Surprise party

“ Ransome and her daughter; so a crowd we must have, and how have a crowd without giving a grand party? I knew that this would be a shocking proposition to him, but I was prepared to meet all objections; and when, with every nerve alert and every charm exerted to its utmost, I sat down at his side that evening to plead my cause, I knew by the sparkle of his eye and the softening of the bitter lines that sometimes hardened his mouth, that the battle was half won before I spoke, and that I should have my party whatever it might cost him in mental stress and worry. ”

“ But there is that something of manner, of walk, of voice which draws all eyes to them as they advance to their table, and the room is hushed as they arrange their seats. "Those horrid Americans!" says one of your party and no one protests. But at the next table to you there is seated another party of delightful people—low-voiced, well-mannered, excellently bred in every tone and movement. ”

“ But intriguing people have to invent a noxious, dangerous party. ”

“ The joy of a party is the newness of people to each other, renewed strikingness of humanity. They love each other, to distraction. Really to distraction. Before they fall into conversation and separate. ”

“ Sometimes, however, I think that it is the newspapers are not so amusing as they used to be. The racy old bitterness of party spirit is dying out, and all the spicy drollery and epigrammatic fun of former days gone with it. It strikes me, too, Tom, that "Party," in the strong sense, never can exist again amongst us. Party is essentially the submission of the many to the few ”

“ They swarm with their party, they feel with their party, they are happy in their party’s approval; and where the party leads they will follow, whether for right and honor, or through blood and dirt and a mush of mutilated morals. ”

“ Above party, unless it be the honorable and ancient party of mankind, they embody the temper and drift of the times. How many public men are here to survive in the pillory of his indignant invectives! ”

“ Fellow-citizens and members of the band, we owe our fealty to the old party. Let us cling to the old party as long as there is any juice in it and vote for its candidates. Let us give our suffrages to men of advanced thought who are loyal to their party but poor. ”

“ John Seymour’s party. People in a city may pick and choose their entertainments, and she who gives a party there may reckon on a falling off of about one-third, for various other attractions; but in the country, where there is nothing else stirring, one may be sure that not one person able to stand on his feet will be missing. A party in a good old sleepy, respectable country place is a godsend. ”

“ Besides, party being a dry disagreeable subject, it renders conversation insipid or sour, and confines invention. I speak not here of the leaders, but the insignificant crowd of followers in a party, who have been the instruments of mixing it in every condition and circumstance of life. ”

“ We know better, and hence we buy the Radical vote by a little coquetting with communism, and the model working-man and the rebel by an occasional gaol-delivery, and the Papist by a sop to the Holy Father. Bear in mind, Dick—and it is the grand secret of political life—it takes all sort of people to make a ‘party.’ When you have thoroughly digested this aphorism, you are fit to start in the world. ”

“ Here we look upon a jumble of contradictions so glaring that our heads begin to reel, and we wonder how it could happen to the whole wisdom of a great party in solemn convention assembled to hatch out so bottomless an absurdity. ”

“ When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinched with the colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody flag against all patience, and, in roaring for a chamber pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing. All the peace you make in their cause is calling both the parties knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.
BRUTUS.
Come, come. You are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol. ”

“ The parties, in the bloom of life, in all the excitement of juvenile buoyancy, moving in the illumined atmosphere of imagination, meet at the party, ball-room, assembly, church, or other place of concourse, for which the young dress, to [236] look around, and be gazed upon. They are clad in their gayest, and stand on their best. No airs, or graces, that mothers, or friends, or society, or their Chesterfield, or their imaginations can suggest, are pretermitted. ”

“ I am not one of those who believe we can do without party; but I do see and I do say that party business absorbs far too much of the time that our common sense and common humanity demands for the redress of crying shames. And if laymen see this with grief and anger, how much more poignant must be the feeling of members of Parliament themselves, to whom alone remedy has been entrusted! ”

“ Now what is called a large party is the first and rudest form of social intercourse. The most we can say of it is, that it is better than nothing. Men and women are crowded together like cattle in a pen. ”

“ Here is a new party, which is to make its second appeal to the people. Where its strength will lay, whom it will select to be the standard-bearer of its radical platform, these are questions that baffle the most astute observers.
The morning of the opening session of the convention finds the vast auditorium of the Music Hall where the meetings are to be held, crowded with spectators. It is impossible for one-tenth of those present to hear the speakers; they come not to hear so much as to breathe the surcharged air of the political storm which it is known will be fostered. ”

“ If attached, by prejudice and birth, to the aristocracy, he was yet by reputation and habit attached also to the popular party,—that party more popular than the middle class,—the majority, the masses. ”

“ In reality, as regards party politics, we have been for years past very like those shouting, cigarette-smoking, Saturday crowds at football matches whom we have lately been engaged in reproving so virtuously. ”

“ Aubrey, seemingly in high spirits, and she appeared proud enough of her supporter. It was a delightful dinner-party, elegant without ostentation, and select without pretence of exclusiveness. All were cheerful and animated, not merely on account of the over-night's parliamentary victory, which I have already alluded to, but also in contemplation of the coming Christmas; how, and where, and with whom each was to spend that "righte merrie season," being the chief topic of conversation. ”

“ The men who take the first plunge in perilous enterprises seldom escape the experience which befell us. Our closest associates came promptly, but the gushing sympathisers who crowd the platforms of a popular party began to drop off like leaves in autumn. ”

“ Pompous Old Party (looking about benignly) .—Yes; a great, noisy, jostling, good-natured crowd. Everybody in a hurry, pushing his neighbor, but nobody in a temper—damme, sir! you are treading on my toes—can't you see, sir, when a man is directly in your way? ”

