assertively

Updated: May 11, 2025

Its houses loomed tall, with many windows, mostly lightless materially aggravating that air of isolate, cold dignity which distinguishes the Englishman's castle. Here and there stood one less bedraggled than its neighbors, though all, without exception, spoke assertively of respectability down-at-the-heel but fighting tenaciously for existence.

Louis Joseph Vance - The Black Bag