"Dress coat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... away? Dukes, with a hundred thousand a year in acres, have not three pounds to draw out of their pockets in that reckless, profligate manner. Three pounds!—what could I not buy for three pounds? I could buy the Dramatic Library, bound in calf, for three pounds; I could buy a dress coat for three pounds (silk lining not included); I could be lodged for a month for three pounds! And a jade in tinsel, just entering on her teens, to ask three pounds for what? for becoming immortal on the canvas of ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which was yet happiness. Yet as it had arisen thus suddenly, so with equal swiftness it died away, and left him standing there with a chill sense of folly in his mind and of the bitter weather in his body; for on such a night a mackintosh and a dress coat were not adapted to keep the most ardent lover warm. He shivered, and turning, made his way back to Albany, feeling heartily ashamed of himself and his midnight expedition, and heartily glad that no one ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... she drew away from me a little shyly. My cousin saw her to the door, and in less than half an hour I was in my shiny dress coat, on duty for ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her beyond a certain period. All anterior to that is wrapped in suspicion," returns Keepum, fingering his massive gold chain and seals, that pend from his vest, then releasing his hold of Mr. Snivel's arm, and commencing to button closely his blue dress coat, which is profusely decorated with large gilt buttons. "She's the mother of the dashing harlot, or I'm no prophet, nevertheless," he ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... day—it was the seventh of January, St. John the Baptist's Day—Orlov put on his black dress coat and his decoration to go to visit his father and congratulate him on his name day. He had to go at two o'clock, and it was only half-past one when he had finished dressing. What was he to do for that half-hour? He walked about the drawing-room, declaiming some ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... It necessitated a departure from the accustomed uniform material for volunteers, and helped to arouse the animosity of the white troops. Instead of the coarse material issued at first, the Phalanx was clothed in a fine blue-black dress coat for the infantry, and a superb dark blue jacket for the artillery and cavalry, all neatly trimmed with brass buttons and white, red and yellow cord, representing the arm of service; heavy sky blue pantaloons, and a flannel cap, or high crown black felt hat or chapeau with a ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... self-conscious; it never occurred to him to think if he appeared ridiculous, whether he was alone or in company. He took off his dress coat and flung it aside with a feeling of disgust; its sleeve had brushed that woman's bare arm; he could almost fancy that a suggestion of the scent she used clung to it. He put it out of sight and fetched some other garment before he came ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... come by it, that first dress coat? What primitive tailor, what confiding tradesman was it, trustful as Don Juan's famous Monsieur Dimanche, who upon the faith of my fantastic promises, decided one fine morning on bringing it to me, brand new, and artistically ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... had old Pike served with the standards of the cavalry. All through the great civil war he had born manful, if humble part, but with his fifth enlistment stripe on his dress coat, a round thousand dollars of savings and a discharge that said under the head of "Character," "A brave, reliable and trustworthy man," the old corporal had chosen to add to his savings by taking his chances with Captain ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... rocket. He is conscious of this himself, from the grinding information wherein he has been taught that the brain has three coverings, in the following order:—the dura mater, or Chesterfield overall; the tunica arachnoidea, or "dress coat of fine Saxony cloth;" and, in immediate contact, the pia mater, or five-and-sixpenny long cloth shirt with linen wristbands and fronts. This is a brilliant specimen of the helps to memory which the grinder affords, as splendid in its arrangement as the topographical methods of calling to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... the heart, for he considered it cruel mockery to be only a poor devil while possessing the bulk and contented gravity of a millionaire. When he shaved on Sundays in front of a small five-sou looking-glass hanging from the fastening of a window, he would often think that in a dress coat and white tie he would cut a far better figure at the Sub-Prefect's than such or such a functionary of Plassans. This peasant's son, who had grown sallow from business worries, and corpulent from a sedentary life, whose hateful passions were hidden beneath ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... land; blue, ribbed, woollen stockings; knee-breeches of some home-made stuff: all the coarser cloth they wore, and they wore little else, was shorn from their own sheep, and spun, woven, and made at home; an old blue dress coat with bright buttons; a drab waistcoat which had once been yellow; and to crown all, a red woollen nightcap, hanging down on one side with ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... happened. And all the time I thought of that safe, chock full of money, and the combination ready set. I heard Katharine moving about in her room, and I knew that she was waiting for me to go and say good night. I wouldn't. I put on a short jacket instead of my dress coat, and I took an electric torch out of my dressing case and I went down-stairs. I'd made up my mind, Nora. I meant to ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dress coat, silk cap, and kid gloves of an undergraduate at Cambridge, to the loose duck trowsers, checked shirt and tarpaulin hat of a sailor, though somewhat of a transformation, was soon made, and I supposed that I should pass very well for a jack ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... little dinner party was assembled that night in a luxurious flat in Albemarle House. It was a bachelor party, and consisted of three—the colonel, resplendent in evening dress, "Swell" Crewe and a middle-aged man whose antique dress coat and none too spotless linen certainly did not advertise their owner's prosperity. Yet this man with the stubbly moustache and the bald head could write his cheque for seven figures, being Mr. Thomas Crotin, of the firm of Crotin and Principle, whose swollen ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... arrived! Jasmin does not describe his bride's dress. But he describes his own. "I might give you," he says in his Souvenirs, "a picture of our happy nuptial day. I might tell you at length of my newly dyed hat, my dress coat with blue facings, and my home-spun linen shirt with calico front. But I forbear all details. My godfather and godmother were at the wedding. You will see that the purse did not always respond to the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... instead of delivering me on time, as agreed. I had arrived late, of course, many times, gone without my supper often, and more than once had appeared without the proper habiliments—and I am particular about my dress coat and white waistcoat—but only twice had the gas been turned off and the people turned out. ...
— Forty Minutes Late - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... New-Englander hastened to assure you with so self-denying a face he did not wear war-paint and feathers, that it became doubly difficult to communicate to him that you had suspected him of nothing wilder than a second-hand dress coat. And when it was a question not of rebuke, but of praise, the American was ill- content with the word of the judicious who lauded him for some delicate successes in continuing something of the literature of England, something of the art of France; he was more eager ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... that a man appears at one of these hunts he must wear a tall silk hat, a double-breasted red coat, with tails like a dress coat, white breeches and top boots. After he has once made his appearance in this costume he may, thereafter, substitute for it a red frock hunting coat, white breeches and top boots and a velvet hunting cap, the same shape as the caps worn ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... all gathered 'round, Saying "Give us your fist; where did you enlist? You'll take on again I'll be bound; I've a blanket to sell, it will fit you quite well, I'll sell you the whole or a piece. I've a dress coat to trade, or a helmet unmade, It will do ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... dromedary, a monkey ornamented with tufts of brilliant blue and carmine hair—a very gorgeous monkey he was —a hippopotamus from the Nile, and a sort of tall, long-legged bird with a beak like a powder horn and close-fitting wings like the tails of a dress coat. This fellow stood up with his eyes shut and his shoulders stooped forward a little, and looked as if he had his hands under his coat tails. Such tranquil stupidity, such supernatural gravity, such self-righteousness, and such ineffable self-complacency as were in the countenance and attitude ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... dress coat and white vest, has just placed the soup on the table, and Mr. Allen enters, supporting his wife. He had sort of manly toleration for all her whims and weaknesses. He had never indulged in any lofty ideas of womanhood, nor had any special longings for her sympathy and companionship. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... exclaimed: "Upon my soul, gentlemen, it is so grand I begin to fear I shall not be comfortable in it." He had scarcely concluded this sentence, when a distinguished politician, habited in soiled drab trousers and a shabby brown dress coat, and a badly collapsed hat, which he wore well down over his eyes, rushed eagerly out, and was followed by a mellow faced policeman, with a green patch over his left eye and a club in his right hand. Constituting in themselves a committee of reception, the distinguished politician, who ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... decided by the hour at which the wedding takes place. If it is in the evening, the conventional evening dress is imperative. Black suit, dress coat, low-cut waistcoat, white tie, white or pale pearl-colored gloves, thin patent leather shoes and possibly a white flower in the buttonhole, constitute ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... in Friday Street. What can be meaner than his appearance? He is a stumpy, short, podgy man; but then so also was my Arab friend at Suez. Judkins is always dressed from head to foot in a decent black cloth suit; his coat is ever a dress coat, and is neither old nor shabby. On his head he carries a shining new silk hat, such as fashion in our metropolis demands. Judkins is rather a dandy than otherwise, piquing himself somewhat on his apparel. ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope
... could not supply the demands of our population. We went back to first principles. Thorns were for pins, and dogwood sticks for toothbrushes. Rag-bags were ransacked. Impossible garments were made possible. Miracles of turning were performed, not only in coats, but even in envelopes. Whoso had a dress coat gave it to his womankind in order to make the body of a riding-habit. Dainty feet were shod in home-made foot-gear which one durst not call shoes. Fairy fingers which had been stripped of jewelled rings wore bone circlets carved by idle soldiers. There were no more genuine ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... picked himself up with a fried sole embossed on the back of his dress coat and two portions of hot soup running down his neck, to say nothing of blobs of mashed potato and the contents of ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... pedant dressed in a suit of rusty black. Suit of rusty black! And so he would dismiss the aggregate of all that was choice, reserved, and precious in the wardrobe of Mr Simpson. Rusty black, indeed! Why, that dress coat, which had been set apart for years for high and solemn occasions, had contracted a fresh dignity and importance from every solemnity with which it had been associated. And those respectable nether-garments, had they not always been dismissed from service the moment he re-entered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... chamberlains in knee breeches and silver-buckled shoes. They were queer people to look at. Their uniforms and their stiff gait gave them the appearance, in my eyes, of beetles who, by way of wing cases, wore a great, gold-laced dress coat, with a key in the small of the back. There were already a score of persons from all parts waiting in the room. These included geographical explorers, botanists, geologists, antiquaries, archeologists, collectors of prehistoric flints, ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... manner of its use, it is known as the "Sunday gun." It is specially adapted to concealment on the person. A man could go through a reception with one of these deadly weapons absolutely concealed under his dress coat! It is a weapon with two barrels, rifle and shot; and it enables the user to kill anything from a humming-bird up to a deer. What the shot-barrel can not kill, the rifle will. It is not a gun that any sportsman would own, save as a curiosity, or for ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... be summer or winter, the gentleman wears the black full dress coat, lapels satin-faced if he so desires, and trousers to match. Full rolled waistcoat, small bow-tie and stiff linen are all immaculately white. Patent leather pumps and black silk socks complete ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... word or two. In the first place it was of a decided blue, and it was from habit that Colline spoke of it as "my black swallow-tail." And as he was the only one of the band owning a dress coat, his friends were likewise in the habit of saying, when speaking of the philosopher's official garment, "Colline's black swallow-tail." In addition to this, this famous garment had a special cut, the oddest imaginable. The tails, very long, and attached to a very short ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... various professors I studied, though by no means willingly, to prepare for the university. At length, on April 16, I went for the first time to the great hall of the university. For the first time in my life I wore a dress coat. The bright hall was filled with a brilliant crowd of hundreds of young men in gymnasium costumes and dress coats, stately professors moving freely about among the tables. On that day I was examined in history and answered questions in Russian history in brilliant ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... just a trifle too long, covered the scar on his head now, the wound no longer required a bandage, and Larry the Bat, for the time being at least, had disappeared. Across the foot of the bed, neatly folded, lay his dress coat and overcoat, but little creased for all that they had lain in that hiding-place under the flooring since the night when, hurrying from the club, he had placed them there to assume instead the tatters of Larry the Bat. It was Jimmie Dale in his own person again who stood there ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... gold, with a silver star of half an inch diameter at each end of and above the anchor. A vice commodore wears only a single star; captains two crossed foul anchors. The dress uniform of most yacht clubs is a plain blue or black dress coat, a white dress waistcoat, each with the club button in gilt; blue or white trousers with cravat black or white. The undress consists of a double-breasted sack coat of blue cloth, serge, or flannel, blue or white ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... not make their humble homes happy without the lark and the robin, at least in name and association; so they looked about them for substitutes. There was a plump, full-chested bird, in a chocolate-colored vest, with a bluish dress coat, that would mount the highest tree-top in early spring, and play his flute by the hour for very joy to see the snow melt and the buds swell again. There was such a rollicking happiness in his loud, clear notes, and he apparently sang ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... should always be worn. For a lady a gown with low neck and short sleeves or elbow sleeves; for a gentleman, a dress coat and its accompanying trousers, vest, and tie of regulation cut ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... had been bountiful, and thoroughly German. Preserved fruit was served with the fish, and gooseberry jam with the roast. Juve was now costumed in knee breeches and a dress coat which permitted him to enter the presence ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... cement path to the house, was a figure of the new era which was in time to be so disastrous to stiff hats and skirted coats; and his appearance afforded a debonair contrast to that of the queer-looking duck capering: at the Amberson Ball in an old dress coat, and chugging up National Avenue through the snow in his nightmare of a sewing-machine. Eugene, this afternoon, was richly in the new outdoor mode: motoring coat was soft gray fur; his cap and gloves were of gray suede; and though Lucy's hand may have shown itself in the selection of these garnitures, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... were great in their day, and as familiar to him as his own. Clay and Webster and Calhoun were there still, but with them a Free Soil candidate for the Vice-Presidency had little to do; what struck boys most was their type. Senators were a species; they all wore an air, as they wore a blue dress coat or brass buttons; they were Roman. The type of Senator in 1850 was rather charming at its best, and the Senate, when in good temper, was an agreeable body, numbering only some sixty members, and affecting the airs of courtesy. Its ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the occasion even now, and I call to mind in particular that the Prince wore a pair of light grey trousers and a swallow-tail, that is, a dress-coat. We should think this a strange costume for a gentleman at a morning function in these days, but times have changed, and the dress coat is now never seen in the morning, and not so much at night as it used ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... organdie and pink slippers with a huge pink bow on my head, and my looks were all dead against my success. But I did succeed! I knew I would when I took my stand and looked down into Father's surprised and alarmed face. I shrugged my shoulders in my dress just as he did in his dress coat, dropped my head on one side, and pursed my mouth up on the left corner and let my right eye droop as his does. Then I began—and for that five minutes I was Father. The speech just rolled off my eloquent tongue and the people laughed in the right places, just as the people at the ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... man; but will they come when you do call them thus?'" No nymphs came, but a wedding party appeared, the buxom bride dressed in white with a long veil and wreath of artificial orange blossoms, the groom in dress coat, gray ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... crepe-de-chene nighties. These serve as playthings for the grown-ups, many of whom, especially the Indians and Eskimos, are quite childlike with gimcracks. I recall once seeing an Eskimo parading around on a warm day in the glory of a full dress coat and silk hat, the coat drawn on over his ordinary clothing. He was ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... 'Bishop' Black in his late years, says the Hon. S. L. Shannon, who remembers him well, was very prepossessing. He was of medium height, inclining to corpulency. In the street he always wore the well-known clerical hat; a black dress coat buttoned over a double-breasted vest, a white neckerchief, black small clothes and well polished Hessian boots completed his attire. When he and his good lady, who was always dressed in the neatest Quaker costume, used ...
— William Black - The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada • John Maclean
... who was busy with a pleasanter task was correspondingly cheerful. She altered father's "Prince Albert" into a stately full-dress coat, ripping up its waist-seams, and pinned back the skirts of the coat into the ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... Galette and the Bal Tabarin of the present day lack the gaiety of the Bal Jasmin. It was not well frequented; it gathered round its band-stand people with shocking reputations; the sight of a man in a dress coat would have transfixed the assembly like some blood-curdling ghost. The ladies would have huddled together in a circle round the wearer and gazed at him open-mouthed. He would subsequently have had to pay for the ball's liquid ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... of his friend—the pupil whom he had never forgotten. The arm was badly broken, too badly to be set without an anaesthetic. In the inner office Van Horn, his dress coat off, gave the chloroform while the Scotchman set the arm; and the American surgeons, no longer crowding, but standing off respectfully as if at a clinic, looked on critically. It was rapid and deft work, they ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... the trays and fitting them into the trunk from which he had tardily removed his dress coat, and the revolver. Then ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... to swallow," replied Marillac, "We can say, for our consolation, that there never were more infamous conspiracies against us, above all, than at the Gymnase. My ears ring with the hisses yet! I could see, from our box, a little villain in a dress coat, in one corner of the pit, who gave the signal with a whistle as large as a horse-pistol. How I would have liked to cram it down his throat!" As he said these words, he brought his fist down upon the table, and made the glasses and candles ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... differ from full dress ones in only three particulars: the cut of the coat, the braid on the trousers, and the use of a black tie instead of a white one. The dinner coat has no tails and is cut like a sack suit except that it is held closed in front by one button at the waist line. (A full dress coat, naturally, hangs open.) The lapels are satin faced, and the collar left in cloth, or if it is shawl-shaped the whole collar ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... duties that devolved upon him as a member of society. He wrote to Charlotte Cushman: "For I am surely going to find you, at one place or t' other, — provided heaven shall send me so much fortune in the selling of a poem or two as will make the price of a new dress coat. Alas, with what unspeakable tender care I would have brushed this present garment of mine in days gone by, if I had dreamed that the time would come when so great a thing as a visit to YOU might hang upon the ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... a few moments later. He was carrying a dress coat on his arm, and he held a clothes brush in his hand. It was obvious that he had studied with nice care the details of ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dressed for the evening, but wore a black velvet smoking jacket in place of the formal dress coat. It was impossible to tell his age. His figure might have been that of a man of five-and-twenty, but his face and hair might signify another ten ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... dress coat of our tyrant,—youth's panoplied armor for fight,— And tie the white neckcloth that rumples, like pleasure, and lasts but a night; And pray the Nine Gods to avert you what time the Three Sisters shall frown, ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... interposed the Duchess with infinite tact, gently lifting him by the tails of his dress coat, "I am waiting for ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... The speaker was a slender, fair-haired youth, with bright blue eyes, and a moustache. His short dress coat, hat tilted over one ear, and sharp tongue, all denoted ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... forgot the passing time, until he was reminded of the approach of the concert hour by the people coming in to take their seats. When, having first put himself into grande toilette—very long, white trousers, brown silk waistcoat, black necktie, and blue dress coat—he mounted the orchestra he felt nervous; a panic seized him, for the hall was crowded, ladies even sitting in the orchestra who could not get places in the room. 'But as the gay bonnets gave me a nice ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... of my dress coat She fastened a delicate orchid last night. It must have cost a pretty penny, at this season—enough, no doubt, to buy the seeds that would reproduce a half-dozen of my grandmother's gardens. And as we moved away in the limousine ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... negro boy JOE, sometimes called JOE WINSTON; about 23 years old, a little over 5 feet high, rather stout-built, dark ginger-bread color, small moustache, stammers badly when confused or spoken to, took along two or three suits of clothes, one a blue dress coat with brass buttons, black pants, and patent leather shoes, white hat, silver watch with gold chain; was last seen in this city on Tuesday last, had a pass to Hanover county, and supposed to be making his way towards York River, for the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... felt rather sheepish, coming out of his room in his mask and domino, but the corridors of the hotel were empty, and for the most part dark; there was no one up but the porter, who wished him a pleasant time in as matter-of-fact fashion as if he were going out to an evening party in his dress coat. His spirits mounted in the atmosphere of adventure which the ladies diffused about them in the carriage; Effie Bowen laughed aloud when he entered, ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... remembered that this was the man chosen by a great nation to become its ruler in the gravest period of its history. I remember his dress as if it were but yesterday—snuff-colored and slouchy pantaloons; open black vest, held by a few brass buttons; straight or evening dress coat, with tightly fitting sleeves to exaggerate his long, bony arms, all supplemented by an awkwardness that was uncommon among men of intelligence. Such was the picture I met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. We sat down in his plainly furnished parlor and were uninterrupted ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... could Alere Flamma work himself into a dress coat. The clubs, the houses of the great, the mutual admiration dinners—those great institutions of the day—were all closed to him because of the ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... the speed laws in a big red Mercedes. For the flaming silks and flashing jewels which the movies have educated the American public to believe are habitually worn by Eastern potentates, King Rama substitutes the uniform of a Siamese general, or, for evening functions at the palace, the dress coat and knee-breeches of European courts. He was educated at Oxford and Cambridge and later graduated from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, being commissioned an honorary colonel in the British Army. He is the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... that the Count (this was the title, it seems, of Allamistakeo) had a slight fit of shivering—no doubt from the cold. The Doctor immediately repaired to his wardrobe, and soon returned with a black dress coat, made in Jennings' best manner, a pair of sky-blue plaid pantaloons with straps, a pink gingham chemise, a flapped vest of brocade, a white sack overcoat, a walking cane with a hook, a hat with no brim, patent-leather boots, straw-colored ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... toward the extreme left of our line, and were even now in action. General Nelson had crossed half an hour earlier. The junior member of his staff had had a saddle shot from under him by a chance shell from the enemy, to the serious detriment of a fine dress coat, but he himself marvellously escaping untouched. Two field pieces were at work close upon our left, firing directly over the heads of our men in front; only a random firing at best, and I was glad when an aide-de-camp galloped down and put a stop to the infernal din. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... The tail or dress coat is evidently derived from the frock, or from something like the frock, by turning back the skirts. Remains of this process may be seen in the buttons which, without serving any useful purpose, still continue to decorate the coat-tails in many ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... example, wears a black dress coat, silk dress hat, lay-down collar and black necktie, and carries a cane. The great majority of the meeting wore also the fashionable "stove-pipe." These things and the sound judgment of the leaders promise "peaceable ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... out year by year, would be a world too large for my shrunk shanks now. I dine at noon, as you remember, and for the first time in my life I do not dress for dinner; indeed, a white cravat and a dress coat would be inappropriate, when one sits down to bean porridge and boiled beef served in the same tin plate. But I have a good appetite after my pulverizing of the morning, and I am not compelled to set the table in a roar under duress. ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... three cheers, he's a brave man." This we did with a will. When we got to a place where an examination could be had, it was found that Broady had been so struck by a piece of shell that it went through his overcoat, and then rotated in such a manner as to cut the tails off from his dress coat, so that, after we got to Harrison's Landing the captain went about dressed in that frock coat with the skirts cut off. In other words he was supporting ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... after an infinity of trouble, and trials of almost all the colours of the rainbow, he at length settled the following uniform, which, at least, had the charm of novelty to recommend it. The morning, or hunt-coat, was to be scarlet, with a cream-coloured collar and cuffs; and the evening, or dress coat, was to be cream-colour, with a scarlet collar and cuffs, and scarlet silk facings and linings, looking as if the wearer had turned the morning one inside out. Waistcoats, and other articles of dress, were left to the choice of the wearer, experience having proved that ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... On his rare appearance in such houses as Tallyn Hall every servant in the house marked and befriended him. The tall footman, for instance, who had just been endeavoring to make the threadbare cuffs of Lankester's dress coat present a more decent appearance, had done it in no spirit of patronage, but simply in order that a gentleman who spoke to him as a man and a brother should not go at a disadvantage among "toffs" who did nothing of ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... A dress coat of black satin fitted P. Sybarite more neatly than him for whom it had been made. The frilled bosom of his shirt was set with winking rubies, and the lace cuffs at his wrists were caught together with rubies—whether real or false, like coals of fire: and ruby was the hue ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... contended that the physical development of woman was impossible in her present costume, and that her consequent enfeebled condition made her incapable of entering many of the most profitable employments in the world of work. Miss Weber exemplified her teachings by her practice. She usually wore a dress coat and pantaloons of black cloth; on full-dress occasions, a dark blue dress coat, with plain flat gilt buttons, and drab-colored pantaloons. Her waistcoat was of buff cassimere, richly trimmed with plain, flat-surfaced, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... remarkable about the coat. It was merely a well-cut and well-made dress coat; so with a grunt of dissatisfaction Mr. Gorby threw it aside, and picked up the waistcoat. Here he found something to interest him, in the shape of a pocket made on the left-hand side and on the inside, of ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... Doctor attended a dance one evening in a dress coat, the quality and lack of quantity of which were a flagrant indication of a sparse, not to say extremely needy, wardrobe. All his charm of manner, his grace in the dance, his popularity, could not blind others to the fact that he was ill-dressed, and ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... middle age, if possible. Gray hair. Shabby dark suit. Face lined. No jewelry or colors. If desired to costume the play in the middle Victorian period, Scrooge should wear very tight dark trousers, brown low cut vest, shabby black full-dress coat, soft white shirt, black stock tie, high collar made by taking an ordinary turn-over collar and turning ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... of his countenance—the habit of smiling only with his eyes. How intense is the light of a smile that is confined to the eyes only. His dress is not worth notice. All gentlemen dress alike for evening parties; all wear the stereotyped black dress coat, light kid gloves, etc., etc., etc., and he wore the uniform for such cases made and provided. Only everything that Ishmael put on looked like ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... in the bosom of your own family, wear only black, and be as scrupulous to put on a dress coat as if you expected visitors. If you have sons, bring them up to do the same. It is the observance of these minor trifles in domestic etiquette which marks the ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... "be good," and get the full benefit of the services. His black cheeks seemed to glisten with earnestness; his thick lips pouted with devotional good-will. I do not write in ridicule, but merely endeavour to convey my full meaning. He wore a superfine black dress coat, a gaudy vest, and buff corduroy trousers so short that they displayed to advantage his enormous bare feet. Beside him was an elderly man with tweed trousers, a white shirt and brown shooting coat, and a face not quite so solemn but very sedate. Some of the men ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... Apotheosis and hero worship in the old times had a freshness to it; it was one of the picturesque effects of the dim and purple shadows of an early dawning, when objects imperfectly seen are magnified in their dimensions; but the apotheosis, in modern times, of a man who has worn a dress coat, wig, and shoes is ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and called up. He caught the lamp, which was still alight, and covering the glass with his hand, ran in the direction the men had taken; and as he ran he buttoned his dress coat over the big patch of white made ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... by the legend, in their youth, the taste of two or three of our New York uncles—though for what it could have been goodness only knew—was still of a trempe to whack in the fine old way at their nephews and sons. I see him aloft, benevolent and hard, mildly massive, in a black dress coat and trousers and a white neckcloth that should have figured, if it didn't, a frill, and on the highest rostrum of our experience, whence he comes back to me as the dryest of all our founts of knowledge, though quite again as a link with far-off manners and forms ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... doing spoiled, or at least seriously impaired, a face which, though never handsome, had in its original state a peculiar power and pathos. On the present occasion the whiskers were reinforced by brand-new clothes from top to toe; black dress coat instead of the usual frock; black cloth or satin vest, black pantaloons, and a glossy hat evidently just out of the box. To cap the climax of novelty, he carried a huge ebony cane, with a gold head the size of an egg. In these, to him, strange habiliments, he looked so miserably uncomfortable ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... it and an account of his voyages. In recounting his adventure with a shark in the straits of Messina, he became somewhat excited and without thinking, stepped from behind the protecting folds of the table cloth in all the glory of a dress coat, white vest and ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Korsunsky, drawing her bare arm under the sleeve of his dress coat, "I've such an idea for a cotillion! ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... his fault. What can you do with him? His dad sends him money to keep him going, but the devil a lot it does. He goes off on a spree, rides in cabs, gets me to buy a theeadre ticket for him every day, and in a week look at him—sends me to the old clo'es man to sell his new dress coat. Sometimes he gets rid of everything down to his last shirt and is left with nothing except his coat and overcoat. Upon my word, it's the truth. And such fine cloth, too. English, you know. One dress coat costs him a ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... bewildering, made her feel stupid, and annoyed her. But she really liked Francis Lingen, and had been amused to discover how much he was "Francis" in her private mind. Certainly he was very elegant. He had an outside pocket to his dress coat, and a handkerchief which you could ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... imposing and dashing with his red face and gray mustache, and his tight dress coat, that made the back of his neck roll up just like ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... Honour was all dented; his embroidery was rusty and dull. Count de Lagrange, an old beau, wore a white spangled waistcoat, black silk breeches, white, or rather pink, stockings; shoes with buckles on them, a sword at his side, a black dress coat, and a peer's hat with white plumes in it. Count Dutaillis was a greater success than Count de Lagrange. The one recalled Monaco and Trenitz; ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... embellishment of his person. On the present occasion, he appeared to have bestowed more than ordinary attention on his toilette. His apparel was sumptuous in the extreme, and such as was only worn by persons of the highest distinction. It consisted of a full-dress coat of brown flowered velvet, laced with silver; a waistcoat of white satin, likewise richly embroidered; shoes with red heels, and large diamond buckles; pearl-coloured silk stockings with gold clocks; a muslin cravat, or steen-kirk, as it was termed, edged with the fine point lace; ruffles of the ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... from him he had provided for himself, and gave it him again with a little speech. When he went to sit in state, Jersey preceded him, and he said when all was ready, 'Go on to the body, Jersey; you will get your dress coat as soon as you can.' The morning after the funeral, having slept at Frogmore, he went all over the Castle, into every room in the house, which he had never seen before except when he came there as a guest; ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... the illustration of which he was assisted by Alfred Crowquill), is adorned with a portrait on steel, after a painting by Childe, in which the author is presented to us in a white waistcoat and dress coat, with a pen in his hand, leading us to the inference that his clumsily constructed novels (one of which—"Valentine Vox," thanks perhaps to the illustrator, Onwhyn—still holds its ground) ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... garments—not that his consent really mattered at the moment; they were pulled off him by half a dozen hands at once, and Jeremy had the best of that bargain all right, for in addition to silk headdress and a fine black Arab full-dress coat, there was linen of a sort you can't buy—better stuff than bishops wear and clean, which ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... the season, gray or colored pants, plaid or stripes, according to the fashion, a high silk (stove-pipe) hat, and a black scarf or necktie. A black frock coat with black pants is not considered a good combination, nor is a dress coat and colored or light pants. The morning dress is suitable for garden parties, Sundays, social teas, informal ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... Again, stout individuals never take a back seat, but always a front one, and, wheresoever it be, they sit firmly, and with confidence, and decline to budge even though the seat crack and bend with their weight. For comeliness of exterior they care not a rap, and therefore a dress coat sits less easily on their figures than is the case with figures of leaner individuals. Yet invariably fat men amass the greater wealth. In three years' time a thin man will not have a single serf whom he has left unpledged; ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... He did leave the house. He saw Lady Glencora taken to her carriage from some back hiding-place in the hall, and then slipped out, unmindful of his shining boots, and dress coat and jewelled studs. He took a Gibus hat,—his own, or that of some other unfortunate,—and slowly made his way down to the place in Bruton Street. There was the carriage and pair of horses, all in readiness; and the driver, when he had placed ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... platform two feet in height, while the space behind is to be filled with soldiers engaged in fencing. They should be placed on raised platforms, varying from two to eight feet in height. The costume of Napoleon consists of a blue dress coat with a buff breast, eagle buttons, buff vest and knee breeches, top boots, spurs, sash, side arms, black chapeau, and gray overcoat. The horse which Napoleon rides can be made of wood, at a trifling expense. Minute explanation ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... but nobody recognised him. He had hitherto worn the Polish costume, but now his future wife, Telimena, had forced him by a clause in the marriage articles to renounce the kontusz;221 so the Notary willy-nilly had assumed French garb. The dress coat had evidently deprived him of half his soul; he strode along as if he had swallowed a walking-stick, stiffly and straight forward; like a crane, he dared not look to the right or the left. His expression was composed, and yet from his expression one could ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... intentions hostile to the charming Princess. He was particularly well pleased with something or other, and was rubbing his hands, laughing and exchanging meaning glances with his companions. All at once a gentleman in an evening-dress coat and with long moustaches and a red face separated himself from the crowd and directed his uncertain steps straight towards Princess Mary. He was drunk. Coming to a halt opposite the embarrassed Princess and placing his hands ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... dress coat and started for him, but pa grabbed me on one side and the monkey trainer on the other, and they tried to get me to return to the monkey character, and chatter, and pa put my monkey mask on me, but I struck right ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... passions and diseases waste and slay us - to compete with the flavour of wine, the beauty of the dawn, the scorching of fire, the bitterness of death and separation - here is, indeed, a projected escalade of heaven; here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules in a dress coat, armed with a pen and a dictionary to depict the passions, armed with a tube of superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the insufferable sun. No art is true in this sense: none can "compete with life": not even ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and book stage, having exchanged his dress coat for a smoking jacket. He was reading a treatise on aeronautics, and, like every novice, had already formulated a flying scheme which ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... aspirants for the honor of conveying them and their luggage to their point of destination. One of these, called Dave, was a grave, saturnine Yankee, his hands in the pockets of his black trousers, his costume further exhibiting the national livery of black dress coat, black satin waistcoat and necktie, cow-hide boots, and stiff, shiny hat, very much upon the back of his head. The languid and independent offers of this individual were, however, quite drowned by the flood of vociferous overtures from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various |
