"Niceness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Earth," poetry (quite irregular poetry, Babbitt thought) by Vachel Lindsay, and essays by H. L. Mencken—highly improper essays, making fun of the church and all the decencies. He liked none of the books. In them he felt a spirit of rebellion against niceness and solid-citizenship. These authors—and he supposed they were famous ones, too—did not seem to care about telling a good story which would enable a fellow to forget his troubles. He sighed. He noted a book, "The Three Black Pennies," by Joseph Hergesheimer. Ah, that was something ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... culture, it is always distinctly perceptible. He senses it, not only in the harsh Calvinistic fables of Hawthorne and the pious gurglings of Longfellow, but also in the poetry of Bryant, the tea-party niceness of Howells, the "maiden-like reserve" of James Lane Allen, and even in the work of Joel Chandler Harris. What! A Southern Puritan? Well, why not? What could be more erroneous than the common assumption ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... that she had moved as far as the next pillar, following the sunshine. This time, however, she addressed me with some trivial salutation, civilly enough conceived, and uttered in the same deep-chested, and yet indistinct and lisping tones, that had already baffled the utmost niceness of my hearing from her son. I answered rather at a venture; for not only did I fail to take her meaning with precision, but the sudden disclosure of her eyes disturbed me. They were unusually large, the iris golden like Felipe's, but the pupil at that moment so distended ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... orphanage. Such promise of diversion as this imbroglio had, it was rendered still more to the taste of the audience by the license which the actors allowed themselves. Belviso was perfection as the simple country girl; one could hardly credit a lad of his age with such niceness of observation, such humorous yet whimsical representation of an honest, foolish young woman flattered by the attention of a villain. His "La la," his "Sissioria," and "'Lustrissimo, si!" which marked so well the growth of self-esteem; ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... she said she must return, but Ambrose would bring him all particulars. Ambrose was as anxious as herself and her mistress that the thing should be done, but was unfit by all his habits, and his dainty, scholarly niceness, to render such effectual assistance as the soldier could do. Giles offered to scale the gate by night himself, carry off the head, and take it to any place Mrs. Roper might appoint, with no assistance save ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... man should find in a desert island a fine statue of marble, he would undoubtedly immediately say, "Sure, there have been men here formerly; I perceive the workmanship of a skilful statuary; I admire with what niceness he has proportioned all the limbs of this body, in order to give them so much beauty, gracefulness, majesty, life, tenderness, ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... and endeavour to keep it up when she has become a wife. One great thing undoubtedly was, the chariness of herself and her conduct, which an unmarried female always observes. She should maintain the same niceness and reserve in her person and habits, and endeavour still to preserve a freshness and virgin delicacy in the eye of her husband. She should remember that the province of woman is to be wooed, not to woo; to be caressed, not to caress. Man is ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... low-down actor. Chevalier spoilt Felicie for him. Why did she take lovers of that type? Was she wanting in taste? Did she not exercise a certain selection? Did she behave like a woman of the town? Did she lack a certain sense of niceness which warns women as to what they may or may not do? Didn't she know how to behave? Well, this was the sort of thing that happened if women had no breeding. He blamed Felicie for the accident that had occurred and was relieved ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... minute missal-like painting (he was also an illuminator of missals), in which he would introduce fifteen hundred small figures in a picture two feet eight inches, by six feet five inches in size, and work out every detail with the utmost niceness and care. The reliquary, or 'chasse,' is a wooden coffer or shrine about four feet in length, its style and form those of a rich Gothic church, its purpose to hold an arm of the saint. The whole exterior is covered with miniatures by Memling, ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... to think of him as an abusive controversialist as Milton was in his controversy with Salmasius. But though Emerson never betrayed it to the offence of others, he must have been conscious, like Milton, of "a certain niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness," which was as a shield about his inner nature. Charles Emerson, the younger brother, who was of the same type, expresses the feeling in his college essay on Friendship, where it is all summed up in the line ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... very nice about my friend. Indeed, he was always nice, with the niceness of people whose hearts are genuinely humane. But this time it cost him an effort. His attempts at general conversation broke down into dullness. It occurred to me he might have been indisposed. But before I could frame ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... on an evening gown, but with none of her old niceness of detail. She merely put it on. Her wet hair she twisted into a knot without glancing at the mirror. As she entered the parlor she staggered slightly. Talbot averted his eyes. He may have had similar cases, and, as a doctor, become hardened to ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... life had denied Jessie the niceness given girls by the complexities of modern civilization. She had been brought up close to raw stark nature. The habits of animals were familiar to her and the ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... the Irishman differed from his employee. While Jim's word was never questioned even by the veriest sceptic of the plains, McLagan was notoriously the greatest, most optimistic liar in the state of Montana. A reputation that required some niceness of proficiency to retain. ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... Horace's factus ad unguem, because the sculptor tries its polish and the niceness of the joints by drawing his nail over the surface. Casaub. Pers. i. 64; Horace, "Sat." i. v. 32, 33; A. P. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... There was no niceness of feeling about this mountain of obesity in matters of business. He spoke as callously of the girl, for whom he entertained his unholy passion, as he would speak of a stranger. He experienced no compunction in linking her name with that of an outlaw. His gross nature was of too ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... coach, with perfect propriety. Ten to one the person next to you is an English nobleman incognito; and a hundred to one, the man opposite to you is a brute or a knave. To behave so that you may not be uncivil to the one, nor a dupe to the other, is an art of some niceness. ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... great figure in the history of the time. He has obtained the immortality which he so much desired, and we are, therefore, entitled and obliged to scrutinize his conduct with a niceness which would be ungracious and unnecessary in the case of a less distinguished man. After Pharsalia he had concluded that the continuance of the war would be unjustifiable. He had put himself in communication with Antony and Caesar's friend ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... the mysterious quality of readableness pure and simple has more generally belonged to the French novel than to the English. This, as I have endeavoured to point out, is not a question of naughtiness or niceness, of candour or convention. I have indeed admitted that the conventions of the French novel bore me quite as much as anything in ours. It may be partly a question of length, for, as everybody knows, the French took to the average single volume, of some three hundred not very closely ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... weary eyes. When my back and fingers ached so that I could no longer bend over the work, I watched my comrades with amazement. The machine was not a wild animal in their hands, but an instrument that responded with niceness to their guidance. Above the incessant roar and burring din they called gaily to each other, gossiping, chatting, telling stories. What did they talk about? Everything, except domestic cares. The management of an interior, housekeeping, cooking ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... claims to anything. For the first time, I was looked down upon, and I did not like it. I do not quite know why I was made to know this so well. My dress, if not showy or costly, was certainly without blame in its neatness and niceness, and perfectly becoming my place as a schoolgirl. And I had very little to do at that time with my schoolmates, and that little was entirely friendly in its character. I am obliged to think, looking back at it now, that some rivalry was at work. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... be there, if she thought fit: but says, she would not for a thousand pound, unless you would encourage her beforehand as she wishes to be encouraged. One hint I am to give you mean time. It is this: To make a discreet use of your pen and ink. Methinks a young creature of niceness should be less ready to write to one man, when she is designed ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... know to this day what possible niceness there was for you in being married to a man everybody thought would never get ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... lesson, which teaches us that over-carefulness may be productive of bad results. His candor, too, was equal to his talent; he acknowledged the superiority of Melanthius[95] in his grouping, and of Asclepiodorus in the niceness of his measurements, or in other words, the distances that ought to be left ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... believe I will know how to act if I become the wife of the mayor of Los Angeles. I have grown to detest formality, dances and dinners and receptions and things. If there is one thing Reggie and I will quarrel about that will be it. He has always been invited everywhere and he enjoys the niceness of conventionality." ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... flashed slipped unseen from Maria Angelina's vision. Johnny Byrd was nice, but it was a gay, cheery, everyday sort of niceness, she thought, with none of the quicksilver charm of the young man at the dinner dance. . . . And she was unimpressed by Johnny's money. She took the millionaires in America as for granted as fish ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... and justice, substituting interest in the room of conscience, authorising and commending for good and wise, all ways serving to private advantage. There are implacable dissensions, fierce animosities, and bitter zeals sprung up; there is an extreme curiosity, niceness, and delicacy of judgment: there is a mighty affectation of seeming wise and witty by any means; there is a great unsettlement of mind, and corruption of manners, generally diffused over people: from which sources it is no wonder that this flood hath so overflown, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... middle of her scorn, and his old man, Miles. Die Baring would not tolerate his boon companions—not that he wanted her to tolerate them; she would not suit for his mistress and manager if she did; though where she got her niceness—seeing what her father was up to in cool, barefaced scampishness, in horse-flesh, bones, and pasteboard—he could not tell.—She was a capable woman he was certain, if she got a fair field for her capability. She was clever: anybody with half an eye or an ear ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... story, and more than once the outlaw interrupted his officer in the hope of abridging the petty particulars of some of their attenuated proportions—an aim not always successful, since, among the numerous virtues of Lieutenant Dillon, that of precision and niceness in his statements must not be omitted. To this narration, however, though called for by himself, the superior yielded but little attention, until he proceed to describe the adventure of the night, resulting so unsuccessfully, with the emigrating farmer. When he described the persons of the two ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... mushroom is not so sweet or so toothsome as a small one. A 'monstrous mushroom,' even to those who like mushrooms, is coarse and less tasty. Now the gleam of hope lies in the circumstance that Mr. Chesterton knows the fine gradations of niceness (or nastiness) that distinguish mushrooms of one size from mushrooms of another. As a rule, if you get to know a thing, you get to like it. Mr. Chesterton is coming to know mushrooms. He will soon be ordering them for breakfast. He may even come, like certain tribes mentioned in the Encyclopaedia, ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... into perfect good-for-nothingness like the rest of you by the loveliness of the afternoon and the niceness of everybody. Here it is almost eating-time and I haven't even opened the baskets. No, don't you move," she commanded the others, beginning to stir from their nirvana to make dutiful offers of help. "I'll call the children. And Neale will be ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... niceness, The handmaids of all women, or more truly, Woman its pretty self, into a waggish courage, Ready in gibes, quick answer'd, saucy, and As ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... this point presents a double image of action baffled by wisdom. Hamlet baffles the dealing of the justice of Fate, and also the death plotted for him by his uncle. His weapon, in both cases, is his justice, his precise scrupulousness of mind, the niceness of mental balance which gives to all that he says the double-edge of wisdom. It is the faculty, translated into the finer terms of thought, which the ghost seeks to make real with bloodshed. Justice, in her grosser ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... predecessors. Apparently the faithful effort to render the original truly resulted in a perfection of style of which the translator himself was largely unconscious. The declaration in the preface to the version of 1611 that "niceness in words was always counted the next step to trifling,"[192] and the general condemnation of Castalio's "lewd translation,"[193] point to a respect for the original which made the translator merely a mouthpiece and the English ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... you ever discover that another poor fellow is in love with you—and you are the sort of girl whom men will love—remember me and spare him this experience. Don't go on being 'nice' to him. That kind of niceness is the worst ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... beards at all. Some lusty courtiers also and gentlemen of courage do wear either rings of gold, stones, or pearl, in their ears, whereby they imagine the workmanship of God not to be a little amended. But herein they rather disgrace than adorn their persons, as by their niceness in apparel, for which I say most nations do not unjustly deride us, as also for that we do seem to imitate all nations round about us, wherein we be like to the polypus or chameleon; and thereunto bestow most cost upon our arses, ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... the letters had almost been brought to him before the battle was fought; upon the receipt of which he would at once have marched away home, and left the Achaeans to look to themselves. But Fortune, that loves to determine the greatest affairs by a minute, in this conjuncture showed such an exact niceness of time, that immediately after the battle in Sellasia was over, and Cleomenes had lost his army and his city, the messengers came up and called for Antigonus. And this above everything made Cleomenes's misfortune to be pitied; for ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... only toilsome things that are a hindrance to pleasures. Now the delicate are those who cannot endure toils, nor anything that diminishes pleasure. Hence it is written (Deut. 28:56): "The tender and delicate woman, that could not go upon the ground, nor set down her foot for . . . softness [Douay: 'niceness']." Thus delicacy is a kind of effeminacy. But properly speaking effeminacy regards lack of pleasures, while delicacy regards the cause that hinders pleasure, for instance ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the last words, If you mean me honourably, let me go out of this hated house, in came Mrs. Sinclair, in a great ferment —And what, pray, Madam, has this house done to you? Mr. Lovelace, you have known me some time; and, if I have not the niceness of this lady, I hope I do not deserve ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... do you move To the centre of your love? On your niceness though we wait, Yet the hours say 'tis late: Coyness takes us, to a measure; But o'eracted deads the pleasure. Go to bed, and care not when Cheerful day shall spring again. One brave captain did command, By his word, the sun to stand: One short charm, if you but say, Will enforce ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... 'faculty.' Certainly such an early drill was of use in developing the health and the bodily powers, as well as in giving precision to the practical mental faculties. All household economies were arranged with equal niceness in those thoughtful minds. A trained housekeeper knew just how many sticks of hickory of a certain size were required to heat her oven, and how many of each different kind of wood. She knew by a sort of intuition just what kind of food would yield the most palatable nutriment ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... for when the other's in gaol and another for when I am hung, as all good men are like to be.' He turned away lightly and loosened one of his jewelled garters, so that his stockings should hang in slovenly folds to prove that he was a man and despised niceness in his dress. ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... You must forget to be a woman; change Command into obedience: fear and niceness— The handmaids of all women, or, more truly, Woman its pretty self, into a waggish courage: Ready in gibes, quick answered, saucy, and As quarrelsome as the weasel; nay, you must Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek Exposing it—but, Oh! the harder heart! Alack! no remedy! to the greedy ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... root. But there I found I was mistaken. For he assured me that it was from esteem of your character, and admiration of your energy, courage, and constancy under adversity, not from the mere prettiness of your face, or niceness of your manners, that he first began to love you. And I since ascertained that there is scarce an incident of your life with which he has not made himself acquainted, and that in the most delicate and guarded manner. I confess, Valerie, that it has raised him greatly in ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... if anybody couldn't see through that little thrick! To call her for a fightin' ould warrior that bet Cromwell an' held his own in spite of him! An' her havin' to grow up a young lady with nothin' but niceness in her! Ah, then now, madam, why didn't ye call her Mary, the same as ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... are nice," said the bunny uncle, "but old ones are nice, too, if you know where to look for the niceness. Now come along with me, and we'll see if we can't have some fun. It is lovely ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... king Richard: he is said in the proeme to have been 'acounted the best and ryallest vyaund [curioso in eating] of all esten kynges.' This, however, must rest upon the testimony of our cooks, since it does not appear otherwise by the suffrage of history, that he was particularly remarkable for his niceness and delicacy in eating, like Heliogabalus, whose favourite dishes are said to have been the tongues of peacocks and nightingales, and the brains of parrots and pheasants [73]; or like Sept. Geta, who, according to Jul. Capitolinus ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge
... His rage. Makes a solemn vow of revenge, if once more he gets her into his power. His man Will. is gone in search of her. His hopes; on what grounded. He will advertise her. Describes her dress. Letter left behind her. Accuses her (that is to say, LOVELACE accuses her,) of niceness, prudery, affectation. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... say it, to the credit of my fellow-citizens, that the greater part of those that heard the tidings shook their heads and sighed. And, indeed, it needed no very great niceness of feeling or softness of heart to recognize that a marriage between a man like Messer Simone and a maid like Monna Beatrice was no admirable marriage, however much the wish of a parent was to be respected. Every one recognized ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... a certain gift for mechanics. The people are deft with their fingers and do everything neatly. This shows itself in their ingeniously constructed wooden locks and in the niceness with which they stuff animals. They are also very clever in following tracks, and even recognise the hoof-prints of particular horses among others in the same trail. They will also tell you that a tired deer keeps its toes more closely together than an animal just aroused from its lair. ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... further on any account). On landing last autumn I fell in with a young woman, and we got rather warm as folks do; in short, we liked one another well enough for a while. But I have got into shoal water with her, and have found her to be a terrible take-in. Nothing in her at all—no sense, no niceness, all tantrums and empty noise, John, though she seemed monstrous clever at first. So my heart comes back to its old anchorage. I hope my return to faithfulness will make no difference to you. But as you showed by your looks ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... shortness which Virgil hath prudently made choice of, is in my opinion much better; for a Shepherd, who is naturally incurious, and unobserving, cannot think that tis his duty to be exact in particulars, and describe every thing with an accurate niceness: yet Roncardus hath done it, a man of most correct judgment, and, in imitation of Theocritus, hath, considering the then poverty of our language, admirably and largely describ'd his Cup; and Marinus in his Idylliums hath follow'd the same example. He never keeps within ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... niceness that your husband should dress like a tramp, does it?" he said hoarsely. "And pray whose fault is it that he is reduced to doing so? Judging by your own costume, you can easily remove that cause of offence if ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Sommers reflected, yet she had none of the professional air, the faded niceness of face and manner which he associated with the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... thought also—as so frequently during the last, in some respects, extremely unsatisfactory twenty-four hours—of Mr. Rochester and of Jane Eyre. Not that she ranged herself with Jane socially or as to scholastic attainments. In both these, as in natural refinement, propriety and niceness of ideas, she reckoned herself easily to surpass that much canvassed heroine. The flavour of the evangelical charity-school adhered—incontestably it adhered, and that to Jane's disadvantage. No extravagance ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... leaning back in his big Mercedes trying to realise his bliss, was jilted before Brigit had spoken a word. Like a flash, his image seemed to stand before her, beside the delightful boy-man whose youth and niceness pleaded so strongly to her. She did not consider that breaking her word was not fair play, she had no thought of pity for Pontefract. She loved nobody, and therefore thought solely of herself. This boy was right. She would be happier with him than with poor, ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... of good preachers, who had been commanded to silence for a little niceness, were licensed, and again commanded to preach; a greater and more universal joy to the counties, and the most of the court, than the disgrace of the papists; and the gentlemen of those parts, being ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... nice world this would be if your affairs didn't get so hopelessly tangled up with other people's that you can hardly call your conscience your own! And never have I realized the niceness of the world more fully than in the ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... in baked clay, which contracts, as it dries, and is very easily frangible. Then you must put no work into it requiring niceness in dimension, nor any so elaborate that it would be a great loss if it were broken; but as the clay yields at once to the hand, and the sculptor can do anything with it he likes, it is a material for him to sketch with and play with,—to ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... Prologue, or of any other Faults but what, I believe, I have shewn in my Remarks. And these that I have here chosen, are no ways inferior to Terence's in matters of Plot and Intreague, but in some respects superior, tho' not so elaborately wrought up, or always with that Niceness; so that these may undoubtedly prove excellent Models for our Poets Imitation, provided they observe Differences of Tastes, Humours, Ages, and Persons, and keep to those principal Beauties they already ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... foreseen this honour," said Tob, with grisly jest, "I'm sure he'd have laid in a silken warp to make fast on the bollards instead of mere plebeian hemp. I'm sure there'd be a frown on Dason's head this minute, if the sun hadn't scorched it stiff. My Lord Deucalion, will you pick your way with niceness over this common ship and tread on the genteel carpet they've spread for ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... the Parson's mien and manner, which, with his usual niceness of observation, Gaffer Solomons thus sketched off, will convey to you some idea of the earnestness with which the Parson pleaded the cause he had undertaken to advocate. He dwelt much upon the sense of propriety ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... of a young person in her situation, who was the object of indifference or scorn from outward appearance, with the proud suppressed consciousness of a Goddess-like symmetry, locked up by 'fear and niceness, the handmaids of all women,' from the wonder and worship of mankind. I said so then, and I think so now: my tongue grew wanton in the praise of this passage, and I believe it bore the bell from its competitors. Wells then spoke ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... One ear was slightly larger than the other, having the appearance of a swelling upon the lobe. In this unlovely visage, filled with distrust and concentrated venom, only the nose retained an incongruous and unexpected niceness. It was a good straight nose, yet it had something of the pleasant tiptiltedness of a child's. It was the sort of nose which should have complemented a mouth formed for spontaneous laughter. It looked lonesome and out of place ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... schooled in the artistic value of dulness. It was an unlooked-for and distinctly unwelcome encounter. The mare had already commenced a sixfold scrutiny with nostrils, eyes and daintily-pricked ears; one ear made hurried little backward movements to hear what Elaine was saying about the eminent niceness and respectability of the approaching caravan, but even Elaine felt that she would be unable satisfactorily to explain the elephants and camels that would certainly form part of the procession. To turn back would seem rather craven, and the mare might take fright at the manoeuvre and try to bolt; ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... she had now undone the parcel he had just put into her hand, and seeing before her, in all the niceness of jewellers' packing, a plain gold chain, perfectly simple and neat, she could not help bursting forth again, "Oh, this is beautiful indeed! This is the very thing, precisely what I wished for! This is the only ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... brings many ill qualities upon them. It makes them extremely leeward, makes them sink deep into the seas, makes them labour in foul weather, and ofttimes overset. Safety is more to be respected than show or niceness for ease. In sea-journeys both cannot well stand together, and, therefore, the most necessary is to be chosen. Two decks and a-half is enough, and no building at all above that but a low master's cabin. Our masters and mariners will say that the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... for a consent, put some aspic of pate de foie gras on her plate, and watched her satisfy her hunger with great pleasure, which was not lessened by the fact that, for all her hunger, she ate with a delicate niceness. He had feared from her neglected air that her manners had also been neglected. After the aspic, he carved the breast of the chicken for her, helped her to salad, and mixed the ice water with the sirop to exactly the ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... wench as long as niceness be the key to her favour. But sink me now if I'd rot myself in rum on account of anything that wears a petticoat. That's not the Old Wolf's way. If there's no other expedition'll tempt you, why not Port Royal? What a plague do it matter ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... told the King you were too nice for it. He said on the contrary that he was sure you would do it; that it was not a matter of niceness, but of ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... He had heard more; and for all that he accounted her at present safe from Marius, yet he made no false estimate of that supple gentleman's character, was not deluded by his momentary show of niceness. As the time of Florimond's arrival grew nearer, he thought it very possible that Marius might be rendered desperate. There was grave danger in remaining. He said naught of this, yet he convinced mademoiselle that ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... indifference, which, whosoever dives not into the niceness of his sorrow might mistake for obdurate and insensate. Yet are the wings of his pride forever clipt; and yet a virtuous predominance of filial grief is so ever uppermost, that you may discover his thoughts less troubled with ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... I am bound to say that the Honourable George showed himself to be immensely impressed by Belknap-Jackson, whom I had never beheld more perfectly vogue in all his appointments. He became, in fact, rather moody in the presence of this subtle niceness of detail, being made conscious, I dare say, of his own sloppy lounge-suit, rumpled cravat, and shocking boots, and despite Belknap-Jackson's amiable efforts to draw him into talk about hunting in the shires and our county society at home, I began to fear that they would not hit it off together. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... to the falling sickness, and Scioppius doubtless only made pretence of envying the sparrows in order to be agreeably playful in a learned and far from playful work. Highly seasoned foods are injurious to health and impair the niceness of a delicate sense; and in general bodily pleasures are a kind of expenditure of the spirit, though they be made good in some better than ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... what her conception of 'niceness' may be; it didn't fit mine. She had got it into her head that I 'pitied' her, which seemed to be a crime. I didn't see how to disprove ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... your niceness, it seems, by asking you a plain question, which your mother's heart is too full of grief to let her ask; and modesty will not let your sister ask; though but the consequence of your actions—and yet it must be answered, before you'll obtain from your father and ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... into this as if she had been born to it. She was born to it, for it's just the kind of thing she'd have made for herself if she'd had the means. No show, no fuss, just niceness! And it's the sort of thing my wife shall have, somehow, even in the country, before long. We'll bring this there; she'll know how. There's no patent on it. Bless her—how George deserves this! If only Jean could have been here. ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... niceness to that pleasure shewn, Where nature sums up all her joys in one; Gives all she can, and, labouring still to give, Makes it so great, we can but taste and live: So fills the senses, that the soul seems fled, And thought itself does, for the time, lie dead; Till, like a string screwed ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... and with nature is more conducive to niceness than too much trafficking with human beings," replied ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... I had begun to catch glimmerings of niceness in Sandy, he broke out again and was ABOMINABLE. We unfortunately have five cases of measles in this institution, and the man's manner suggests that Miss Snaith and I gave the measles to the children on purpose to make him trouble. There are many days ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... me it's even less distracting than sheer silence. You don't know, after all, what on earth sheer silence means—even at Widderstone. But one can just realize a water-nymph. They chatter; but, thank Heaven, it's not articulate.' He handed Lawford a cup with a certain niceness and self-consciousness, lifting his eyebrows slightly as ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... since lost all niceness; and was no longer squeamish as to the sort of food I might swallow. In fact, I could have eaten anything that was eatable. And ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... news, I live upon ballads to you; here is one that has made a vast noise, and by Lord Hervey's taking great pains to disperse it, has been thought his own-if it is,(723) he has taken true care to disguise the niceness of his style. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... is a swell gentl'man," said Peaches, "and me and Mickey just loves him for his niceness to us; but we got that all settled. Mickey is going to write the po'try piece for the first page of the Herald—that's our paper—and then we are going to make all my pieces into a bu'ful book, like I ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... DO NOT LAY EGGS before they have some place to put them; accordingly, they construct nests for themselves with astonishing art. As builders, they exhibit a degree of architectural skill, niceness, and propriety, that would seem even to mock the imitative talents of man, however greatly these are marked by his own ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... courteously as I glanced up. I was very humble, young westerner that I was in the scholastic town, and puzzled by the friendly nod. The man was no other than Longfellow, and in his politeness to me he was only following his invariable custom of greeting in a friendly way every student he met. His niceness of attire rather amused the boys of those days who, however, responded warmly to his friendliness and loved him much. This story was current. He had for some time been a famous man and was subjected to much persecution from ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... good chums right way. Of course he is a graduate of Redmond, and that is a link between us. We fished and boated together; and we walked on the sands by moonlight. He didn't look so homely by moonlight and oh, he was nice. Niceness fairly exhaled from him. The old ladies—except Mrs. Grant—don't approve of Jonas, because he laughs and jokes—and because he evidently likes the society of frivolous ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pretence that was her married life must end, she must be free. In her thought she went no farther. Rachael outwardly was no better than the other women of her world; inwardly there was in her nature an instinctive niceness, a hatred for what was coarse or base. For years the bond between her and Clarence Breckenridge had been only an empty word. But it was there, none the less, and before she could put any new plan into definite form, even in her own heart, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... observations will be very trifling indeed, Sir; but I think you use nobleness, niceness, etc. too often, which I doubt are not classic terminations for nobility, nicety, etc. though I allow that nobility will not always express nobleness. My children's timeless deaths can scarce be said for untimely; nor should I choose to employ children's as a plural genitive case, which ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... orchard, I found here a flower garden, which was no less extraordinary in its kind. It contained a spacious plot, not watered so profusely as the former, but with greater niceness, furnishing no more water than just what each flower required. The roses, jessamines, violets, daffodils, hyacinths, anemonies, tulips, pinks, lilies, and an infinite number of flowers, which do not grow in other places but at certain times, were there ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Thea, the Grace who was in love ... put question after question.... She talked of her boy-violinist, of Trampy. And they all laughed boisterously, with heads thrown back, full-throated, and Nunkie, very paternally, congratulated Mr. Clifton on his daughter's niceness. ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... whatever was made to the Squire's somewhat uncivil conduct at their last meeting. Mr. Cox trusted that his dearest friend would come over and have another spell at the Moonbeam before he settled down for life;—and then hinted in language that was really delicate in the niceness of its expression, that if he, Cox, were but invited to spend a week or two at Newton Priory before he banished himself for life to Australia, he would be able to make his way over the briny deep with a light heart and an uncomplaining tongue. ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... the opinions you have of my niceness, or being hard to please, let me assure you I am far from desiring my husband should be fond of me at threescore, that I would not have him so at all. 'Tis true I should be glad to have him always kind, ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... and pretty hard, but I tell you we are a good bit better off than they are in the prisons of Russia. We have got plenty to eat, though I cannot say much for its niceness; anyhow we are a long way better fed than the soldiers who look after us; but here comes ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... with his fingers. It was impossible to deny that he was good-looking after a fashion; but Marie despised him in her heart. She was almost bigger than he was, certainly stronger, and had no aptitude for the city niceness and POINT-DEVICE fastidiousness of such a lover. George Voss had come back, not taller than when he had left them, but broader in the shoulders, and more of a man. And then he had in his eye, and in his beaked nose, and his large mouth, and well-developed chin, that look of ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... humor in them; while Achillini and Preti limp somewhat feebly after Marino's Alcibidean swagger, and endless pastorals pullulate from Guarini's tragi-comedy. We need not occupy our minds with these secondary writers, nor do more than indicate the scholarly niceness with which Filicaja in the second half of the seventeenth century continued Chiabrera's tradition. But one word must be said in honor of Fulvio Testi, the Modenese poet and statesman, who paid for the fame of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... had reason to think that I was mistaken; for I have been informed by a lady, who was long intimate with her, and likely to be a more accurate observer of such matters, that she had acquired such a niceness of touch, as to know, by the feeling on the outside of the cup, how near it was to being full. BOSWELL. Baretti, in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, ii. 84, says:—'I dined with Dr. Johnson as seldom as I could, though often scolded for it; but I hated to see the victuals pawed by ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... her side, I dare say, if her ladyship can be excused to punctilio, and for having a greater esteem for a married man, than he can deserve, or than may be strictly defended to a person of your purity and niceness." ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... obliged us to it. The translator flatters himself, that those who understand Arabic, and will be at the pains to compare the original with the translation, must agree that he has showed the Arabians to the French with all the circumspection that the niceness of the French tongue and of the times require; and if those who read these stories have any inclination to profit by the example of virtue and vice which they will here find exhibited, they may reap an advantage by it that is not to be reaped in other stories, which are more ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... anyone else, but she is such a dear little goose that most amiable readers will be quite glad that she doesn't have to suffer as much as such geese would if they existed in real life. You can see from this that it is one of those books that are full of real niceness and goodwill, and it has besides plenty of plot and lots of interesting characters, and yet somehow it gives you the feeling of being out of focus. You read on, expecting every moment that clever Miss WEBLING will give things a little push ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... the human element that counted, everyone would stay at the brassworks forever. I feel like a snake in the grass, walking off "on them" when they all were so nice. Nor was it for a moment the "dearie" kind of niceness that made you feel it was orders from above. From our floor boss down, they were people who were born to treat a body square. All the handicaps against them—the work itself, the surroundings, the low pay—had so long been part of their lives, these "higher ups" seemed ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... surprising beauty and lightness, all covered over with a profusion of little statues and other ornaments"; and the cathedral at Siena, which Addison had characterized as "barbarous," and as an instance of "false beauties and affected ornaments," Gray commends as "labored with a Gothic niceness and delicacy in the old-fashioned way." It must be acknowledged that these are rather cold praises, but Gray was continually advancing in his knowledge of Gothic and his liking for it. Later in life he became something of an antiquarian and virtuoso. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... "It's true niceness," said Priscilla, smiling down at the little old lady whose eyes were twinkling all over her. "I don't think you'll find us in any way a nuisance. All we want is ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... greatest effect of the great cause was her own greater importance, chiefly revealed to her in the larger freedom with which she was handled, pulled hither and thither and kissed, and the proportionately greater niceness she was obliged to show. Her features had somehow become prominent; they were so perpetually nipped by the gentlemen who came to see her father and the smoke of whose cigarettes went into her face. Some of these gentlemen made her strike matches and light their cigarettes; others, holding ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... caught in the serious avenues of some cathedral alone and reading 'Candide'!"—"The Old Margate Hoy" gives reminiscences of a visit to the popular resort—with some uncomplimentary asides at Hastings—in the days of the boy, "ill-exchanged for the foppery and freshwater niceness of the modern steampacket," the boy that asked "no aid of magic fumes, and spells, and boiling cauldrons." "The Convalescent" expatiates upon the allowable egoism of the occupant of a sick bed, upon his "regal solitude," and goes on to show "how convalescence ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... yet a painter might not have called her handsome or beautiful. But the much that she was surprised him. She was quite a long way removed from the rusticity that was his. How could one of his cross-grained, unfortunate, almost accursed stock, have contrived to reach this pitch of niceness? London ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... her, selfish, only caring about herself, a foreigner with a bad nature, caring really about nothing, having no proper feelings at the bottom of her, and no proper niceness. He raged, and piled up accusations that had some measure of truth in them all. But a certain grace in him forbade him from going too far. He knew, and he quivered with rage and hatred, that she was all these vile things, that she was everything vile and detestable. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... partly,—if drunken fathers steal the shoes, and the innocent have to forfeit for the guilty,—if the bad words still come to the lips often, though Hazel tells them they are not "nice,"—and beginning at the outside, they are in a fair way of learning the niceness of being nice,—if some children come once or twice, and get dressed up, and then go off and live in the gutters again until the clothes are gone,—are these real failures? There is a bright, pure place down there in ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... how much it wrangles In tickle points of niceness— Tell Wisdom she entangles Herself in over-wiseness; And when they do reply, Straight ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... appearances somebody would do something for him. The something appeared vaguely to his imagination as a private secretaryship or a sinecure of some sort. To his mother it perhaps appeared as a marriage to some lady of means who could not resist her boy's niceness. Fancy her feelings when he married a flower girl who had become declassee under extraordinary ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... Gaza are immensely strong, and these were in addition strengthened by every conceivable human device. The town stands in the midst of a chain of sandy ridges, inside which is a smaller ring, with a wide stretch of open country absolutely devoid of cover between the two. The extreme niceness of the position lay in the fact that any one ridge was well within range of most if not all of the remainder. Without much difficulty, the infantry captured two of these outer ridges—Mansura and Shalouf—and immediately prepared ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... True, and Particular Account of all the Adventures that befell me in these same fifteen Years, with the same Minute Particularity which I bestowed upon my Unhappy Childhood, my varied Youth, and stormy Adolescence. I did dwell, perhaps, with a fonder circumspection and more scrupulous niceness upon those early days, inasmuch as the things we have first known and suffered are always more vividly presented to our mind when we strive to recall 'em, sitting as old men in the ingle-nook, than are the events of complete manhood. Yet do I assure those who have been at the pains ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... Plague, what does the Scribler mean? With his damn'd Characters, and Plot obscene. No Woman without Vizard in the Nation Can see it twice, and keep her reputation— That's certain, Forgetting— That he himself, in every gross Lampoon, Her leuder Secrets spread about the Town; Whilst their feign'd Niceness is but cautious Fear, Their own ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... dormant during the whole of his thirty-nine years of life, now sprang into being. His imagination awoke. He saw that it was this woman, now standing, with such complete trust in the niceness of his honour, heart to heart with him, who had made the best of that at once solitary and companioned journey which we call life. He had thought her to be a fool; he now saw that, if a fool, she had been a divine fool, ever engaged while ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... him. "I can't think how such an idea ever occurred to him. He must have known that even if I had not determined as I have done to devote myself to our cause, he was the last sort of man I should ever have thought of marrying. Of course he is nice and I always thought so, but what is niceness when he has no aims, no ambitions in life, and he is content to waste it as he ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... be home; but I didn't want to go away and not say good-by to everybody and tell them what a good time I have had, and I started telling very soon after I got Billy's message saying he was coming. I have thanked everybody for their niceness and kindness to me, and told every one I hope to come back next summer, and sometimes we have had little weeps, for they put their arms around me and held me so tight I could hardly breathe. And I know now ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... never bought under a hundred, I'll warrant. Then there are such relics of grandeur as you see upon my person, though they begin to look as frail and worn as a waiting-woman's virtue. In this bag, too, I retain the means for preserving that niceness and elegance of person which made me, though I say it, as well groomed a man as ever set foot in St. James's Park. Here are French scissors, eyebrow brush, toothpick case, patch-box, powder-bag, comb, puff, and my pair of red-heeled shoes. What could ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... seated her in the room. They silently classed her among the rich, handsome and powerful people of the earth. She had what in later years they learned to call refinement, but at that date they could give it no name except niceness. When Grandma Padgett and the landlord's wife were summoned to the room, she grew even younger and more elegant in appearance, though her face was anxious and her eyes were darkened ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood |
