contented himself with an angry contemplation of her slender, graceful figure as she poised in the open doorway, ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... and least imaginative saw the endless possibilities in the application of his discovery to the arts and sciences. During all of this time the young American had kept himself under perfect control and had answered all questions in the most deferential and respectful manner; and now, having received from the King permission to ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... would doubtless have had a large liberty of choice among the many beautiful women of his circle, but he never married, and there is no record of any entanglement. To the few women he deemed worthy of his respect and admiration, he was deferential and even gallant. In one of his letters to a ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... in the dock. The days of the years of his pilgrimage were not few, and quite probably, except in a figurative sense, not evil. He was of sturdy build, quiet manners, and his countenance was indicative of great sincerity. In a voice extremely deferential he stated that he had once ministered to a dying Confederate, and it was impossible for him to take the required oath that he had never expressed any sympathy for any person who had ever ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... of the House of Commons traffic is stopped to allow a Member to cross the street, his admiration increases. Fancy a Congressman being treated with such respect! But the argument which, on the whole, makes the deepest impression is the deferential manners of the tradesmen with their habit of saying, "Thank you," apropos of nothing at all. It seems an indication of perpetual gratitude over the fact that things are ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... offices of the board, Stepan Arkadyevitch, escorted by a deferential porter with a portfolio, went into his little private room, put on his uniform, and went into the boardroom. The clerks and copyists all rose, greeting him with good-humored deference. Stepan Arkadyevitch moved quickly, as ever, to his place, shook hands with his colleagues, and sat down. He ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... librarian. No doubt, being a citizen, he has every right, except the right to violate the rules—or to make himself disagreeable. The way to meet him is to be neither aggressive, nor submissive and deferential, but with a cool and pleasant courtesy, ignoring any idea of unpleasant feeling on your part. You will thus at least teach a lesson in good manners, which may or may not be learned, according to circumstances and the hopeful or ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... Though her boy was not the brilliant genius she had secretly and fondly hoped he would prove, he was still dearer to Felicita than ought else on earth or, indeed, in heaven; and her love for him was deeper than she supposed. On his part he had never lost that chivalrous tenderness, blended with deferential awe, with which he had regarded her from his early boyhood. His love for Alice was so utterly different from his devotion to her, that he had never compared them, and they had not come into any kind of ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... another state would instantly decide that he only did so not because of want of politeness, which one-half the world does not understand, but because the nation to which he belongs was so great and powerful there was no need to be deferential to any of the others, and especially so to the state whose representatives allowed themselves to be so easily ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... a week and whiled away many hours in her stimulating society. Occasionally her husband found him there, but if the fact annoyed him he gave no evidence of it. It was observed, too, that the manner of the visitor was gingerly deferential toward his host; he evidently desired no trouble with "Mistah Breckenridge." Occasionally he took Hannah for a walk; several times he brought her simple offerings of chickens and melons, heartening her to their consumption by participating in the same. One ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... to be a man apparently of middle age, of height approximating Maitland's; his shoulders were slightly rounded as if from habitual bending over a desk, his pose mild and deferential. By his eyeglasses and peering look, he was near-sighted; by his dress, a gentleman of taste and judgment as well as of means to gratify both. A certain jaunty and summery touch in his attire suggested a person of leisure who had just run down from ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... English King. At Cashel, Donnell O'Brien, King of Thomond, swore fealty, and surrendered the city of Limerick. Other princes followed their example. The "pomp and circumstance" of the royal court, attracted the admiration of a people naturally deferential to authority; the condescension and apparent disinterestedness of the monarch, won the hearts of an impulsive and affectionate race. They had been accustomed to an Ard-Righ, a chief monarch, who, in name at least, ruled all the lesser potentates: why should not Henry be such to them? and why ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... just ascended the iron ladder, approached, touching his cap with a deferential forefinger. "A letter addressed to you, sir. Found it in the corridor outside your stateroom. Must have fallen ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... was speedily evoked by the court itself. As early as 1 July, a gradual movement of royal troops from the garrisons along the eastern frontier toward Paris and Versailles made it apparent that the king contemplated awing the National Assembly into a more deferential mood. The Assembly, in dignified tone, requested the removal of the troops. The king responded by a peremptory refusal and by the dismissal of Necker [Footnote: Necker had been restored to his office as director-general of finances in 1788] the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... are of different religions, the marriage is usually first celebrated in the church of that communion to which the husband belongs; the second celebration should immediately follow, and upon the same day. Some, however, regard it as duly deferential to the bride's feelings that the first ceremony should be performed in her own communion. There is a notion prevalent, that in the case of a marriage between Roman Catholics and Protestants, the ceremony must necessarily be first ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... Some invisible auditor said to another, "It's a young lady." Then the first voice rose again in a more deferential tone: ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... sir. You're not leaving, are you?" The man was actually breathing hard. Deferential as his bearing was, I saw no cause for the inquiry, and with some amusement and more annoyance, I wondered if he suspected me of slipping ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... tired-out man? Why did she always seem to be holding him at arm's-length when there was, surely, no earthly reason why she should do so? His manner had always been perfectly courteous to her, and even deferential. He had done her father many acts of kindness, without as much as referring to them, and still, with a spice of perversity, she had always shrunk from appearing to notice him. She shrewdly suspected that his present life was not the sort ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... men touched their forelocks with deferential respect. Master Jeremy Mounce humbly whispered a query as to what His Honor ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... course I remember it, but I had forgotten to connect up the circumstances. It's a mine all right, Major—and the poor little girl! She reads his poetry with Phoebe and to me and she admires him and is deferential and—that girl—the sweetest thing that ever happened! I don't know whether to go over and smash him or ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the wine of love in his veins, to be obliged to mingle so often with the family party at the Vincys', and to enter so much into Middlemarch gossip, protracted good cheer, whist-playing, and general futility. He had to be deferential when Mr. Vincy decided questions with trenchant ignorance, especially as to those liquors which were the best inward pickle, preserving you from the effects of bad air. Mrs. Vincy's openness and simplicity were quite unstreaked ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... to the comfort of Sir Arthur, who had now quite recovered consciousness, but was still feeling faint and ill. He told him as much of the truth about Vane as he knew, and while he was doing so, Jepson, the scout, came in from the bedroom, and said with an air of deferential confidence: ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... fibre which I believe fits the nation for democratic institutions better than any other, and which is perhaps partly the result of their ancient civilization. At any rate, it fascinates a stranger to see people so mutually gentle and deferential; and must often be a matter of surprise to the Anglo-Saxon, in whose race, reclaimed from barbarism more recently, the native wild-beast is still so strong as to sometimes inform the manner. The uneducated Anglo-Saxon is a savage; the Italian, though born to utter ignorance, poverty, and depravity, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... themselves were almost deferential to her, the Church saw that she did not want. She walked without passion, like a shade, tormented into moments of love by the child. Her dying husband with his tortured eyes and the skin drawn tight over his face, he was as a vision to her, not a reality. In a vision he was buried and put away. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... conclusion of his pamphlet On the Management of Transported Convicts, "I could multiply without number; but these, for obvious reasons, I forbear to quote; and in truth they as often pained me as pleased me, by being too deferential. It is a great and very common mistake, in managing prisoners, to be too much gratified by mere obedience and servility: duplicity is much encouraged by this; and, of two opposite errors, it is better rather to overlook a little occasional insubordination. I cannot refuse, however, to cite ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... rolled on the ground and rubbed his muzzle in the grass, but to no purpose. No wonder, then, that subsequently his manner towards an occasional hibernating wasp among the moss-roots in the gravel-pit was deferential ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... agitated at the unexpected boldness of such a proposal from one hitherto so boyish and deferential that she sank into the observing-chair, her intention to remain for only a ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... of animating and of enlivening discourse, the talent for giving pleasure to people of society. Perfectly refined when he chose to be, confining himself without inconvenience to strict decorum, of finished politeness, of exquisite gallantry, deferential without being servile, fond without being mawkish,[4125] and always at his ease, it suffices that he should be before the public, to fall naturally into the proper tone, the discreet ways, the winning half-smile of the well-bred man who, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... ring, and on one occasion had killed a man with a single blow of his fist, in a prize fight near St. Louis. We were all very proud of him, and it was as good as an entertainment to us to see the noisiest roughs subside into deferential silence as Ned would come among them, like some grand mastiff in the midst of a