"Open house" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... worth is[62] little prized of those who can most,[63] he heard speak of the Abbot of Cluny, who is believed to be, barring the Pope, the richest prelate of his revenues that the Church of God possesseth, and of him he heard tell marvellous and magnificent things, in that he still held open house nor were meat and drink ever denied to any who went whereas he might be, so but he sought it what time the Abbot was at meat. Primasso, hearing this and being one who delighted in looking upon men of worth and nobility, determined to go see the magnificence of this Abbot and ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... themselves thus possessed of great wealth, both in money and in lands and chattels, they fell to spending without stint or restraint, indulging their every desire, maintaining a great establishment, and a large and well-filled stable, besides dogs and hawks, keeping ever open house, scattering largesses, jousting, and, not content with these and the like pastimes proper to their condition, indulging every appetite natural to their youth. They had not long followed this course of life before ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... will now be no impropriety in printing his agreeable sketch of the dinner. "There was present, among other Genoese, the Marquis di Negri: a very fat and much older Jerdan, with the same thickness of speech and size of tongue. He was Byron's friend, keeps open house here, writes poetry, improvises, and is a very good old Blunderbore; just the sort of instrument to make an artesian well with, anywhere. Well, sir, after dinner, the consul proposed my health, with a little French conceit to the effect that I had come to Italy to ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... rational, happy life. Mr. Greg is quite a gentleman; his daughters have the delightful simplicity of people who are perfectly satisfied in their place, and never trying to get out of it. He is rich, and he spends just as people do not generally spend their money, keeping a sort of open house, without pretension. If he has more guests than the old butler can manage, he has his maid-servants in to wait. He seldom goes out, except on journeys, so that with the almost certainty of finding a family party at home, a large circle of connections, and literary people, and foreigners, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... in all his transactions, and a strict adherent to the tenets of his religion. He was of a very kind and sociable disposition, which prompted him to keep open house for his friends and visitors, whom he always received with the most generous hospitality. He was first married to Fanny, a daughter of Joseph Diamantschleifer of Amsterdam, by whom he had three children: two sons, Solomon and Joseph, ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... inconvenience. My desire was to test the capacity of ordinary farm land, when properly treated, to support an average family in luxury, paying good wages to more than the usual number of people, keeping open house for many friends, and at the same time not depleting my bank account. I wished to experiment in intensive farming, using ordinary farm land as other men might do under similar or modified circumstances. I believed that if I fed the land, ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... the navy, guns, India, our relations with Spain, or workhouse management, should find everything to be bad, rotten, and dishonest, that the wrath of the member for Killicrankie against colonial peculation and idleness, was not thought much of in the open House. He had been at the work for years, and the Colonial Office were so used to it that they rather liked him. He had made himself free of the office, and the clerks were always glad to see him. It was understood that he said bitter things in the House,—that was Major Magruder's line of ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... nectar secreted in a fleshy disk below, act as a stockade to little would-be pilferers. The color in the throat serves as a pathfinder to the deep-hidden sweets. How pleasant the way is made for such insects as a flower must needs encourage! For these the perennial wild potato vine keeps open house far later in the day than its annual relatives. Professor Robertson says it is dependent mainly upon two bees, Entechnia taurea and Xenoglossa ipomoeae, the latter ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... into an Account of the Diversions which had passed in his House during the Holidays; for Sir ROGER, after the laudable Custom of his Ancestors, always keeps open House at Christmas. I learned from him that he had killed eight fat Hogs for the Season, that he had dealt about his Chines very liberally amongst his Neighbours, and that in particular he had sent a string ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... of Alanmere kept open house and royal state, as his ancestors had done five hundred years before him. The conventional absurdity of the honeymoon was ignored, as such brides and bridegrooms might have been expected to ignore it. Arnold and Natasha took possession of a splendid ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... hiding here if he was keeping open house," replied George. "He may be an outlaw hiding from the police. And in that case he wouldn't relish the idea of his underground retreat being discovered, even by two boys who want to ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... Mistress Margery? Do you keep open house for the king's enemies? That spells treason, my dear young lady, and hath an ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... enlarged his farm and set up his coach has a distinct personal accent. That he was lavish, and lived beyond his means, is quite in accordance with his character. The man who, as a Bow Street magistrate, kept open house on a pittance, was not likely to be less lavish as a country gentleman, with L1500 in his pocket, and newly married to a young and handsome wife. "He would have wanted money," said Lady Mary, "if his hereditary lands had been as extensive ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... had made no headway. Maria did not hesitate to comment on the extravagance of doing the house over, the membership at the club with all it entailed, Alexina's little electric car, and above all the constant entertaining. A moderate amount was due Alexina's position; but open house—nothing made money fly so quickly. Prices were getting higher every day (there came a time, in the wake of the great war, when she looked back with sad amazement at the morning of her discontent) and rich people were getting richer while poor people like themselves ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... Just think, Jas—a spare room for the old crowd. Honest, it's funny, but there's not one thing scares me about all these months on the place alone here, Jas, now that we bought the gun, except the nightmares sometimes that we—we're back exhibiting. That's why I want to keep open house for them that ain't as lucky as us. Honest, Jas—I—I just can't think it's real, not, anyways, till we've paid down six hundred and—the fellow you keep joking about that wears his collar wrong side 'fore comes out from Xenia to read the ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... Sutton, "it seems to me that it was mighty lucky that he came into that money. You can't keep open house for ever on thirty a week. By the way, Arthur, how was that? I heard ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... emigration was reading the thoughts of my heart's inmost recesses, and with invisible spies surrounding my life as by a network of steel; turning my secrets into jailers, and keeping me prisoner in the most horrible of prisons, an open house! I am in France, I have found you once more, I hold my place at court, I can speak my mind there; I shall learn what has become of the Vicomte de Langeac, I should prove that since the Tenth of August[*] we have ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... were tied and the dance on the lawn at Willow Creek was over, and the happy couples were fairly established in their own homes, they kept open house for a long time, and interchanged innumerable visits between Bearclaw Cottage, (that was Ian's), and Hunter's Lodge, (that was Lambert's), and the Ark on Ararat, (that was the house of Angus), and Willow Creek, insomuch that Tony was heard one day to inform Miss ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... was an open house to me from that time as long as Lord Radnor lived, I cannot take leave of the dear old man without an affectionate word at parting. Creevey has an ill- natured fling at him, as he has at everybody else, but a kinder-hearted and more perfect gentleman would ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Burroughs, laughing and taking the farmer's arm, "we women hear enough of such talk every day in the week; but to-morrow will be May Day, and there will be open house to our friends, and for the lads and lasses, dancing at the May-pole, and a supper in the barn. Let us keep English hearts within us even in these dark times, and make merry ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... against the scandalous and degraded lives led by many of the soldier officers and officials with whom she and her children were brought in almost daily contact, for my father, being an all too generous man, kept open house. But although she was always sweet-tempered and sometimes merry with the hard-drinking old Peninsular veterans, and the noisy and swaggering subalterns of the ill-famed 102nd Regiment (or New South Wales Corps), she always shuddered and looked pale and ill at ease when she saw among my father's ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... if you like. When you're grown I'll make you manager of all my estates. Gad! I'd be glad of an honest one! The last time I went to England, that devil, Tom Collins, drank every bottle of my best port, smashed my furniture, broke the wind of every horse I had, and kept open house for every scamp and loafer on the Island, or that came to port. How old are you—twelve? I'll turn everything over to you in three years. You've more sense now than any boy I ever saw. Three years hence, if you continue to improve, you'll be a man, and I'll be only too glad to put the ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... to gratify him, and offered to divorce his wife. Mahomet pretended to dissuade him from it, but Zaid easily perceiving how little he was in earnest, actually divorced her. Mahomet thereupon took her to wife, and celebrated the nuptials with extraordinary magnificence, keeping open house upon the occasion. Notwithstanding, this step gave great offence to many who could not bring themselves to brook that a prophet should marry his son's wife; for he had before adopted Zaid for his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... which the situation called for was aided by a general feeling in Congress that arrangements should be made for the President different from those under the Articles of Confederation. It had been the practice for the President to keep open house. Of this custom Washington remarked that it brought the office "in perfect contempt; for the table was considered a public one, and every person, who could get introduced, conceived that he had a right to be invited to it. This, although the table was always crowded ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... box," said the old woman to Montes. "This is not an open house like a tavern. I will ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... scores of times before. The walls were covered with the names of men and regiments, and there were many penciled suggestions as to the best place to go for a basin of "coffay oh lay," as Tommy called it. Every roadside cottage was, in fact, Tommy's tavern. The thrifty French peasant women kept open house for soldiers. They served us with delicious coffee and thick slices of French bread, for the very reasonable sum of twopence. They were always friendly and hospitable, and the men, in turn, treated them with courteous and kindly respect. Tommy was a great favorite ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... in the heavens, he observed with the greatest care; while he at the same time carried on regular series of observations for determining the places of the fixed stars, and for improving the tables of the sun, moon, and planets. Though almost wholly devoted to these noble pursuits, yet he kept an open house, and received, with unbounded hospitality, the crowds of philosophers, nobles, and princes who came to be introduced to the first astronomer of the age, and to admire the splendid temple which the Danish Sovereign had ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... ruin a young man than to commission him in a cavalry regiment. Now take my advice. Do not run in debt for a new uniform and a silver mounted sword, and don't put a stock of whisky and cigars into your tent, and keep open house, because when your whisky and cigars are gone, those who drank and smoked them will not think as much of you as before, and you will have formed habits that will illy prepare you for your work. You will not make any friends among good officers, and you will lose the ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... who had in any wise been instrumental in the Advancement of his Fortune. Mr. Powell was welcome to the Use of Half the Money without Interest; his Son, and all his Neighbours were called; he kept open House, set the Bells a'ringing, and came to the following Resolutions, viz.: That the Messenger that came down, and the two Blue-coat Boys who drew the Prize, should be handsomely rewarded; that he would give Mr. Blewitt, Owner of the Abingdon Machine, at least a New Body for his Stage, on which ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... and vegetables were constantly being sent to all their friends, where there was any sickness in the family; and as, even at the high prices prevailing, they were able to purchase supplies of wine, and such other luxuries as were obtainable, they kept almost open house and, twice a week, had regular gatherings with music; and the suppers were vastly more appreciated, by their guests, than is usually the ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... Fielding, having succeeded by the death of his mother to a small estate at East Stour, worth about L200 a year, and having received L1500 in ready money as his wife's fortune, got through the whole in three years by keeping open house, with a large retinue in "costly yellow liveries," and so forth. In details, this story has been simply riddled. His mother had died long before; he was certainly not away from London three years, or anything like it; and so forth. At the same time, the ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... of that house was called Finnward Keelfarer, and his wife Aud the Light-Minded; and they had a son Eyolf, a likely boy, and a daughter Asdis, a slip of a maid. Finnward was well-to-do in his affairs, he kept open house and had good friends. But Aud his wife was not so much considered: her mind was set on trifles, on bright clothing, and the admiration of men, and the envy of women; and it was thought she was not always so circumspect in her bearing ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by the Yearly Meeting, Mildred's Court was an open house for the entertainment of Friends from all parts of the kingdom, who would come in to midday dinner, whether formally invited or not. On one occasion, when an American Friend, George Dilwyn, was a guest, ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... Nohant in quiet days. But the days at Nohant were by no means always quiet. For George Sand was most hospitable, kept indeed literally open house for her friends, and did so regardless of credit and debit. The following passage from a letter written by her in 1840 from Paris to her half-brother Hippolyte Chatiron gives us a good idea of the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... men, is keeping open house near the plaza. Already his rooms are the headquarters of the fiery chivalry of the South. Day by day Valois admires the self-assertion of the imperious lawyer. The Mississippian has already plotted out the situation. He is concert with leaders ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... cousin John, who is quite foolish about her red hair. In my young days, red hair was just a misfortune like any other," said Miss Crewys. "Dr. Blundell is lunching here also, I need hardly say. Since my dear brother's death we keep open house." ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... should be made a judge, or that a libertine baronet should be made a peer, the gravest counsellors, after a little murmuring, submitted. [127] Interest, therefore, drew a constant press of suitors to the gates of the palace; and those gates always stood wide. The King kept open house every day, and all day long, for the good society of London, the extreme Whigs only excepted. Hardly any gentleman had any difficulty in making his way to the royal presence. The levee was exactly what the word imports. Some men of quality came every morning to stand round their master, to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... doomsday had nothing occurred to disturb his rest. One day, however, some fishing tackle was wanted for the use of one of Scott's perpetual visitors at Ashiestiel—not even for himself, for some chance man taking advantage of the Shirra's open house. Visitor arriving in a good hour! fortunate sorner, to be thereafter blessed of all men! Let us hope he got just the lines he wanted and had a good day's sport. For in his search Scott's eyes lighted upon the bundle of written pages. "Hallo!" he must have said to himself, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... sensuous, have feasted and flirted throughout the hours of daylight, and certain prim moths, sonorous of flight, find subtly scented blossoms keeping open house for ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... been here today? Why don't you establish open house for them? They would soon oust ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Half the pleasure was in tracking the quarry to its hiding-place. He himself ordered but seldom from catalogues, and went regularly to and fro among the dealers in books, seeking the volume which his heart desired. He enjoyed those shops where the book-seller kept open house, where the stock was large and surprises were common, where the proprietor was prodigiously well-informed on some points and correspondingly ill-informed on others. He bought freely, never disputed a price, and laid down his cash with the air of a man who believes that unspent money is the ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... collection is growing; and I ought to have another bedroom. Think of not being able to put a man up, on occasion! I shall take a small apartment on my own account, catch some Oriental who is studying frogs' legs or Occidental theology; and then—open house. In ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... little birds do fall asleep again; For the deep silence of high golden noons; Silence of gloamings and the setting sun; Silence of moonlit nights and patterned glades; Silence of stars, magnificently still, Yet ever chanting their Creator's skill; For that high silence of Thine Open House, Dim-branching roof and lofty-pillared aisle, Where burdened hearts find rest in Thee awhile; Silence of friendship, telling more than words; Silence of hearts, close-knitting heart to heart Silence of joys too wonderful for words; Silence of sorrows, ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... Blake explained with a twinkle. "I've turned adventurer, and I have the Blake gift of getting along without money." He added in an explanatory aside to Blanche: "For two or three generations we kept open house and a full stable in Ireland, on a revenue derived from rents which were rarely paid, and if I hadn't been too young when a disaster gave the creditors their chance. I'd have given ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... not at this particular Palace, so I see nothing of State dinners, receptions, and other functions, but although I do not see them, I hear very much; and it would seem that when they are here, the Palace is a sort of open house, and festivity is the order of the day. To all appearance the etiquette is not quite so rigid as at our Court, the Sovereign being more accessible to the people. Persons wishing to pay their respects call at the ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... the Countess; he had solemnly, as King of England, legitimated this daughter, and created her Duchess of Albany: he had made incredible efforts, abandoning drink, going into the world and keeping open house, to attach this young woman to him, and to treat her as well as he had treated his ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... such friendly voice will call; 75 If he resist those casement panes, And that bright gleam which thence will fall Upon his Leaders' bells and manes, Inviting him with cheerful lure: For still, though all be dark elsewhere, 80 Some shining notice will be 'there' Of open house and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... myself, nor felt more independent of material aids. The outer world, from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle, habitable place; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the 25 fields, where God keeps an open house. I thought I had rediscovered one of those truths which are revealed to savages and hid from political economists: at the least, I had discovered a new pleasure for myself. And yet even while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a 30 strange lack. I wished ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... disappointed my fears; and the fever had no sooner left me, than I was removed to a hunting seat belonging to my lover, from whence, after I had recovered my strength, we went to B— castle, where we kept open house. And, while we remained at this place, Lord B— received a letter from Lord —, dated in November, challenging him to single combat in May, upon the frontiers of France and Flanders. This defiance was sent in consequence of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... continued, in spite of incessant attacks of the gout, to keep almost open house at Strawberry; in short, he said, he kept an inn—the sign, the Gothic Castle! 'Take my advice,' he wrote to a friend, 'never build a charming house for yourself between London and Hampton Court; everybody will ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... encouraged to give; ruling out in toto the tit-for-tat customs of modern society. "For they cannot recompense thee." But it also spares you the perplexing question of full returns, for these people have given you nothing. Only the Lord has given,—and now bids you keep open house for him in his absence. And do you see? the great Master of assemblies will count the invitations as given to himself, and will one day make a royal return for them all when he cometh in his kingdom. "They cannot recompense thee." [29] What!—never invite your friends unless they happen ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... no difference," said Eliphalet with just a shade of bitterness in his tone. "They keep open house, like all Southerners," Mr. Hopper hesitated,—"for such as come well recommended. I 'most forgot," said he. "I callate you're not any too well recommended. I 'most forgot that little transaction down to the Court House. They do say that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Townsend, which ended in the resignation of the latter, a man whose impetuous and frank temper ill fitted him to work with so cautious and non-committal a statesman as his powerful rival. He passed the evening of his days in rural pursuits and agricultural experiments, keeping open house, devoting himself to his family and friends, never hankering after the power he had lost, never even revisiting London, and finding his richest solace in literature and simple agricultural pleasures—the pattern of a ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... did not keep open house, there was always someone dropping in to take dinner or supper informally, and I was somewhat surprised when Dr. Talmage told me one day that he thought we ought to give some sort of entertainment in return for our social obligations. It was not quite ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... small trading schooner running to the Paumotus—her mother's land—and although old Lambert had long since given up his trading business and voyagings, he liked to meet people from the Islands, and, indeed, kept open house to them; so both he and Mrs. Lambert made ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... in leaving his lucrative office and the dissipations of the town and retiring into the country with a charming wife. For eight months in the year they lived at Vore, not unvisited by Philosophers; for four they kept open house in Paris. Both were good natured, charitable, and benevolent. Among the Philosophers Helvetius held the place of the rich and clever worldling, so often ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... have had it appear. He had educated the Duke of Burgundy, who remained passionately attached to him, and might hope for a return of prosperity. He remained in the silence and retirement of his diocese, with the character of an able and saintly bishop, keeping open house, grandly and simply, careful of the welfare of the soldiery who passed through Cambrai, adored by his clergy and the people. "Never a word about the court, or about public affairs of any sort that could be found fault with, or any that smacked ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... affair, of brick and timbered plaster, set in the midst of its thousand acres of woodland in the heart of the hills. Lent found it full of people and its gayety was reflected in other houses of the neighborhood whose owners, like the Hammonds, kept open house. There was much to do. March went out like a lion and the snow which kept the more timid indoors at the cards made wonderful coasting and sledding, of which latter these wearied children of fortune were not slow to take advantage. The ponds were ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... taken to see many pictures, and among others she was taken to see the pictures belonging to a certain nobleman who, with that munificence which is so amply enjoyed and so little recognised in England, keeps open house for the world to see the treasures which the wealth of his family had collected. The necessary order was procured, and on a certain brilliant April afternoon, Mrs Thorne and her party found themselves in this nobleman's drawing-room. Lily was with her, of course, and Emily Dunstable was there, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... as to be unable to find comfortable beds both for myself and for my guests? Let me tell you I have store both of rugs and cloaks, and shall not permit the son of my old friend Ulysses to camp down on the deck of a ship—not while I live—nor yet will my sons after me, but they will keep open house as ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... Victory, 'I won't say that your brother's intended ha'n't got some ballast, which is very lucky for'n, as he might have picked up with a girl without a single copper nail. To be sure there was a time we had when we got into port! It was open house for us all!' And after mentally regarding the scene for a few seconds Jim emptied his cup and ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... Eastthorpe, and sold not only ironmongery, but ploughs and all kinds of agricultural implements. At the back of the shop was a small foundry where all the foundry work for miles round Eastthorpe was done. It was Mr. Furze's practice always to keep a kind of open house on Saturday, and on this particular day, at half-past two, Mr. Bellamy, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Gosford, and Mr. Furze were drinking their whiskey-and-water and smoking their pipes in Mr. Furze's parlour. The first three were well-to-do ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... ambulance in sight of the field, and kept open house to all comers. Suspecting that she would have Mrs. Hunter and Esther for lunch, if they were present, I avoided our party and took dinner with Mrs. Booth. Meanwhile Uncle Lance detailed Deweese and Happersett to ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... he gives gay balls every evening, at which he laughs and jokes merrily. He keeps open house, and the poor people assemble there in crowds to see him eat." Maria Josephine sighed deeply. "I hate this ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Hall open house was kept, and numerous visitors and entertainments made life gay for the children, who grew up in an atmosphere of ease and hospitality, little anticipating the vicissitudes of the future and the stormy and heart-rending times in which their country was about ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... of any taste—who have respectable letters of introduction; and I must do him the justice to say, that, never did a man endure the inconveniences which must frequently result from keeping such open house, with greater adroitness and good humour than does the Baron Denon. I have sometimes found his principal rooms entirely filled by my countrymen and countrywomen; and I once, from the purest accident, headed a party of twenty-two ... in which were three British officers, and more than ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... We kept open house. Our villa was a place of rendezvous for the leading members of the best society in and around Naples. My wife was universally admired; her lovely face and graceful manners were themes of conversation throughout the whole neighborhood. Guido ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... The "open house," that is, the socialized house, depends upon this free mind to a degree only second to that spirit of "good will to man," upon which it certainly must, like all institutions in a democratic Christian nation, be based. This ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... justs were opened at Westminster on May-day; in which the challengers were headed by sir John Dudley, and the defenders by the earl of Surry. This entertainment was continued for several successive days, during which the challengers, according to the costly fashion of ancient hospitality, kept open house at their common charge, and feasted the king and queen, the members of both houses, and the lord-mayor and aldermen ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... and his few English sympathisers, chiefly dissatisfied philosophical Radicals of the upper classes, could drop in casually for a chat and a smoke, on their way home from the churches to which they had been dutifully escorting their un-emancipated wives and sisters. Max Schurz kept open house for all on Sunday evenings, and there was not a drawing-room in London better filled than his with the very advanced and not undistinguished set who alone had the much-prized entree ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... way here," Webb declared. "If this ain't an open house there never was one of the old-time sort before the war. Jarvis runs the place like his pa and grandpa did. You never saw the like o' visitors in summer-time. They pile in from all directions, close an' far off. Every friend that comes anywhere nigh has to put up here. Them two ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... orthodox, English divine, goes on to describe the character and habits of his strange new friend: "This Baron is one of the most learned noblemen here, the great protector of wits and of the savans who are no wits; keeps open house three days a week—his house is now, as yours was to me, my own—he lives at great expense." Equally communicative is he as to his other great acquaintances. Among these were the Count de Bissie, whom by an "odd incident" ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... plans his campaigns or marshals his armies better than some women of society—the late Mrs. Paran Stevens, for instance—manage the circles of which they are the centre. Day and night, winter and summer, at city or watering-place, year in and year out, such a woman keeps open house for her gay world. She has a perpetual series of guests who must be fed luxuriously, and amused profusely; she talks to them in three or four languages; at her entertainments she notes who is present and who absent, as carefully as Napoleon watched his soldiers; her interchange ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the old Athenian traditions of the heroes of olden days; for though the city justly boasts that they taught the rest of the Greeks to sow corn, to discover springs of water, and to kindle fire, yet Kimon, by keeping open house for all his countrymen, and allowing them to share his crops in the country, and permitting his friends to partake of all the fruits of the earth with him in their season, seemed really to have brought back the golden age. If any scurrilous tongues hinted that it was merely ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... forty thousand acres, and it was expected that he would represent his district. He called on every voter in the parish, shook hands with everybody, complimented the ladies, caressed the babies, treated crowds at every tavern, and kept a large punch-bowl and open house at home. He was elected. On the Eleventh of May, Seventeen Hundred Sixty-nine, the Legislature convened, with nearly a hundred members present, Colonel George Washington being one of the number. It took two days for the Assembly to elect a Speaker and get ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Hunt Club, with its colonial architecture, its great ball-room, its quaint fireplaces, its stables and sheds, and the fame of its chef. It was one of those great country clubs that keep open house the year round. It stood back from the sea about four miles and was within five miles of the village. There was a fine course inland, a cross-country going of not less than twenty miles, a shooting-box, ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... was erected as a hunting-box by one of my predecessors many years ago," observed the Count. Many hundreds of people used to assemble here in the olden days, to hunt in a style of magnificence which has now become obsolete. Open house was kept, and all comers were welcome. Intimates of the family, or those of rank, were accommodated inside, some in beds and some on the floor, while others bivouacked outside as best they could under arbours of boughs or beneath the vault of heaven. They used to hunt ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... bed-room with a covered balcony over the drawing-room. These additional rooms made the homestead all-sufficient for a lady of Aunt Betsy's simple habits. She was hospitality itself, receiving her friends in a large-hearted, gentleman-like style, keeping open house for man and beast, proud of her wine, still prouder of her garden and greenhouses, proudest of her stables; fond of this life, and of her many comforts, yet without a particle of selfishness; ready to leave ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... keep open house for all the poor of London,' pursued Pancks. 'You're not going to lodge 'em for nothing. You're not going to open your gates wide and let 'em come free. Not if ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... commissary department was stocked for a month, and everything was ready to harness in and move. Lovell's headquarters was a stag ranch, and as fast as the engaged cooks reported, they were assigned to wagons, and kept open house in relieving the home cocinero. In the absence of our employer, Flood was virtually at the head of affairs, and artfully postponed the division of horses until the last moment. My outfit had all come in in good time, and we were simply resting on our oars until the return of ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... about his grounds; I built a kennel and stables, which cost L30,000, and stocked them in a manner which was worthy of my ancestors, the Irish kings. I had two packs of hounds, and took the field in the season four times a week, with three gentlemen in my hunt-uniform to follow me, and open house at Hackton for all who belonged to ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... children. The houses destroyed were the small and peaceful houses of noncombatants. Only two men were killed. They were in a side street when the first bomb dropped, and they tried to find an unlocked door, an open house, anything for shelter. It was impossible. Built like all French towns, without arcades or sheltering archways, the flat facades of the closed and barricaded houses refused them sanctuary. The ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... hostess. Having got her parties together, and having fed them well, she consistently declined further responsibility. She kept open house, her side board and her servants at the call of her friends, but she was quite capable of withdrawing herself, without explanation, once things were moving well, to be found later by some one who ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... when Oliver came into the City. To this intent, the windows of their house without Ludgate were all taken out of their frames, and the casements themselves hung with rich cloths and tapestries, and decked with banners. And an open house was kept, literally; meats and wines and sweets being set out in every room, even to the bed-chambers, and all of the Turkey merchant's acquaintance being bidden to come in and help themselves, and take a squeeze at the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... a while in the morning. Bumblebees now hurry in, and an occasional humming bird takes a sip of nectar. Toward the end of summer, when so much seed has been set that the flower can afford to be generous, it distinctly changes its habit and keeps open house all day. ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... a hand on his shoulder, and started, "Lost in a stud, as we say at home, boy," said the jester, resplendent in a bran new motley suit. "Wilt come in to the banquet? 'Tis open house, and I can find thee a seat without disclosing the kinship that sits so sore on thy brother. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... least who assumed the name, and all the Jews with their money, influence, and keenness—straight into our arms, so that our success was undoubted. In order to silence all accusations of bribery, of feasting the voters, and so forth, Countess Diodora, Siegfried's aunt, was ready to keep open house in Vernoecze for our political friends, and so there would be no need of engaging any public restaurants or wine-shops. Siegfried told me that Countess Diodora was a very active champion of our party, and very influential, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... important question, how, and when, and to whom, we should give? It is possible to be generous at another person's expense: it is possible to injure the recipient by mistimed liberality; or to ruin one's fortune by open house and prodigal hospitality. A great man's bounty (as he says in another place) should be a common sanctuary for the needy. "To ransom captives and enrich the meaner folk is a nobler form of generosity than providing wild beasts or shows ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... at a table laden with food and wine, which were kept there for them through the whole of Sunday morning; for Pere Leonard loved to exhibit his opulence, nor was the widow sorry to display her fine plate and to keep open house like a woman of means. Germain, simple and trustful as he was, did not lack penetration in his observation of things, and for the first time in his life he stood on the defensive while drinking. Pere Leonard had compelled him to take a seat with his ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... that you shall keep open house; I desire that you should keep a liberal table; I desire that my captain of musketeers should ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... hospitable roof [M. Combe's at Wabern] it was an open house for all comers, and they were not few. Our spirits were so united with many of them we did not know how to leave them; but our great concern was to recommend them to remain with Him who had so mercifully and ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... mention of sundry journeys he had made for the sole purpose of enlisting other editors, or of the open house Miss Van Brock was keeping for out-of-town newspaper ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... "Conrad Gesner, who kept open house there for all learned men who came into his neighborhood. Gesner was not only the best naturalist among the scholars of his day, but of all men of that century he was the pattern man of letters. He was faultless in private life, assiduous in study, diligent in maintaining ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... Over the counter hung an extraordinary stuffed fish, and a whole bunch of felt hats, for the use of both sexes. It was a business en gros and en detail, which the son of the house managed. The father himself was number one in Lemvig; he had ships at sea, and kept open house, as they call it, in ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... ground, Furrow'd like stairs, whose windings led Unto the chimney of her head; The next thing that my Muse descries, Is the two Mill-pits of her Eyes, Mill-pits whose depth no plum can sound, For there the God of Love was drown'd, On either side there hangs a Souse, And Ear I mean keeps open house, An Ear which always there did dwell, And so the Head kept sentinel, Which there was placed to descry, If any danger there was nigh, But surely danger there was bred Which made them so keep off the head; Something for certain ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... and with people wild as flocks, would have been worth while if nothing had resulted except our welcome back to Pierre Grignon's open house. The grandmother hobbled on her stick across the floor to give me her hand. Madame Ursule reproached me with delaying, and Pierre said it was high time to seek winter quarters. The girls recounted harvest reels and even weddings, with dances following, ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... irregular building with broad verandas and great stone fire-places. The rooms were in two groups, which were connected by a covered porch—a "dog alley," as old settlers still call it, because the dogs are apt to sleep there at night. Here he kept open house to all comers, for he was lavishly hospitable, and every one was welcome to bed and board, to apple-jack and cider, hominy and corn-bread, beef, venison, bear meat, and wild fowl. When there was a wedding or a merrymaking of any kind he feasted the neighborhood, barbecuing oxen—that is, roasting ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... fatally around by a dead wall of doom, through which, by one bloody orifice alone, the believers in the vicarious atonement could crawl up into heaven. In place of this, we see the whole universe as one open House of God, traversed in all directions by the free entries of laws of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... and to spare for the man of any bent. The old Romans looked forward, on coming to the age of retirement, which was definitely fixed by rule, to a rural life, when they hied themselves to a little home in the country, had open house for their friends, and "kept bees." While bee-keeping is unquestionably interesting, there are today other and more vital occupations awaiting ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... hearty man of fifty, florid and handsome, slightly dictatorial in manner, but easily influenced by his wife, who was all softness and gentleness. He was generous and hospitable, priding himself on keeping up the reputation in which Buck Hill had gloried in the past—that of an open house with bed and board for all of the blood. He greeted his Cousin Ann with a cordiality that might have been balm to her wounded feelings had she not been aware that that was ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... which "he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men;" "he had walk for a hundred sheep, and meadow ground for thirty cows."[557] The world prospered with him; he was able to save money for his son's education and his daughters' portions; but he was freehanded and hospitable; he kept open house for his poor neighbours; and he was a good citizen, too, for "he did find the king a harness with himself and his horse," ready to do battle for his country, if occasion called. His family were brought up "in godliness ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... what waving of plumes, and shaking of banners, and glittering of rich dresses! Religion was picturesque, with dignitaries, and cathedrals, and fuming incense, and the Host carried through the streets. The franklin kept open house, the city merchant feasted kings, the outlaw roasted his venison beneath the greenwood tree. There was a gallant monarch and a gallant court. The eyes of the Countess of Salisbury shed influence; ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... professionally, for I never sent in my bills; my patients paid me when and how they could. To their honour, I am bound to say that I rarely had to complain of forgetfulness. Besides, my appointments permitted me to live sumptuously, to have eight horses in my stables, and to keep open house to my friends and the strangers who visited Manilla. Soon, however, what my friends designated a coup-de-tete caused me ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... peeping out from his blouse. The man's features and appearance altogether were most forbidding; and though a military man myself, I felt anything but comfortable with these ferocious eyes staring full upon me. However, in the bush open house is more or less a rule, and rough-looking fellows often turn up and request a night's lodging and food, which we do not think of refusing them. Besides which, the wild-looking outside not unfrequently covers an honest heart beneath. So, while ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... Ladies' Literary Club, which also owns its home, kept open house several afternoons from four to six, the officers receiving the guests and serving light refreshments. This club also tendered the freedom of its house for any and all hours of the day to the delegates. Saturday afternoon the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... object the President sought, which was a virtual vote of confidence, by both Houses of Congress, on his submarine policy, had not been attained, and would not until the resolution had been brought into the open House and squarely voted upon. The issue between the House and the President had gone too far for further cross-fires of parliamentary moves to succeed in preventing the resolution from coming to a vote, and, on March 7, 1916, it reached this crucial stage and was defeated by ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... a little tea," said Psmith, "to restore our tissues after our journey. Come in and join us. We keep open house, we Psmiths. Let me introduce you to Comrade Jackson. A stout fellow. Homely in appearance, perhaps, but one of us. I am Psmith. Your own name will doubtless come up in the course of general chit-chat over ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... COURSE of occasional visits to Canada many years since, I became intimately acquainted with some of the principal partners of the great Northwest Fur Company, who at that time lived in genial style at Montreal, and kept almost open house for the stranger. At their hospitable boards I occasionally met with partners, and clerks, and hardy fur traders from the interior posts; men who had passed years remote from civilized society, among distant and savage tribes, and who had ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... of the Christmas hospitality of the period, we refer to the establishment of John Carminow, whose family was of high repute in the county of Cornwall in the time of Henry the Eighth. Hals says that "he kept open house for all comers and goers, drinkers, minstrells, dancers, and what not, during the Christmas time, and that his usual allowance of provision for those twelve days, was twelve fat bullocks, twenty Cornish bushels of wheat (i.e., fifty ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... better in its effect, was the publicity of these proceedings, and the part taken in them by the whole population, patrician and plebeian, men, women, and children. If we can trust Livy's further statements, every one left his door open and kept open house, inviting all to come in, whether known or unknown; all old quarrels were made up, and no new ones suffered to begin; prisoners were freed from their chains, and universal good-will prevailed. These eight days were in fact kept as holidays, ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... willingly let die. Yet, after reading the petition, seven of the eleven members of the Committee were opposed to the bill, and so declared themselves. Carleton was therefore obliged to transfer the field of battle to the open House. When he counted noses in the Legislature, he found that in the double body there were but four men who were heartily in favor of the apparently unpopular reform. The bill lay dormant for many weeks. Almost as a matter of course, the Sunday newspapers ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... and perhaps better, because my father had brought home with him from his travels a taste for a more genial life than Polotzk usually asked for. My mother kept a cook and a nursemaid, and a dvornik, or outdoor man, to take care of the horses, the cow, and the woodpile. All the year round we kept open house, as I remember. Cousins and aunts were always about, and on holidays friends of all degrees gathered in numbers. And coming and going in the wing set apart for business guests were merchants, traders, country peddlers, peasants, soldiers, ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... innkeeper in a country town would draw in twelve months. An innkeeper's license to Government is thirty pounds per annum. This entitles him to keep his house open from six in the morning until eleven o'clock at night; ten pounds more enables him to have open house during the night; and an additional ten pounds enables him to keep a billiard table. There are a great many houses with tables and a number of light houses; but, as I have hinted before, our police courts exhibit abominations, and a police court is a good ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... Taylor Upton and Miss Elizabeth J. Hauser of Ohio, its treasurer and headquarters secretary, and Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago, a former officer, who arranged the hearing. The beautiful rooms of the Chicago Woman's Club were placed at their disposal, where they kept open house, assisted by Mrs. Gertrude Blackwelder, president of the Chicago Political League, Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin and other prominent club women. Mrs. McCulloch went to the Auditorium Annex to ask the Committee on Resolutions for a hearing. Senator ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... crowds, the dancing, the women's gowns, and the men's faces, had worn out, Hermione had regarded the whole thing as an inexpressible bore, and had returned with delight to the quiet life at Carvel Place, glad that her father's position and tastes did not lead him to keep open house, as some of his neighbors did, and that she was allowed to read and to be quiet, and to do everything ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... big store, the property of Senhor Caripe, the wealthiest rubberman who works on this river; many of the men we met were in his employ. He has himself risen from the ranks. He was most kind and hospitable, and gave us another boat to replace the last of our shovel-nosed dugouts. The large, open house was cool, clean, ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... Newport soon attracted commerce from all nations, which heaped its wharves with riches and made princes and magnates of its merchants—a position they seemed born to sustain. The Overings, Bannisters, Malbones and Redwoods kept open house and exercised lavish hospitality—witness, as told by the Newport Herald of June 7, 1766, the story of Colonel Godfrey Malbone's feast on the lawn of his burning mansion, so fine an edifice that its cost ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... murrain to 'em, whilst poor madam sits sighing and wishing, and has not a spare half-crown to buy her a Practice of Piety. Miss Hoyd. Oh, but for that, don't deceive yourself, nurse; for this I must say of my lord, he's as free as an open house at Christmas; for this very morning he told me I should have six hundred a year to buy pins. Now if he gives me six hundred a year to buy pins, what do you think he'll give me to buy petticoats? Nurse. Ay, my dearest, he deceives ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... and loved to be in the company of his kind. This trait was noticeable in his youth and during his early military career, nor did it disappear after he married and settled down at Mount Vernon. Until the end he and Mrs. Washington kept open house, and what a galaxy of company they had! Scarcely a day passed without some guest crossing their hospitable threshold, nor did such visitors come merely to leave their cards or to pay fashionable five-minute calls. They invariably ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... merits. I never had much reverence for Gods of any sort; if the Superior Persons could not win me by love, I remained heretical. So it was a long time before I came close to any living souls, and all that time I was working away at my poems. Then, a little later, I used to go o' Sundays to the open house of Westland Marston, which was then a great haunt of literary Bohemians. Here I first met Dinah Muloch, the author of John Halifax, who took a great fancy to me, used to carry me off to her little nest on Hampstead Heath, and lend me all her books. At Hampstead, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... underfoot and the cottonwoods murmured and twinkled overhead. They passed a log ranch-house known as the "Custer Trail," in memory of the ill-fated expedition which had camped in the adjacent flat seven years before. Howard Eaton and his brothers lived there and kept open house for a continuous stream of Eastern sportsmen. A mile beyond, they forded the river; a quarter-mile farther on, they forded it again, passed through a belt of cottonwoods into a level valley where the buttes receded, leaving a wide stretch of bottom-lands dominated by a solitary peak known ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... loves. The things which Frontenac most highly cherished were marks of royal favor, the ceremony due to his own rank, the right to command. He was an egoist, supremely interested in himself. He was poor, but at his country seat in France, near Blois, he kept open house in the style of a great noble. Always he bore himself as one to whom much was due. His guests were expected to admire his indifferent horses as the finest to be seen, his gardens as the most beautiful, his clothes as of the most effective cut and ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... the mother grew hourly more and more indifferent to her child, and more completely absorbed in D'Argenton. The boy's comings and goings were almost unnoticed. His seat at the table was often vacant, but no one asked where he had been. New guests filled the board, for D'Argenton kept open house; yet the poet was by no means generous in his hospitality, and when Charlotte would say to him, timidly, "I am out of money, my friend," he would reply by a wry face and the word, "Already?" But vanity was stronger than avarice, and the pleasure of patronizing ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... The custom of keeping open house is, I think, obsolete. Haddon Hall (so late as Queen Elizabeth) was kept open during twelve days after Christmas, with the old English hospitality. I observe also in some old books accounts of a feast of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... career more than any other. This was my friendship with Professor Henslow. Before coming up to Cambridge, I had heard of him from my brother as a man who knew every branch of science, and I was accordingly prepared to reverence him. He kept open house once every week when all undergraduates, and some older members of the University, who were attached to science, used to meet in the evening. I soon got, through Fox, an invitation, and went there regularly. Before long I became well ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... time—fifty years ago. The Duke's stud-groom was telling me about it last year. He's a Hampshire man, you know, born and bred in the Forest. We'll have a lawn meet and a hunting breakfast; and it shall be open house for everyone—high and low, rich and poor, gentle and simple. Don't be frightened, mother," interjected Rorie, seeing Lady Jane's look of horror; "we won't do any mischief. ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... desolation. No one had the slightest knowledge of where the cheery Hicks could be; they missed his singing and banjo strumming, his pestersome ways, his cheerful good nature, his cozy quarters always open house to all, and his Hicks' Personally Conducted tours downtown to Jerry's ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... a very serious expense to Malays of any rank. The bridegroom has to make settlements on the bride, and the bride's father has to keep open house for weeks, besides fees to the hadjis, and gunpowder ad libitum. The religious part of the ceremony is enacted some days before the marriage. One day papa was calling at a Malay house, where a wedding was about to take place, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... her and he and the notables repaired to her father and sought her in wedlock of him. Then they wrote out the marriage contract and made her a splendid wedding; after which Abd al-Rahman gave bride feasts and held open house forty days. On the first day, he invited the doctors of the law and they held a splendid nativity[FN446]: and on the morrow, he invited all the merchants, and so on during the rest of the forty days, making a banquet every day to one or other class of folk, till he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... time ago, there's no saying how it was, but this for certain, the new man did not take at all after the old gentleman; the cellars were never filled after his death, and no open house, or any thing as it used to be; the tenants even were sent away without their whiskey.[D] I was ashamed myself, and knew not what to say for the honour of the family; but I made the best of a bad case, and laid it all at my lady's door, for I did not like her any how, nor any body else; she was ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Harrison, brought the news. We set all the bells to ringing, fired cannon, and tossed up our hats. The rich people opened their purses and paid the debts of everybody in jail. We hung lanterns on the tree in the evening, set off rockets, and kindled bonfires. John Hancock kept open house, with ladies and gentlemen feasting in his parlors, and pipes of wine on tap in the ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Clarissa whispered in a tone so low that all involuntarily bent their heads forward. "I was afraid of them, and I ran, from fear, into the first open house." ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... were, in this luxury; which was to them a saving of lights and fuel. Thus it came to pass that in a circuit of fifteen miles and even as far as Ville-aux-Fayes, every voice was ready to declare: "Madame Soudry does the honors admirably. She keeps open house; every one enjoys her salon; she knows how to carry herself and her fortune; she always says the witty thing, she makes you laugh. And what splendid silver! There is not another house like ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... very quiet and speaking little. Thorfinn gave him his board, but took little notice of him. Grettir held rather aloof, and did not accompany him when he went abroad every day. This annoyed Thorfinn, but he did not like to refuse Grettir his hospitality; he was a man who kept open house, enjoyed life and liked to see other men happy. Grettir liked going about and visiting the people in the other farms on the island. There was a man named Audun, who dwelt at Vindheim. Grettir went to see him daily and became very intimate with him, ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... full of visitors before. Never had it been so gay. None who came had been turned away. The baron kept an open house, and whilst the rooms of the Hall were strained to the uttermost to find accommodation for the numerous guests, the gate had been thronged throughout the livelong day by an eager crowd of expectant beggars, none of whom had gone away ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... you know much about him. He's a north-country man by birth, and has been out in New Zealand all his life. This little Devonshire farm is all he has now. He had a large "station" in the North Island, and was much looked up to, kept open house, did everything, as one would guess, in a narrow-minded, large-handed way. He came to grief suddenly; I don't quite know how. I believe his only son lost money on the turf, and then, unable to face his father, shot himself; if you had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... bound to follow him on fixed terms. The retainer was an inferior, who was taken into service and professed himself ready to fight for his lord at all times and in all causes. In return his lord kept open house for his retainers, supplied them with coats, known as liveries, marked with his badge, and undertook to maintain them against all men, either by open force or by supporting them in their quarrels in the law courts; and this maintenance, as it was called, ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... the doctor that Eugenie's father had been much richer at one period—one of the most extensive planters on the coast; that he had kept a sort of "open house," and dispensed hospitality in princely style. "Fetes" on a grand scale had been given, and this more particularly of late years. Even since his death profuse hospitality has been carried on, and Mademoiselle continues to receive her father's ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... the good cheer and hospitable living of those times, I cannot agree with an ingenious and agreeable writer of the present day, that it was general or frequent. The very stress laid upon certain holidays and festivals, shews that they did not keep up the same Saturnalian licence and open house all the year round. They reserved themselves for great occasions, and made the best amends they could, for a year of abstinence and toil by a week of merriment and convivial indulgence. Persons in middle ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... no chaste maidens to be found in Cairo, they went to Bagdad, where they hired a magnificent palace in one of the chief quarters of the city, and began to live splendidly. They kept open house; and after all people had eaten in the palace, the fragments were carried to the dervises, who by that means ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... means. He did not become poor by his devotion to the public service, but by his own extravagance. He loved to spend money and to live well. He had a fine library and handsome plate; he bought fancy cattle; he kept open house, and indulged in that most expensive of all luxuries, "gentleman-farming." He never stinted himself in any way, and he gave away money with reckless generosity and heedless profusion, often not stopping to inquire who the recipient of his bounty might be. The result was ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... course she only married him for his money. Everybody knows that except he. People laugh at him behind his back. Instead of enjoying a quiet, peaceful home in the declining years of his life, he is compelled to keep open house and entertain people who are personally obnoxious to him, simply because that sort of ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... outdid all the old Athenian hospitality and good-nature. For though it is the city's just boast that their forefathers taught the rest of Greece to sow corn, and how to use springs of water, and to kindle fire, yet Cimon, by keeping open house for his fellow-citizens, and giving travelers liberty to eat the fruits which the several seasons produced in his land, seemed to restore to the world that community of goods, which mythology says existed in the reign of Saturn. Those who object to him that he did this ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... very little rest for any one during the next few days. Sara's marriage had brought sundry relations from their country homes up to town, and there was open house kept for all. Jill went sight-seeing with the young people. Aunt Philippa drove some of the elder ladies to the Academy, to the Grosvenor Gallery, to the Park, ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... keep open house for all the poor of London,' pursued Pancks. 'You're not going to lodge 'em for nothing. You're not going to open your gates wide and let 'em come free. Not if you know it, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... welcome everywhere, and, in the cautious, tenfold guarded Eastern way, kept open house. The women reveled in her free ideas and in the wit with which she heaped scorn on the priest-made fashions that have kept all India in chains for centuries, mocking the priests, as some thought, at the risk ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... on her bonnet, and opened the parlour-door; but then she saw the square figure of the landlord standing at the open house-door, smoking his evening pipe, and looming large and distinct against the dark air and landscape beyond. Ruth remembered the cup of tea that she had drank; it must be paid for, and she had no money with her. She feared that he would not let ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... money in answer to begging letters, and pleased himself by giving away to his black man money enough to buy a very good house; and if he could not avoid adding wings and rooms to his spacious mansion at Marshfield, and must needs keep open house there and have a dozen, guests at a time,—why should the solvent and careful business men of Boston have been taxed, or have taxed themselves, to pay any part of ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton |
