All 25 Uses of
obligation
in
The House of Mirth
- At any rate, she was amazingly pretty, and he had asked her to tea and must live up to his obligations.†
Chpt 1.1
- Now she was beginning to chafe at the obligations it imposed, to feel herself a mere pensioner on the splendour which had once seemed to belong to her.†
Chpt 1.3
- She belonged to the class of old New Yorkers who have always lived well, dressed expensively, and done little else; and to these inherited obligations Mrs. Peniston faithfully conformed.†
Chpt 1.3
- It was understood that Miss Bart should fill the gap in such emergencies, and she usually recognized the obligation without a murmur.†
Chpt 1.4
- There was nothing especially arduous in this round of religious obligations; but it stood for a fraction of that great bulk of boredom which loomed across her path.†
Chpt 1.5
- He was a coarse dull man who, under all his show of authority, was a mere supernumerary in the costly show for which his money paid: surely, to a clever girl, it would be easy to hold him by his vanity, and so keep the obligation on his side.†
Chpt 1.7
- Miss Bart had received one or two notes from Judy Trenor, reproaching her for not returning to Bellomont; but she replied evasively, alleging the obligation to remain with her aunt.†
Chpt 1.10
- The fact that the money freed her temporarily from all minor obligations obscured her sense of the greater one it represented, and having never before known what it was to command so large a sum, she lingered delectably over the amusement of spending it.†
Chpt 1.10
- Mrs. Peniston disliked giving dinners, but she had a high sense of family obligation, and on the Jack Stepneys' return from their honeymoon she felt it incumbent upon her to light the drawing-room lamps and extract her best silver from the Safe Deposit vaults.†
Chpt 1.11
- The fact that Gus Trenor was Judy's husband was at times Lily's strongest reason for disliking him, and for resenting the obligation under which he had placed her.†
Chpt 1.12
- In our imperfectly organized society there is no provision as yet for the young woman who claims the privileges of marriage without assuming its obligations.†
Chpt 1.14
- If you really owe your dress-maker, I will settle with her--beyond that I recognize no obligation to assume your debts.
Chpt 1.15 *obligation = duty
- She could not have remained in New York without repaying the money she owed to Trenor; to acquit herself of that odious debt she might even have faced a marriage with Rosedale; but the accident of placing the Atlantic between herself and her obligations made them dwindle out of sight as if they had been milestones and she had travelled past them.†
Chpt 2.2
- She was not fond of Bertha Dorset, but neither was she without a sense of obligation, the heavier for having so little personal liking to sustain it.†
Chpt 2.2
- Who but Selden could thus miraculously combine the skill to save Bertha with the obligation of doing so?†
Chpt 2.2
- The consciousness that much skill would be required made Lily rest thankfully in the greatness of the obligation.†
Chpt 2.2
- That obligation discharged, she would have but a thousand dollars of Mrs. Peniston's legacy left, and nothing to live on but her own small income, which was considerably less than Gerty Farish's wretched pittance; but this consideration gave way to the imperative claim of her wounded pride.†
Chpt 2.4
- Already his wealth, and the masterly use he had made of it, were giving him an enviable prominence in the world of affairs, and placing Wall Street under obligations which only Fifth Avenue could repay.†
Chpt 2.5
- Its very drudgeries had a charm now that she was involuntarily released from them: card-leaving, note-writing, enforced civilities to the dull and elderly, and the smiling endurance of tedious dinners—how pleasantly such obligations would have filled the emptiness of her days!†
Chpt 2.8
- No definite hours were kept; no fixed obligations existed: night and day flowed into one another in a blur of confused and retarded engagements, so that one had the impression of lunching at the tea-hour, while dinner was often merged in the noisy after-theatre supper which prolonged Mrs. Hatch's vigil till daylight.†
Chpt 2.9
- Even the most irresponsible pretty woman of her acquaintance had her inherited obligations, her conventional benevolences, her share in the working of the great civic machine; and all hung together in the solidarity of these traditional functions.†
Chpt 2.9
- It was meant in kindness, of course; but it was not the sort of obligation one could remain under.†
Chpt 2.10
- But the task might take years to accomplish, even if she continued to stint herself to the utmost; and meanwhile her pride would be crushed under the weight of an intolerable obligation.†
Chpt 2.10
- These were her superficial considerations; but under them lurked the secret dread that the obligation might not always remain intolerable.†
Chpt 2.10
- It was true, then, that she had taken money from Trenor; but true also, as the contents of the little desk declared, that the obligation had been intolerable to her, and that at the first opportunity she had freed herself from it, though the act left her face to face with bare unmitigated poverty.†
Chpt 2.14
Definition:
-
(obligation) a duty