pack of yelping curs. Ned entered into the regulating scheme heartily. Other stalwart specimens of physical manhood in our battalion were Sergeant ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... get the long pipe, with its stem of maple-root, and filled it with tobacco with her own pretty fingers. A sweet smile and a deferential look from Eric recompensed her. When he saw M. de Vermondans seated in his chair, and inhaling the aroma of tobacco through the amber mouthpiece, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... establishment a grandeur and an official authority which did us service on the roads, and invested us with seasonable terrors. But perhaps these terrors were not the less impressive, because their exact legal limits were imperfectly ascertained. Look at those turnpike gates; with what deferential hurry, with what an obedient start, they fly open at our approach! Look at that long line of carts and carters ahead, audaciously usurping the very crest of the road. Ah! traitors, they do not hear us as yet; but as soon as the dreadful blast of our horn reaches them with the proclamation of our ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... duped, or, in any case, misled. Her anger and worry increased momentarily, especially since Graydon, beyond a little furtive observation, completely ignored her. She naturally ascribed his course to resentment at her first greeting of Arnault, his continued presence at her side, and the almost deferential manner with which he was treated by her father, who had joined his family at supper, when ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... by evening engagements, have crowded out family prayers, and the pious custom, honored in all ages, of "grace before meat," is in many houses disregarded, except when a clergyman is at the table. Then the deferential bend of the host's head in the direction of the reverend guest is rather a tribute to the cloth than an acknowledgment of the Divine Giver to whom thanks are due. In the olden days it was the pupil who studied the ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... with his employees. If such a man is also fine-textured, he is very sensitive and must be treated with deference and respect. If he has a short upper lip, he is amenable to flattery, but the flattery must be delicate and deferential. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... of this bitterness. Gaspar, who looked on, was astonished by a certain deferential politeness on the part of the ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... affair was on. The waiter inclined a deferential ear to the gentleman from the large ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... Coal and Ore isn't far distant. After it comes the annual election of officers. I fancy Malone may know of a man who might grace the directorate with a more deferential humility than I show—when he speaks Jove-like from the ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... brows were knotted, his eyes gleamed rather fiercely beneath them, his under lip was thrust out aggressively. "As fierce as a lion," said one of the observers, afterwards. But even while his eyes darted flame and fury at the men who had deserted them, his body kept its half-protecting, half-deferential pose with respect to Lady Alice; and the hand that held her arm was studiously gentle in ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... with downcast eyes. Her manner with the Doctor when others were present was professionally deferential. It was only when they were alone that the nurse was submerged in ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... a tone of candid deferential acceptance, which flattered Mr. Enwright very much, for it was the final proof of the prestige which the grizzled and wrinkled and peculiar Fellow and Member of the Council of the Royal Institute of British Architects had acquired in the estimation ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... returned, almost forgetting her first bitter moment. Hal Macy's direct hand-clasp and frank, bright smile of welcome stamped him with sincerity and truth. She liked equally well Lawrence Armitage's deferential greeting and she found the Crane's wide, boyish grin irresistible as he bowed low over her small hand. Yes, the Sanford boys were certainly nice. She was not so sure that she liked the girls. They made too much of Marjorie, and Marjorie ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... Braidy and Maudie Burns. Thank you for getting the pitcher into his togs," he said, as he squared his shoulders slightly against the rest of the world, the rest of the diners in particular, and bent toward me in just that deferential angle that a man uses when he wants to signal to the others that for a limited time he desires sole possession of the woman ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Her deferential recognition of the change which is coming is pathetic and full of etiquette; it is at once so jealous and so unselfish. Because her sense of the proprieties will not allow her to do so much longer, she comes up to ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... voice in which the question was put and the gesture which accompanied it were evidently quite intelligible, for Acor instantly replied in deferential tones, at the same time pointing down the road; and, sure enough, after the cavalcade had proceeded about two miles, Inaguy and his companions were overtaken, trudging cheerfully along under the escort of a man who both Dick and Earle remembered having seen about the ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... two Jakoff was silent. Then his fingers began to twitch with extraordinary rapidity, and, changing the expression of deferential vacancy with which he had listened to his orders for one of shrewd intelligence, he turned his tablets back ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... to convey the lazy frankness of this speech, the charming smile with which it was accompanied, or the easy yet deferential manner with which, taking up his hat, he bowed to Mrs. Brooks as ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... making an odd little bend of the head, half deferential, half satirical; and Raymond said, "Cecil, I believe it rests with you to make the move." An ingenuous girlish blush mantled on her cheek as she ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... number of prosperous-looking men who, chatting volubly and affably, made their way immediately through the outer offices towards another and larger inner office on the glass door of which was the legend "Directors Room. Private." Each comer gave a patronizing nod in recognition of the deferential salutation of the clerks. Earlier arrivals had preceded them, and as they opened the door there issued from the Directors Room a confused murmur of voices, each different in pitch and tone, some deep and deliberate, others shrill and nervous, but ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... took off his hat, and approached the lady, deferential as knight-errant of old awaiting the behest of his ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... etiquette. On the Continent, however, the gentleman bows first. There the matter of the raising the hat is also important. An American gentleman takes his hat quite off to a lady; a foreigner raises it but slightly, and bows with a deferential air. Between ladies but slightly acquainted, and just introduced, a very formal bow is all that is proper; acquaintances and friends bow and smile; intimate male friends simply nod, but all gentlemen with ladies raise the hat and bow if ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... to greet me, bowing low in a deferential manner, more out of forced respect than awe, at least on Wagner's part, and after the customary blessing that followed, we all sat down at the long wooden table that stretched lengthwise through the room. Wagner ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... figure among them. Several of the younger girls addressed him as "Dick," and asked him to send them trophies from the front. The young officer held his own amongst them with laughing self-possession. When he had taken his farewell of them he approached Miss Heredith, and held out his hand with a deferential politeness which contrasted rather noticeably with the easy familiarity of his ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... said Loman, who in the presence of this universal genius was quite deferential; "when can ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... have curly hair and black eyes and white teeth and a nice smile; I should like him to wear a red sash and earrings. He must be obliging and cheerful and deferential and speak good Italian—I won't have a man who speaks only dialect. He must play the mandolin and sing Santa ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... in presently, refusing tea, but asking leave to smoke, and the Prince, gracefully deferential to his future father-in-law, listened to the little he had to say, answering carefully in his ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... he did not behave very well; for he actually tried to pass the royal couple at the head of the procession, a proceeding which brought him various severe admonitions until he fell back, as duty demanded, to his deferential and modest post. On the other hand, as the three maids of honor began to sing the ballad of Cinderella on her way to the palace of Prince Charming, the royal couple condescendingly declared that the song was appropriate and of pleasing effect, whatever ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... he seems aware of the difficulties and the necessity of acquiring more strength, of the universal persuasion that the Duke will be all in all, and says that in the Cabinet nobody can be more reasonable and yielding and deferential to the opinions of his colleagues. But Murray's appointment, he says, was a mistake,[2] and no personal consideration should induce the Duke to sacrifice the interests of the country by keeping him; it may be disagreeable to dismiss him, but he must do it. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... deal of time to study them, and somehow his recollection of the girl with the hunting-case watch did not seem to fit her in with these kindly and efficient women. He could not, for instance, imagine her patronising the Senior Surgical Interne in a deferential but unmistakable manner, or good-naturedly bullying the First Assistant, who was a nervous person in shoes too small for her, as to their days ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... escape was a narrow one.... Ah! Ha! Ha! Ha! How scared!" Dentatsu did not deny it—"More than frightened; thoroughly scared." He scanned his companion. "A most surprising fellow! Surely...." He was perplexed. But Jimbei paid no attention to his questioning deferential manner. He was plainly the master—"Come now! All haste is to be made." Urging the pace soon they were amid the hills. The white light of dawn was approaching as they were reaching the top of a difficult climb. "The Utsunoya-to[u]ge ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... more utterances below, spoken in a deferential tone, followed by a sharp, angry command or two, sent a flash through his brain, and he pressed Punch's arm with greater energy in an effort to try and convey to his companion the thought that he knew who the fresh-comers ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... she should look at him, but at this particular moment she felt it quite impossible to be mannerly. He had said nothing of a thrilling nature, yet his whole tone and expression, his air of deferential regard, stirred a new feeling in her mind—the conviction that he cared for her more than it was well for either of them that he ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... this neutral part, "has seen some five-and-twenty summers, and has advanced intellectual views about most things." Mr. Punch's Dramatic Critic has been instructed to "give him double bowing" by way of deferential compensation. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— ...
— Prufrock and Other Observations • T. S. Eliot
... (Mr. Wenham himself was a staunch old True Blue Tory, and his father a small coal-merchant in the north of England), this aide-de-camp of the Marquis never showed any sort of hostility to the new favourite, but pursued her with stealthy kindnesses and a sly and deferential politeness which somehow made Becky more uneasy ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she would like him to come. That soothed him. They went, talking simply, he gentle and humble. He could have wept with gratitude that she was deferential to ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... skipper regarded him with a new interest. The ruddy face wore a soft smile, and the big frame passed across the main cabin on feet light as a dancer's. He carried a glass of some mixture in his hand and entered Little's cabin, giving the skipper a deferential nod as he went by. Barry joined the mate ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... led her, occasionally completely posing her by his laughing objections. Of an evening Cuthbert often went up to Porthalloc, where he was warmly welcomed by Anna's mother, whose heart he won by the gentle and deferential manner that rendered him universally popular among the ladies of the families of his artist friends. She would sit smilingly by when the conflicts of the morning were sometimes renewed, for she saw with satisfaction that Anna at least was certainly ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... last, though she has never said one word to me about it, not even that you were all to be here. What a good thing it is to have a brother! I should never have known but for Dermot. And, do you know, he says that my uncle's pet is the cousin, after all—the deferential fool ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... neither of his own sons had been thus mourned; nor had any person shown the poor crazed monarch the uniform deferential consideration he had received from Henry. He crept back to his own chamber, and for many days hardly spoke, save to moan for his bon fils Henri, scarcely tasting food, and pining away day by day. Those who had watched the likeness between the heroes of Monmouth and of Macedon, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unfolded. He discussed the Mississippi, although he had not been on that river, exhibited an intimate acquaintance with cities and routes which had never seen him in the flesh, and, by his quiet, gentlemanly, and, to the much older man, deferential tone, was admitted to the confidence of Colonel Morton, of Louisiana, South American trader, ship-owner and the possessor of a fine estate, which, although it had suffered greatly during the war, in which the colonel commanded a cavalry regiment, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... dreamt of him, and a sense of foreboding was heavy upon her—she seemed to hear the footfall of coming disaster. The anxiety of her soul lent an unnatural brightness to her eyes; so that more than one enamoured courtier made essay to engage her in conversation, and paid her deferential compliment when the Queen's eyes were not turned her way. Come to the dais, she was placed not far from her Majesty, beside the Duke's Daughter, whose whimsical nature found frequent expression in what the Queen was wont to call "a merry volt." She seemed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... impassioned, poised upon the brink of some desperate plunge.... Then the hands of consequences seemed to lay compelling hold upon him; the fire was extinguished; the vision gone like a mirage. His eyes were friendly, his lips smiling, as he bowed to her, in deferential courtesy, to all appearances a ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... brings strength, strength brings endurance, and endurance brings success. You know how often in his novels he speaks of the influence of women, socially, morally, and politically, yet his manner was the least interested or deferential in talking that I have ever met with in a man of his class. He certainly thought this particular woman of singularly small account, or else the brusque and tactless allusion to his books may perhaps have annoyed him as it did me; but whatever the cause, when he promptly ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... dress for the last act. She heard the distant roar, however, and felt the tide of triumph rising still higher round her heart. If she had been used to her cadaverous maid, too, she would have seen that the woman's manner was growing more deferential each time she saw her. Success was certain, now, a great and memorable success, which would be proclaimed throughout the world in a very few days. The new star was rising fast, and it was the sallow-faced maid's business to ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... authorise a sentiment against perverts which differed not only in degree, but in kind, from the purely spiritual anathemas which had formerly fallen upon them. Personally she had no fear. The prophet knew of her unbelief, and his conduct was increasingly kind and deferential, but for others she disliked exceedingly the new symptoms of tyranny. Yet it was but natural, she admitted; men who had offered their own lives in sacrifice for a creed were likely to think it of more worth to the soul ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... we seat ourselves, flanked by with two massive dogs, and soon are discussing a nondescript repast which is too late for lunch and too early for dinner but which is remarkably appetizing in either view. An hour later, we are again in Luchon, greeted by the deferential head-waiter of the Richelieu, whose starchy bosom expands with hourly welcome for each who comes ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... her by handing her with a grim silence a copy of that morning's paper, open at Society Notes. Loyal Flora Burgess had lavished on "Miss Lydia's" first dinner party her entire vocabulary of deferential, not to say reverential, encomiums. The "function had inaugurated a new era of cosmopolitan amplitude of social life in Endbury," was the ending of the lengthy paragraph that described the table decorations, the ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... my imagination will work beautifully when it isn't subdued by all these blue devils. I—Que voulez vous?" The question was directed rather sharply to a particularly deferential "blue devil" ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... also notice that the last is even more at home in the house, and speaks in a tone of greater authority than the apparent host. Everything is referred to him for decision, and the master of the house treats him with a deferential humility which goes far to contradict the cynical observation that there is no gratitude on earth. The Tolerated Husband, indeed, never tires of dispensing hospitality at the cost of his friend, and though the whole world knows the case, there will never ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... accidentally, yet it did not appear so, and she laughed merrily. It needed no skill to measure the meaning of her laugh, and I did not blame her for it. She had waited for years to avenge the kiss that I gave Cydaria in the Manor Park at Hatchstead; but was it not well avenged when I stood humbly, in deferential silence, at the back while his Grace the Duke sued for her favour, and half the Court looked on? I will not set myself down a churl where nature has not made me one; I said in my heart, and I tried to say to her with my eyes, "Laugh, sweet mistress, laugh!" For I love a girl who will laugh ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... deferential bow; Then, to my horror, beamingly replied, 'Master not see? I wearing trousers now!' I would have said ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... on question put by HUNTER as to when the ten volumes of evidence, upon which Report of Special Committee founded, would be on the bookstalls. OLD MORALITY at the table in a moment, his manner brisk yet deferential, his hands involuntarily wandering over the books and papers scattered about, as if he were looking for special edition someone on other side of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... organised and governed by Reason and Justice themselves, the unreserved toleration of false opinions would be the only palladium of progress; or that a doctrinaire State, composed of perfectly virtuous and deferential people, would arrest development and stifle origiality, by its ungenial if mild tyranny. Mercier's is no exception to the rule that ideal societies are always repellent; and there are probably few who would not rather be set down in Athens in the days of the ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... village, he assured us. But they were rich in Almorox; the wine was the best in Castile. Four days of toros, he said again; and all the people of the country around would come to the fiestas, and there would be a great pilgrimage to this Hermitage of the Virgin.... As he talked in his slow deferential way, a little conscious of his volubility before strangers, there began to grow in my mind a picture of his view of ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... awkward, as though she were made of lead. She was always afraid, and she would get up from her seat and not venture to sit down in the presence of a member of the Zemstvo or the school guardian. And she used formal, deferential expressions when she spoke of any one of them. And no one thought her attractive, and life was passing drearily, without affection, without friendly sympathy, without interesting acquaintances. How awful it would have been in her position if she ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... only my own but my family's dependence on M'Swat—sank into oblivion. I merely recognized that she was one human being and I another. Should I have been deferential to her by reason of her age and maternity, then from the vantage which this gave her, she should have been lenient to me on account of my chit-ship and inexperience. Thus ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Helen thought of the arrangement, but if she would influence Katy to act and think rationally upon it; "at least you will not make it worse," he said, and this time there was something quite deferential and ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... Have you not marked, when he entered, how the stormy wave of the multitude retired at his approach? Have you not marked how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror? How his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, while his voice warned the devoted wretch of life and death—a death which no innocence ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... filled all my mind. Who could he be? The sense of warmth that had come with his smile, and that very curious sensation I had had when he had come up close to the bar and spoken to me, were with me yet. His voice had been pleading and deferential, surely nothing in it to resent. The memory of his face made me forget the chain between his wrists; as if he himself had been greater than any ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... courteous, nay deferential, letter on the receipt of 'The Ryse of Peyncteyne' was the first of its kind and the last. For now June had come, and other specimens of Rowley's extraordinary gifts were not even acknowledged, nor could his repeated requests for the return of the manuscripts ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... friendships, sheltered from the storms of circumstance. He had leisure to grow ripe, to remember, and to dream. But he never secluded himself, like Tennyson, from normal contacts with his fellowmen. The owner of the Craigie House was a good neighbor, approachable and deferential. He was even interested in local Cambridge politics. On the larger political issues of his day his Americanism was sound and loyal. "It is disheartening," he wrote in his Cambridge journal for 1851, "to see how little sympathy there is in the hearts of the young men here for freedom and great ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... "feeble?"—if he was good for any thing, he was good for logic: "false?"—not one premise but stood on adamant, not one conclusion but it was fixed as fate: "presumptuous?"—it was bold and masculine, certainly, but humble too; here and there almost deferential: "ignorant?"—ye powers that live in looks, testify by thousands how Clements had been studying!—And yet this most lying sentence, a congeries or sorites of untruths, hastily penned by some dyspeptic scribe, who perhaps had barely dipped into the book, was at ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... filled all the vases, trained some vines, and then with some needlework went out on the veranda. At the table she listened and responded interestedly to Mrs. Merlin's bromidic remarks, was gentle with the children and most flatteringly deferential to Kurt. Of her former banter and coquetry toward him there was no trace. After the children had gone to bed, she played cribbage with Mrs. Merlin while Kurt read ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... of the establishment speedily appeared. She had been a splendid Jewish beauty, and still in middle age, had great owl-like eyes, and a complexion that did her credit to her arts; but there was something indescribably repulsive in her fawning, deferential curtsey, as she said, in a flattering tone, with a slightly foreign accent, "The pretty lady is come, as our noble dame promised, to explain to the poor Cora Darke the great queen's secret! Ah! how good it is to have learning. What would not my clients give for such a skin ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... speaking, the servants seem to me quite a superior class to what are employed in that capacity with us. They look very intelligent, are dressed with great neatness, and though their manners are very much more deferential than those of servants in our country, it appears to be a difference arising quite as much from self-respect and a sense of propriety as from servility. Every body's manners are more deferential in England ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... temperament and regulated feeling, which had led him to study monuments rather than men, and to declare that the result of all his experience was "to teach him to live well with all persons." Soberly clad, and sagely accompanied by some learned antiquary or pious churchman, and by a few of his deferential disciples, he gave out his trite axioms in measured phrase and emphatic accent, lectured rather than conversed, and appeared like one of the peripatetic teachers of the last days of Athenian pedantry ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... was thrust out aggressively. "As fierce as a lion," said one of the observers, afterwards. But even while his eyes darted flame and fury at the men who had deserted them, his body kept its half-protecting, half-deferential pose with respect to Lady Alice; and the hand that held her arm was ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... more fully with the importance of that event, grandma had Georgia and me stand up on our cellar floor and learn to make that deferential bow, she by turns, taking the parts of the Frau Wirthin, the Emperor, ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... forgetting her first bitter moment. Hal Macy's direct hand-clasp and frank, bright smile of welcome stamped him with sincerity and truth. She liked equally well Lawrence Armitage's deferential greeting and she found the Crane's wide, boyish grin irresistible as he bowed low over her small hand. Yes, the Sanford boys were certainly nice. She was not so sure that she liked the girls. They made too much of Marjorie, and Marjorie had proved herself ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... which I believe fits the nation for democratic institutions better than any other, and which is perhaps partly the result of their ancient civilization. At any rate, it fascinates a stranger to see people so mutually gentle and deferential; and must often be a matter of surprise to the Anglo-Saxon, in whose race, reclaimed from barbarism more recently, the native wild-beast is still so strong as to sometimes inform the manner. The uneducated Anglo-Saxon is a savage; the Italian, though born to utter ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... all three talking quite nicely, and with at any rate an appearance of being natural. Prince Aribert became suave, even deferential to Nella, and more friendly towards Nella's father than their respective positions demanded. The latter amused himself by studying this sprig of royalty, the first with whom he had ever come into ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... garb, like all the members of the university. He looked about five-and-twenty years old, was a tall and finely proportioned man, deep chested and muscular, with a gravely deferential manner that was ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer either deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave. The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... parvenus (Mr. Wenham himself was a staunch old True Blue Tory, and his father a small coal-merchant in the north of England), this aide-de-camp of the Marquis never showed any sort of hostility to the new favourite, but pursued her with stealthy kindnesses and a sly and deferential politeness which somehow made Becky more uneasy ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... subtle change in Ralston, which Dora was quick to feel. He was deferential, as always, and as eager to please; but he no longer sought her company, and she missed the quick exchange of sympathetic glances at the table. It seemed to her, also, that the grimness in his face was accentuated of late. She found herself ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... won't come out to see our new settlement when the rest do? Too rough for you?' asked Dan, trying to assume the deferential air all the boys used ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... clue to the meaning of the cisterns, the petrol, the machinery and the Emperor's curious interest in the island. But Smith took shelter behind the manner of a good servant, the most impenetrable of all defences. Gorman never got anything out of him except a deferential "Yes, sir," or, in reply to some leading question, "Don't know, sir, I'm sure." Or perhaps, "Indeed, sir!" in a ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... she stood again at the outer door, Bison Billiam, knob in hand, arching above her in deferential leave-taking. "I will see to everything," he assured her; "everything. This is certainly most worthy of being looked into. And I shall do it myself. Myself," he repeated, emphasizing the two little syllables as though that fact were of tremendous ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... was so charmingly deferential, and, in spite of her high spirits, so anxious to please, that her hostess had not the heart to chide her. Her whole-hearted innocence had begun to disarm the lady's suspicions when, at the end of a week, the watchful eye noted signs of an alarming change in her troublesome charge. Isabel ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... Black Hill, a little more withered, a little more stooped than of old, but still fluent, caustic, and with now and then to the surface a vague, cold froth of insincerity, made up much to this magnate of commerce. He stood on his own heath, or by his own fountain, but his neck had in it a deferential crook. Lacs—rupees— factories—rajahs—ships—cottons—the words fell like the tinkle of a golden fountain. Listening to these two stood, with his hands behind his back, Mr. Wotherspoon, Black Hill's lawyer ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... pleased at all with Harboro's friend. He had assumed the attitude of a deferential guide, and his remarks were almost entirely addressed to Harboro. But she was not to be put out by so small a part of the night's programme. After all, Valdez was not planning to return with them, and ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... vanished the instant that the guest saluted him with marked politeness and explained, with many deferential poises of the head, and in terms at once civil and concise, that for some time past he (the newcomer) had been touring the Russian Empire on business and in the pursuit of knowledge, that the Empire abounded in objects of interest—not to mention a plenitude of manufactures and ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... manifested in high bearing and sensitive honor, a refinement of sentiment and chivalrous emprise unknown to communities without caste. This is to be seen in the absence of everything little or mean. A noble hospitality, a scorn of bargaining, and a lofty yet eminently deferential deportment toward females: in this mould it has cast Southern society, and these traits made the Southern gentleman remarkable, wherever his ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... has acquired the highest charm of repose. Look at Sally, who used to be such an angular and hurried little girl: she is all quips and cranks and wreathed smiles now. And meek, humble-minded Martha, in former days so diffident, blushing and taciturn, has found out the value of a deferential demeanor and the knack of being a good listener, and can sing a ballad with a pathos and dramatic effect that eclipse the highly-embellished ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... He remained stiffly deferential, but with an air of having disposed of me. He reproved me tacitly for forgetting that I ought to conceal my astonishment at this disappearance. He was indeed an admirable man-servant. "Thank you," said I, and dropped away defeated ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... were all deferential, and those of foreign birth obsequious, Bullen had an air that was more than sturdily independent—the air and the eye of the skilled mechanic. On his own ground he was master, and Justin, with a smile, deferred to him. But Justin broke into Bullen's calculations ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... pleasant, and that made him look younger than he was: twenty-one instead of twenty-seven. As befitted an acolyte of the Goddess of Wisdom, his dark, curly hair was cut rather long. When he bowed to a departing worshipper, lowering his head in graceful acknowledgment of their deferential nods, he felt that he made ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Tower, stopped a moment irresolutely, and then came towards them, bare-headed and bowing. He had sloping shoulders and a serious-looking mouth, with a reddish beard and moustache, and had an air of strangely mingled submissiveness and capability. His voice too, as he spoke, was at once deferential ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... in Spanish and partly in French by different romancers of the 15th century; the first four books were regarded by Cervantes as a masterpiece. The hero of the book, Amadis, surnamed the Knight of the Lion, stands for a type of a constant and deferential lover, as well as a model knight-errant, of whom Don Quixote ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... impressed by her jollity, her actual lust for laughter, her complete lack of restraint. He had never known that sort of mirthful hilarity; and if he had known it, he could not recall it. Her youthful features, her bright eyes, her white teeth, her agile gestures filled him with deferential respect; his eyes swam with emotion. He felt so old, so foreign; he felt that where he was the sun was not shining, the flowers were not budding. He felt that life had appeared to him all of a sudden and quite unexpectedly in a new, ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... not help feeling surprised to find that she accepted Kennedy's deferential commands, for after all that was what they amounted to. Almost I felt that she was turning to him for help, that he had broken down some barrier to her confidence. He seemed to exert a sort of ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... count of the times he had been "duly elected" in the capricious ups and downs of Spanish politics, which give to Parliaments only a fleeting existence. The ushers, the personnel of the Secretariat, the guards and janitors, treated him with deferential intimacy, as a comrade on a somewhat higher level, but as much of a fixture as they were to the Spanish Congress. He was not one of those men who are miraculously washed into office on the crest of a reform wave, but never ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... nearly every one present prostrated themselves before him; his relations alone, distinguished by the blue and white fillet on the tiara, contented themselves with a deferential obeisance. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... inference, you will derive the cause of that peculiarity of sea-life just mentioned. .. Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab, there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind, their intent ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... murmured the waiter, who was standing at a respectful distance from the table, and was sipping his wine with deferential slowness. ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... of taste and a collector, and since presided over by the great Nisbet, whose hand has dropped the ensign of office even before the present lot has an opportunity of obtaining from it the crowning honour. I bow with deferential awe to the august tribunal before which so vast a mass of literature has changed hands, and where the future destinies of so many thousands—or, shall it be rather said, millions—of volumes have been decided, each carrying with it its own ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... just embarked for their voyage to the starting-point. Standing on the edge of the raft that makes a floating platform for the barge, William, the hoary bargee, was pushing them off with his boat-hook, wishing them luck with deferential familiarity. The raft was thronged with Old Judasians—mostly clergymen—who were shouting hearty hortations, and evidently trying not to appear so old as they felt—or rather, not to appear so startlingly old ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... addressed them in a deferential tone as "Miss," and it went like an electric flash through the minds of all the other visitors that the old lady was quite right when she thought it her duty ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... indicated that he had perceived the archbishop's uncertainty; and that he was desirous by the emphatic distinctness of his own language to spare him a future recurrence of it. He accepted the deferential version of the petition; but even Cranmer's anticipation of what might be required of him had not reached the reality. In running through the preamble, the king flung into the tone of it a character of still deeper humility;[429] and he conceded the desired licence in the following imperial ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... the case with our friend Carl. My wife had taken rather a fancy to him, not at first erotic, but observing that after she had talked to him familiarly that he began to be very deferential to her and with a certain manner that she, with the instinct of a woman, saw at once arose from amorous admiration. Casting her eye downwards she detected the effect produced in his trousers whenever she was kindly civil to him. She increased her familiar conversation, ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... now opened their correspondence with Lord Effingham, demanding the surrender of their late colleague. On their part, it was marked by a deferential respect, which, it is evident, they did not feel, and which seems to denote a timid conviction of the favor of Virginia and the disgrace of Maryland in the personal feelings of the King. It is manifest they were afraid of giving offence to the lordly governor of the neighboring Province. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... father and asked his permission to stay with his grand-aunt. In the same deferential manner she asked permission of her mother. Madame Saucier leaned on her husband's shoulder and wept. It was plain that the mother must go with her two young children only. Peggy said she would not ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... from the window I saw the figures of two men come out of the sharp angle of St. Mary's and walk towards the town. Both were tall, both in cloaks; but one wore his hat and the other carried it. By this, as well as his drooping, deferential shoulders, I knew this latter to be the servant, the former his patron. Midway towards the Via de' Benci they stopped, while he of the bare head explained at length, pointing this way and that with his hat, then counting on his fingers. I was now expert enough to be able to read an ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... which their art-minds severally dawned and developed. The remainder of the book is almost wholly devoted in glowing strains, like the pompous glory of the crowning movement of a Beethoven symphony, to loving yet deferential homage to Turner. His works and life are traced out and lingered over, not with biographical exactness, but with some effort to make them explicable of the character of the great painter. 'Much of his mind and heart I do not know—perhaps ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... want, my dear fellow," said the count to the deferential young man who had entered. "Bring me..." he reflected a moment, "yes, bring me seven hundred rubles, yes! But mind, don't bring me such tattered and dirty notes as last time, but nice clean ones for ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... arbiter of both? Have you not marked, when he entered, how the stormy wave of the multitude retired at his approach? Have you not marked how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror? How his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, while his voice warned the devoted wretch of life and death—a death which ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... at the unexpected boldness of such a proposal from one hitherto so boyish and deferential that she sank into the observing-chair, her intention to remain for only a few minutes being ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... been founded on the conviction that he could securely calculate on the allegiance of a man who was ready to avail himself of every opportunity to promote his own interests, and who might therefore be expected, on all occasions, to pay a deferential attention to the wishes of the King. His Lordship's subsequent conduct during the Regency discussions in 1788 afforded a conspicuous proof of his unscrupulousness: when, upon hearing one night, at Carlton House, from one of the King's physicians, of the approaching convalescence ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... III. of England, the Emperor Leopold of Germany, and Augustus I. of Poland gave her commissions for pictures. Large prices were paid her in a most deferential manner, as if the tributes of friendship rather than the reward of labor, and to these generous sums were added gifts of jewels ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... Ha! Ha! Ha! How scared!" Dentatsu did not deny it—"More than frightened; thoroughly scared." He scanned his companion. "A most surprising fellow! Surely...." He was perplexed. But Jimbei paid no attention to his questioning deferential manner. He was plainly the master—"Come now! All haste is to be made." Urging the pace soon they were amid the hills. The white light of dawn was approaching as they were reaching the top of a difficult climb. "The Utsunoya-to[u]ge (pass)," said Jimbei. A ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... With a deferential lifting of his cap the pedlar again murmured his grateful thanks, and made his way out the way he had come in. Fanny waited to lock the yard gate after him, murmuring to herself: "That gate didn't ought to have been left open—it's just like that lazy boy Sam to think that now Britton's gone ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... pleased to express your satisfaction with the performance of Cato, Miss Mordaunt," said Bulstrode, in a very deferential and solicitous manner; "but I question if the entertainment gave you as ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... grace of manner was a ceremonial mantle on him as he grasped the situation in a look. He bent with deferential familiarity to his countess, exactly toning the degree of difference which befitted a salute to the two gentlemen, amiable ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... always very deferential to him. He always made a sensation if he came into the room. No one could help looking at him. He wasn't one of those tame sneaking creatures that are to be met in country houses, of whom no one takes the least notice; he was much more ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... complexion, the blue, unbelieving eyes and the bright white flash of an automatic smile had an air of jovial, careless cruelty. He expressed no wonder at the extraordinary story—no pleasure or excitement—no incredulity either. He betrayed no sentiment whatever. Only with a politeness almost deferential suggested that "the bird might have flown while Mr.—Mr. Razumov was running ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... the blitheness was with Nikolaus; we others could not shake off our depression. Our tone toward Nikolaus was so strangely gentle and tender and yearning that he noticed it, and was pleased; and we were constantly doing him deferential little offices of courtesy, and saying, "Wait, let me do that for you," and that pleased him, too. I gave him seven fish-hooks—all I had—and made him take them; and Seppi gave him his new knife and a humming-top painted red and yellow —atonements for swindles practised ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I meant, at all." . . . . . . . . . No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot
... feelings more like the positive antipathy of an exile. His sympathies are all in favor of the perpetual drill, the mechanical obedience, the secret government proceedings, the narrow and prescribed range of ideas, the silent and deferential demeanor, the methodical, though tardy, action—of Sparta. Whatever may be the justice of his preference, certain it is, that the qualities whereby he was himself enabled to contribute so much both to the rescue of the Cyreian army, and to his own reputation—were Athenian ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... to be in a dead or foreign language, would have his secretary indite it in the margin. His secretary, Mr. Simeon, after taking the Sermon down from dictation, had made out a fair copy, and stood now at a little distance from the corner of the writing-table, in a deferential attitude. ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... an' my deferential complimen's to Miss Janice Meredith; likewise dis letter from his Excellency," he said grandly ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Caruthers," he said, in the deferential manner he had adopted toward her. "You don't know what it may be. He's been ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... very deferential to white men. I could rarely get a sentence from them, though they chattered much among themselves, with a constant sprinkling of obscenity. They had a complete language of whistles by which they warned each other of an approaching "jefe," exchanged varied information, and even ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... kind, and just to everyone, was as blind as a babe to the impositions practiced by the oily-tongued, deferential Dawson. True, he did 'get upon her nerves' now and again, but she secretly reproached herself for what she felt to be her American prejudices, and by way of self-discipline overlooked in Dawson many little aggravating peculiarities which ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... the bed. Edmund might not have taken the trouble to go, but a kindly message from a very high place as to his troubles had made him feel it a more gracious response to do so. The valet was a trifle distant, if any shade of manner could have been detected in his deferential attitude towards his master. Dawkins was not pleased with Sir Edmund; he felt that his ten years of service had been based on a delusion; he had not intended to be valet to a ruined man. Happily he had been ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... the grocery department, there presently appears—with a new tinkle of the little bell—a stout, ruddy man, just past middle age, in broad-brimmed white beaver and sober homespun suit, who is met with a deferential "Good day, Squire," from one and another, as he falls successively into short parley with them. A self-possessed, cheery man, who has strong opinions, and does not fear to express them; Selectman for the last eight years; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... though somewhat mild, profanity which took no account of ladies' presence, although he was almost exaggeratedly deferential to them, as well as cordially courteous to all. His speech was like his gait, tripping. I remember the arrival of the first steamer of a new French line to Rio. Steam mail-service was there and then exceptional; most of our home letters still came by sailing-vessel; consequently, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... evil far beyond that of any floating thing, ancient or modern, was ascribed to it; and the wild panic constantly created in the Federal mind the year before by the dreaded name of "Black Horse," or the mere mention of masked battery—was re-enacted by the South in deferential awe ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... nearly catch her ladyship's shins in so doing, but she is wide awake, jumps back, digs the hand that is not holding the green umbrella into her waist, her head jerks a little, and I can imagine she is consigning all these Egyptians to a certain place. She comes on board where all are very deferential, and she is asked to ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... with ancient manners, we are pleased to compliment ourselves upon the point of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness, or deferential respect, which we are supposed to pay to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... such as any man might have enjoyed with proud satisfaction. I had always too much earnest respect for Mr. Irving ever to claim familiar intimacy with him. He was a man who would unconsciously and quietly command deferential regard and consideration; for in all his ways and words there was the atmosphere of true refinement. He was emphatically a gentleman, in the best sense of that word. Never forbidding or morose, he was at times (indeed always, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... a man apparently of middle age, of height approximating Maitland's; his shoulders were slightly rounded as if from habitual bending over a desk, his pose mild and deferential. By his eyeglasses and peering look, he was near-sighted; by his dress, a gentleman of taste and judgment as well as of means to gratify both. A certain jaunty and summery touch in his attire suggested a person of leisure ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... Graham stood with the deferential attendant listening to Ostrog's retreating steps. There was a sound of quick question and answer and of men running. The curtain was snatched back and Ostrog reappeared, his massive face glowing with excitement. He crossed the room in a stride, clicked the room into ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... appeared in the form of two steaming little tumblers of rum-punch, the characteristic beverage of the day. All severity of tone and manner had disappeared, and there was something almost chivalric in the deferential smile and rude grace with which the old fellow handed his waiter to the ladies and assured them of the harmless mildness of the punch. Depositing his burden upon a little stand within easy reach of the sofa, Billy turned to leave, but paused as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... more circumspect than the young man. He treated Nellie Dawson with the chivalrous respect of a Crusader of the olden time. He was always deferential, and, though he managed frequently to meet and chat with her, yet it invariably had the appearance of being accidental. Fortunately his feeling of comradeship for Captain Dawson gave him a legitimate ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... taken in to view the body, together with Dr. Baird, who was almost pathetically deferential to his senior colleague. The two medical men were together in the room with the body for some time, and when they came out Viola Carwell was there to meet them. Dr. Lambert put his arms about her. He had known her all her life—since she first ventured into this world, in fact—and ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... no one in the world whom he so regarded and admired and loved; but yet it was not merely a tender and deferential sentiment. He laid his mind open before her, and it was safe to do that, because my mother never had any wish to prevail by sentiment or by claiming loyalty. He knew that she would be perfectly candid too, with love waiting behind all conflict of opinion. And thus their relation was the most perfect ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in happy ignorance of the dark designs of the wardrobe dealer, had also gone home. He was only just beginning to realize the comparative unimportance of a retired shipmaster, and the knowledge was a source of considerable annoyance to him. No deferential mates listened respectfully to his instructions, no sturdy seaman ran to execute his commands or trembled mutinously at his wrath. The only person in the wide world who stood in awe of him was the general servant Bella, and she made no attempt to conceal her ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the order in his customary gravely deferential manner, and was turning to go; but Rollo had more ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... right; the paint on this picture isn't two days old.' 'Correct,' declared the stranger. 'I finished it day before yesterday for this sale.' Then a marked change came over Rosenheim's manner. He grew positively deferential. It delighted him to meet an artist of talent; they must know each other better. Cards were exchanged, and Rosenheim read with amazement the grimy inscription 'Campbell Corot, Landscape Artist.' 'Yes, that's my painting name,' Campbell Corot said modestly; 'and ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... the way for his fair companion, and, purposely placing her where the full light of the wax chandeliers set off her beauty to the best advantage, devoted himself to her with a subserviency as deferential as if she had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... wet and muddy, was the first to enter. He had ridden round most of the battle-field, and his report was not particularly cheerful. Jackson was very quiet, never volunteering any counsel or suggestion, but answering when questioned in a brief, deferential tone. His countenance was very serious, and soon became very troubled. After a time the clatter of horses' hoofs was heard, and two gentlemen came in, dripping. They were the President and his nephew. Davis and Lee then drew to the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... between his table and mine-for instance, atmosphere; the guests stood in awe of him, and naturally they conferred that feeling upon me, for, after all, I am only human, although I regret it. When a guest answered a question he did it with a deferential voice and manner; he did not put any emotion into it, and he did not spin it out, but got it out of his system as quickly as he could, and then looked relieved. The Emperor was used to this atmosphere, and it did not chill his blood; maybe ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Union loyalty, yet hurriedly, under his breath, bade Anna not despair, and avowed a devotion to the safety and comfort of "ole mahs's and mis's sweet baby" as then and forever his higher law. He was still autocrat of the basement, dropsied with the favor of colonels and generals, deferential to "folks," but a past-master in taking liberties with things. As he talked he so corrected the maid's arrangement of the screen that the ugly hole in the wall was shut from the view of visitors, though left in range of Anna's ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... indignantly. "I guess it won't get a chance to." She turned to the professor, who was a good listener— respectful and deferential, with little to say for himself. She rocked gently to and fro as ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... he would see whether his master would see us. Uncle Robert sent in his card and my letter, and we waited with the door open, and a great screen in front, so that we couldn't help hearing every word. First there was a great snarl, and then a deferential voice, 'This alters the case, sir.' But the old man swore down in his throat that he didn't care for Colonel Brownlow or Colonel anybody. 'A gentleman, sir; one of the most respected.' 'Then he should bring up his family better.' 'Indeed, sir, it might be better to accept the ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... power the good points of all; he had a deep and real veneration for humanity, and rarely allowed himself an unkind expression, or a look which indicated ennui, even to those associates by whose presence he was most unspeakably bored. Hazlet mistook his courteous manner for a deferential agreement, and was, too often, in Julian's presence more than usually insufferable in ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... right. Katy was not thinking of any such thing. She liked Ned Worthington's frank manners; she owned, quite honestly, that she thought him handsome, and she particularly admired the sort of deferential affection which he showed to Mrs. Ashe, and his nice ways with Amy. For herself, she was aware that he scarcely noticed her except as politeness demanded that he should be civil to his sister's friend; but the knowledge did not trouble her particularly. Her head was full of interesting ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... persecution, had begun to authorise a sentiment against perverts which differed not only in degree, but in kind, from the purely spiritual anathemas which had formerly fallen upon them. Personally she had no fear. The prophet knew of her unbelief, and his conduct was increasingly kind and deferential, but for others she disliked exceedingly the new symptoms of tyranny. Yet it was but natural, she admitted; men who had offered their own lives in sacrifice for a creed were likely to think it of more worth to the soul of another than his liberty. The sin, she thought, lay chiefly ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... owes everything he has or is to the Irish National Party; nor is he slow to confess it where the acknowledgment will serve his personal interests. His sneers are all anonymous, and, like Mr. Fagg, the grateful and deferential valet in The Rivals, "it hurts his conscience to be found out." There is no honesty or sincerity in the man. His covert gibes are the spiteful emanation of personal disappointment; his lofty morality is a cloak for ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... meekly deferential tone: "So you will not mind my worshiping him. He is a hero, a real hero! ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... charged with having regarded the Devil in his respectful and deferential light, it must be acknowledged, that they gave him a conspicuous and distinguished—we might almost say a dignified—agency in the affairs of life and the government of the world: they were prone to confess, if not to revere, his presence, in all scenes and at all times. He occupied a wide space, ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... his character was at once recognized—he was addressed in terms exceedingly respectful, if not deferential, by the two magistrates—Chevydale having at once ordered the servant in attendance to hand him a chair. He thanked him, however, but declined it gratefully, and stood ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... courtesy was observed, the most exact distance. Gil Perez kept his hat in his hand, his body at a deferential angle. His weaving hands were never still. Manuela, her first act of royal rage ended, held herself superbly. Her eyes were half closed, her lips tightly so; and she so contrived as to get the effect of looking down upon him from a height. Manvers ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... to his room chuckling. He could imagine the deferential way in which John, who had caused the accident, had offered help. When we went down Alice met him in the hall and he thrilled at something in her manner as she gave him her hand. It was getting dark ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... for about a mile, and then came another sudden stop—another fierce growl from Mr. Egremont, another apparition of the servant at the window, saying, in his alert deferential manner, 'Sir, the bridge have broke under a carriage in front. Lady Delmar's, sir. The ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were beardless, but one had the ghost of a moustache on his upper lip. He was dapper, clean and deferential. The other was short and somewhat ungainly in build, and his face showed evidence of the recent shaving off of a heavy beard. He had no graces, and evidently no thoughts but of service—service of any kind, ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... his peeps out in curious places. When we find him speaking of a young Roman of fashion standing for hours in a crowd to listen to his pleading in the courts, or of his audience pressing him not to omit a single line of his poems, or of the deferential way in which certain young barristers of promise hang on his lips, copy his gestures and bow to his judgment, one cannot resist a smile. When he tells us that he went on calmly reading and taking notes during the eruption of Vesuvius, though the hot ashes were threatening to overwhelm the villa ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... your service, Mr. Vincent.' And then, when the room is cleared of all but yourself and herself, just take a chair nearer. Insist upon her laying down that silly . . . work, and listening to you. Then begin, in a clear, distinct, deferential, but determined voice: 'Miss —-, I have a question to put to you—a very important question: "Will you take me as your husband, for better, for worse. I am not a rich man, but I have sufficient to support us. I am not a great man, but I love you honestly ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Johnson, commenting on this speech, "could have made a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a king to pay. It was decisive." "But did you make no reply to this high compliment?" asked one of the company. "No, sir," replied the profoundly deferential Johnson, "when the king had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities with ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... his locum tenens was usually a gentleman of very opposite characteristics. He was tall, thin, modest, and even diffident. He slipped into your cell, as I said before, with the deferential air of an undertaker. His speech was extremely soft and rapid, although he stuttered a little now and then from nervousness. "I suppose you know," I asked on his first visit, "what I am here for?" "Y-e-s," he stammered, with something like a blush. I said no ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... with the deferential air of a courtier, and holding out his hand to Paul. Our hero, being somewhat abashed by the novelty of his situation and the rebuke of Gentleman George, accepted, though with some reluctance, the ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... steward, who had just ascended the iron ladder, approached, touching his cap with a deferential forefinger. "A letter addressed to you, sir. Found it in the corridor outside your stateroom. Must ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Anglo-Saxon etiquette. On the Continent, however, the gentleman bows first. There the matter of the raising the hat is also important. An American gentleman takes his hat quite off to a lady; a foreigner raises it but slightly, and bows with a deferential air. Between ladies but slightly acquainted, and just introduced, a very formal bow is all that is proper; acquaintances and friends bow and smile; intimate male friends simply nod, but all gentlemen with ladies raise the hat and bow if the lady ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... worth or the mere accident of birth. Now, Ruth belonged to this rare class, and Susy, without quite understanding it, felt it. She forgot the humble little house, the lack of rooms, and the workmanlike appearance of the whole place. She said in a deferential tone: ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... mamma must have given in at last, though she has never said one word to me about it, not even that you were all to be here. What a good thing it is to have a brother! I should never have known but for Dermot. And, do you know, he says that my uncle's pet is the cousin, after all—the deferential fool of a ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from their testimony being of any value in determining what his conduct would be at sea, one would expect that the master who would abuse and impose upon a man under his power, would be the most compliant and deferential to his ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... train does not need to bend its neck to the galling yoke of a minute time-table, yet, like all bush-whackers, it prefers to strike its supper camp before night-fall, and after allowing us a good ten minutes' chat, it blew a deferential "Ahem" from its engine, as a hint that it would like to be "getting along." The bushman took the hint, and after a hearty "Good luck, missus!" and a "chin, chin, old man," left us, with assurances that "her size 'ud do ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... observed a peculiar leer on the man's face, which I could not account for. He appeared, however, to have been affected by my threats, for he ceased to scowl, and assumed a deferential air as he replied, "Vell, sir, it do seem raither 'ard that a cove should be blowed ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... duties, and occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. With his pale, beautiful, and intellectual face, as a reminder of what genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, not to treat him always with deferential courtesy, and, to our occasional request that he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or that he would erase a passage colored too highly with his resentments against society and mankind, he readily and courteously assented-far more yielding than most men, we thought, on points ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... it in any way. Doubt had never entered into her mind, because her creed seemed to suit her circumstances so admirably. The well-dressed congregation, the well-trained choir, the cushioned seats and reserved pews, the suave, optimistic rector, and deferential curates—these were all part of a nicely balanced state of society which kept motor-cars, or at least broughams, and paid its tradesmen's bills by cheque on the first ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... her day from which Lee hurried was that part over which the girl herself lingered. As he turned his eyes from his canvas to meet hers, Stedman, the charming, the deferential, the adroit, who never allowed his painting to interrupt his talk, told her of what he was pleased to call his dreams and ambitions, of the great and beautiful ladies who had sat before his easel, and of the ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... bowed and apologized, this time to Miss Cassandra, who, from his softened voice and deferential manner, realized that whatever deadly peril had menaced her was happily averted, and throwing her arms around the Countess Z——'s neck, she exclaimed, "My dear countrywoman! Thee has the face of an angel and, like an angel, thee has brought peace to our troubled minds. But for the life of me ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... breaking in upon Miss Whyte's occupations an hour after school had begun. What school-mistress could fail to be proud of the distinction of obtaining his three daughters as pupils at any hour of the twenty-four when he saw fit to proffer them? He expected to find a cringing, deferential young person, who would, in the interest of her own bread and butter, accede without a murmur to any stipulations which so important a patroness as Mrs. Horace Barker might see fit to impose. He became conscious, in the first place, that the school-mistress ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... years, every afternoon, he had been wheeling his mistress about through the narrow streets of the town. From this long and devoted service, and then from this daily tete-a-tete, a kind of familiarity arose between the old lady and the devoted servant, affectionate on her part, deferential on his. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the General's name the clerk pricked up his ears. It would be greatly to his credit if, through him, their house should catch General Brady's trade. He became deferential at once. But he might as well have spared his pains. No one, with Pat as buyer, would be able to catch or to keep the General's trade. Whoever offered the best for the money ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... must not do it till I can help you," said Karen. "To-morrow morning." She had a manner at once deferential and masterful of addressing the old lady. They were friendly without being intimate. "Now promise me that you will wait ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... gray-eyed, freckled, with delicate features like a woman's, and thin, feeble voice; wearing a plain citizen's dress without arms, "that he might seem more ready to obey than to command;" suave, gracious, politic, patient, deferential, with his fine aristocratic air, and an undaunted courage that blazed out in battle, when "he never moved from his post, but remained a beacon of refuge to his followers." At his coming Waterford was taken, as Wexford and Ossory had been before. ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... certain attitude, combative at once and deferential, eager to fight yet most averse to quarrel, which marks out at once the talkable man. It is not eloquence, not fairness, not obstinacy, but a certain proportion of all of these that I love to encounter in my ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab, there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind, their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man's knife, as he carved the chief dish ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... may be found in the fact that the generation of the Revolution had been accustomed to monarchy and to an upper class and that the people were wont to take their ideas and to accept suggestions from their betters without question or murmur. This deferential attitude is attested by the indifference of citizens to the right of voting. In our own day, before the great extension of woman suffrage, the number of persons voting approximated twenty per cent of the population, but after the Revolution less than five per cent of the white population ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... clear that the lady herself was no stranger to the restaurant. While he blinked bewildered on the threshold, she was referring to her "pet table," and calling a waiter "Jules." The menu was a fresh embarrassment to the bohemian, but she, and the deferential waiter, relieved him of that speedily, and in five minutes an epicurean luncheon had been ordered, and he ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... only natural. He did not care for any of the bazars which were in bounds. He styled all natives 'niggers'; yet servants and sweepers called him abominable names to his face, and, misled by their deferential attitude, he never understood. This somewhat consoled ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... Kildare, serious in his dismay. "Of course I remember it, but I had forgotten to connect up the circumstances. It's a mine all right, Major—and the poor little girl! She reads his poetry with Phoebe and to me and she admires him and is deferential and—that girl—the sweetest thing that ever happened! I don't know whether to go over and smash him or to cry ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... situation, but of business in general, economic conditions in America and abroad,—the trend of development. He talked in a large and leisurely way all through the courses, and when Cairy would interpose some objection, his judicious consideration eddied about it with a deferential sweep, then tossed it high on the shore of his buttressed conclusions. Vickers listened in astonishment to the argument, while Isabelle, her hands clasped tight before her, did not eat, but shifted her eyes from her husband's face to Cairy's and back again as ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... don't we have dinner?" He asked no question—at least, not at first—either about Sir Lionel or about Jerusalem, and seemed resolute to give the traveller none of that eclat, to pay to his adventures none of that deferential awe which had been so well expressed by ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... manner was so soft, and to him had been so deferential, that he did not understand the man. It didn't occur to him that it was assumed for ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... welcome everywhere. Girls in the backwoods are much the same as girls in thickly populated and civilized districts. They liked his manly ways; his frank and pleasant manners; and when to these virtues he added a certain deferential regard, a courtliness to which they were unaccustomed, they were all the better pleased. He paid the young women little attentions, such as calling on them, taking them to parties and out driving, but there was not one of them who could think that ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Derisively deferential, he had resigned to me this secluded chamber in the ell—his own particular sanctum, I remember to have heard—and betaken himself, in all probability, to the more spacious ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... aback to see a developed young woman, evidently of gentle birth, where he had thought to find the mere prank-loving child of some neighboring cottager. Instantly his manner changed. Bowing courteously, he stepped forward and began in a deferential voice: ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... Magdalen with a gentle motherly interest in her youth and beauty, chastened by the deferential amiability which became her situation in Noel Vanstone's household. Not the faintest token of suspicion or surprise betrayed itself in her face, her voice, or her manner, while she and Magdalen now looked at each other. It was plain at the outset that the true face and figure which she ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... the next morning, my scout came in with a face of the most ludicrous importance, and quite a deferential manner. I declare I don't think he has ever got back since that day to his original free-and-easy swagger. He laid a card on my table, paused a moment, and then said, 'His ludship is houtside ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... than they had formerly done. The growth of the warmer attachment she had expected to feel was strangely slow, and though it was early to indulge in regrets her heart sometimes grew heavy as she looked forward to the future. Clarence was considerate, attentive and deferential in a polished way, but he lacked something one looked for in a lover. Besides, she was anxious about him; he looked worn, his manner suggested that he was bearing a strain, but this was in his favor, for it roused her compassion. ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... had been. She had behaved unpardonably. Her penitence showed itself in a shy and deferential solicitude towards Mrs. Fisher which made the observant Briggs think her still more angelic, and wish for a moment that he were an old lady himself in order to be behaved to by Rose Arbuthnot just like that. There was evidently no end, he thought, to the things she could ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... livelier or more complaisant companions; but they continued to like her and to pay her much general attention. She never, in any nuance of manner, even tried to make a difference; nevertheless, their attitude toward her was always more deferential than to the ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... under whom Mozart held the meager office we have spoken of, grew more overbearing in his treatment; he was undoubtedly jealous that great people of Vienna were so deferential to one of his servants, as he chose to call him. At last the rupture came; after a stormy scene Mozart was dismissed from ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... Hopper, who, knowing me to be hard-pressed, took it and shamefacedly presented it to me, that I might enjoy the spending of it. Hopper belongs to our family, or the family belongs to him. I am never sure which. You must have missed in him the deferential bearing of a man-servant in Paris, yet he is true gold, like the sovereign you bestowed upon him, and he bestowed upon me. Now here, Monsieur, is the evidence of the theft, together with the rubber band and two pieces of cardboard. Ask my friend Gibbes to examine them minutely. They ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... surrounded by a fringe of gray wool, shone brightly in the firelight, he was rocking his body rhythmically backwards and forwards, and keeping time with one foot upon the hard earth. As we came into the circle of firelight we were discovered, and there was a quick movement, and a deferential giving way. My companion took her hand from my arm, and the action seemed to draw me much nearer the earth than I had been for the past two or three minutes. The musician stopped playing when he became ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... sorry for him, although I was not fond of him. Travers was a good type of rising young common-law barrister, tall, not bad-looking, with keen dark eyes, black whiskers, and the mobile forensic mouth which can express every shade of feeling, from deferential assent to cynical incredulity; possessed, too, of an endless flow of conversation that was decidedly agreeable, if a trifling too laboriously so, he had been a dangerous rival. But all that was ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... presuming—" he said, in a mock deferential way that showed he didn't imagine he ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... astonished and dismayed, merely surrendered his javelin as an officer would his sword, under the like circumstances, in civilized warfare. But, with admirable tact and forethought, Huertis declined to accept it, immediately returning it with the most profound and deferential cordiality of manner. He at the same time informed him, through Velasquez, that, though strangers, his party were not enemies but friendly visitors, who, after a long and painful journey, again to ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... topics. PLOWDEN, in his quiet, effective way, has just carried Motion which will have substantial effect in the direction of securing fuller debate of Indian questions. GORST, standing at table replying to BUCHANAN on another Indian topic, alludes with deferential tone to "the SECRETARY OF STATE." GRAND CROSS almost audibly purrs from his perch ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... was waiting for Anne and teasing the Sarah-cat while he waited. The Sarah-cat did not approve of him. She always turned her back on him. But everybody else at Patty's Place liked him very much. Aunt Jamesina, carried away by his unfailing and deferential courtesy, and the pleading tones of his delightful voice, declared he was the nicest young man she ever knew, and that Anne was a very fortunate girl. Such remarks made Anne restive. Roy's wooing had certainly been as romantic as girlish heart could desire, ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... dreamer of dreams. It was on the spiritual authority of St. Peter's chair he counted to establish in this world the kingdom of God. He believed the Paraclete was leading the Popes along a road unknown to themselves. Therefore he had nothing but deferential words for the Roaring Lamb of Sinigaglia and the Opportunist Eagle of Carpineto, as it was his custom to designate Pius ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... the Gods, as "a precocious babe." He is assured that Mr. BURTIE, who plays this neutral part, "has seen some five-and-twenty summers, and has advanced intellectual views about most things." Mr. Punch's Dramatic Critic has been instructed to "give him double bowing" by way of deferential compensation. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... the same day that the Colonel tossed his horse's bridle to his groom, and stepped up to old Charlie, who was sitting on his bench under a China-tree, his head as was his fashion, bound in a Madras handkerchief The "old man" was plainly under the effect of spirits and smiled a deferential salutation without trusting himself to ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... peasant and by the deferential curiosity of the two children who stood planted before him, could not recall his name. The worthy fellow guessed this slip of memory from Jaime's hesitant glance. Truly did he not recognize him? Pep Arabi, from Iviza! Even this did not tell much, because on that little island there were but six ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was singularly deferential. Sergius observed the change, and took a closer look at him while the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
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