"Daintiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bathed the little face and neck, the plump arms and hands, using a clear toilet soap with a most delicate suggestion of fragrance. When he brought her back to his fireside she was a small honey-pot for sweetness and daintiness, and fit for the caresses she ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... presents; and on the receipt of her wages, she always rushed on to the shop like a child with a new shilling. Reading had given Charlotte a few theories on the subject, but her practice had not gone far. She always meant to put into the savings' bank; but hiring books, and daintiness, though not finery, in dress, had prevented her means from ever amounting to a sum, in her opinion, worth securing. The spirit of economy in the household had so far infected her that she had, in spite of her small wages, more in hand than ever ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "that they may hold fast, for so long as they remain, howsoever the world goeth we shall escape drowning. But thou seest how great a part of our ornaments is lost." "We have gotten a little ground," quoth she, "if thy whole estate be not irksome unto thee. But I cannot suffer thy daintiness, who with such lamentation and anxiety complaineth that something is wanting to thy happiness. For who hath so entire happiness that he is not in some part offended with the condition of his estate? The nature of human ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... scores of lovely girls. Jean seemed to see them walking past her in a procession—girls who had maids to do their hair in the most approved fashion, constantly renewed girls whose clothes were a dream of daintiness all charming, all witty, all fitted to be wife to a man like Lord Bidborough. What was he doing now, Jean wondered. Perhaps dancing, or sitting out with someone. Jean could see him so clearly, listening, smiling, with lazy, amused eyes. By now he must be thankful that the penny-plain girl at ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... inkling of all the rest. In order that the sun might not annoy any of the spectators he had curtains stretched over them made of silk, according to some accounts. Now this product of the loom is a device of barbarian luxury and from them has come down even to us to satisfy the excessive daintiness of veritable women. The civilians perforce held their peace at such acts, but the soldiers raised an outcry, not because they cared about the money recklessly squandered but because they did not themselves get what was appropriated to those displays. ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... and a huge collie dog beneath, and hens making frantic attempts to get on the altar-cloth,—I smiled to myself, and was quite impatient to know what effect all these primitive surroundings would have on such refinement and daintiness. "He'll never stand it," I thought, "he'll pitch up the whole thing, and go back to England." As usual, I was quite wrong. Where I anticipated disgust, there were almost tears of delight and sympathy; where I expected indignation, I ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... essentially masculine. She associated with politicians, drank somewhat to excess, though not heavily, swore a great deal, smoked and chewed tobacco, sang ribald songs; could run, dance, and fight like a man, and had divested herself of every trace of feminine daintiness. She wore clothes that were always rather too large in order to hide her form, baggy trousers, and an overcoat even in summer. She is said to have died of cancer of the breast. (I quote from an account, which appears to be reliable, contained ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... run through him, for which reason he looked straight in front of him and shifted his grasp on the reins. Disdainful and imperious as she was at times, he knew there was a wealth of softer qualities in his companion now. Her daintiness in thought and person, and honesty of purpose, appealed to him, while that night her mere physical presence had an effect that was almost bewildering. For a moment he wondered vaguely how far a man might dare to go, with what fate had thrust upon him, ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... his things himself, you do also assist this process by putting away a good deal to which you do not call attention. You make your home not only orderly but pretty, and yourself, also, that his love for you may lead him into a love for daintiness. (3) Habits: A few set observances may be safely and steadfastly demanded, but these should be very few: Such as that he should not come to breakfast without brushing his teeth and combing his hair, or sit down to any meal with unwashed hands. Make them ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... When there I told each that he must be searched, to which they submitted at once. After that we went through their baggage. I wasn't going to have the sheriff or cowboys tumbling over Miss Cullen's clothes, so I looked over her bag myself. The prettiness and daintiness of the various contents were a revelation to me, and I tried to put them back as neatly as I had found them, but I didn't know much about the articles, and it was a terrible job trying to fold up some of the things. Why, there was a big pink affair, lined with silk, with ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... after studying with Doctor Pynchon rose to considerable eminence as a physician and particularly as a surgeon. Besides talents and genius of a sort, he was endowed with a rare poetic fancy, many of his verses being full of daintiness as well as of a very pretty wit. He was, however, somewhat extravagant in his habits, and about 1768 had built himself an elegant country house near Boston. It was to sustain this, it is believed, that he sold ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... often or ordinarily reached at length by those who are not careful from the first to set themselves against what is vicious and criminal. It generates within the mind a fastidiousness, analogous to the delicacy or daintiness which good nurture or a sickly habit induces in respect of food; and this fastidiousness, though arguing no high principle, though no protection in the case of violent temptation, nor sure in its operation, yet ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... born for better things, and comfort myself by remembering how mother used to say that a lady can always do everything better than a common person if she chooses to try, even menial work, because she puts her intelligence and love for daintiness into all she does. I unpacked my master's and mistress's things with the flashing speed of summer lightning and the neatness of a drill-sergeant. In a twinkling everything was in exactly the right place, and my conscience felt as ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... twenty, whom it had pleased to clothe her ripe womanhood in a boy's habit, that clasped her fine body as close as a second skin, and she might have passed for a man no otherwhere than in a madhouse. She looked very charming in the stained and faded daintiness of her male attire. She wore a green velvet doublet and green woollen hose, with a scarlet girdle and pouch about her waist, and a scarlet feather stuck defiantly in her green cap, beneath which her long fair hair tumbled in liberal confusion about her shoulders. ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... in her carriage which came of the soil rather than of the city pavement. But it was a robustness in a finer than the wonted sense, a vigorous daintiness, it might be called, which gave an impression of virility with none of the womanly left out. It told of a heredity of seekers and fighters, of people that worked stoutly with head and hand, of ghosts that reached down out of the misty past and moulded and made ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... herself; in household management economical without being penurious; a notable cook and needlewoman; in person by no means uncomely, and in mind as well as person so scrupulously neat that her unobtrusive presence, her noiseless circumspect flittings from room to room, exhaled an atmosphere of daintiness in which it was good to dwell. No, he had no anxiety about Miss Marty. But could he be sure of himself? Had he really and truly and for ever put the ambitions of public life behind him? Might they not some day re-awaken as this present wound healed and ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Thoughtful.—She should be careful to avoid injury to any of her hostess' pretty things or her furnishings. The story is told of a girl who, conducted to her hostess's beautiful guest room, furnished with the utmost daintiness in white, threw her umbrella and dusty coat on the spotless counterpane, exclaiming: "What a lovely room!" It was not lovely when she left it. The wall was defaced by marks made by scratching matches; the bureau scarf was blackened by ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... took Dick and Rose-Ellen to the vacation school held every summer in one of the town churches. The Beechams were not surprised at Nico's dressed-up daintiness when she called for them. Grandma said she was perfect, from the ribbon bows on her shining hair to the socks that matched her smart print dress. But it was surprising to see Vicente come from the cluttered, dirty Garcia rooms, almost ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... course not," she interposed quickly, but with a tightening of the heart he recognised the bitterness of her tone. For all her soft daintiness, there was something of the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... cadences" doth sound with the gravity of the pulpit, I would but invoke Demosthenes' soul to tell, who with a rare daintiness useth them. Truly, they have made me think of the sophister, that with too much subtlety would prove two eggs three, and though he may be counted a sophister, had none for his labour. So these men bringing in such a kind of eloquence, well may they ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... life. Poor Skimpole only asked to be kept out of the business of this world, and Dickens ought to have kept him out of the business of Bleak House. By the end of the tale he has brought Skimpole to doing acts of mere low villainy. This altogether spoils the ironical daintiness of the original notion. Skimpole was meant to end with a note of interrogation. As it is, he ends with a big, black, unmistakable blot. Speaking purely artistically, we may say that this is as great a collapse or vulgarisation as if Richard Carstone had turned ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... air of a manikin. What did these busy women order for lunch? Tea and buns, ice-cream and buckwheat cakes, apple pie a la mode and chocolate were the most serious menus. This nourishing food they ate with great nicety and daintiness, talking the while about clothes. They were in a hurry, as all of them had some shopping to do before returning to work, and they each spent a prinking five minutes before the mirror, adjusting the trash with which they had bedecked themselves exteriorly while ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... bloomed. She was vivid as a wild poppy on the hillsides past which they went flashing. But she had, too, a daintiness, a delicacy of coloring and contour, that suggested the fruit named ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... member of the family, and grew handsomer, we thought, day by day. Her coat was gray with tiger markings, but paws and throat and nose were snowy white, and in spite of her excursions to barns and cellars her constant care kept them spotless—indeed, she was the very Venus of cats for daintiness and grace of pose and movement. To my grandmother her various attitudes had an undoubted meaning. If in a rainy day Beauty washed her face toward the west, her observant mistress would exclaim: 'See, kitty is washing her face ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... to make a fuss about," Lagardere said, lightly. "I am this little lady's soldier. I came here in a cutthroat humor enough, but since I dandled her daintiness in my arms I've taken a fine liking for ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... think you do realize. Or to run errands icy-cold days, down slushy streets or slippery hills? To carry great bundles of such daintiness as you are wearing and leave them at the doors of big houses such as your own, numbed, hungry, envious—and not understanding the wherefore of it? To catch glimpses of warm halls, the sound of a piano ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... a woman again, from the softly shining coils of hair on the crown of her head to the coquettish little slippers that set off her dainty feet. And he saw the white gleam of soft shoulders and tender arms where once had been rags and bruises, and held there by the slim beauty and exquisite daintiness of her he stared like a fool, until suddenly she laughed joyously at his amaze, and ran to him with wide-open arms, and kissed him so soundly that Peter cocked up his ears a bit startled. And then she kissed ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... to making little gentle thrusts against my arm with the fore paw that was sound. And so we went aft in great friendship and contentment and had a gay dinner together: the cat sitting on the table opposite to me with all possible decorum—but manifesting his daintiness by refusing to eat anything but tinned chicken, and only the white meat ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... play with a certain demure gaiety that those who have watched French children in the Gardens of the Luxembourg or Tuileries, or a French seaside resort, know to be absolutely truthful. For the Gallic bebe certainly seems less "rampageous" than the English urchin. A certain daintiness of movement and timidity in the boys especially adds a grace of its own to the games of French children which is not without its peculiar charm. This is singularly well caught in M. de Monvel's delicious drawings, ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White |