“ The impulse which drove him from a party in adversity to a party in prosperity was as irresistible as that which drives the cuckoo and the swallow towards the sun when the dark and cold months are approaching. ”

“ "I want to give a really bad party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there's a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. You wait and see." ”

“ The exiled party, ever on the alert to regain possession of their homes, would creep into the town at some unguarded moment and once more stir a people to fight who were beginning to chafe beneath the irksome rule of the rival despots. ”

“ Lord John Russell, in his recent speech at Greenock, alluded to the "absence of party" as a thing scarcely to be hoped, but greatly to be desired. The word "party" is so vague in its ordinary sense, that we should be glad to know the "party" to which Lord John alludes. He may either mean "that party" over the way, on the other side of the House, or that "other party," or that "Irish party," or that "troublesome little party" that is always asking inconvenient questions, or some "party" that some other "party" is always egging on to annoy the Government. ”

“ When the party leader unites to his indomitable will the talent of eloquence, he plays the chief role upon the world's stage. But if he does not possess this gift he stays behind the scenes and as manager, dictates and controls the actions of all the players on the stage, invisible to the public, but the highest authority, the moving spirit of the whole parliamentary comedy. ”

“ Men, women and children crowded the streets, flushed with the excitement of party rivalry, while the continual pealing of the bells added a vivacity and liveliness to the scene, of which an American, who has never heard the merry ding-dong of a full peal of bells, can form no adequate conception. ”

“ The spirit of party, always sufficiently fierce and unreasonable, was then stimulated into a fury resembling madness. Almost every speaker, Democrat or Whig, was in that state of passion which is represented by the physical sign of "foaming at the mouth." ”

“ One of these illusions is the illusion of party. I have never been behind the scenes, among the creaking machinery, but my impression, as a spectator, is that parties in England are made very much as you pick up sides for a game. I have observed that they are all conservative. The affections are conservative; every one has a liking for his old habits and his old associates. There is something comic in a well-nourished rich man who believes that he is a bold reformer and a destructive thinker. ”

“ It would, therefore, be the height of absurdity to expect a perfect party or a perfect assembly. For large bodies are far more likely to err than individuals. The passions are inflamed by sympathy; the fear of punishment and the sense of shame are diminished by partition. ”

“ The New York writer holds that in our political contests the "campaign speech" is not intended or adapted to persuade or convert opponents, but merely to stimulate and encourage friends. The party meetings on each side, he thinks, are composed of partisans, and the more extravagant the assertion and the more unsparing the denunciation of "the enemy," the more rapturous the enthusiasm of the audience. ”

“ We know that in other countries which have constitutional government, and political parties, and elections, but no distribution of offices as party spoil, and no bands of mercenary party workers living on politics, party contests are as energetic as they are here. ”

“ If under the word party, they mean their own private interest; then, they should be more sincere, and say, that they wish, here, a parliament of lords, and a house of commons. If they pride themselves in the beautiful political work of their fathers, they should forsake any dispute of party spirit. ”

“ To a large dinner, or an evening party, you may go with pleasure and safety indiscriminately, be the party of what side it may; but a breakfast or dinner, en famille, with those whom hereafter you will know as political opponents, may embarrass you exceedingly. There is no compromise that will not affect your honour or your happiness; a false step at the outset in your private life may ruin your public life, so be careful of your freedom. ”

“ There was a period in which I fancied these parasites were the monopoly of one political party. But I soon learned that this was far from being the case. All the four parties which the twentieth century saw established in parliament are equally surrounded by their camp followers, who each differ from each other only superficially, and, not unseldom, transfer their allegiance in pursuit of fatter game. ”

“ The party does not continue to a late hour. There must be a final sugaring off before the assembly breaks up for the night and muffle themselves for their long trudge homeward in the white moonlight or under the solemn stars. ”

“ By picking out particular passages, and giving to them such explanation as may afford a basis for peculiar tenets, pride is gratified; and when it can thus form a party, and obtain distinction, the gratification is complete. Whether in religion or in politics, all the individuals who compose a party become, in their own minds, identified with the party they have espoused. ”

“ The candidate my party votes for is not to be trusted with a dollar, but he will be honest in the Senate, for we can bring public opinion to bear on him. Thus concert was the specific in all cases. But concert is neither better nor worse, neither more nor less potent than individual force. ”

“ When Dorothy goes to a party, the party becomes a party: When I go to a party, I’m afraid it very often stops being a party.... She, as I once heard a girl described in a play, is like a bright flag flying in the breeze.
“All music, even the worst, seems so beautiful to her. All people amuse her.... ”

“ When that many came to a party, it was considered a good party.
A large crowd was just what they wanted. More people meant more games and more happy people playing games. In general, when there was a large crowd, things moved along at a faster pace. ”

“ A man will go to his chief's party as he would to his office of a morning, never dreaming of staying away; and imposing old ladies resent the presence of the wrong partner at a whist table, as if it were an obstacle in their husband's career. ”

“ The people lean on this, and the mob is not quite so bad an argument as we sometimes say, for it has this good side. "March without the people," said a French deputy from the tribune, "and you march into night: their instincts are a finger-pointing of Providence, always turned toward real benefit. But when you espouse an Orleans party, or a Bourbon, or a Montalembert party, or any other but an organic party, though you mean well, you have a personality instead of a principle, which will inevitably drag you into a corner." ”

“ A party of young men were getting up to go, stamping their feet and jostling each other as they shook themselves to rights, letting their jeering, jesting voices reach street level before they got to the door. ”