A splendid mode of living, sumptuous dinners, a great retinue, and perfect liberty to the guests, drew around us that class who, knowing well that they have no other occupation than self-indulgence, throw an air of languid elegance over vice, which your vulgar sinner, who has only intervals of wickedness, knows nothing of; and this, be it said passingly, is, of all sections of society, the most seductive and dangerous to the young: for there are no outrages to taste amongst these people, they violate no Decencies, they shock no principles.
"That Boy Of Norcott's"
Charles James Lever
To the superficial observer, the only common bond and characteristic were the purely external marks of dress and rough bearing and ostentatious contempt for the most ordinary comforts and Decencies of life, which could easily be assumed by the knave and the libertine.
"Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius"
Samuel Dill
Yet here he was committed to a policy which aimed deliberately at outraging all the established Decencies-at disregarding ostentatiously all the usages by which an assembly of gentlemen had regulated their proceedings.
"John Redmond's Last Years"
Stephen Gwynn