"Dainty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one of my children. I am going to let him be named in it and then keep it in the box with my Bible, where it won't be disturbed for nothing," exclaimed Mrs. Poteet in a tone of voice that was tear-choking with reverence as she took the dainty yellow little garment into her hand. "And to think how you all have wored yourself out a-looking for it!" ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to see the tenderness and care with which he surrounded her. If they were walking together in the park, he removed all the stones which might hurt her tiny feet or cause her to stumble. If a dainty morsel fell to his share at the table, he transferred it from his plate to that of Dolores. If they dressed her in any new garment, he was never weary of admiring her, of telling her how beautiful ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... represented by massive furniture in calamander, ebony, and satinwood, carved with the most elaborate devices, dainty laces made by the nimble fingers of village women, beautiful productions on tortoise shell and gold, heavily embroidered cloths of gold, and a large collection of the various curios for which the East ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... in it and brilliants round, "that might be worth seventy," the dainty, pearly miniature on ivory by Daudin, of the dead woman who lay buried under the Little Kopje, and which Bough had taken from the body of the English traveller, together with the signet-ring and everything else of value that Richard Mildare had owned, possessed ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... up the bench and handed Luke fully three-quarters of the toothsome dainty. It pleased him to see the half-famished boy enjoy the feast. Luke poked a good-sized piece of the sake under the cage cover. There ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... graved Thetis borne by her Nereids, or love-sick Phaedra with her nurse, or Persephone, weary of memory, putting poppies in her hair. The potter sat in his shed, and, flower-like from the silent wheel, the vase rose up beneath his hands. He decorated the base and stem and ears with pattern of dainty olive-leaf, or foliated acanthus, or curved and crested wave. Then in black or red he painted lads wrestling, or in the race: knights in full armour, with strange heraldic shields and curious visors, leaning from shell-shaped chariot over rearing steeds: the gods seated ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... on the beds. The Skeptic's room needed only a touch here and there to put it in order for the night. The Philosopher's needed none. The Gay Lady had left her pretty, rose-hung quarters looking as if a lady lived in them, and had but dropped a dainty reminder of herself here and there to give them character—an embroidered dressing-case on the bureau, an attractive travelling work-box on the table by her bed, a photograph, a lace-bordered handkerchief, a ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... the road leaps some deep ravine with a double or triple bridge of white stone, note well what delicious shapes spring up into sunshine from the black profundity on either hand! Palmiform you might hastily term them,—but no palm was ever so gracile; no palm ever bore so dainty a head of green plumes light as lace! These likewise are ferns (rare survivors, maybe, of that period of monstrous vegetation which preceded the apparition of man), beautiful tree-ferns, whose every ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... openly: so accordingly (3) they turned Edward Longshanks into "Daddy Longlegs,"—and (4) sang about King John's raid upon the monks, and the consequent famine to the poor, in "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie," &c.,—the key to this interpretation being "a dainty dish to set before the king," John being a notorious glutton. My friends at Ledbury Manor, where there is a gallery full of my uncle Arthur's Indian pictures, will remember how I expounded all this to them some years ago. In this connection ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the bard by Mulla's silver stream, Oft, as he told of deadly dolorous plight, Sighed as he sung, and did in tears indite. For brandishing the rod, she doth begin To loose the brogues, the stripling's late delight! And down they drop; appears his dainty skin, Fair as the furry coat ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... faugh!" said a dainty doggie, who had a blanket pinned carefully around him. "I like my poultry well ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... folk existed. At another table directly behind Patsy and his companions was a slim little Cuban, with miraculously small feet and hands, and with a youthful touch of down upon his lip. As he lifted his cigarette from time to time his little finger was bended in dainty fashion, and there was a green flash when a huge emerald ring caught the light. The bartender came often with his little brass tray. Occasionally Patsy and his two ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... alone immediately after infant's birth. Husband dangerously ill, and cannot help. A kindly miner. Three other women at the Bar. The "Indiana girl". "Girl" a misnomer. "A gigantic piece of humanity". "Dainty" habits and herculean feats. A log-cabin family. Pretty and interesting children. "The Miners' Home". Its petite landlady tends bar. "Splendid material for social parties ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... to me something dreadful. I asked myself what a child like that would become at forty years of age. Why, cousin, when she is at her meridian she will feel herself at least a hundred and fifty. You have cut off all the bloom and richness of a young life; you have made a dainty little monster of her—swept away all companionship with children, and made it presumption and impertinence when she attempts to force herself among her elders. I could not be so cruel to a dog as you have been ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... wife's heart with a pang still stronger than that of indignation. She, the strong Englishwoman, so large, so robust, almost masculine in form, mentally compared herself with the supple Italian with her form so round, with her gestures so graceful, her hands so delicate, her feet so dainty; compared herself with the creature of desire, whose every movement implied a secret wave of passion, and she ceased her cry—"Ah, how could he?"—at once. She had a clear knowledge of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... William Winter, as a writer of occasional verses, has rare felicity of thought and execution. William W. Story adds to his many other gifts those of a true poet. Charles De Kay is the author of many poems original in conception and execution. Thomas Bailey Aldrich has written much dainty and musical verse and several successful novels. Will Carleton, the author of "Farm Ballads," displays a keen sympathy for the harder phases of common life. Charles G. Leland, in prose and humorous poetry, is widely read, and known ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... corner of her apron, she drew out a couple of puffy apple turnovers, all fragrant with cinnamon and gummy with sugar, and sizzling with hot apple-juice. Tommy glanced slyly at her as he bit into his dainty. ...
— Master Sunshine • Mrs. C. F. Fraser
... your tribe in all things, we want you to go with us to our forest home, and we will provide for you in old age in the same kind manner you have provided for your daughter. You shall have your choice in the dainty pieces of venison and wild fowls, and find protection under the ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... you much, my little miss, You're such a dainty thing, I fear although quite sharp myself, You've ...
— Fun and Nonsense • Willard Bonte
... had come a call, for which she had waited long, and she appeared to respond slowly to it, as one would to a summons to the scaffold. There was no outward agitation now, there was only a cold stillness which seemed little to belong to the dainty figure which had ever been more like a decoration than a living utility in the scheme of things. The crisis had come which she had dreaded yet invited—that talk which they two must have before they went their different ways. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... come out every day, and which may require more delicate handling than the ordinary toy ought to need. For this ought to be strong enough to bear unskilled handling and vigorous movements, for a broken toy ought to be a tragedy. At the same time it is part of a child's training to learn to use dainty objects with delicate handling, and such things form the children's art gems, showing beauty of construction and of colour. Children as well as grown-ups have their bad days, when something out of the usual is very welcome. "Do you know there's nothing ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... these pretty dainty toys are the Roman peasant women. America follows closely in their footsteps, Great Britain's turn comes next, then Germany puts in a modest claim, while the worst customers of all are the Scandinavians, to whose deep, earnest, thoughtful nature the glittering baubles appear mere useless trifles. ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... a dainty charge, deftly delivered, and it ended by the Cavalry finding itself at the head of the pass by which the Afghans intended to retreat; and down the track that the lances had made streamed two companies of the Highlanders, which was never intended by the Brigadier. The new ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... Reckless of dainty joys, he finds delight Where feebler souls but tremble with affright. Lo! now, within the deep ravine, A black impending cloud Infolds him in its shroud, And dark and darker glooms the scene. Through the thicket streaming, Lightnings now are gleaming; Thunders rolling dread, Shake the mountain's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... girl, always managed to stray into the meadows of Les Aigues; but as, if it ever chanced that some too flagrant trespass compelled the keepers to take notice of it, the children were either whipped or deprived of a coveted dainty, they had acquired such extraordinary aptitude in hearing the enemy's footfall that the bailiff or the park-keeper of Les Aigues was very seldom able to detect them. Besides, the relations of those estimable functionaries with Tonsard and his wife tied a ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... had finished reading, and no one in that crowded court had thought of uttering a sound; the magistrate's eyes were fixed upon the handsome lady in the magnificent gown, who was mopping her eyes with a dainty ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... hundred people stood and sat on the roof—the elite of Europe, invited to the luncheon after the launch, seeming to the tract of on-lookers quite dainty and visionary there, like objects mirrored in an eye. And they formed groups, of which some chatted, and were elegant, and some spoke the gravest words uttered ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... were in Mrs. Meredith's rooms again; and it seemed to Dick, as he looked around its dainty fittings, that it was forever to be a place of tragedy; for the memory of that terribly burned victim of the fire was still there, and he seemed to see her lying, scorched and ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... not be fresh; they were good for nothing there. You should have come to Sandwich to eat them. It is a shame for you that you did not. An epicure talk of danger when he is in search of a dainty! Did not Leander swim over the Hellespont in a tempest to get to his mistress? And what is a wench to a ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... seat herself on the one straight-backed chair in the room. From this she was promptly driven by Mrs. Taylor and established in one corner of a lounge with a soft silk cushion behind her, and further propitiated by the proffer of a cup of tea in a dainty cup and saucer. All this, including Mrs. Taylor's musical voice, easy speech, and ingratiating friendliness, alternately thrilled and irritated her. She would have liked to discard her hostess from her thought as a light creature unworthy of intellectual ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... of the spindles that whirl silk and cotton threads around the copper wires, very similar to what may be seen in any braid factory. Here electric lamps are made, five thousand of them in a day, in the same manner as elsewhere, except that here they are so small and dainty as to seem designed ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... many ways to be at amity with the church; not because he loves her holiness, but because he hates her welfare, (wherefore such amity must only be dissembled,) and that he might bring about his enterprise, he sometimes hath allured with the dainty delicates of this world, the lusts of the flesh, of the eyes, and the pride of life: This being fruitless, he hath attempted to entangle and bewitch her with his glorious appearance, as an angel of light; and to that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... some paper parcels which held sticks of mastic, ambergris, and seed of cardamom. As soon as Mrs. Armine was seated by the brazier Hamza, whose face looked as if he were quite alone, with slow and almost dainty delicacy and precision proceeded with his task. Squatting down upon his haunches, with his thin brown legs well under his reed-like body, he poured the water from the saucepan into one of the copper pots, set the pot on the brazier, and seemed to sink into a reverie, with his ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... door on the right-hand side of the hall and turned up the light of a handsome oil-lamp which had been screwed down pending his arrival. This lamp was placed on a small square table covered with a white cloth and a dainty cold supper. The young barrister noted that the napery, cutlery, and crystal were all of the finest; that the viands were choice; that champagne and claret were the beverages. Evidently Berwin was a luxurious gentleman and indulgent ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... this establishment was a rather elderly man, and of late he had been so crippled by rheumatism that he could walk little and only on crutches. He was not a dainty man; his coat was generally dusty, his grey beard had always a grimy appearance of tobacco about it. He spent the greater part of his day now sitting in a high pivot chair, his ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... and the two passed through. What message did they bring? What news could link dainty little Rosa with this wild outlaw of ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... bring them down even if you shouldn't want to buy anything. Mr. Gerard said the stock was low now, as it is the dullest season of the year. But there are such beautiful articles for gifts, china cups and saucers and dainty pitchers and vases, and sets like yours, Josie, some ever so much smaller, and a silver knife and fork and spoon in a velvet case, and lovely little fruit-knives and nut-picks and ever so many things I have never heard of. And musical instruments, ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... cupidity of both bird and child. There was no cruelty in the nature of Patience, and she made prisoners of neither birds nor squirrels, but cunning cages here and there held most lifelike counterfeits of their willing captives. There was nothing in the room that was alive, except the dainty owner, but it seemed to be a museum of natural history. The rugs on the floor were of her own devising and sewing together, and rivaled in color and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... with jewelry and precious stones; even his doublets are daintily worked and of golden tissue; his shirt is very fine, and it shows through an opening in the doublet, according to the fashion of France. This delicate and dainty way of living contributes to his health. In proportion as the king bears bodily fatigue well, and endures it without bending beneath the burden, in the same proportion do mental cares weigh heavily upon him, and he shifts them almost entirely on to Cardinal de Tournon and Admiral Annebault. He takes ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... said, equally composed, though busy thinking that but for his eye she would at this moment be lying, in all these dainty draperies, as deep beneath the boiling flood as she now stood above it. "That's ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... Postlethwaite, Posnett, Sudeley, Sully, Wolstenholme, Woosnam. Ensor is from the local Edensor, Cavendish was regularly Candish for the Elizabethans, while Cavenham in Suffolk has given the surname Canham. Daventry has become Daintree, Dentry, and probably the imitative Dainty, while Stepson is for Stevenson. It is this tendency which makes the connection between surnames and village names so difficult to establish in many cases, for the artificial name as it occurs in the gazetteer often gives little clue to the ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... chance to make himself the Great American Humorist than I had when I wrote "Pigs is Pigs." I had a good, solid foundation of fairly good humorous work under it and the little story had a wonderful success. The thing for me to have done then was to stick to humor, regardless of anything. I have written dainty stories, sympathetic stories, serious stories, all kinds of stories, but not many humorous stories. It is surprising how often editors have had to announce "A story that shows this famous humorist ...
— Goat-Feathers • Ellis Parker Butler
... appeared in the catalogue of books belonging to William Bell Scott, Esq., recently sold at Messrs. Sotheby, a small 4to Album containing a collection of wood engravings by Bewick, Clennell, and others, which with some newspaper cuttings made quite a dainty extra illustrated volume. ...
— Banbury Chap Books - And Nursery Toy Book Literature • Edwin Pearson
... passed for a very comely colored woman. If she was not like Rama, fair as the jasmine, or the moon, or the fibres of the lotos, neither had she, like Krishna, the complexion of a cloud. If she was not so delicate as that dainty beauty who bewitched the hard heart of Surajah Dowlah, and weighed but sixty-four pounds, neither did she reproduce the unwieldy charms of that Venus of one of the Shasters "whose gait was the gait of a drunken ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... lazy-bones, wake up and peep! The cat's in the cupboard, your mother's asleep. There you sit snoring, forgetting her ills; Who is to give her her Bolus and Pills? Twenty fine Angels must come into town, All for to help you to make your new gown: Dainty aerial Spinsters and Singers; Aren't you ashamed to employ such white fingers? Delicate hands, unaccustom'd to reels, To set 'em working a poor body's wheels? Why they came down is to me all a riddle, And left Hallelujah ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... tragic romance of his college days. He had suffered keenly for a time, but his father's counsel had held weight with him, held weight even though he could never forget the girl, nor that day of days when she had plighted her faith in him with the dainty crimson bow and he had gone out on the field of battle feeling like a gladiator. A silly, lovesick fool he had been, perhaps, on that glorious day; but no incident in his entire life thereafter quite came ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... one's affair save her own. Althea Parker, who was Evelyn's friend, and the leader of a clique of the richest girls at Overton, had been given an opportunity to see the contents of one of the trunks and had gone into ecstacies over the dainty hats and frocks Jean had displayed for her benefit. "For goodness' sake where did you get such lovely things?" had been Althea's curious question. "They must have cost a ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... by Examination.' So did the good man proclaim himself to a suburb of a city in the West of England. It was one of those pretty, clean, fresh-coloured suburbs only to be found in the west; a few dainty little shops, everything about them bright or glistening, scattered among pleasant little houses with gardens eternally green and all but perennially in bloom; every vista ending in foliage, and in one direction ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... a great chest to show Thorstein her dainty things; so when she knew who was there, she would not unlock the door, but speaks to Thorstein, "Quick is my rede, jump into ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... where it came from? Who brought the dearie here and left it in the naughty room? Tell its Norma," continued Miss Bonkowski, on her knees upon the bare and dirty floor, and eyeing the dainty embroidery and examining the quality of the fine white dress ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... at Mrs. Smithers's high-class boarding-house for gentlemen had assembled as usual for breakfast, and in a few moments Mary, the dainty waitress, entered with the steaming coffee, the mush, and ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... casual acquaintance into enduring friendship. William Wright met, loved and married Alma T. Watson. To them four sons were born. A carpenter contractor, a man who builds, contrives and constructs, is joined to a woman into whose soul of wholesome refinement come images of dainty beauty, where they glow and grow radiant. With lavish unrestraint the life of this French woman pours itself into her sons. The third child died in infancy. The eldest survived his mother by some thirteen years. The youngest is a constructive ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... Geppetto, astonished. "I should never have thought, my boy, that you were so dainty and fastidious. That is bad! In this world we should accustom ourselves from childhood to like and to eat everything, for there is no saying to what we may be brought. There are ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... had been a sniping "brother." A short time after a portion of that porker took its place among the lozenges and condensed beef tea in that simmering crock. So in an hour or two there followed another cup of glorious broth, with a dainty morsel of boiled pork for ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... bear no more—overwrought, and ill in mind and body, Bryda lay down in her tent-bed in the upper chamber of Bishop's Farm; and Mrs Lambert, to her intense surprise and vexation, was obliged to look for someone else to supply Bryda's place, mend and clear starch her lace, and prepare dainty dishes for Mr Lambert's friends, attend her to the cathedral, and indulge all ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... dainty for tea, and then, after tea, the girls all gathered around the piano in the parlor, and Miss Emma played hymns for them, and they sang until it was time to go to bed. They all enjoyed this. Even the girls ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... out and attended to his horse; the minister always did that himself. Then came in and changed his dress, and went through his morning toilet with the usual dainty care. Then he ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... cup of tea before we start in to talk," she said, and, as if by magic, the tea tray and dainty ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... a dainty affair, with its paper walls, tiger-skin rugs upon the stone floor, and the softest of mats and silk and wadded cotton coverings ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... ranch the previous Sunday draw up to the curb outside. He watched her descend from the tonneau, speak to the chauffeur, who touched his cap, and turn toward the walk leading to the house. She wore the same dainty white dress she wore each time he had seen her and a white, summery, ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... much as the first man may have stared at the first woman, then turned and left the house, sprang on his mustang and galloped away. The princess, you must know, is as blonde as only a Russian can be, and an extremely pretty woman, small and dainty. No wonder the mighty prince of darkness took fire. She was much amused. So was Rotscheff, and he joked her the rest of the evening. Before he left, however, I had a word with him alone, and warned him not to let the princess stray beyond the walls of the fortress. That same night I sent a courier ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... clears and grows blue and deep and unfathomably peaceful after a storm, as trees wind-riven straighten and nod graciously to the little cloud-boats that sail the blue above, and wave dainty finger-tips of branches in bon voyage, so did the Peaceful Hart ranch, when the dust had settled after the latest departure and the whistle of the train—which bore the coroner and that other quiet passenger—came faintly down over the rim-rock, settle with a sigh of relief ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... "plump" girl—she who was known as the "big" Robinson girl—was positively out of breath, while her twin sister, Isabel, usually called Belle, too slim to puff and too thin to "fluster," was fanning herself with a very dainty lace handkerchief. ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... of her little breasts the fiery eye of the topaz and the pale florets of primrose fascinated him. He saw the breasts heave, and the flowers shake with the heaving, and marvelled what should so much discompose the girl. And Christina was conscious of his gaze - saw it, perhaps, with the dainty plaything of an ear that peeped among her ringlets; she was conscious of changing colour, conscious of her unsteady breath. Like a creature tracked, run down, surrounded, she sought in a dozen ways to give herself a countenance. She used her handkerchief ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moving a chair or opening a window; and even the hangings, having been dipped in that Pactolus, preserved upon their stiff folds the rigidity and sheen of metal. But there was nothing individual, homelike, dainty. It was the monotonous splendor of the furnished apartment. And this impression of a flying camp, of a temporary establishment, was heightened by the idea of travelling that hovered about that fortune drawn from distant sources, like a cloud of ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... The latter had dragged the body of the great chief to one side, and revealed, to the sheriff's astonished eyes, the dainty clothing, and what looked like the dead form of a white girl child. They both held the same thought, but Somers was the first ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... mechanically, but the other, he who makes verses so dainty that the world does not heed them, smiled softly and sympathetically ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... lady. She was dressed in white, her pale gold hair was in itself an aristocracy, and her narrow slippered feet were dainty to look upon. 'Don't let me disturb you,' she said. 'This is my favourite seat; but I pray you not to move, there is plenty of room.' So amiable was she in voice and manner that Mrs Shepherd could not but remain, although she had already ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... said the lady placidly, but impressed. She was a shallow creature in the main, and Curran compared his little wife, eloquent, glowing with feeling, dainty as a flame, to the slower-witted beauty, with plain admiration in his gaze. She deserves to succeed, he thought. Sonia came ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... trials, stern the daily tasks That suffering Nature from her servant asks; His the kind office dainty menials scorn, His path how hard,—at every step a thorn! What does his saddening, restless slavery buy? What save a right to live, a chance to die,— To live companion of disease and pain, To die ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... my dainty Abraham, the very nonsense and the very insult which is talked to and practised upon the Catholics? You are surprised that men who have tasted of partial justice should ask for perfect justice; that he who has been robbed of coat and cloak ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... her bosom, Prettily laced, and the bodice of black fitting close to her figure; Neatly the edge of her kerchief is plaited into a ruffle, Which with a simple grace her chin's rounded outline encircles; Freely and lightly rises above it the head's dainty oval; And her luxuriant hair over silver bodkins is braided; Down from under her bodice, the full, blue petticoat falling, Wraps itself, when she is walking, about her neatly shaped ankles. Yet one ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... The dainty lace cap she wore had tiny bows of violet showing among the lace, and it someway had the effect of making her appear more youthful instead of adding matronliness. The lawn she wore had violet lines through it, and the flowing sleeves had undersleeves ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... "dining-room." When he advanced to do the honors, the small procession toddling single file behind him, somehow it had not occurred to him that he might encounter Miss Penny, the canary lady, standing in a dainty old dress of yellow silk just outside the door, nor, worse still, that she should bear in her hands a tiny cage containing a pair of ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... a mere unconsidered unit in a bevy of Indian brides! How is she possibly to endure a domestic existence exposed to the slings and arrows of a perpetual gorilla warfare from various native aunts and sisters-in-law, or how is she to reconcile her dainty and fastidious stomach, after the luscious and appetising fare of a Bayswater boarding-house, to simple, unostentatious, and frequently repulsive Indian eatables? No, Misters of the jury, as warm-hearted noble-minded English gentlemen, you will never condemn ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... room had pretty, white chintz curtains tied with blue ribbon, and similar stuff draped the mirror. The bed was a big canopy affair—I had to stand on a chair in order to dive off into its feathery depths—everything was very neat and clean, and the dainty linen had a sweet smell of lavender. I took one parting look out through the open window at the ivy-mantled towers of the old castle, which were all sprinkled with silver by the rising moon, and then ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... and gorgeously absurd. He sometimes stops a minute to laugh at it himself, then begins anew with fresh vigour; for all the spirits he is driving before him seem to him as Fata Morganas, ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn about; but he laughs that they seem to others such dainty Ariels. His talk, like his books, is full of pictures; his critical strokes masterly. Allow for his point of view, and his survey is admirable. He is a large subject. I cannot speak more or wiselier of him now, nor needs it;—his works are true, to blame and ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... being quite compatible with preserving and honouring the Welsh language and literature, was tersely set down as 'arrant nonsense,' and I was characterised as 'a sentimentalist who talks nonsense about the children of Taliesin and Ossian, and whose dainty taste requires something more flimsy than the strong sense and sturdy morality of ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... death, in his eighty-first year, January 29, 1646-7. As Charles FitzGeoffrey, in a Latin poem in his Affaniae addressed to Meres, speaks of him as 'Theologus et poeta', it is possible that the 'F.M.' who was a contributor to the Paradise of Dainty Devices is to be identified with Meres. In addition to the Palladis Tamia, Meres was the author of a sermon published in 1597, a copy of which is in the Bodleian, and of two translations from the Spanish, neither of ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... little girl who was quite as eager as herself. Edna had often seen her in church, and knew she was the daughter of wealthy parents. She wore very pretty, dainty clothes, and Edna found her eyes very often wandering in the direction of this little girl during service; but the object of her admiration once turned and made a face at Edna, which proceeding shocked ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... not equipages to ride in, but dainty formalities. "Nor in my carriage a feigned niceness shown."—Dryden. "Trades in the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... not heed their mild surprise - Having passed the Rubicon. Take a pair of rosy lips; Take a figure trimly planned - Such as admiration whets (Be particular in this); Take a tender little hand, Fringed with dainty fingerettes, Press it - in parenthesis; - Take all these, you lucky man - Take and keep them, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... summer travelling-cloak, or rather large cape of a waterproof silk, once the extreme mode with the lions of the Chaussee d'Autin whenever they ventured to rove to Swiss cantons or German spas; but which, from a certain dainty effeminacy in its shape and texture, required the minutest elegance in the general costume of its wearer as well as the cleanliest purity in itself. Worn by this traveller, and well-nigh worn out too, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... twenty-four, and though I had only asked eighteen people every place was occupied. Three couples, therefore, had come without being asked; but that pleased me all the more. Like a courtly cavalier I would not sit down, but waited on the ladies, going from one to the other, eating the dainty bits they gave me, and seeing that all had what ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... friend! he'd give the whole world to his soldiers. But at Vienna, brother! here's the grievance!— What politic schemes do they not lay to shorten His arm, and, where they can, to clip his pinions. Then these new dainty requisitions! these, 85 Which this same ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... auberges the rations they received for them, with such luxuries as could be purchased by their yearly allowance for that purpose, expended annually very large sums in addition, and supplied their tables with every dainty, in order to gain popularity and goodwill among the ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... worthy Van Kortlandt was observed to be particularly zealous in his devotions to the trencher; for having the cares of the expedition especially committed to his care he deemed it incumbent on him to eat profoundly for the public good. In proportion as he filled himself to the very brim with the dainty viands before him did the heart of this excellent burgher rise up towards his throat, until he seemed crammed and almost choked with good eating and good nature. And at such times it is, when a man's heart is in his throat, that he may ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... fruits every body is a judge; and those of a sub-acid kind—the only ones permitted by the doctors to the patients—are in great request. Foremost amongst them, after the month of June, are to be reckoned the dainty fresh-dried fruits from Clermont; of which, again, the prepared pulp of the mealy wild apricot of the district is the best. This pate d'abricot is justly considered by the French one of the best ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... chair and sewed steadily at her dainty seam, but, none the less, she was deeply stirred with pity for women who so forgot themselves—who had not Aunt Hitty's superior wisdom. At the end of the prayer which Miss Mehitable had taught the ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... said. "Would you think I was ever crowded in there with five brothers and sisters? It was a comfortable nest, too, before the winter winds and snow wore it away. I wonder how it would seem to be a fledgling again?" She snuggled down in the old nest until he could see only her forked tail and her dainty head over the edge. Her vest was quite hidden, and the only light feathers that showed were the reddish-buff ones on throat and face; these were not so bright as his, but still she was beautiful to him. He loved every feather on ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... of the cunning, in the sacred cabin of palm, {2e} Have shrunk like the mimosa, and bleated like the lamb; Round half my tender body, that none shall clasp but you, For a crest and a fair adornment go dainty lines of blue. Love, love, beloved Rua, love levels all degrees, And the well-tattooed Taheia clings panting ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... satisfied with his share in the provender, which he must have taken as a dainty addition to the vast quantities of jungle grass and leafage which formed his real support, the elephant swung off, bowing his huge head and muttering softly, to overtake his companions, while Peter gave his officer a very ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... in the doorways, brushing their long and lustrous blue-black hair or painting their faces in white and vermillion preparatory to the evening's entertainment. Probably four-fifths of the filles de joie in Sandakan are Chinese, the others are products of Nippon—quaint, dainty, doll-like little women with faces so heavily enameled that they would be cracked by a smile. When a Chinese merchant wants a wife he usually visits a house of prostitution, selects one of the inmates, drives a hard bargain ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... turned the key she gave him. It was a dingy little room, all dirt and cobwebs. A few old straw hats and wire frames piled among some big green boxes indicated the last occupant's business, and a scurrying of tiny feet, only too clearly, the present occupants' nature. Catherine lifted her nose in dainty scorn, and her skirts ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... messengers to guide you and teach you the ways of the wild: wild birds, wild fruits and plants, and gentle, furtive, wild animals. You cannot put their messages into words, but you can feel them; and then, suddenly, you no longer care for soft cushions and rugs, for shaded lamps, dainty fare and finery, for paved streets and concrete walks. You want to plant your feet upon the earth in its natural state, however rugged or boggy it may be. You want your cushions to be of the soft moss-beds of the piny ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... gained one distinct point in her social training. She had learned to cross a room as if she were doing her hostess a favor by appearing. Even Beatrix was impressed by the swift, dainty sweep with which she came forward, and she cast a hasty thought to the quality of her tea. Bobby, meanwhile, was taking mental stock of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons's tailor and deciding that he could give points to his own fellow. For a person who professed ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... Marjie, in a dainty white wool gown with a pink sash about her waist, and pink ribbons in her hair, had just gone from the kitchen with three or four admiring young ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... the carriage looked anxious and out of health; the thin hair on his sallow temples, turning gray already, gave a look of premature age to his face. He flung the reins to a servant who followed on horseback, and alighted to take in his arms a young girl whose dainty beauty had already attracted the eyes of loungers on the Terrasse. The little lady, standing upon the carriage step, graciously submitted to be taken by the waist, putting an arm round the neck of her guide, who set her down upon the pavement without so much as ruffling the trimming ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... Dolly smiled from beneath the lacy frills and rosebud decorations of a dainty new cap that Trudy had just made for her. She wore a Japanese kimono of pale green silk embroidered with white cherry blossoms, and as she sat surrounded by embroidered pillows and lace coverlets, Bob thought he had never seen a ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... snoring of the tired herdsmen lying within arm's length of him; the shrill tinkling of cow-bells, musical enough by day and in the distance, but driving sleep away too harshly; the sickness and depression produced by unwholesome food, and the utter compulsory abandonment of all his fastidious and dainty personal habits, made his mere bodily life intolerable to him. He had borne something like these discomforts and privations for a day or two at a time, when engaged in Alpine climbing, but that he should be forced to live a life compared with which that ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... willing, for Christ's sake, to undertake the work of a minister in spite of it. The missionaries then asked if his wife would be willing to go with him. He answered that he could not tell until he went home and asked her. But when he had talked the matter over with her, this dainty, high-class lady replied, "It matters not to what place; if you are willing to go, ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... optimistic moments, Theodora had pictured Cicely as a dainty, clinging little maiden who would cajole and coddle Allyn out of his unfriendly moods. Cicely certainly did rouse Allyn from those moods; but it was by no process of feminine cajolery. She went at him, ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... of these masters is wholly different from that of the former school. The central Gothic men always want chiefly to impress you with the facts of their subject; but the masters of this finished time desire only to make everything dainty and delightful. We have not many pictures of the class in England, but several have been of late added to the National Gallery, and the Perugino there, especially the compartment with Raphael and Tobit, and the little St. ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... all, like the sting of death, that she should see me thus, straight up to the stocks she came, and gathering her blue and silver gown about her, made her way in to my side, and sat there, thrusting her two tiny feet, in their dainty shoes, through the apertures next mine, for the stocks were ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... first designed To suit the palates o' mankind; Yet as I ponder now I find, Thy fame is gone: Wee dainty dish thou art ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... she left the Convent, worshipped as the idol of the gay gallants of the city, and the despair and envy of her own sex. She was a born sovereign of men, and she felt it. It was her divine right to be preferred. She trod the earth with dainty feet, and a step aspiring as that of the fair Louise de La Valliere when she danced in the royal ballet in the forest of Fontainebleau and stole a king's heart by the flashes of her pretty feet. Angelique had been indulged by her father in every caprice, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... to their arms; And thus it seemed a fight there must have been But that a horseman sudden spurred between— A blue-eyed youth with yellow, curling hair, Of slender shape, of face and feature fair, A dainty knight was he in very truth, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... and fame. Your pardon, child. Your pretty sports have brightened all again. And ask your boon, for boon I owe you thrice, Once for wrong done you by confusion, next For thanks it seems till now neglected, last For these your dainty gambols: wherefore ask; And take this boon so ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... you have been preaching! The old men did not so. Did they not add the fancies of their own time to the old work, and fill with their dainty, branching tracery the severe, round-headed, Norman openings of Peterborough and Gloucester? Did fifteenth-century men do thirteenth-century glass when they had to refill a window of that date?" No. Nor ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... pantaloons, a spare coarse shirt, and pair of stockings, were successively flung down into the yard, near where the owner was still lying, by the hand of a grinning and blushing servant maid, while her dainty-fingered master stood ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... forth the power that thou dost vaunt; repress The crimes of bishops, make the Church ashamed To be a step-mother to the poor and lowly. In all the Lombard cities every priest Has grown a despot, in shrewd perfidy Now siding with the Church, now with the Empire. They have dainty food, magnificent apparel, Lascivious joys, and on their altars cold Gathers the dust, where lies the miter dropt, Forgotten, from the haughty brow that wears The helmet, and no longer bows itself Before God's face in ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... up for more as often as you like, but you'll always find it there," he said when McCann came back. And the laugh went against the dainty pioneer, who to the end of the chapter ate from a plate nailed fast ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... perfunctory fashion, and my evening hymn commuted in consideration of my fatigues for the beautiful verse, "I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest," etc.; and by the time that I sank luxuriously between the clean sheets, I was almost sufficiently restored to appreciate the dainty appearance of my room. Then Aunt Maria brought me the hot wine and water flavoured with sleep-giving cloves, and Nurse folded my clothes, and tucked me up, and left me, with the friendly reflection of the lamps without to keep ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... extremely pleasing. Around the windows she had arranged curtains of some thin white material with tiny blue flowers, and the same material had been used to cover an old wooden case. This she had fixed as a dainty washstand. The bed and two old chairs were likewise covered; the whole effect was ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... Cromwell! The inarticulate Prophet; Prophet who could not speak. Rude, confused, struggling to utter himself, with his savage depth, with his wild sincerity; and he looked so strange, among the elegant Euphemisms, dainty little Falklands, didactic Chillingworths, diplomatic Clarendons! Consider him. An outer hull of chaotic confusion, visions of the Devil, nervous dreams, almost semi-madness; and yet such a clear determinate man's-energy ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... lifted the dainty mass of lace and chiffon from her bed with a sigh of satisfaction. "When you're on, then we'll be all ready. Guess I'll have to get Jane to do it up, though. I don't know just how it ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... his breast His towering projects hold; all fancy'd gold. Th' attendant slaves before their master, joy'd At this great fortune, heap'd the table high With dainties; nor was bread deficient there: But when his hands the Cerealian boon Had touch'd, the Cerealian boon grew hard: And when the dainty food with greedy tooth He strove to eat, the dainty food grew bright, In glittering plates, where'er his teeth had touch'd. He mixt pure water with his patron's wine, And fluid gold adown his cheeks straight flow'd. With panic seiz'd, the new-found plague ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... first child the second Mrs. Elkman died. The rosy face became a white angelic mask, the dainty figure lay in statuesque severity, and a screaming, bald-headed atom of humanity was the compensation for this silence. Henry Elkman was overwhelmed by ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... the dramatic crown forever upon the forehead of Corneille; but he had inherited the wit, and indeed the brilliant wit (bel esprit), which the great tragedian hid beneath the splendors of his genius. He began with those writings, superfine (precieux), dainty, tricked out in the fashion of the court and the drawing-room, which suggested ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... easily overtook three, and there were left in front of him Mahotin's chestnut Gladiator, whose hind-quarters were moving lightly and rhythmically up and down exactly in front of Vronsky, and in front of all, the dainty mare Diana bearing ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... and that her nature, which partakes of both, fits her for it. On the rare occasions when authority needs to be exercised it is promptly obeyed. All the members of the family mix freely together in mutual confidence and love, with reverence, but not fear. They are very clean and dainty in their habits. To every house, either in an open court or in the garden, there is a bathing pond of running water, with a fountain playing in the middle, where they can bathe at any time ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... lay thinking and repenting, he heard a window open, and saw Zelia throw out of it a bit of dainty meat. Cherry, who felt hungry enough by this time, was just about to eat it, when the woman to whom he had given his crust snatched him up ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... on the scene, his trousers were strapped down under his dainty boots of patent leather, which made his feet appear smaller. His long frock coat, tight at the waist line, was open at the bosom showing the lace of his ruffle, and a fine neckcloth wound several times round his neck obliged him to hold erect his handsome brown head, with its air of serious ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... unexpected good fortune put me on trying the best of my pears again; so setting on my kettle, with very little water, and putting some of my treacle into it, and two of the best pears quartered, I found, upon a little boiling, they also became an excellent dainty. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... also—boys of the same ambitions, and with much the same romantic tastes. Stoddart had, luckily, another love besides the Muse. "With the spring and the May fly, the dagger dipped in gore paled before the supple rod, and the dainty midge." Finally, the rod ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... up and set her again in the high-chair, moving it close to the table with its dainty china and center-piece ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... rustic, an unclean liver, an usurer, a cheat, a perjurer, a flatterer, a wanderer, pilfering and greedy; now a dead flea, a decayed dog, a vile worm, not a hermit, but a hypocrite; not a solitary, but a gad-about in mind; a devourer of alms, dainty over good things, greedy and negligent, lazy and snoring, ambitious and prodigal, one who is not worthy to serve others, and yet every day beats and scolds those who serve him: this, and worse than this, ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... readers sufficiently interested in my narrative to care that I should tell them something of what she was like. Plainly as I see her, I can not do more for them than that. I can not give a portrait of her; I can but cast her shadow on my page. It was a dainty half-length, neither tall nor short, in a plain, well-fitting dress of black silk, with linen collar and cuffs, that rose above the counter, standing, in spite of displeasure, calm and motionless. Her ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... was not long in playing, however. Soon the Baronessa swept to her friend's side, and bore her away, like a large steam-tug making off against wind and tide with a dainty ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Malesherbes. Traversing a large salon with blue silk walls, framed in white and gold, the painter was shown into a sort of boudoir hung with tapestries of the last century, light and coquettish, those tapestries a la Watteau, with their dainty coloring and graceful figures, which seem to have been designed and executed by ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... his seat. He was silent, staring down at his plate. Not a strange-looking man, Morgan thought. Rather ordinary, in fact. A plain face, nose a little too long, fingers a little too dainty, a suit that doesn't quite seem to fit, but all in all, a ...
— Circus • Alan Edward Nourse
... she divided her attention between her uncle's wants and her preparations for the guest who was to arrive about six o'clock. Mrs. Finch would prepare the tea and roast the fowl which was to accompany it, and Valmai added little dainty touches of flowers and lights for ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... the change of fortune whereby she ceased to be a show-pupil and a parlor-boarder. She scarcely seemed to be the same Sara. She was neatly dressed in a pretty gown of warm browns and reds, and even her stockings and slippers were nice and dainty. ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in the gateway distributing clothes, money, and food to the mendicants who crowded round them soliciting alms. It often happened that children were among the beggars: as often one of the servants would promise them some dainty if they would go to the kitchen for it. Those children who accepted the offer were never ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... Two dainty hands prepare the draught, While loving glances meet my own; Two lips repeat (the coffee quaffed), "To-night ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard |
