"Slovenly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... does not undertake to cultivate the art of conversation, one should at least be correct in speech. One should not permit slovenly expressions, or slang, or the thousand and one faults of mispronunciation and ungrammatical construction into which people fall, to be characteristic of one's speaking. For if one has time to go into society, one should have time and money enough to make one's ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... it. She gave him a pike, and put him through the manual of arms; and made him do the steps, too. His marching was incredibly awkward and slovenly, and so was his drill with the pike; but he didn't know it, and was wonderfully pleased with himself, and mightily excited and charmed with the ringing, crisp words of command. I am obliged to say that if looking proud and happy when one is marching were sufficient, he would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "slapped" a lot of corn dough on to the blade of a common hoe which a girl held over the "fat-wood" fire until it browned; another tossed some smoked hog into an suspicious looking skillet, and soon, in spite of the slovenly cooking, we "fell to" in a desperate attempt to smother the gnawing pangs of a long-suffering appetite. Then we told all the stories we could recall or invent to satisfy the starving intellects of these lonesome denizens of the wild wood. ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... contemptuous again as she snatched the letter from his hand. When his retiring footsteps were lost on the stairs she regained her color, and opened the letter. It was slovenly written, grievously misspelled, ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... respects his inferior. His delicate lungs, slim legs, and loosely knit figure contrasted unfavourably with the massive frame and iron constitution of the peasant of the Delta. Always excitable and often insubordinate, he required the strictest discipline. At once slovenly and uxorious, he detested his drills and loved his wives with equal earnestness; and altogether 'Sambo'—for such is the Soudanese equivalent of 'Tommy'—was a lazy, fierce, disreputable child. But he possessed two tremendous military virtues. To the faithful loyalty of a dog he added ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... room in the third-class boarding-house; the mean little hard-coal fire, the slovenly Irish servant-girl making it, the ashes on the hearth, the faded furniture, the private provender hid away in the closet, the dreary backyard out the window; the young girl at the glass, with her mouth full of hairpins, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... surprised on first entering a painting-room here. Your eye is struck with the appearance of a dozen slovenly attired fellows, who are variously engaged, some in beginning pictures, some in finishing, &c. The window, which is remarkably large, and situated so as to command a good prospect from without, admits light sufficient to illuminate ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... whereof had been Black, as I perceived from some few Spaces, that had escaped the Powder, which was Incorporated with the greatest part of his Coat: His Perriwig, which cost no small Sum, [1] was after so slovenly a manner cast over his Shoulders, that it seemed not to have been combed since the Year 1712; his Linnen, which was not much concealed, was daubed with plain Spanish from the Chin to the lowest Button, and the Diamond upon his Finger (which naturally dreaded the Water) put me in Mind ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... clear. Some sense of property rights is necessary; not the right, as some assume, to do what you will with a thing because you have it, but the right to enjoy and usefully employ it. Help children to see the difference between mine and thine. Slovenly moral thinking often comes from too great freedom in forgetful borrowing within the family. In this little social group the members must first acquire the habits of respect for the rights of others. Through toys, tools, ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... minutes the different individuals, who intended either to bestow or receive edification before the fires of the Bold Dragoon on that evening, were collecting, until the benches were nearly filled with men of different occupations. Dr. Todd and a slovenly-looking, shabby-genteel young man, who took tobacco profusely, wore a coat of imported cloth cut with something like a fashionable air, frequently exhibited a large French silver watch, with a chain of woven hair and a silver key, and who, altogether, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... he was called in. One morning he was lying in his dressing-gown on a divan, his head bound up in half a dozen silk handkerchiefs, and his whole person in the primeval disorder of a slovenly neglige, when his valet ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... and barbarous nation, dirty and slovenly, who eat their meat half raw and drink mare's milk, and who use table-cloths and napkins only to wipe their hands ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... one more improvement worth mentioning. We do great injustice to our steam-slaves by the slovenly and unphilosophical way in which we feed them. We take no hints from animal economy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... porter's lodge his heart beat violently. What would old Morin have to tell him? But old Morin was very busy trying to make his kitchen fire burn properly instead of sending all the smoke pouring out into the room; the old man's slovenly figure was just visible in a clearing in the smoke, and he returned Nibet's salutation with nothing more than a ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... uncle, "I think Shakspeare represents a lover as falling into slovenly habits, neglecting his person, and suffering his hose to be ungartered, rather than paying that attention to his outer man which induces Signor Riccabocca to leave off his spectacles, and look as handsome as nature will ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... through. His laugh alone was as good as that of all the rest of the crowd. It was not a hearty, resonant laugh, like that from the mouth of a strong-lunged, wholesome-natured man, which has the mellow roundness of a solo on a French horn. It was a slovenly, greasy, convictionless laugh, with uncertain tones and ill-defined edges. Its effect was due to its volume, readiness, and long continuance. Swelling up of the puffy form, and reddening ripples of the broad face heralded it, it began with a contagious cackle, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... a woman, rather pretty, somewhat regardless of morals and decidedly slovenly of person; craving admiration, but too indolent to earn it by keeping herself presentable; covering up the dirt on a piquant face with rice powder; wearing paste jewels in her earlobes in an effort to distract criticism from the fact that the ears themselves stand in need of soap ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... imagine him then as he walked about the lanes and commons of Eversley in middle life, a spare upright figure, above the middle height, with alert step, informal but not slovenly in dress, with no white tie or special mark of his profession. His head was one to attract notice anywhere with the grand hawk-like nose, firm mouth, and flashing eye. The deep lines furrowed between the brows gave his face an almost stern expression which his cheery ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... such green gardens, such orange and lemon groves, such forests of olives. Save that it was barren rock, not a space as broad as a man's hand was left uncultivated; and not a farm which was not in good repair. One saw no broken fences, no slovenly out-houses, no glaring advertisements afield: nobody was asked impertinently if Soandso's soap had been used that morning, nor did the bambini cry for soothing-syrups. Everything was of stone (for wood is precious in Italy), generally whitewashed, and presenting the smiling countenance ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... its chief merit in those articles which present resumes of the past year's events in politics, literature, science, and art. The one on the last-named subject is less complete than could be wished, and is written in rather slovenly English; but the article on literature is very full and satisfactory. A great mass of biographical matter is presented under the title of "Obituaries," but more extended notices of more distinguished persons are given under the proper names. Among the latter are accounts of the lives and public ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... true, poetical expression to the life of the ranch, and yet, again and again, he brought up against the railroad, that stubborn iron barrier against which his romance shattered itself to froth and disintegrated, flying spume. His heart went out to the people, and his groping hand met that of a slovenly little Dutchman, whom it was impossible to consider seriously. He searched for the True Romance, and, in the end, found grain rates ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... brown suit of clothes looked very rusty; he had on a little shriveled unpowdered wig, which was too small for his head; his shirt-neck and the knees of his breeches were loose; his black worsted stockings ill drawn up; and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of slippers. But all these slovenly particularities were forgotten the moment that he began to talk. Some gentlemen, whom I do not recollect, were sitting with him; and when they went away, I also rose; but he said to me, "Nay, don't go."—"Sir" (said I), "I am afraid that I intrude upon ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... thorough reform. I can imagine, for instance, that the speeches of the king and the herald may have made a fatiguing impression, but if this was the case because the singers sang them in a lackadaisical, lazy, and slovenly manner, without real utterance, is then the interest of art benefited by curtailing or omitting these speeches? Surely not. Art and artists will be equally benefited only if those singers are earnestly requested to pronounce those speeches ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... dispensed, not by the sovereign in person, but by her chaplains and almoners, in the midst of beautiful formalities. The dignity with which the ceremony is performed is a striking evidence of the national character, and a contrast to the sometimes slovenly manner in which great public religious functions are got through abroad. The charities are distributed in the chapel of Whitehall, the palace made tragically famous by the disgrace of Wolsey and the death of King Charles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... estate since I went away. In fact, as far as I can see, he does not keep anything like such a sharp hand over the slaves as he used to do; and in some of the fields the work seems to be done in a very slovenly way. What his game is I don't know; but I have no doubt whatever that he has ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... his ex-room-mate, Plain Smith, the grim and slovenly school-teacher who had called him "bub" and discouraged his confidences, Carl presented the attractions of Professor Frazer's lectures when he met him on the campus. Smith looked quizzical and "guessed" that plays and play-actin' were useless, if ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... my men for being slovenly turned out on parade, I'll publicly point out to him that the buttons of his own pockets are undone and that the ends of his bootlaces ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... Mrs. Wood," she stammered, for, while the newcomers interested her, their slovenly appearance made her recoil from any ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... gaping idiot, and see that he does not bite you, to put an old proverb to shame.—This is a new incident, Mr. Morton, that dead men should rise and push us from our stools. I must see that my blackguards grind their swords sharper; they used not to do their work so slovenly.—But we have had a busy day; they are tired, and their blades blunted with their bloody work; and I suppose you, Mr Morton, as well as I, are well disposed ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the rows on the ears of corn are irregular and broken, the planter is considered careless and unthoughtful. Also disorderly and slovenly about her house ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... the very setting forth I was pleasantly stirred when at the limit of the town a squad of soldiers halted us and demanded our passports. This was my first encounter with the government troops. They were barefooted and most slovenly looking soldiers, mere boys in age and armed with old-fashioned Remingtons. But their officer, the captain of the guard, was more smartly dressed, and I was delighted to find that my knowledge of Spanish, in which my grandfather had so persistently drilled me, enabled me to understand ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... no one cause or group of causes underlying breakdowns in family morale. The ratio of desertions has been observed to decrease rather than to increase in "hard times";[8] moreover, it is a matter of common observation that not all slovenly and incompetent wives are deserted, and that many married couples in all walks of life whose sex relationships are unsatisfactory, nevertheless maintain the fabric of family life and support and bring ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... comfortable sort of word; but Doggie's cultivated mind disliked it. It was a slovenly word, a makeshift for the hard broom of clean thought. This infernal "practically" begged the whole question. Jeanne would not have sentimentalized to Mo Shendish about ships passing in the night. No, ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... and was served by a waiter in a spotted apron, whose dank hair fell over a sallow and oily face. Save for himself, there were only four other customers. In a corner partition a slovenly woman in bedraggled finery berated the man who sat with bloated eyes across from her. The waiter looked on sardonically. At another table were two derelicts from one of the Garden side shows. A truculent and beady-eyed dwarf whose ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... notice of us. As we passed one of the tents, however, a canvas screen was lifted up, and a woman supported upon a crutch hobbled out. She was about the middle age, and, besides being lame, was bitterly ugly; she was very slovenly dressed, and on her swarthy features ill nature was most visibly stamped. She did not deign me a look, but, addressing Jasper in a tongue which I did not understand, appeared to put some eager questions ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... with regard to the way in which they are sustained—with the Revue des Deux Mondes or the Journal des Debats. Or compare our leading politicians with men like Gladstone, Disraeli, or Sir G. C. Lewis; or even with such men as Brougham or Thiers. Or compare the slovenly style of our newspaper articles, I will not say with the exquisite prose of the lamented Prevost-Paradol, but with the ordinary prose of the French or English newspaper. But a far better illustration—for it goes down to the root of things—is suggested by the recent work of Matthew ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... purposes and intent; here every van, every waggon and truck, bore cotton, either in the raw shape in bags, or the woven shape in bales of calico. People thronged the footpaths, most of them well-dressed as regarded the material, but with a slovenly looseness which struck Margaret as different from the shabby, threadbare smartness of a ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... portent of the first magnitude. The Bishops quite rightly sent it back again, but for the wrong reason. Their reason was pure blind obscurantism; if they had returned it because of its split infinitives and its slovenly drafting, and requested that it should be put into decent Jingalese so that they might pretend to understand it they would have had all the enlightened educationalists in the country with them. As it was they were against them. ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... immediately put down other things to rush to his hero's defense. He pointed out that in Arnold's criticism there were no less than "two grammatical crimes and more than several examples of very crude and slovenly English," and said: ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... safeguard of the monarchy, could never be pardoned for having deserted it. She then told me that Barnave's conduct upon the road was perfectly correct, while Potion's republican rudeness was disgusting; that the latter ate and drank in the King's berlin in a slovenly manner, throwing the bones of the fowls out through the window at the risk of sending them even into the King's face; lifting up his glass, when Madame Elisabeth poured him out wine, to show her that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... wonderful intelligence and magnetism of his expression, and the extreme brightness of his eyes. He was far more modest than in my youthful picture of him. I had expected to find a man of distinction. His appearance, as a whole, was not what you would call 'slovenly,' it is best expressed by the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... wealth and poverty, are jumbled together as in no other district in London. The modest wife, coming out of her door at ten in the morning to do her marketing, meets, face to face, her next neighbour standing at her door, a jug in her hand, waiting for some late milkman to pass—a slovenly dame in a dressing-gown with half the buttons off, primrose-coloured hair loose on her back, and a porcelain complexion hastily dabbed on a yellow dissipated face. The Maryleboners (or -bonites) being a Happy Family, in the menagerie sense, do not vex ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... a queer shoot, again, in his unkempt longish hair and slovenly clothes, a sort of very vulgar down-at-heel American in appearance. And he was transported with shyness. Yet ours was the world he had chosen as his own, so he took his place bravely and ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... in a large garden extending half-way down the mountain, its broad terraces lying one beneath the other like huge steps. But the gardening was slovenly. The paths were all grass-grown, the yew figures were not trimmed, but stretched long noses and caps a yard high into the air like ghosts, so that really they must have been quite fearsome at nightfall. Linen ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... tailors, butchers, etc., which last kill the bullocks very dexterously, sticking them at one blow with a sharp-pointed knife in the nape of the neck, having first drawn them close to a rail; but they dress them very slovenly. It being Lent when I came hither there was no buying any flesh till Easter-eve, when a great number of bullocks were killed at once in the slaughterhouses within the town, men, women and children flocking thither with great joy to buy, and a multitude of dogs, almost starved, following them; ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... that Germinie's abasement and degradation began to be visible in her personal appearance, to make her stupid and slovenly. A sort of drowsiness came over her ideas. She was no longer keen and prompt of apprehension. What she had read and what she had learned seemed to escape her. Her memory, which formerly retained everything, became confused and unreliable. The sharp wit of the Parisian maid-servant ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... two lived together in one room, and Little L, as I said, was very clean and neat; the big one, on the contrary, was very slovenly. And so Little L fairly made himself servant to his brother, and it turned out that he even cleaned the brass buttons on his uniform for him, and just before the ranks formed for roll-call would place himself, with clothes-brush in hand, in front ...
— Good Blood • Ernst Von Wildenbruch
... should be the attraction for youth—there are occupations as fascinating as one's imagination could depict. But one thing must be understood clearly. Flying is, of exact sciences, surely the most exact. The man who is only half-trained, who is more or less slovenly in his work, who will not bend his whole energies to his task, will find no place in this new industry. A young man is wasting his time, if, after deciding to enter aviation, he acquires knowledge that is no more than haphazard. He who ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... everything which has been written since 1830 concerning the MS. evidence for this part of S. Mark's Gospel; subsequent critics having been content to adopt his statements without acknowledgment and without examination. Unfortunately Scholz did his work (as usual) in such a slovenly style, that besides perpetuating old mistakes he invented new ones; which, of course, have been reproduced by those who have simply translated or transcribed him. And now I shall examine his note "(z)",(196) with which practically all that has since been delivered ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... to like Keith. She had never thought of this before. Yes, it was true, he did not pretend. Not in the least, not about anything. When you saw him, you saw at once the worst there was to see. It was afterward that you discovered he was not slovenly, but clean and neat, not badly but well dressed, not homely but handsome, not sickly but soundly well, not physically weak but strong, not dull but vividly alive, not a tiresome ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... unremembered things where nothing matters any more? Last week's cleaning left undone adds nothing appreciable to this week's dirt that next week's exertions may not remedy as easily together as singly—or so argued the slovenly housewife, while for the industrious no hands save their own could have scrubbed ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... appearance was remarkable. His hat was what might have been truly called "a shocking bad one." He generally wore an old and very much patched brown coat, corduroy breeches, and thick, slovenly shoes; but his underclothing was always of the finest description, and faultless in cleanliness and colour. His manners were ordinarily rough and uncouth, speaking gruffly, bawling loudly, and even rudely when he did not take to any one. Yet, strange to say, at a private dinner ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... previous, there were stones, brick-bats, shivered awning-posts, and other wrecks of the fight. The grog-shops were open, in which men with bloody noses, and bruised and battered faces, obtained the necessary stimulus to continue the desperate struggle. Dirty, slovenly-dressed women stood in the door- ways or on the steps, swearing and denouncing both police and military in the coarsest language. Though the immense gatherings of the preceding days were not witnessed, yet ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... horsemanship during the day, and did fairly well, as many of them are expert riders, many more are fair; but a few of them are more at home on a sand-heap than in a saddle. There are not many of the latter kind, however. They will soon knock into shape, for Colonel Hoad hates the sight of a slovenly horseman as badly as a duck hates a dust storm. He is an untiring rider himself, and will work the beggars who cannot ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... of writing and making copies of the old authors employed a great many hands in the neighbourhood of the museum. Two kinds of handwriting were in use. One was a running hand, with the letters joined together in rather a slovenly manner; and the other a neat, regular hand, with the letters square and larger, written more slowly but read more easily. Those that wrote the first were called quick-writers, those that wrote the second were called book-writers. If an author was not ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... not in this writer's opinion, from a familiarity of thirty years with old scripts, apart from the disguise, the hand that an educated person would write at the time, but is essentially a commonplace and, no doubt intentionally, rather slovenly style of handwriting. The use of small "i's" for the first person seems, in view of modern usage, to suggest an illiterate writer; but educated writers, even the King,[12] then occasionally lapsed into using them. In the letter, however, they are ...
— The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605 • William Parker
... character that much surprises me: but notwithstanding he is sometimes so absent, and always so near sighted, he scrutinizes into every part of almost everybody's appearance. They tell me of a Miss Brown, who often visits here, and who has a slovenly way of dressing. "And when she comes down in a morning," says Mrs. Thrale, "her hair will be all loose, and her cap half off; and then Dr. Johnson, who sees something is wrong, and does not know where the fault is, concludes ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... exclusion of all other girls. It is somewhat doubtful if you ever do find it. But as for loving some half-dozen you could name, whose images drift through your thought, in dirty, salmon-colored frocks, and slovenly shoes, it is quite impossible; and suddenly this thought, coupled with a lingering remembrance of the pea-green pantaloons, utterly ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... use, and likely to remain so for an indefinite period; good for all ranks and for all ages. One canon, however, should be laid down as to the cut:—no pockets should be tolerated on any account whatever: they make a man look like a Yankee. 'Tis the most slovenly custom on earth to keep your hands in your pockets—you deserve to have them sewed in if you indulge in it. And therefore, to avoid this disagreeable penalty, have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... that the statement of a fact may, in nine cases out of ten, involve a theory. His whole doctrine of "Forms" and "Simple natures," which is so prominent in his method of investigation, is an example of loose and slovenly use of unexamined and untested ideas. He allowed himself to think that it would be possible to arrive at an alphabet of nature, which, once attained, would suffice to spell out and constitute all its infinite combinations. He accepted, without ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... went to Oxford. His life there was as lonely as it had been at school. The dirty, untidy, ink-stained, and chemical-stained little boy grew up into a tall, lank, slovenly-dressed man, who kept entirely to himself, not because he cherished any dislike or disdain for his fellow-creatures, but because he seemed to be entirely absorbed in his own thoughts and isolated from the world ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... without making any serious attempt to use them. He had lost all power of concentrating his thoughts or of making any effort to work. Fortunately for him no one had paid any attention to him during the past ten days. His appearance was dishevelled and slovenly, and he was more bent than he had formerly been. His eyes were bleared and glassy as he stared at the table before him, assuming a wild and startled expression when, looking up, he fancied he saw some horrible object gliding quickly across the sunny floor, or creeping up to him over the ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... him, or worse, either by nature or association. Without taste, modesty, good sense, or natural refinement, she accompanies her dear Silas in his round of life, sympathizing in his lowness, his common feeling, and his common complaints—slatternly in her dress, rude in speech, coarse in manner, slovenly in her household duties. These two creatures, with their children, too often call themselves farmers, agriculturists, or tillers of the soil. The poet Cowper well describes them in his poem representing 'the country boors' gathered together ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... farm, under Lord Stanley, at a short railroad ride from Liverpool, which we have not yet had an opportunity of examining, but understand that it is a very remarkable instance of good farming, and consequently heavy crops, in a county (Lancashire) where slovenly farming is quite the rule, and well worth a visit from competent judges, whom as we are also informed Mr. Neilson ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... one letter very nicely, Polly, and take ever so much pains with it," said Mother Fisher, her black eyes shining at the happy solution; "and that is much better than to hurry off a good many slovenly ones. Besides, it is not well to take your time and strength for too much letter writing, for there are the boys, ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this club remains. My complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter upon this theme with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach nursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become ...
— On the Decay of the Art of Lying • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... of ugliness, for it had not a single projection of any kind to mitigate the severity of its simplicity, not even so much as a window sill; and it was thatched!—not with the trim neatness characteristic of some of our charmingly picturesque country cottages in England, but in a slovenly, happy-go-lucky style, that seemed to convey the idea that, so long as a roof was weather-proof, it did not in the least matter what it looked like. The windows were simply rectangular holes in the thick ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... to be wished that there were more journalists like him. For from the two great reproaches of the craft to which so many of us belong, and which seems to be gradually swallowing up all other varieties of literary occupation, he was conspicuously free. He never did work slovenly in form, and he never did work that was not in one way or other consistent with a decided set of literary and political principles. There is a great deal of nonsense talked about the unprincipled character of journalism, no doubt; and nobody knows better than those who have some experience ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... fell down, showing discolored teeth. He stared at his inquisitor in consternation. Then he dropped back into his former slovenly attitude. ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... afterwards.[78] And I think, that the first thing to be taught to any pupil, is neither how to manage the pencil, nor how to attain character of outline, but rather to see where things are light and where they are dark, and to draw them as he sees them, never caring whether his lines be dexterous or slovenly. The result of such study is the immediate substitution of downright drawing for symbolism, and afterwards a judicious moderation in the use of extreme lights and darks; for where local colors are really drawn, so much of what seems violently dark is found to come light ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... that Elizabeth had a few—nay, not a few—most obstinate faults; that no child tries its parents, no pupil its school teachers, more than she tried her three mistresses at intervals. She was often thoughtless and careless, brusque in her manner, slovenly, in her dress; sometimes she was down-right "bad," filled full—as some of her elders and betters are, at all ages—with absolute naughtiness; when she would sulk for hours and days together, and make the whole family uncomfortable, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... he is a vegetarian. The rebellious moderns have a curious tendency to flock together in self-defence, even when they have nothing in common. The mere aggregation of denials rather attracts the slovenly and the unattached. The lack of positive dogma expressed by such a coalition encourages the sceptic and the uneducated, who do not realize that the deliberate suppression of dogma is itself a dogma ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... And dress nor slovenly nor gay, Nor sternly act; nor trifling play; Still keep the golden middle way Whate'er betide you; And ne'er through giddy pleasures ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... however, the work of many years, during which it was noticed that Margaret became more and more quiet on the subject of her son, and gradually came to a state of demoralization which once would have been thought impossible. She became timid, negligent, even slovenly, and many thought her brain had suffered. Frederick, on the other hand, grew all the more self-assertive; he missed no fair or wedding, and since his irritable sense of honor would not permit him to overlook the secret disapprobation of many, he was, so to speak, up in arms, not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... tastefully. Each several piece well fitted on, and all of a piece, till it all looks as if it had grown by nature itself upon the well-dressed wearer. Be like him—be like her—so runs the third head of the etiquette-card. Be not slovenly and disorderly and unseemly in your livery. Let not your livery be always falling off, and catching on every bush and briar, and dropping into every pool and ditch. Hold yourselves in hand, the instruction goes on. Brace yourselves up. Have your temper, your tongue, your eyes, your ears, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... National reputation. It would have served rather to deepen the impression, already too general both at home and abroad, that we are a rude, clumsy people, inhabiting a broad, fertile domain, affording great incitements to the most slovenly description of Agriculture, and that it is our policy to stick to that, and let alone the nicer processes of Art, which require dexterity and delicacy of workmanship. We must ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... He was known as a jolly, blarney-tongued, slovenly wit, who for a consideration managed the political affairs of Jordantown and the county in a manner which was agreeable to the "deities" already mentioned, who were not willing to do all the things in this business that must be done. He was accustomed ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... less open to criticism than that of any other modern Englishman. He was neither super-eloquent like Mr. Ruskin nor a Germanised Jeremy like Carlyle; he was not marmoreally emphatic as Landor was, nor was he slovenly and inexpressive as was the great Sir Walter; he neither dallied with antithesis like Macaulay nor rioted in verbal vulgarisms with Dickens; he abstained from technology and what may be called Lord-Burleighism as carefully ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... before the house, dotted here and there with ornamental shrubs, was now covered with frowsy tangled grass, with horseposts set up, here and there, in it, where the turf was stamped away, and the ground littered with broken pails, cobs of corn, and other slovenly remains. Here and there, a mildewed jessamine or honeysuckle hung raggedly from some ornamental support, which had been pushed to one side by being used as a horse-post. What once was a large garden was now all grown over with weeds, through which, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... handkerchief in hand, depending low: The better hand, more busy, gives the nose Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye With opera glass to watch the moving scene, And recognise the slow-retiring fair. Now this is fulsome, and offends me more Than in a Churchman slovenly neglect And rustic coarseness would. A heavenly mind May be indifferent to her house of clay, And slight the hovel as beneath her care. But how a body so fantastic, trim, And quaint in its deportment and attire, Can lodge a heavenly mind—demands ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... Commissioner on the east. Most of the streets run at right angles to each other; the principal, the Strada Real, runs to the gate which forms the chief entrance to the town. The houses are for the most part built in an irregular and slovenly manner; and even the public buildings cannot boast of much beauty. The inhabitants, of the town especially, are a mixture of Greeks and Venetians. In the country the population is more purely Greek. The roads, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... accepted a day without bread, for the utmost glory art could bestow. As he had said himself, he sent art to the deuce, as soon as he recognised that it would never suffice to satisfy his numerous requirements. His first efforts had been below mediocrity; his peasant eyes caught a clumsy, slovenly view of nature; his muddy, badly drawn, grimacing pictures, defied ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... Jefferson and Taylor, and Fourteenth Streets. Something in the sight of these people—alien, hopeful, emotional, often grotesque—thrilled and interested both the women. And at sight of an ill-clad Italian, with his slovenly, wrinkled old-young wife, turning the handle of his grind organ whilst both pairs of eyes searched windows and porches and doorsteps with a hopeless sort of hopefulness, she lost her head entirely and emptied her limp pocketbook of dimes, and nickels, and pennies. Incidentally ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... considerations, and complacently to reject the reality of anything else, was horrible. Not a thing did Mrs. Brangwen care about, but the children, the house, and a little local gossip. And she would not be touched, she would let nothing else live near her. She went about, big with child, slovenly, easy, having a certain lax dignity, taking her own time, pleasing herself, always, always doing things for the children, and feeling that she thereby fulfilled the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... we now call Bohemianism certainly ran in Sheridan's blood. His grandfather, Dr. Thomas Sheridan, the friend of Swift, the Dublin clergyman and schoolmaster, was a delightfully amiable, wholly reckless, {217} slovenly, indigent, and cheerful personage. His father, Thomas Sheridan, was a no less cheerful, no less careless man, who turned play-actor, and taught elocution, and married a woman who wrote novels and a life of Swift. At one time he could ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Halloway?" said the wretched woman, who had again resumed her slovenly meal on the rude couch, apparently without consciousness of the scene enacting at her side. "I am not Ellen Halloway: they said so; but it is not true. My husband was Reginald Morton: but he went for a soldier, and was killed; and ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... well set in their limbs, slender round the waist, broad across the shoulders, and have black hair and dark eyes. They are very nimble and fleet, well adapted to travel on foot and to carry heavy burdens. They are foul and slovenly in their actions, and make little of all kinds of hardship; to which indeed they are by nature and from their youth accustomed. They are like the Brazilians in color, or as yellow as the people who sometimes pass through the Netherlands and are called Gypsies. The men generally ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... movables on board a ship. There was a large hogshead with two or three small barrels upon the raft; and around its edge were lashed several empty casks, serving as buoys to keep it above water. A single spar stood up out of its centre, or "midships," to which was rigged—in a very slovenly manner—a large lateen sail,—either the spanker or spritsail of a ship, or the mizzen topsail ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... Such conduct, you say, will not be allowed in the commonwealth. Idleness and slovenly, careless work will be forbidden? Ah! then you must mean that beside the worker will be the overseer with the whip; the time-clock will mark his energy upon its dial; the machine will register his effort; and if ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... had he seen him earlier and followed him? The facts were these: about an hour before the time when Richling omitted to apply for employment in the ill-smelling store in Tchoupitoulas street, Mr. Raphael Ristofalo halted in front of the same place,—which appeared small and slovenly among its more pretentious neighbors,—and stepped just inside the door to where stood a single barrel of apples,—a fruit only the earliest varieties of which were beginning to appear in market. These were very small, round, and smooth, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... the widow had a certain indolent Southern negligence, which in a less pretty woman would have been untidiness, and a characteristic hook and eyeless freedom of attire which on less graceful limbs would have been slovenly. One sleeve cuff was unbuttoned, but it showed the blue veins of her delicate wrist; the neck of her dress had lost a hook, but the glimpse of a bit of edging round the white throat made amends. Of all which, however, it should be said that the widow, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... too long. Perhaps it will surprise some good people to hear that Santa Claus knew the old alleys; but he did. I have been there with him, and I knew that, much as some things which he saw there grieved him,—the starved childhood, the pinching poverty, and the slovenly indifference that cut deeper than the rest because it spoke of hope that was dead,—yet by nothing was his gentle spirit so grieved and shocked as by the show that proposed to turn his holiday into a battalion drill ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... much "swot" that evening. He couldn't get the ghost out of his head, nor the slovenly Latin prose of ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... trouble. The woods were so thick that the leggings of the huntsmen had to be of special strength. They were made of bull or boar hide, the hair worn outwards.[6] Moccasins, or shoes for hunting, were made of dressed bull's hide. The clothes worn at sea or while out hunting were "uniformly slovenly." A big heavy hat, wide in the brim and running up into a peak, protected the wearer from sunstroke. A dirty linen shirt, which custom decreed should not be washed, was the usual wear. It tucked into a dirty pair of linen drawers or knickerbockers, which garments were ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... worth while—if he had the heart. Since none of these things, however, can be had without long attention, or, at any rate, without skill carefully bestowed in due season, you do not find such things decorating the homes of weekly tenants. The cottages let by the week look shabby, slovenly, dingy; the hedges of the gardens are neglected, broken down, stopped up with anything that comes to hand. If it were not for the fruitful and well-tended vegetable plots, one might often suppose the tenants to be ignorant ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... on some matter which smacked exceedingly of the town. He was not more than five-and-forty, yet had thin, grizzled hair, and a sallow face with lines of trouble deeply scored upon it. His costume was very careless—indeed, all but slovenly—and his attitude in the chair showed, if not weakness of body, at all ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... not to let the colour lie about getting stale on the palette. Mix no more for the day than you mean to use; clean your palette every day or nearly so; work up all the colour each time you set your palette, and do not give way to that slovenly and idle practice that is sometimes seen, of leaving a crust of dry colour to collect, perhaps for days or weeks, round the edge of the mass on your palette, and then some day, when the spirit moves you, working this in with the rest, to imperil the ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... 3, 5, 7, were mine. Of the 8th I writ only the verses, (very uncorrect, but against a fellow we all hated [Richard Tighe],) the 9th mine, the 10th only the verses, and of those not the four last slovenly lines; the 15th is a pamphlet of mine printed before, with Dr. Sheridan's preface, merely for laziness, not to disappoint the town: and so was the 19th, which contains only a parcel of facts relating purely to the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... atone for the avarice of his sovereign. The picture painted however by muster-master Digger of the plumed troops that had thus come forth to maintain the honour of England and the cause of liberty, was anything but imposing. None knew better than Digges their squalid and slovenly condition, or was more anxious to effect a reformation therein. "A very wise, stout fellow he is," said the Earl, "and very careful to serve thoroughly her Majesty." Leicester relied much upon his efforts. "There is good hope," said the muster-master, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the district, revelling with morbid realism in the forbidding dinginess of their appearance. He was not of that quarter—that was patent to every rough who lounged outside a cafe door, as it was patent to every slovenly woman who gave him a glance in passing. He was not of the quarter, but he was an artist—and a shabby one at that—so the men accorded him an indifferent shrug and the women ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... been letting her get into slovenly habits, then, while I was away. It is enough to poison one, eating such a disgusting mess!' And he pettishly pushed away his plate, and leant ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... however, we begin to look quite distinguished. The difficulty then is to ascertain just when the law of diminishing returns comes into play. When do we cease to look distinguished and begin to appear merely slovenly? Careful study has taught us that this begins to take place at the end of sixty-five days, in warm weather. Add five days or so for natural procrastination and devilment, and we have seventy days interval, which we have posited as the ideal orbit ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... beheld him, was a full, pursy Man, very ill drest, and of slovenly Aspect. I recall him to have worn a bushy Bob-Wig, untyed and without Powder, and much too small for his Head. His Cloaths were of rusty brown, much wrinkled, and with more than one Button missing. His Face, too full to ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... upon the benches With no more rustle than a dropped leaf settling— Slovenly figures like untied parcels, And papers wrapped about their knees Huddled one to the other, Cringing to the wind— The sided wind, Leaving ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... seemed ever ablaze with the dark-red hair uncombed, was absent all last week, or why I missed so often the inimitable rags of Mack and Ed. Then the father, who worked Colonel Wheeler's farm on shares, would tell me how the crops needed the boys; and the thin, slovenly mother, whose face was pretty when washed, assured me that Lugene must mind the baby. "But we'll start them again next week." When the Lawrences stopped, I knew that the doubts of the old folks about book-learning had conquered again, and ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... that the only satisfaction he could feel in the state of affairs was that he need not trouble about the police, but could calmly consider the question of going elsewhere, as he found no inducement to take part in an insurrection conducted in such a slovenly fashion. While he walked about, smoking his cigar, and making fun of the naivete of the Dresden revolution, I watched the Communal Guards assembling under arms in front of the Town Hall at the summons ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... up to him as possible and thus gained a very good view. The man was a poverty-stricken, slovenly boatman and the fur coat seemed by no means appropriate. It was, in addition, a perfectly ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... wondered how it was. Now I saw and could understand the reason. It was because the British ships were better sailed and better steered than those of our enemies. Even at our then distance it was painfully apparent that the yards of the chase were trimmed in the most slovenly manner, and in the matter of steering she was sheering and yawing all over the place; whilst for ourselves, our canvas was trimmed with the utmost nicety; and we had a man at the wheel who never for a single instant removed ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... five-and-twenty years the forsenic wig which hung on a block beside him. The marks of hair powder on his coat collar, and the ill-washed and worse tied white neckerchief round his throat, showed that he had not found leisure since he left the court to make any alteration in his dress: while the slovenly style of the remainder of his costume warranted the inference that his personal appearance would not have been very much improved if he had. Books of practice, heaps of papers, and opened letters, were scattered over the table, without any attempt at order or arrangement; ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... his return to his garret, Marius cast his eyes over his garments, and perceived, for the first time, that he had been so slovenly, indecorous, and inconceivably stupid as to go for his walk in the Luxembourg with his "every-day clothes," that is to say, with a hat battered near the band, coarse carter's boots, black trousers which showed white at ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... your youthful pupils to be indeed so slovenly and so saucy, Bertram?" answered the lady. "I for one will not imitate them in that particular; and whether Sir John be now in the Castle of Douglas or not, I will treat the soldiers who hold so honourable a charge ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... fortune produce: And although not over-strict in his own conduct, yet he took care of the morality of his scholars, whom he sent to the university, remarkably well founded in all kind of classical learning, and not ill instructed in the social duties of life. He was slovenly, indigent, and chearful. He knew books much better than men; And he knew the value of money least of all. In this situation, and with this disposition, Swift fattened upon him as upon a prey, with which he intended to regale himself, whenever his ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... This volume also belonged to the Wodrow collection. It is written in a very careless, slovenly manner, after the year 1639, by one Thomas Wood; and is scarcely entitled to be reckoned in the number of the MSS., as it omits large portions. Thus, on the title of Book Fourth, it is called "A Collection from the Fourth ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... Paul Dormer appears in the archway from L., He is a dark-browed man, about forty, but with white hair; he is attired as a clergyman, but his dress is rusty, shabby, and slovenly; ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... as if rolled out of dough. His body is like a lump of mochi pastry, and his limbs like dango dumplings. He has lop ears that hang down over his shoulders, a tremendous double chin, and a round belly. Though he will not let his beard grow long, the slovenly old fellow never has it shaven when he ought to. He is a jolly vagabond, and never fit for company; but he is a great friend of the children, who romp over his knees and shoulders, pull his ears and climb up over his shaven head. He always keeps something ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... questions which seek to reveal the student's mastery of those facts of a subject which may be regarded as socially necessary. Reduce the socially necessary data of any subject to an absolute minimum and frame questions on it demanding no such slovenly standard—sixty per cent—as now prevails in college examinations. If the facts called for on an examination are really the most vital in the subject, the passing grade should be very high. If the questions seek to elicit insignificant or minor information, ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... however, his military experiences, unlike those of Gibbon, were of no subsequent advantage to him. He was, as he tells us, an execrable rider, a negligent groom of his horse, and, generally, a slack and slovenly trooper; but before drill and discipline had had time to make a smart soldier of him, he chanced to attract the attention of his captain by having written a Latin quotation on the white wall of the stables at Reading. This officer, who it seems was either able to translate the ejaculation, ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill |
