"Exacting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... slovenly man, who received them in a kind of farm-yard cleanly kept. The sultan, who was disappointed that Clapperton had not visited him, and that Richard Lander had omitted to pay his respects on his return journey, was very exacting to his present guests. He would give them none of the provisions they wanted, and did all he could to detain them ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... was swift to learn and when he went abroad with hunting parties or to swing the axe in the clearings, his stern and exacting task-masters found no fault ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... nights, and a sleepless night was one of the few things he simply could not stand. Thoughts of her had seemed to unfit him for his work, to weaken his nerves, to act, in various ways, to his disadvantage. She had been exacting in her demands upon his nature. They were not uttered demands, or demands which he could formulate, but he had been conscious of them always. He had been obliged to pause and ask himself at every thought, at every step—"What ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... shall Happily thinke to grace it selfe withall, Falls so belowe it, that it rather borrowes Grace from their griefe, then addeth to their sorrowes, For sad mischance thus in the losse of three, To shewe it selfe the vtmost it could bee: 50 Exacting also by the selfe same lawe, The vtmost teares that sorrowe had to drawe All future times hath vtterly preuented Of a more losse, or more to be lamented. Whilst in faire youth they liuely flourish'd ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... in its rebellious uprising against dogmas that crushed the reason and did not satisfy the soul. I went out into the darkness alone, not because religion was too good for me, but because it was not good enough; it was too meagre, too commonplace, too little exacting, too bound up with earthly interests, too calculating in its accommodations to social conventionalities. The Roman Catholic Church, had it captured me, as it nearly did, would have sent me on some mission of danger and sacrifice and utilised me ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... and feels sure of his purity in motive; has self-respect therefore—a hard thing for a soul to have, and the possession of which is a benediction. To know we meant well, to be able to justify us to ourselves, is next in grace to being justified of God; for next to Him, self is the most exacting master and judge. He feels misjudged, knows these men have misinterpreted him, being deceived by his calamities, and he therefore is thrown on the defensive, and becomes his own attorney, pleading for his life. "Pray you, my friends, do not misjudge me," is his tearful plea, while ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... those that had commission to leuie this monie, being poisoned with couetousnesse, and incensed with a gredie desire (than the which as the poet saith, —— nulla est hac maior Erinnys, Hanc memorant Acheronte satam, per tristia Ditis Regna truces agitare faces, &c.) vsed much streightnesse in exacting it, not onelie leuieng it to the vttermost value and extent of mens lands, goods, and possessions, but after their owne willes and pleasures: so that vnder colour of the kings commission, and letters to them directed, there semed not a tribute or subsidie ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (6 of 12) - Richard the First • Raphael Holinshed
... from nature at our pleasure, other considerations enter into the business, which are by no means confined to first practice, but extend to all practice; these (as this letter is long enough, I should think, to satisfy even the most exacting of correspondents) I will arrange in a second letter; praying you only to excuse the tiresomeness of this first one—tiresomeness inseparable from directions touching the beginning of any art,—and to believe me, even though I am trying to set you ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... more exacting as to his dressing than on that Saturday. He studied his face in the glass after an orderly had shaved him, to make sure that the blue bloom it took but a few hours to acquire had been properly subdued. He insisted on a particular silk shirt to wear under the loose black-silk lounging ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... limestone, the material of which petrifactions are usually composed. But although chemical tests and manipulations were prohibited, there seemed to be no disposition to forbid the use of our eyes—at a respectful distance. And the proprietor very kindly refrained from exacting a promise that we would not express an opinion, if we should have temerity enough to ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... was a severe critic of his own work. He knew when he had struck fire, and he knew when he had failed. He was as exacting with himself as with others. His conception of the character and function of the poet was so high that he found the greatest poets wanting. The poet is one of his three or four ever-recurring themes. He is the divine man. He is bard and prophet, ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... for I go tremblingly at present. But I could not say to him what I thought of the Cardinal—a sort of shame keeps one from saying to an artist what one thinks of his work—but to you I can say how nobly he warmed up the story of the old religion to my exacting mind in that impersonation. I shall think always of dying monarchy in his Charles—and always of dying hierarchy in his Wolsey. How Protestant and dull all grew when that noble type ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Graham returned to the bridge in triumph so far as the possession of a very wet cap was concerned, but rather low in his mind at having had to pay the exacting bargee a shilling out of his somewhat scanty store of pocket-money, he found John Seton lingering about ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... entertain extensively, but they never recompense a household employee for any extra work that may be demanded from her on that account. They consider themselves fully justified in exacting extra long hours of work because of the high wages they pay, especially as it frequently happens that while the work is more on some days, it is less on others, and they think in consequence that their employees ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... comparatively speaking, warm mountain retreats. In crossing the plains, small parties find the item of meeting Indians to be of considerable importance, as, even in the time of peace, they are very exacting and troublesome, demanding that provisions should be given them, by way of toll. To refuse is apt to bring down their ire, when they will usually help themselves to whatever suits their fancy. They are very partial to sugar, which, when they cannot say the word in English, they ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... a certain degree of exhilaration are essentials of all true physical education. Hence it has been thought well not only to modify some of the usual Swedish combinations in order to make the work less exacting, but to introduce games and dancing steps into many of the lessons." "The Board desire that all lessons in physical exercises in public elementary schools should be thoroughly enjoyed by the children." "Enjoyment is one of the most necessary factors in nearly everything which concerns ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... also been repeatedly asserted that Noah Webster never could have prepared his dictionary in thirty-six years, unless the most exacting method had come to the rescue. He himself claimed that his orderly methods saved him ten or twenty years, and a vast amount of ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... deluded cranky resistive unco-operative will-less hipped obsessed hypocritical of mean disposition excitable fearful exacting dissatisfied undecided wilful self-centered morbid doubtful demanding retarded abusive ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... truth of this must be evident to any one who looks about him. If human thought, ordained by an omniscient Creator, had been intended to be what it has become, altogether different from mechanical thoughts and resignation, so exacting, inquiring, agitated, tormented, would the world which was created to receive the beings which we now are, have been this unpleasant little dwelling place for poor fools, this salad plot, this rocky wooded and spherical kitchen garden where your improvident Providence ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... party now dominant within it. 'Better,' we think, 'a corrupt church than none at all.' Moreover, those who in my country would step into the church's shoes are as corrupt as the church, and more exacting. They are also more dangerous, for the masses distrust the church, and are on their guard against aggression, whereas they do not suspect the doctrinaires and faddists, who, if they could, would interfere in every concern ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... at Castle Clody, because it was her nature to foster and protect something, a cousin of hers, a peevish, exacting invalid whom we always called Miss Joan, ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... very good in taking notice of Frederica, and I am grateful for it as a mark of your friendship; but as I cannot have any doubt of the warmth of your affection, I am far from exacting so heavy a sacrifice. She is a stupid girl, and has nothing to recommend her. I would not, therefore, on my account, have you encumber one moment of your precious time by sending for her to Edward Street, especially as every visit is so much deducted from ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... with ydle Spiders strings Most ponderous and substantiall things? Craft against vice, I must applie. With Angelo to night shall lye His old betroathed (but despised:) So disguise shall by th' disguised Pay with falshood, false exacting, And performe ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... work would have been an even more outstanding landmark in the history of painting than it is. Still to ask from Raeburn what one does not get from Velasquez, many of whose portraits have a conventional setting, is to be more exacting than critical, and, as has been indicated, simplicity of design and aerial relief became increasingly evident in Raeburn's work, and that in spite of the protests of ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... say around half-past eight or nine o'clock? The girl shook her head. She had not come on duty until nine, and even if such a car had passed she would hardly have observed it, owing to the frequency of the phenomenon and her own exacting responsibilities. ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... Remarkable Providences, were printed for the Maitland Club, and 3 vols. of his correspondence in 1841 for the Wodrow Society. The Analecta is a most curious miscellany showing a strong appetite for the marvellous combined with a hesitating doubt in regard to some of the more exacting narratives. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... to prohibit, as much as possible, every species of manufactures[8] and bullion; and encourage the importation of food, and raw produce; holding themselves aloof from Europeans, and particularly jealous of Great Britain, on account of the proximity of her Indian empire; exacting upwards of 1,000l. in fees and port dues[9] on each foreign vessel that enters Canton, the only harbour to which they are admitted,[10] imposing severe sea and inland customs and regulations regarding woollen and other manufactures, entirely ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... of a sizable nature brightened the eyes of the reporter. He followed in all haste, and the other news-gatherers, in obedience to the exacting, unspoken laws of their craft, stood back and followed the ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... separation of church and state is hardly to be desired, and the call to political service is quite as urgent, quite as moral, and far more exacting than the perfectly just calls to foreign mission support and to the support of the great philanthropies of the day. Because of the influx of foreign peoples, the unsolved race problem, tardy economic reforms, ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... doubted it. He had a certain amount of the generosity which belongs to strength. To children, and the kind of pretty, undecided women who rank as children, he was wonderfully considerate. But it was quite possible that were he married to a sensible, companionable wife he might be exacting. ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... something of importance gained, but, alas! Mrs. Fullerton seemed anything but happy. Her helplessness was hard to bear, and she felt the worldly downfall, severely. All this, and the shattered state of her nerves tended to make her exacting and irritable; and as she had felt seriously aggrieved for so many years of her life, she now regarded the devotion of her children as a debt tardily paid, and the habit grew insensibly upon her of increasing ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... his daughter had never asked him for a sixpence, and from that time she had risen steadily in his estimation. But the feeling which he now exhibited was more than placid approval; it was an affection at once warm and exacting. The fact was, that Horatio Paget saw in his daughter the high-road to the acquirement of a handsome competence for his declining years. His affection was sincere so far as it went; a sentiment inspired by feelings purely mercenary, but not a hypocritical assumption. Diana was, therefore, ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... behind in this respect. This is especially true of the civilized tribes of Mexico and Central America. The confederacy of the three most powerful tribes of Mexico was but a copartnership for the avowed purpose of compelling tribute from the surrounding tribes, and they were cruel and merciless in exacting the same. ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... Universal lasted only for six numbers, dying in January 1825. In that year appeared the six volumes of the Celebrated Trials, of which we have something to say in our next chapter. Borrow found Phillips most exacting, always suggesting the names of new criminals, and leaving it to the much sweated author to find the books from which to extract ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... in the habit of exacting similar services from his acquiescent younger brother, and Tim had his hands full, as he tried to hold the gun, and turn the coat on his arm. He finally hung the garment on a peg in the shed, and shouldered the weapon. Suddenly he whirled around ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... These men, by the very development of their nervous constitutions, would become the social if not the practical leaders of their class; high-spirited, and with domineering ideas and scheming ambitions, they would set the fashion to all their less nervously developed fellows. Freed from the exacting conditions of a practical life, they would inevitably fly off on tangents ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... in a ball gown. Possibly he considered that the amusing advice as to matrimony which he gives in Virginibus Puerisque, was as applicable to a man as to a woman, and that 'the bright' girl of Society was as apt to be a wearisome and an exacting helpmate as her brother, 'the bright boy of fiction,' against whom as a husband his essay warns the woman in search of marriage to whom he recommends, as a more comfortable partner, the man old enough to have loved before, and to have undergone something of an apprenticeship ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... found her so exacting that evening, that she might have been going to an important party, instead of merely to a quiet dinner with her brother and his wife; but then, expecting Mark to make a fourth, she wished to look her very best, and flattered herself she ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... traditional attraction between France and the States, which had been so remarkably manifested during the administration of William the Silent. The republic was more restive than ever under the imperious and exacting friendship of Elizabeth, and, feeling more and more its own strength, was making itself more and more liable to the charge of ingratitude; so constantly hurled in its face by the queen. And Henry, now that he felt himself really king ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... emphasized particularly in Los condenados and Brbara. Every sin of man must be at some time expiated; and not alone sins actually committed against the statutes, but sins of thought, sins against ideal justice, which is far more exacting ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... negotiations were carried on with her father, the committee denouncing in the bitterest terms the avarice and rapacity of M. Felix. But when Rachel became competent to deal on her own behalf, she proved herself every whit as exacting as her sire. She became a societaire in 1843, entitled to one of the twenty-four shares into which the profits of the institution were divided. She was rewarded, moreover, with a salary of forty-two thousand francs per annum; and it was estimated ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... evenings, sitting close to each other and singing impassioned duets to keep us warm, and thinking of all the lovely things we could afford to buy if we chose, and, at the same time, planning out our lives in a spirit of the most rigid and exacting economy! RUD. It's a most beautiful and touching picture of connubial bliss in its ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... in the fire, and also keep them more or less hot. Many people in his and neighbouring parishes were indebted to him, and it was worth their while to stand well with him. If he insisted on debts being paid, he was never exacting or cruel. If he lent money, he never demanded more than eight per cent.; and he never pressed his debtors unduly. His cheerfulness seldom deserted him, and he was notably kind to the poor. Not seldom in the winter time a poor man, here and there in the parish, would find ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... affair, is supposed to be a sufficient justification for losing all self-control and making a whole household uncomfortable. Suffering does not always sanctify. It sours some tempers and makes them selfish and exacting. This is the besetting sin of invalids—to become absorbed in their own miseries and to make all about them the slaves of their caprices. But many triumph nobly over their temptation; and in this they are ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... not so pleasant in Chaldaea as in Egypt. The innumerable promissory notes, the receipted accounts, the contracts of sale and purchase—these cunningly drawn-up deeds which have been deciphered by the hundred, reveal to us a people greedy of gain, exacting, litigious, and almost exclusively absorbed in material concerns. The climate, too, variable and oppressive in summer and winter alike, imposed on the Chaldaean painful exactions, and obliged him to work with ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... looked at him as a man whose head is turning giddy at sea looks at a rock.' Everywhere they met signs of the parting of the ways in the Highlands. The old days of feudal power were merging in the industrial, the chiefs were now landlords and exacting ones. Emigration was rife, and the pages of the Scots Magazine of the time dwell much on this. A month before, four hundred men had left Strathglass and Glengarry; in June eight hundred had sailed from Stornoway; Lochaber sent four hundred, 'the finest set of fellows in the ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... waltz was over they returned to their individual gloom. Towards supper-time, in the middle of a square dance, Sam suddenly noticing Hannah's solitude, brought her a tall bronzed gentlemanly young man in a frock coat, mumbled an introduction and rushed back to the arms of the exacting Leah. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... all affairs. This habit is still observed in France. It tends to draw husband and wife together, by uniting their occupations and their interests. Unfortunately it tends also to the neglect of children, especially in infancy, when their claims are exacting. Thus the Frenchwoman of the middle class is in some respects more of a wife and less of a mother than the corresponding Anglo-Saxon. The babies, even of people of very moderate means, were generally sent out from Paris into the country to be nursed. Later in the lives of children, girls ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... protesting against all undue elaboration—for all true reform should simplify life rather than complicate it—we should do well to acquire the knowledge of how to prepare a repast to satisfy, if need be, the most exacting and fastidious. ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... the salient qualities and faults in the pupil's tones in order that the pupil may know what to listen for. As the ear gradually becomes keener and better acquainted with the characteristics of perfect singing, it also becomes more exacting in its demands on the voice. In its turn the voice steadily improves in its ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... not surprised, however, when he answered that the exigencies of literary composition would make his attendance impossible. They lauded his self-denial, for Henry's literary work was quite naturally now the most important and the most exacting work in the world, the crusade against Confucius not excepted. Henry wrote to Geraldine and invited her to dine with him at the Louvre Restaurant on that Saturday night, and Geraldine replied that she should be charmed. Then Henry changed his tailor, and could ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... two or three travellers on horseback, followed by a herd of picked horses, who passed them at a gallop, like a whirlwind. The days were all alike, as at sea, wearisome and interminable; but the weather was fine. But the peones became more and more exacting every day, as though the lad were their bond slave; some of them treated him brutally, with threats; all forced him to serve them without mercy: they made him carry enormous bundles of forage; they sent him to get water at great distances; and he, broken with fatigue, could not even sleep at ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... something more than an appendage to the man. God gave you mind and heart, and created you an independent being. And a man is nothing superior to this, that he should attempt to lord it over his equal. I have many times watched this most cruel and exacting of all tyrannies, and have yet to see the case where the yielding wife could ever yield enough. Take counsel in time, my friend. Successful resistance now, will cost but a ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... himself. To direct his attention to his glorious past, to the resplendent intellectual feats of his ancestors, to their masterly skill in thinking and suffering, does not lull him to sleep, does not awaken a dullard's complacency or hollow self-conceit. On the contrary, it makes exacting demands upon him. Jewish history admonishes the Jews: "Noblesse oblige. The privilege of belonging to a people to whom the honorable title of the 'veteran of history' has been conceded, puts serious responsibilities on your shoulders. You must demonstrate that you are worthy of your ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... which she had sought admittance. She saw that there was danger there—grave danger—to her womanhood. In the busy, ceaseless, activity of that life there would be little time for her waiting beside the old, old, door. The exacting demands of her work, or profession, or calling, or business, would leave little leisure for the meditation and reflection that is so large a part of the preparation necessary for entrance into that other world of ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... angry, at least, as I was shocked, at the manner in which she had conducted herself towards obtaining him that happiness; but, that to show me how much he disdained her procedure, and how far he was from taking any ungenerous advantage of my situation, and from exacting any security for my gratitude, he would before my face, that instant, discharge my debt entirely to my landlady, and give me her receipt in full; after which I should be at liberty either to reject or grant his suit, as he was much above putting any ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... for that, is he not, sir?' Mrs. Spirit's 'sir,' in addressing Mr. Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather exacting consideration for herself in the ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... smaller, which, during the youth of the animal, are more or less articulated, with a limited amount of mobility, but which become in maturity firmly joined by a rigid union and ossification of their interarticular surface. If the immature animal is compelled, then, to perform exacting tasks beyond his strength, the inevitable result will follow in the muscular straining, and perhaps tearing asunder of the fibers which unite the bones at their points of juncture, and it is difficult to understand how inflammation or ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... day and night my brain is haunted by evil thoughts, and feelings such as I never knew before are brooding in my soul. I am full of hatred, and contempt, and indignation, and loathing, and dread. I have become excessively severe, exacting, irritable, ungracious, suspicious. Even things that in old days would have provoked me only to an unnecessary jest and a good-natured laugh now arouse an oppressive feeling in me. My reasoning, too, has undergone a change: ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... subjection. 4 The bishop not to be respected the less because he is not forward in exacting it: 8 warns brethren against heretics; bidding them cleave to Jesus, whose divine and human mature is declared: commends them for their care to keep themselves from false teachers: and shews them the way ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... Knights qualified for the Order's highest distinctions. Each langue had its own regulations for admitting members, and all alike exercised severe discrimination. Various kinds of evidence were necessary to prove the pure and noble descent of the candidate. The German was the strictest and most exacting of the langues, demanding proof of sixteen quarters of nobility and refusing to accept the natural sons of Kings into the ranks of its Knights. Italy was the most lenient, since banking and trade were admitted as no stain on nobility, while ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... of her exacting duties and many annoyances, Miss Anthony found time to write numerous letters and obtain a testimonial for Ernestine L. Rose, who was about to return with her husband to England, after having given many years of valuable ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... exist. He tells the truth, however, when he says that he is entirely dependent on his wife for his happiness; but it was impossible for her to accompany him hither, as she is the most unselfish of women. On her he has ever made it a practice to vent his chief spleen and bitterness, exacting from her at the same time perpetual service, and rarely repaying her with anything but sneers and insults, holding her up even to the scorn and ridicule of ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... mother's old, and foolish, to be sure; you young people must not be too exacting with us ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... The penances and prayers of sixteen hundred years to be swept away! The Yoke of the Torah to be abolished! Surely true religion rather demanded fresh burdens. What could more fitly mark the Redemption of the World than new and more exacting laws, if, indeed, such remained to be invented? True, God himself was now incarnate on earth—of that they had no doubt. But how could He wish to do away with the laws deduced from the Holy Book and accumulated by the zealous labors of so many generations of faithful ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... that while there is life there is hope." He sank into a deep slumber, and I took my place to watch by him during the night. Mr. Worthing persuaded his parents to seek a few hours rest, as they were worn out with fatigue and anxiety; and exacting from me a promise that I would summon them if the least change for the worse should take place, they retired, and I was left to watch alone by my friend. All I could do, was to watch and wait, as the hours passed wearily on. A little before midnight the physician softly ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... himself, very much after the fashion of those meek individuals who lay their swords on the tavern-table, with "God grant I may have no need of thee!" The custom was then prevalent at banquets for the revellers to pledge each other in rotation, each draining a great cup, and exacting the same feat from his neighbour, who then emptied his goblet as a challenge to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... vassals, so as to hinder them from building up provincial principalities; he maintained the higher popular courts against the encroachments of manorial jurisdictions; he prevented the claims of feudal lordship from standing between himself and the mass of his subjects, by exacting an oath from every landholder at the meeting of Salisbury plain; finally, by the great survey which resulted in "Domesday Book" he not only asserted his right to make a general inquisition into property, but laid the firm ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... death he declared his preference that "the elective franchise were now conferred on the very intelligent of the colored men, and on those of them who served our cause as soldiers"; but he wished it done by the States themselves, and he never harbored the thought of exacting it from a new government, as ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... Union, Mrs. Fawcett, chairman, served as Reception Committee; its treasurer, Miss Bertha Mason, expended the large fund subscribed for the use of the convention; the Press Committee managed the newspapers through Miss Compton Burnett; Mrs. Anstruther, Rutland House, Portland Gardens, had the exacting but pleasant duties of chairman ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... untrained zeal might perhaps have flagged. Had the mental symptoms, by their obscurity, baffled them or defied them on every side, their lack of systematic, scientific training for such a task might have made them discouraged: but delicate and exacting as the work was, their love and enthusiasm, their insight and patience, their cleverness and ingenuity, triumphed over all obstacles; and luckily for their youth and comparative inexperience, they were rewarded ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... is very rare to hear a complaint against an officer of one of these vessels; yet it is not easy to appreciate the embarrassments they have frequently to encounter from whimsical, irritable, ignorant, and exacting passengers. As a rule, the eastern men of this country make the best packet-officers. They are less accustomed to sail with foreigners than those who have been trained in the other ports, but acquire habits of thought and justice by commanding their countrymen; for, of all the seamen ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... admirers as most girls do in attracting them. She had curious deep delicacies; she disliked nothing so much as to feel or show her power as a woman. Pride or vanity was equally out of the question in her love; it was unselfish and yet it was not exacting, as unselfish love generally is. So far as she knew, no unselfishness was required from him. With the unconscious cruelty of innocence she had kept him in this false position for years, looking happily forward ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... order was secured. His success in the selection of teachers was remarkable. He seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of character, and next to none of those he placed in charge of schools proved failures. His power over teachers was very great. While he was exacting in his demands, never excusing negligence, he knew how to temper authority ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... environment of his place and time; he burst through those enchaining conditions by the force of native genius and will: vice had no temptation for him; his course was as naturally upward as the skylark's; he won, against all conceivable obstacles, a high place in an exacting profession and an honorable position in public and private life; he became the foremost representative of a party founded on an uprising of the national conscience against a secular wrong, and thus came to the awful responsibilities of power in a time of terror and gloom. He met them ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... determined to leave Remilly and come and try to find her brother in the great city. For months past her life at Uncle Fouchard's had been a melancholy one; the troops occupying the village and the surrounding country had become harsher and more exacting as the resistance of Paris was protracted, and now that peace was declared and the regiments were stringing along the roads, one by one, on their way home to Germany, the country and the cities through which they passed ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... definite arrangement as to the conduct of the Catholic war, through Queen Henrietta Maria, then resident with the young Prince of Wales—afterwards Charles II.—at the French court. The Queen, like most persons of her rank, overwhelmed with adversity, was often unreasonably suspicious and exacting. Her sharp woman's tongue did not spare those on whom her anger fell, and there were not wanting those, who, apprehensive of the effect in England of her negotiating directly with a papal minister, did their utmost to delay or to break ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the first principle of the prisoner's defence, that sovereignty, wherever it exists in India, implies in its nature and essence a power of exacting anything from the subject, and disposing of his person and property, we now come to his second assertion, that he was the true, full, and perfect representative of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it the fashion of paying their debts with that sacred character the comity of nations has granted all missions. He would have told General Pierce that he was but a man, whose little day would soon pass on the wheel of time, but that the country had a name to maintain among the nations, an exacting posterity to account to! Will his men in the bye-ways have done anything to which it may recur with pride? The stages we have twice named ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... and the unlettered alike. It served, moreover, to impart peculiar tenderness to his pastoral intercourse, especially with members of his flock tried and tempted like as he was. He had learned how to counsel and comfort them by the things which he also had suffered. He may have been too exacting and harsh in dealing with himself; but in dealing with other souls nothing could exceed the gentleness, wisdom, and soothing ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... the depressing result of this labour, of a too exacting labour? I know not. But at times (it is his one melancholy!) he expresses a strange apprehension of poverty, of penury and mean surroundings in old age; reminding me of that childish disposition ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... so, than on the greasy pier. On the landing-place a few huts have been erected by the collector of customs and his subordinates; these, surrounded by the brokers and tallow-scented Bedouins, register the imports, exacting such duties as they like, before the merchandise is allowed to be purchased by the Banians or conveyed to the bazaar for sale. This last-named place—the sine qua non of all Eastern towns—is a wretched affair. Still, the Bedouin beau, the Bashi-bazouk, the native girls, ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... horribly exacting. Everything that ministers to their passions seems feasible to them, and righteous folk must consent to do their pleasure, or suffer the penalty of being disgraced and neglected, and of seeing their long years of service lost ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... organisation. A great spiritualist in Boston once told me I only needed developing to exhibit extraordinary powers. But I hadn't the time or the patience to go in thoroughly for psychic development. Besides it's really a very exacting pursuit." ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... If they are not satisfied with the profession they have chosen, why do they not make a change and enter some other? Do they not know when they enter the work that it is hard, do they not hear on every side that it is exacting and confining? They knew it perfectly well before they began, why then do they complain? Why not say candidly, "I cannot have such enthusiasm for my fellow-men that I can forget myself," and then ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... with the full responsibility of works which no government "boards" or similar machinery would have been competent to carry through under the conditions imposed by the novel circumstances of the movement and the exacting spirit by which it was impelled. To attain the foremost place in the new career thus created demanded, obviously, no ordinary powers—special knowledge of various kinds, equal facility in mastering details and grasping a general plan, tact in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... when, to please him, she had settled herself on a little couch there was in his room, he would make a superhuman effort to keep still as long as his flickering consciousness lasted. There was only one thing he was ever exacting about—to keep her in sight. So long as he could see her he was satisfied, and would lie for hours, patiently controlling himself for fear of disturbing her by uttering exclamations or making other ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... what I should like to know. I may seem foolish and unnecessarily exacting about trifles; but I would give a great deal to learn precisely where she looked, and what she did at the moment she uttered those wild words. Is the detective Sweetwater still ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... Mabel. "He'll be as selfish and exacting as ever he can be. He'll keep mother in a state of fret, and you in a state of excitement, and he'll insist on smoking a cigarette close to the new cretonne curtains in the drawing-room, and he'll make me go out in the ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... and, as I was climbing close to the leaders in the pennant race, I wanted the third and deciding game of that Rochester series. The usual big Saturday crowd was in attendance, noisy, demonstrative and exacting. ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... important work for him. He found some solace, too, in the bright approving eyes of Leslie Graham. Her perfect confidence in him furnished a little balm to his wounded feelings. Certainly she was not so exacting, for she cared not at all about the Perkinses and all the other troublesome folk ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... become a good and true man was by no means forgotten. It is true, at the very outset of the new life he had marked out for himself, he had been obliged to behave like a young ruffian, or be restored to his exacting guardians. It was rather a bad beginning; but he had taken what had appeared to ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... wits about him to play ball up to the standard it has now reached. He needs the steadiest of nerves, the clearest eyesight, the most unclouded judgment, and the healthiest physique to play the game as it is required to be done by the exacting public patrons of the present day. Another thing, the capitalists who have ventured thousands of dollars in baseball stock companies, can no longer allow their money to be risked in teams which are weakened by the presence of men of drinking ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... shed for the first time on a sleepless pillow—all had conspired to reveal her to herself. She did not yet dream that she loved Eric Marshall, or that he loved her. But she was no longer the child to be made a dear comrade of. She was, though quite unconsciously, the woman to be wooed and won, exacting, with sweet, innate pride, her ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... become increasingly exacting in demanding that the actor simulate the personal appearance of his characters as they arose in his imagination. In his earlier plays the descriptions of men and women are at times brief; in The Rats even minor figures are visualised with remarkable completeness. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... lady managers appointed by the Commission proved themselves eminently qualified to perform the exacting and comprehensive duties assigned them. Their organization was one of the most popular and successful instrumentalities of ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... soil is inexhaustibly rich, the climate is most delightful, and the natural advantages for agriculture and commerce unprecedented. Still the Irish remain oppressed and poor; enslaved by their priests, and ground down to the earth by exacting landlords and a hostile government. There is no real union between England and Ireland, no sympathy between the different classes, and an implacable animosity between the Protestant and Catholic population. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... their husbands before marriage. Few had ever seen them. Many were compelled to live with the difficulties of an exacting mother-in-law, who had forgotten that she was ever ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... what you are thinking of, Jane," he said kindly. "But indeed, my dear, such a wife as mine, and such sorrows as she has helped me to bear, would have been wasted indeed, if by God's grace they had not made me less exacting and impatient than I used to be.— Barbara," he added after a pause, "I beg your pardon if I have spoken hastily, or done you injustice. All you have done has been conscientious; and if I spoke in displeasure—you ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been thinking while Neil sat so silent and moody by the fire, and had decided that he had greatly changed for the worse since she had seen him last—that he was hard to please, moody, exacting, and quite too much given to ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... be standing on a shelf in the butler's pantry round about the hour of one. To remove it from that shelf, sneak it up to my room, and return it, laced, in good time for the midday meal would be a task calling, no doubt, for address, but in no sense an exacting one. ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... dwindled and withered under the dry light of precise knowledge and extending erudition, the purveyors of fiction, accommodating themselves to a more exacting taste, applied themselves seriously to the reproduction of famous scenes and portraits by the aid and guidance of historic documents and antiquarian research. The modern romantic school, of whom the master, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... reverse was the case in the suburbs of Denver and on the irrigated plains between that city and the mountains, and also in the neighborhood of Boulder, where in all suitable haunts the lazulis were constantly at my elbow, lavish enough of their pert little melodies to satisfy the most exacting, and almost as familiar and approachable as the indigo-birds of the East. It is possible that, for the most part, the blue-coated beauties prefer a more northern latitude than Colorado ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser |
