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More "Delicacy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to find himself shut out. He is horrified and doleful, when up come a few of his friends. They laugh the matter off. "It's only a quarter lost! There's time for a pint before we go in." So the drinking is begun again, and the men have none of the delicacy and steadiness of hand that are needed. Is it not an old story? The loss of "quarters," half-days, and days goes on; then Saint Monday comes to be observed; then the spoiled young man and his merry crew begin to draw very short wages on ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... in the air of public rooms," said Lydgate. "Strong men can stand it, but it tells on people in proportion to the delicacy of their systems. It is often impossible to account for the precise moment of an attack—or rather, to say why the strength gives way at a ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... solicitations of parents whom she had never been accustomed to withstand. But she quieted me with that singular earnestness of look and manner which had once before impressed me previous to our mutual explanation. Like vulgar thinkers generally, I was apt to confound weakness of frame and delicacy of organization with a want of courage and moral resources of ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... should forget how much I owe to one Gentleman in particular, whose exertions in my behalf, though I was a stranger to him, have been so marked, so generous, and indeed so unexampled, that it is a very painful task which his delicacy has imposed upon me, in not permitting me to mention his name. But such goodness cannot be concealed. The gratitude of my own heart has proclaimed it to my private friends; and the noble and honourable subscribers his zeal has procured, ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... change of drawing could perplex them. But to their deftness with their medium was now added the rich invention of the Italian artists of the Renaissance, at the period of perfection when restraint and delicacy ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... result of God's laws, not of man's, nor can the laws of man affect that character beyond a very slight degree. Whatever rights may be given to them, and whatever duties may be charged upon them by human laws, their general character will remain unchanged. Their modesty, their delicacy, and intuitive sense of propriety, will never desert them, into whatever new positions their added rights or duties may ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... equilibrium between the superiority of man and the delicacy of woman; it enables woman to insure thereby for herself, a supporter—a defender. And while man thus barters his protection for love, woman is a match for his power; and the weaker, to a great extent, governs ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... ANGELO, and HANDEL, belong to the same order of minds; the same imaginative powers, and the same sensibility, are only operating with different materials. LANZI, the delightful historian of the Storia Pittorica, is prodigal of his comparisons of the painters with the poets; his delicacy of perception discerned the refined analogies which for ever unite the two sisters, and he fondly dwelt on the transplanted flowers of the two arts: "Chi sente che sia Tibullo nel poetare sente chi sia Andrea (del Sarto) nel ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... women have had to undergo in the past, I cannot help but become deeply indignant. It seems as if all medical study had gone for naught, as if the teachings of nature had been forgotten, and most of all, as if no such thing as delicacy ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... him as a man of few and stern words, in appearance severe and dark, and yet a man in whom intellect is ever prominent, but intellect elevated by the grandeur of a soul of chivalry and by an exquisite delicacy of charity—this was the real character of St. Ignatius. This will be seen in the brief glimpse given of his life and his spirit of charity, his absorbing love for souls, in his work of founding missions, his greatness of mind and heart, in the work originated by him, ...
— The Autobiography of St. Ignatius • Saint Ignatius Loyola
... off to school. It was a longish walk across the moor and along a dusty road to the nearest village. Robbie, although seven years old, was exempted from going on account of the distance and his delicacy. Elsie bore in mind that Duncan had gone before he was that age, but Robbie was such a petted baby. He was not nearly so strong as Duncan had been at ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... office for young persons, but had never seen a more intelligent countenance, at the age of fifteen. Yet notwithstanding the indications of intellect, and of maturity of character, so much in advance of her tender age; her perfectly infantile features, and the extreme delicacy of their texture and complexion, bore witness to the truthfulness of the age, beneath her name on the little coffin: "six years and ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... all delicacy of feeling, sacrifice even your own sentiments. That is the one locality where you don't wish ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... accumulation—the sunny waters of joy, where alone she was thought to voyage, being the tide on which her heart embarked no venture, and which seemed to her triflingly garish and even profaning to the hallowed delicacy of the inner nature. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... home in a better frame of mind. The charm of the girl's personality had asserted its power again, and hopes that had almost been destroyed by his trip home were rekindled by her tasteful appearance, her delicacy of feeling, and by her beauty, which he had not overrated. He asked that his sister might meet him in Louisville after the wedding-whenever that should be. They two could decide then what should be done. His ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... feels the influence of that faint air of overwrought delicacy, almost of wantonness, which was so strong a characteristic of the poetry of the Troubadours. The Troubadours themselves were often men of great rank; they wrote for an exclusive audience, people of much leisure ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... is something within my knowledge, which I have been earnestly entreated by Doctor Strong to conceal, and have concealed until tonight. But, I believe the time has come when it would be mistaken faith and delicacy to conceal it any longer, and when your appeal absolves me from ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... firmness of this intimation, except the exggravating delicacy with which it was conveyed. I saw Levy clench and unclench his great fists, and his canine jaw working protuberantly as he ground his teeth. But not a word escaped him, and I was admiring the monster's self-control when of a sudden ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... occasions. She spoke of Madame de Stael's Delphine with detestation, of another new and fashionable novel, Amelie, with abhorrence, and kissed my forehead twice because I had not read it, "Vous autres Anglaises vous etes modestes!" Where was Madame de Genlis's sense of delicacy when she penned and published Les Chevaliers du Cygne? Forgive me, my dear Aunt Mary, you begged me to see her with favourable eyes, and I went to see her after seeing her Rosiere de Salency with the most favourable disposition, but I could not like her; there ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... be, after all, weak and inefficient. Doubtless great delicacy and caution are required. Heavenly truths are not to be administered to these as to the refined and willing. The land must be ploughed, or it is useless to sow the seed. Am I not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... alone, or in the company of four or five choice books, in a lofty hall with pointed roof; the points where the ribs intersect being covered with rosework of exquisite delicacy. This comprises my suite of apartments, for I never could understand why the little space that is given one in this world to dream, to sleep, to live, to die in, should be divided into a set of compartments like a dressing-case. I detest hedges, partitions ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... salad. In ordinary Celery the stem forms a mere basis to the leaves, but in Celeriac it is developed into a knob weighing from one to five pounds, and the root is more easily preserved than Celery. When cooked in the same manner as Sea Kale, Celery is well known as a delicacy at English tables, and the cooked Celeriac ranks in importance with it, though it affords quite a different dish. The stem or axis of the plant is used, and not the stalks. To grow fine Celeriac a long season is requisite; ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... adjusted chronometer,—one which would not vary a second in a year—do you think it would pay you to trifle with it, to open the case in the dust, to leave it out in the rain overnight, or to put in a drop of glue or a chemical which would ruin the delicacy of its adjustment so that it would no longer keep good time? Would you think it ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... women are capable of greatness; and if we do sometimes dream of what we cannot accomplish through lack of the physical force necessary for large achievements, that is not our fault but our misfortune. We did not create ourselves. We did not ask to be born with the over-sensitiveness, the fatal delicacy, the highly-strung nervousness of the feminine nature. Monsieur Heliobas, you are a learned and far-seeing man, I have no doubt; but you do not read me aright if you judge me as a mere woman who is perfectly contented ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... the subject of emancipating the slaves by proclamation in case the Rebels did not cease to persist in their war on the Government and the Union, of which he saw no evidence. He dwelt earnestly on the gravity, importance, and delicacy of the movement; said he had given it much thought, and had about come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity absolutely essential for the salvation of the Union; that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued, etc.... This was, the President said, the first occasion ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... subject difficult to treat has been handled by Dr. Drake with delicacy, earnestness and straightforwardness. It is a practical ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... The very meagreness and minuteness of the physical witnesses to a former condition of things cease to discourage, and actually become an incitement more effective than bulkier relics might impart. The delicacy of suggestion lends a zest to your dream; and the sober streets open out before you into vistas of austere reminiscence. The first night that I passed in Salem, I heard a church-bell ringing loudly, and asked what it was. It was the nine-o'clock bell; and ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... do this it is earnestly inculcated. 'A real man of fashion,' he says, 'observes decency; at least neither borrows nor affects vices; and, if he unfortunately has any, he gratifies them with choice, delicacy and secrecy.' He observes that an intrigue with a woman of fashion is an amusement which a man of sense and decency may pursue with a proper regard for his character; gallantry without debauchery being 'the elegant ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... lover with it; and he who expects to secure the affections of his wife by the force of his understanding only, will find himself miserably mistaken: indeed it is no wonder that women who are formed for tenderness, and whose highest excellence is delicacy, should pay no great reverence to a proud scholar, who considers the endearments of his wife, and the caresses of his children as pleasures unworthy of him. It is agreed by all the biographers of Milton, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... suddenly, "if you don't intend telling me anything, you must say so distinctly, and then, of course, it shall be final. But I won't play at delicacy. I ask you point-blank for all ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... choose to give. She probably took for granted what was the truth of the situation, that it rested with Imogen to make it a definite one. She did not treat him as an accepted lover, nor yet as a rejected one; she discriminated with the nicest delicacy. What she allowed herself to see, the ground she went upon, was his deep interest, his deep attachment. In that light he was admitted by degrees to an intimacy that he knew he could hardly have won so soon on his ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... last volume of the work:—"In particular, the editors would have felt happy in being permitted to enumerate the many original and beautiful verses that adorn their pages, for which they are indebted to the author of the much-admired song, 'The Land o' the Leal;' but they fear to wound a delicacy ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... story of the kingdom of the Blue Fish. Above him is that pure golden canopy with its rare glimmering lustrousness—something like the soft, dewy effulgence that comes with sun-breaks through showery afternoons. The soft delicacy of that pure straw-yellow that prevails everywhere is crossed and lighted by tints and glimmering hues of accidental and complementary color indescribably elegant. The floor of the sea rises like a golden carpet in gentle incline to the surface; but this incline, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... further. He had little desire to, anyway. Without scruple himself, he still found little pleasure in probing the heart of this man, who was so powerful in his own destiny. That which he had witnessed had served only to show him the delicacy of his own position. He knew that the story had been told for one reason only. It was to convince him, for the sake of his own wellbeing in the Skandinavia, that he must make no mistake in the warfare he must wage against the people of Sachigo. It was for ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... conditions of human life; criticism, which is clever at analysis and dissection, but cannot construct a foundation on which the religious faculty may build and rest; and a fine literary taste, which has greatly developed of late, and is disposed to judge of power by force of words or by delicacy of expression. ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... head. Beyond the third bottle, he showed the plebeian in a larger print; the low, gross accent, the low, foul mirth, grew broader and commoner; he became less formidable, and infinitely more disgusting. Now, the boy had inherited from Jean Rutherford a shivering delicacy, unequally mated with potential violence. In the playing-fields, and amongst his own companions, he repaid a coarse expression with a blow; at his father's table (when the time came for him to join these revels) ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... time it would appear that, so far from any coldness, and jealousies, and suspicions existing between the Prince and the members of his family, he was deemed the most fit person to negociate an affair of much delicacy between the council and his father and ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... born Be thankless for that refuge which their habits Of early delicacy render more 40 Needful than to the peasant, when the ebb Of fortune leaves them on the shoals ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... get new life from the touch of her small fingers, as though feeling the necessity of growing like her. Her beauty may not last. It is not of the imperious kind, nor even quite classic, but it has a wonderful fineness and delicacy. Her soft brown hair coils closely on her small, well-shaped head; her gentle, serious blue eyes look tenderly on all that lives and has being within the circle of her sight; her small mouth smiles graciously and readily, though sometimes ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... he was more than eighty, visiting it every night, of summer and winter alike, to be sure of keeping it alive; [74] and melting down, as his family said, many a good guinea, and all to find the philosopher's stone, the mysterious metal that should turn all to gold. From delicacy I never alluded to the subject with him, I am sorry now that I did not. And he never adverted to it with me but once, and that was in a way which showed that he had no mean or selfish aims in his patient ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... obedience of childhood! Recognition of it might well give pause to careless instructors of youth. The kiss meant torture to me, in anticipation and in fact. But I was bidden, and never dreamed of refusing to obey. No doubt, there was also at work in me some dim sort of infantile delicacy. This was an occasion upon which a gentleman could have ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... says, "a string of much delicacy—the political character of the Review. It appears to me that this should be of a liberal and enlarged nature, resting upon principles—indulgent and conciliatory as far as possible upon mere party questions, but stern in detecting and exposing all attempts ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... to be managed with great discreetness and delicacy, and accomplished by hook or by crook, if the means could be found. "You need not be scrupulous as to the form or law of protection, provided the name of protector can ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... mademoiselle already that nothing of the sort will be required of her. There are models indeed who pose for figure, but these are a class apart, and I can assure mademoiselle that her feelings of delicacy will be ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... the goad of pain. The sensitive schedule of the Cerambyx-grub, therefore, is limited to taste and touch, both exceedingly obtuse. This almost brings us to Condillac's statue. The imaginary being of the philosopher had one sense only, that of smell, equal in delicacy to our own; the real being, the ravager of the oak, has two, inferior, even when put together, to the former, which so plainly perceived the scent of a rose and distinguished it so clearly from any other. The real case will bear comparison with ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... always bestowed with such delicacy that she managed, in some mysterious way, to make the recipients feel as though they had done her a favour in accepting them. And yet she was not a soft piece of indiscriminating amiability, whose chief delight in giving lay in the sensations which the act created within her own ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... dignified by the name of Augusta, were never associated to their personal honors; and a female reign would have appeared an inexplicable prodigy in the eyes of those primitive Romans, who married without love, or loved without delicacy or respect." ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... electric signs before the theaters, the gay crowds in the restaurants! It was all very fine to see Europe on a comfortable letter of credit, but to see it under such circumstances as these, that was a different matter. To live in this evil-smelling old tenement, with seldom any delicacy to eat, a strange jabber-jabber ringing in one's ears from morning till night, and to wait day after day for that letter from home, was not a situation such as would hearten one's love of romance. The men had it much easier; they always do. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... wondered what the boy meant by it, and at first, naturally connected the idea of coppers with Wikkey's devotion; but he soon came to see that it went deeper than that, for with a curious instinct of delicacy which the lad would probably have been quite unable to explain to himself, he would sometimes hang back as Lawrence reached the pavement, and nod his funny "Good night, guvner," from midway on his crossing, in a way that precluded ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM
... Ilusha, who was still fretting over the lost and probably dead Zhutchka. Ilusha, who had heard three days before that he was to be presented with a puppy, not an ordinary puppy, but a pedigree mastiff (a very important point, of course), tried from delicacy of feeling to pretend that he was pleased. But his father and the boys could not help seeing that the puppy only served to recall to his little heart the thought of the unhappy dog he had killed. The puppy lay beside him feebly ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the June woods has not the delicacy of tints which was so exquisite in May, nor the strength of color which will be so striking in September. But it has a beauty no less admirable. The chlorophyll in the leaf-cells is now at its prime and the leaves very closely approach ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... trusting implicitly to the discretion and daring of the singular being whose pleasure it was to bring their ship into so hazardous a proximity to a powerful enemy—qualities that had been known to avail them in circumstances of even greater delicacy than those in which they were now placed. With this air of audacious confidence, the dreaded Rover came gliding down upon her unsuspecting neighbour, until within a few hundred feet of her weather-beam, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... lines and yet sparred for safety, the sort of vessel that does well under plain sail, and when pressed can fly. The other, the Edelweiss, was a miniature fore and after of about twenty tons, a toy of delicacy and grace, betraying at a glance that she had been designed a yacht, and, in spite of fallen fortunes, was still sailed as one. The man that laid her lee rail under would get danger as well as speed for his pains, and in time would be likely to satisfy a taste for both by ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... you for your kindness in staying with Carrie, although your services really are not needed. I understand how matters stand between you and Walter, and as he is to be here to-morrow; you of course will feel some delicacy about remaining, consequently I release you from all ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... position, every muscle tense, his breast heaving and voice trembling from the effort, and the natural result is that before he is done praying his fingers begin to twitch involuntarily and thus cause the beads to move. As before stated, their motion is irregular; but the peculiar delicacy of touch acquired by long practice probably imparts more directness to their movements than would at ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... great moment which I have not enumerated in this brief letter, because I felt some little delicacy and timidity about appearing to be at all dictatorial or officious about a matter wherein the public might ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... frankness and courage, the delicacy and idealism which marked her life's work are here ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... standing in the pulpit pale with emotion, his eye gathering fire as he bears witness to the truth or testifies against sin. He likes to believe that his words and intonations have a thrilling quality, a fire or a delicacy, as the case may be, which scorch or penetrate the sin-burdened heart. It may be thought that this criticism is unduly severe; I do not for a moment say that the attitude is universal, but it is commoner, I am sure, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... whispering, glancing, dancing, tripping, sipping, and hand-squeezing, the ball goes gaily on till the stewards announce supper. At this—to the wall-flowers—welcome announcement, we adjourn from the heated ball-room to the cool arbour-like supper tent, where every delicacy that can charm the eye or tempt the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... the real heroine of these pages. That Martha should marry Giles Hickbody, and Barty Burgess run away with Mrs. MacHugh, is of course evident to the meanest novel-expounding capacity; but the fate of Brooke Burgess and of Dorothy will require to be evolved with some delicacy and much detail. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... heaven to heaven by the eyes of Beatrice, so was Spenser lifted away from the actual by those of that ideal Beauty whereof his mind had conceived the lineaments in its solitary musings over Plato, but of whose haunting presence the delicacy of his senses had already premonished him. The intrusion of the real world upon this supersensual mood of his wrought an ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... utterly astonished at her vehemence, but felt, thus conjured, that it became my duty to lay aside scrupulous delicacy, and gave her briefly, but distinctly, the heads of the information which ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... (b. 1748, d.1788). A Scotch writer of note. His writings include dramas, poetry, history, and essays. 8. The ortolan is a small bird, abundant in southern Europe, Cyprus, and Japan. It is fattened for the table, and is considered a great delicacy. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... pursued the unabashed Marlow, "that we laugh from a sense of superiority. Therefore, observe, simplicity, honesty, warmth of feeling, delicacy of heart and of conduct, self-confidence, magnanimity are laughed at, because the presence of these traits in a man's character often puts him into difficult, cruel or absurd situations, and makes ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... through the spheres and stood in Paradise, welcomed by Adam. Eve hastened to set before their guest every delicacy that Eden knew, and while she was preparing these Adam ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... laughing at her, at such delicacy pleading for such toil. His amusement humiliated her and baffled her so ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... the correspondence it requires. But now for a time their pens were forgotten and they sat looking at each other over the gatelegged table which served as desk. They were still both remarkably good-looking, though marked with that delicacy of material and workmanship—reminiscent of old china—which seems to indicate the perfect type of spinster-hood. Here and there in their hair gleamed touches of silver, and their cheeks might have reminded you of tinted apples which had lightly ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... pounds in his purse, and he handed them over to the Captain for the tickets; he would have been afraid to offer more lest he should offend the latter's delicacy. Costigan scrawled him an order for a box, lightly slipped the sovereigns into his waistcoat, and slapped his hand over the place where they lay. They seemed to warm his ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... delicacy was duff, his only comforts were rum and tobacco, and to explore some unknown island, and discover therein a goodly river of the famous Jamaica spirit, flowing deep and fragrant between towering mountains of "pig tail," is commonly ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... such as he had never before experienced, and turned away from a delicacy of feeling, lest Lord Reginald should be ashamed of the agitation he was exhibiting. He felt also very anxious to calm the mind of his patient, who in his weak state was ill able to undergo ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... love. Poor gallant fellow! He was, like many another, the victim of human weakness. He immediately believed that he and Emma had "found each other," and allowed himself to be flattered with refined delicacy into a liaison which became a fierce passion, and tested the loyalty of his closest friends to breaking-point. How infinitely pathetic is this piteous ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... that made action possible, that to him was accorded the unpleasant task of communicating what had been accomplished to Vergennes, the French Minister, and of requesting at the same time "a fresh loan of twenty million francs." Franklin, of course, presented his case with much "delicacy and kindliness of manner" and with a fair degree of success. "Vergennes thought that the signing of the articles was premature, but he made no inconvenient remonstrances, ill procured six millions of the twenty."* On September 3, 1783, the definite treaty of peace was signed in due ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... infinite variety. He could borrow with a breezy bluffness which made the thing practically a hold-up. And anon, when his victim had steeled himself against this method, he could extract another five-pound note from his little hoard with the delicacy of one playing spillikins. Mr Blatherwick had been a gold-mine to him for years. As a rule, the proprietor of Harrow House unbelted without complaint, for Bertie, as every good borrower should, had that knack of making his victim feel during the ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... deal the elder of her sister, and was of a clear white pallor and an aged delicacy and shyness that were very captivating. She had judgment and a clear, dispassionate brain, and I presume she acted the part in the little firm of a sort of court of appeals and final adviser and referee. She talked little and had little to do with ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... saucepan, had not occupied her more than six minutes—at most. She had tossed it off as he might have tossed off a receipt for a week's rent. And the exquisite thought in his mind, the thought of penetrating sweetness, was that whence this delicacy had come, other and even rarer delicacies might have come. All his past life seemed to him to be a miserable waste of gloomy ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... Terence, undaunted. "One day she was telling father some old story about Mr. Desmond, a 'good thing' she called it, and she was laughing heartily; but he wasn't, and when she had finished, I remember, he said something to her about want of 'delicacy of feeling,' ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... not talk for half-an-hour with a bourgeoise without her alluding to her husband in one way or another," Blondet went on with unperturbed gravity; "whereas, even if you know that your lady is married, she will have the delicacy to conceal her husband so effectually that it will need the enterprise of Christopher Columbus to discover him. Often you will fail in the attempt single-handed. If you have had no opportunity of inquiring, towards the end of the evening you detect her gazing fixedly at a middle-aged ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... would probably have marveled at cars gray with dust, the unshaved men in fleece-lined duck coats, and the women wind-burnt beneath the boudoir caps they wore as motoring bonnets. But Claire knew now that filling grease-cups does not tend to delicacy of hands; that when you wash with a cake of petrified pink soap and half a pitcher of cold hard water, you never quite get the stain off—you merely get through the dust stratum to the Laurentian grease formation, and mutter, "a nice ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... Son concerning his Mother, is very fine, and shews great Delicacy in our Author; as has been observ'd by a great Writer of our Nation. The Ghost's Interrupting himself (but soft, methinks, I scent the Morning Air, &c.) has much Beauty in it, particularly, as it complys with the received Notions, that Spirits shun the ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... twenty francs of me to pay for the dejeuner, and his l'annee trente delicacy of soul compelled him to blot my ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... certainly had once or twice thought it must be much pleasanter to be operated upon by so pretty a young lady than by some bull-necked male mesmerist or aged spinster above-mentioned, but I could scarcely believe that such a mild sentiment could affect that colossal man. However, I recollected the delicacy of these psychological relations, and sat down ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... red in it; but he bided his time. It was one of the terrible things about Tommy that he could bide his time. Pym was the only person he called upon. He took Pym out to dinner and conducted him home again. His kindness to Pym, the delicacy with which he pretended not to see that poor old Pym was degraded and done for—they would have been pretty even in a woman, and we treat Tommy unfairly in passing them ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... nobleman," he said, "had confided it to him under the seal of secrecy, and he had pledged his word of honor to him." What really withheld him from giving her any further explanation was, in all probability, not so much any delicacy about his honor, as his hatred of the Inquisition, which he would not willingly do anything to advance. Soon after him, Count Egmont delivered to the regent a copy of the covenant, and also gave her the names of the conspirators, with some few exceptions. Nearly about the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... we must have the clear atmosphere of high barometer, when there is a minimum of moisture present. The action of the sun's rays upon this extensive area of slightly moist rarefied air is unconfined by clouds, and reaches far and wide, and produces a delicacy of color which from no other source ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... a statistical view: certain weeds mark poverty in the soil; fairies mark its solitude. As surely as the wolf retires before cities does the fairy sequester herself from the haunts of the licensed victualer. A village is too much for her nervous delicacy; at most, she can tolerate a distant view of a hamlet. We may judge, therefore, by the uneasiness and extra trouble which they gave to the parson, in what strength the fairies mustered at Domremy, and, by a satisfactory ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... expression leans. But how difficult is it to make words express all the due shades and qualifications of meaning—how difficult especially for a mind that seems to be naturally distinguished by force rather than by exactness and delicacy of observation! We have all 'les defauts ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... The Long-lost was coming home, and Flipfield made an unfortunate calculation, based on the well-known regularity of the P. and O. Steamers, that matters might be so contrived as that the Long-lost should appear in the nick of time on his (Flipfield's) birthday. Delicacy commanded that I should repress the gloomy anticipations with which my soul became fraught when I heard of this plan. The fatal day arrived, and we assembled in force. Mrs. Flipfield senior formed an interesting feature ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Coast, and I no sooner remember one lovely creature whose soft eyes, perfect form and winning, pretty ways have captivated me than I think of another. The Nanny Po ladies have often a certain amount of Spanish blood in them, which gives a decidedly greater delicacy to their features— delicate little nostrils, mouths not too heavily lipped, a certain gloss on the hair, and a light in the eye. But it does not improve their colour, and I am assured that it has an awful effect on their tempers, so I think I will remain, for the present, the faithful ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... to be solved—those of buoyancy, delicacy of balance and many others—but the designers themselves have not been able to determine upon a precise formula for their solution. It is sufficient that the aeroplane has reached a degree of practicability in construction and use ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... psychological and not primarily as a pathological phenomenon. A comparison with Daudet suggests itself constantly in reading Kielland. Their methods of workmanship and their attitude toward life have many points in common. The charm of style, the delicacy of touch, and felicity of phrase, are in both cases pre-eminent. Daudet has, however, the advantage (or, as he himself asserts, the disadvantage) of working in a flexible and highly finished language, which bears the impress of the labors of a hundred masters; ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... to sheer neglect or to false notions of delicacy, delay seeking for proper medical relief until they are almost destroyed, and body and mind are ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... recover from the intense annoyance of the whole thing, he thought he would, before Venice, go in a little for the gaieties of Paris. Rupert was still young enough to believe that the things presented to him as gaiety must necessarily be gay. A certain delicacy prevented his telling Madeline this now; though formerly when he had been to Paris, especially when he had had no intention of accepting any Parisian opportunities of amusement, he had often rubbed it in to her about the ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... to depend on, he could not indulge a dream of marrying. From what I afterwards learned, I was right in this conjecture. Poor fellow! he had loved her well and deeply, but he had never told his love. She might have suspected his attachment, but with the tact and delicacy of a right-minded woman, she did not allow him to discover that she did so, but endeavoured, by the frank kindness of her words and manner, to take away the bitterness from the wound she was inflicting. I do not mean to say, however, that at the time I knew this, but I made ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... be in her to have drawn her to such a person, and to keep her, even now that she knew the worst, unwilling to relinquish the thought of him. His depravity loomed to her enormous; but was that all there was to be said of him? Did his delicacy, his insight, his tempered fineness, count for nothing beside it? Must their talks, their walking through the trees, the very memory of his ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... grand suites, on either side a central hall of Gothic structure, in white marble, with light, aerial staircases and gilded balconies. Each suite was a separate miracle: the height, the breadth, the columnal divisions; the wonderful delicacy of the arches, upon which rested ceilings frescoed with incomparable art. In one compartment the arches and caryatides were of black marble; in another, of snowy Parian; in a third, of wood, exquisitely carved, and joined like one piece, as if it were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... materials as plush, corduroys, and cheviots are too heavy to be manipulated under needle machinery by women and consequently employ only men operators. Where light weight materials are used, as in the manufacture of dresses and waists, delicacy in handling is required, and nearly ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz
... have done everything in my power to assist his passion there: your delicacy, my dearest girl, would be shocked at half the ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... gratification in relieving the pains and promoting the happiness of all around them. Conscious that the circumstances which have caused them to lead a single life would secure for them the sincere sympathy and the increased esteem of all who know them, if delicacy and propriety allowed them to be expressed, they feel a strong degree of self-respect, they live happily, and are a continual means of comfort and joy to all around them. This was not so, however, with Elizabeth. She was jealous, petulant, irritable. She envied others the love and the domestic ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... ice. She believed he was very rich, and singularly, in spite of her greediness, she did not care much for money. Noel would have won her easier by a brutal frankness that would have shown her clearly his situation. He lost her love by the delicacy of his dissimulation, that left her ignorant of the sacrifices he ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... in one better than even the finest player is supposed to do it. It's a mashie-shot, you know. You mustn't play too light, or you fall in the lake; and you mustn't play it too hard, or you go past the hole into the woods. It requires the nicest delicacy and judgment, such as I gave it. You might have to wait a year before seeing anyone do it in two again. I doubt if the 'pro.' often does it in two. Now, directly we came to this hole today, I made up my mind that there was going to be no mistake. The ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... Answer brought up the Officious old Lady herself; who, by all Means wou'd needs see her undress'd, for other Reasons more than a bare Compliment; which she perform'd with a great deal of Ceremony, and a Diligence that seem'd more than double. For she had then the Opportunity of observing the Delicacy of her Skin, the fine turn of her Limbs, and the richness of her Night-dress, part of the Furniture of her Trunk. As soon as she had cover'd herself, she kiss'd and wish'd her a good Repose. The dear Soul, as Innocent and White as her Linen, return'd ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... tap on the table roused him. It was Miss Keating laying down a match-box. He saw her hand poised yet in the delicacy ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... the above, for delicacy of detail rival the choicest Daguerreotypes, specimens of which may ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... majestic foreheads, brows strong and dark, but not frowning, eyes of which the calm full gaze, while it expresses nothing, seems to discern everything, cheeks pale with thought and sedentary habits, lips formed with feminine delicacy, but compressed with more than masculine decision, mark out men at once enterprising and timid, men equally skilled in detecting the purposes of others, and in concealing their own, men who must have been formidable enemies ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... by the tone of his voice or by some slight movement cause the hypnotic to exhibit phenomena that at first could only be produced by explicit verbal suggestion, and that altogether the signs used by the hypnotizer to cause suggestions may go on increasing in delicacy. A dangerous source of error is provided by the hypnotic's endeavor to divine and obey the experimenter's intentions. This observation has also proved useful in non-hypnotic experiments. We certainly knew before the days of hypnotism that the signs by which A betrays his thoughts to B ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... But, as he did not choose to assert his right till he should receive more accurate information respecting the state of the kingdom, he gave Petrarch a commission for that purpose; and entrusted him with a negotiation of much importance and delicacy. ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... With instinctive delicacy Mr. Bernard softly closed the door, and retired, feeling that the scene had become too sacred for a ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... 'H' in it had never fitted the dead man," said Quarles. "Oh, I remember perfectly what Watson said, and, moreover, I believe I heard a good many of his thoughts which were not put into words—you can hear thoughts, you know, only it is with such delicacy that the very idea of hearing seems too heavy and materialistic to describe the sensation. Watson said the hat was Henley's, he also said that Henley played these instruments; but the pierrots all wore hats that fitted, well-made hats, and for ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... the world and a gentleman, Mr. Effingham had looked forward to this passage with a good deal of concern, on account of his daughter, while he shrank with the sensitiveness of his habits from the necessity of exposing one of her delicacy and plastic simplicity to the intercourse of a ship. Accompanied by Mademoiselle Viefville, watched over by Nanny, and guarded by himself and his kinsman, he had lost some of his apprehensions on the subject during the three probationary days, and now took his stand in the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... is it anybody's duty—yours or mine—to go to the man and find him out; what he really thinks, what he really feels? I don't mean, make an appeal to him. That would be unworthy of her. But perhaps he's holding back from a mistaken feeling of delicacy, of remorse; when if he could be made to see that it was his right, his privilege, to be everything to her now that a man could be to a woman, and infinitely more than any man could hope to be to a happy or fortunate woman—What do you think? ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... his brown-eyed fair-haired fiancee, considered her the personification of feminine refinement and delicacy; and congratulated himself warmly on his great good fortune in winning her affection; but tender emotions found little scope for exercise in his intensely practical, busy life, which was devoted to the attainment ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... ignorance as to my presence. Had they been aware of it I am little doubtful now as to whether it would have very greatly disturbed their equanimity. Be that as it may, I felt a certain amount of delicacy about advancing, and so showing them that I had been an involuntary witness of their philandering, so I softly stepped aside off the pathway and ensconsed myself behind a coffee-bush, thinking that perhaps they would go on and enter the house, in which case I could follow them in at a respectful ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... a pause. Benjamin Wright was reminding himself that in handling a boy, one must be careful not to Say the wrong thing; one must express one's self with reserve and delicacy; one must weigh ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... to force an oyster open with his knife. I laughed at his vain endeavours, and putting some on the fire, showed him them open of themselves. I had no taste for oysters myself; but as they are everywhere accounted a delicacy, I advised my sons to try them. They all at first declined the unattractive repast, except Jack, who, with great courage, closed his eyes, and desperately swallowed one as if it had been medicine. The rest followed his example, and ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... however, lost a little money to Boodle, for Boodle liked to win, and engaged himself to dine at the same table with his friend. Their dinner they ate almost in silence—unless when they abused the cook, or made to each other some pithy suggestion as to the expediency of this or that delicacy—bearing always steadily in view the cost as well as desirability of the viands. Boodle had no shame in not having this or that because it was dear. To dine with the utmost luxury at the smallest expense was a proficiency belonging to him, and of ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... ways?—such want of frankness, of delicacy, of the commonest consideration for others? To be looking out for your own little schemes at a time like this!" Mrs. Bogardus saw now what must have been Paul's reason for doing what, with all her forced ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... involuntary respect. Happy the husbandman. Yes, so I should be in his place, if my arm should suddenly become strong and my chest powerful, so that they could thus fertilize nature and sing to her, without my eyes losing the power to see and my brain to understand the harmony of colors and sounds, the delicacy of tones, and the gracefulness of contours,—in a word, the mysterious beauty of things, and, above all, without my heart ceasing to be in relation with the divine sentiment that presided at the immortal and ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... their gaze. Under a jasmine-covered corner of the piazza, nestling in the depths of a great easy chair, lay Freshman Van Dyke. Senorita Dolores, in the role of ministering angel, was bending unnecessarily close. Dr. Mead, as near his patient as was consistent with delicacy, was lounging in a hammock, and smoking a good cigar. It is a tradition in Los Angeles clubdom that John Payson imports his cigars direct. In the middle-distance, Mrs. Payson was approaching with a cup ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... apprehensive, for, in doing for my family what your kindness urges you to do, your majesty will raise up enemies for us, and enemies for yourself too. Leave me in my mediocrity, sire; of all the feelings and sentiments I experience, leave me to enjoy that pleasing delicacy of disinterestedness." ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... extreme difficulty and delicacy. Sometimes Mister Masters came near her of his own accord, and remained in bashful silence; but more often she was obliged to have recourse to "accidents" in order to bring about propinquity. And even when propinquity had been established there was never any progress made that could ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... calmly. "But I honestly believed the woman who was my mother not to be my mother, and I had never heard of my father. I had to account for myself to you. Your delicacy, Miss Winwood, enabled me to invent as ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... that. I am commissioned to smite you in print. Torpenhow refuses from false delicacy. I've been overhauling the pot-boilers in your studio. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... of its delicacy, is out of the question for rough land or water travel. We had with us a small- sized half-chronometer movement recently brought out by the Waltham Company as a yacht chronometer. It gave a surprisingly even rate under the most adverse conditions. I was sorry ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... honor was the big gobbler, brown as a berry and done to a turn. For those who preferred other meat there was a huge round of venison and an artistically ornamented ham. These formed the backbone of the feast, but with and around them were every vegetable and delicacy that a Southern garden could provide, and tasteful dishes which it took all the ingenuity of a trained mistress of the kitchen to prepare. This was the season to test the genius of the dusky Southern cooks, and they had exhausted their art ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and then the door opened, and the girl he had met at the stepping stones came in. She was dressed differently, in trailing garments which, it seemed to him, became her wonderfully, and he noticed now the shapely delicacy of her hands and the fine, ivory pallor of her skin. Then ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... chest yet unopened, and flung away the silk covering. Here were the gems of the craftsman's art. Stones of unparalleled color and size were in this chest; but their chief merit lay in their cunning settings, their consummate delicacy of workmanship. Here the art collector might find his El Dorado; in all the world such a collection could scarcely be found in one place. Here were shrines and temples, carved from single immense stones or pieces of jade; here was a woven thing of gold and silver, in which the warp ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... transfer a reflex portion of praise to him whose magnanimous conduct has furnished so ample a scope for the tenderest emotions of our nature. This reflection will induce me not to withhold from false delicacy, occurrences, the disclosure of which none but the inconsiderate will condemn; and by which all the features of Mr. Coleridge's character will be exhibited to the inspection of ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... a choking sensation, such as he had never before experienced, and turned away from a delicacy of feeling, lest Lord Reginald should be ashamed of the agitation he was exhibiting. He felt also very anxious to calm the mind of his patient, who in his weak state was ill able to undergo ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... away early on account of bankrupt business; but Rogers said that we must have the talk out so we are to meet at his house again to breakfast. What a delightful house it is! It looks out on the Green Park just at the most pleasant point. The furniture has been selected with a delicacy of taste quite unique. Its value does not depend on fashion, but must be the same while the fine arts are held in any esteem. In the drawing-room, for example, the chimney-pieces are carved by Flaxman into the most beautiful Grecian forms. The book-case is painted by Stothard, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... to find out why he no longer loved her—what she had been guilty of, that he turned away from her. Seymour had not the delicacy and magnanimity to conceal from her his inward thoughts; and at last she ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... arched roof was like the nave of a cathedral. And yet how unlike in that something ethereal in its aspect, as of a nave in a cloud cathedral, its far-stretching shining floors and walls and columns, pure white and pearl-gray, faintly touched with colors of exquisite delicacy. And over it all was the roof of white or pale gray glass tinged with golden-red—the roof which I had seen from the outside when it seemed to me like a cloud resting on the stony ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... ten o'clock, and Jonah and Ada spent a delightful five minutes deciding which delicacy to choose for the night. When they tired of green peas they chose hot pies, full of rich gravy that ran out if you were not careful how you bit; or they preferred the plump saveloy, smoking hot from the can, giving out a savoury odour that made your mouth water. Then Ada fetched ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... further about the matter, instead of going along and supervising as was his wont with most of the others. "If he's good enough for Stannard, he'll do for me," was the colonel's comment, and when Billings sought to decline the appointment offered, hinting, with well-meant but awkward delicacy, that perhaps it ought to go to some man of more established reputation and record in the regiment, the colonel cut him short with, "Here, Mr. Billings, I must have some one at once; old Bucketts has been doing office-work as both quartermaster and adjutant until he is getting ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... heart, Harmachis, set me by thee on the Double Throne, and I swear that I will lift thee higher than ever man has climbed. Reject me, and beware lest I pull thee down! And now, putting aside the cold delicacy of custom, stung to it by what I saw of the arts of that lovely living falsehood, Cleopatra, which for pastime she practises on thy folly, I have spoken out my heart, and answer thou!" And she clasped her hands and, drawing one pace nearer, gazed, ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... rebuke toward the disputants: "I will be gratified when this tumult subsides." The doctor has been added to the membership of the club in order to add social tone to the gathering. His charm is infinite; his manners are of a delicacy and an aplomb. His speech, when he is of waggish humour, carries a tincture of Queen Anne phraseology that is subtle and droll. A man, indeed! L'extreme de charme, as M. Djer-Kiss loves to say what time he woos the ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... a king and queen who had an only daughter. And the beauty of this princess surpassed everything seen or heard of. Her forehead was brilliant as the moon, her lips like the rose, her complexion had the delicacy of the lily, and her breath the sweetness of jessamine. Her hair was golden, and in her voice and glance there was something so enchanting that none could help listening to ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... so easily wrecked as the soul. As mechanisms go up toward complexity, delicacy increases. The fragile vase is ruined by a single tap. A chance blow destroys the statue. A bit of sand ruins the delicate mechanism. But the soul is even more sensitive to injury. It is marred by a word or a look. ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... personal matter than that," replied Virginia, gazing dramatically out of the window. "You don't quite seem to appreciate the delicacy of the ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... now, waxing wroth apace, Slamm'd the street door in Toby's face, With all his might; And Toby, as he shut it, swore He was a dirty son of—something more Than delicacy suffers me to write: And, lifting up the knocker, gave a knock, So long, and loud, it might have raise'd the dead; Twizzle declares his house sustain'd a shock, Enough to shake his lodgers ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... on other places took to manufacturing the sweetmeat so much better, and selling it so much more successfully than "Keeton," as the town was commonly called, could do, that "Keeton" itself had long since retired from the business, and was content to import the delicacy which still bore its own name in consignments of canisters from Manchester or London. During many years the heir of the noble family had deserted the park, and absolutely never came near it or near England even, and everything that gave the town a distinct reason for existence seemed ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... As they faced together each saw that the other had passed through a furnace, scorching enough to him, though hers was the delicacy exposed. The reflection had its weight with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not believe it himself; but he was irritated with me, and it is his habit to impute unworthy motives to those with whom he differs. Aside from this, however, I shall feel some delicacy in availing myself of a bounty which I was instrumental in persuading the town to vote. Though I feel that I should be perfectly justified in so doing, I confess that I am anxious not to put myself in such a position as to hazard any loss of good opinion on the ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... lines, and the union of such powers is an essential term in a fair estimate of his genius. The romantic witchery of the "Christabel," and "Ancient Mariner," the subtle passion of the love-strains, the lyrical splendour of the three great odes, the affectionate dignity, thoughtfulness, and delicacy of the blank verse poems—especially the "Lover's Resolution," "Frost at Midnight," and that most noble and interesting "Address to Mr. Wordsworth"—the dramas, the satires, the epigrams—these are so distinct and so whole in themselves, that they ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... throne with a person who consented to occupy that position. He was blind to the coarseness of Anne Boleyn, because, in spite of his chivalry, his genius, his accomplishments, in his relations with women he was without delicacy himself. He directed, or attempted to direct, his conduct by the broad rules of what he thought to be just; and in the wide margin of uncertain ground where rules of action cannot be prescribed, and where ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... testimony of being unable to read it aloud without interruption from my own feelings. 'She was a phantom of delight' he said was written on 'his dear wife,' of whom he spoke in the sweetest manner; a manner full of the warmest love and admiration, yet with delicacy and reserve. He very much and repeatedly regretted that my uncle had written so little verse; he thought him so eminently qualified, by his very nice ear, his great skill in metre, and his wonderful power and happiness of expression. He attributed, in part, his writing ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... called a smile. I have also noticed something of the same kind with the chimpanzee. Dr. Duchenne—and I cannot quote a better authority—informs me that he kept a very tame monkey in his house for a year; and when he gave it during meal-times some choice delicacy, he observed that the corners of its mouth were slightly raised; thus an expression of satisfaction, partaking of the nature of an incipient smile, and resembling that often seen on the face of main, could be plainly perceived ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... applied over the first, so as to pass it on each side, and so on till each juncture be sufficiently covered; after this, the slips of bladder, or of linen, as above directed, must be carefully applied over all. Though this operation may appear extremely simple, yet it requires peculiar delicacy and management; great care must be taken not to disturb one juncture whilst luting another, and more especially when applying the ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... Yesterday, at the Grotto, she had a bad attack, which was a warning. And in spite of her fatigue she obstinately followed the procession afterwards. I thought then that she could not last long. Yet, out of delicacy, one did not like to say anything to her, for ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... about the ear, g, some fat rather gristly, but highly esteemed. The part near the neck is very inferior. Sometimes the bone in the line f, e, is cut off, but this is a coarse part. The sweet tooth is quite a delicacy—it lies back of all the rest, and, in a young calf, is easily extracted with the knife. Many like the eye, which you must cut out with the point of your knife, and divide in two. Under the head is the palate, which is reckoned ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... had a Vizier named Ibrahim, and this Vizier had a daughter of extraordinary beauty and grace, gifted with surpassing brilliancy and all perfection, possessed of abundant wit and perfectly accomplished. She loved wine and good cheer and fair faces and choice verses and rare stories; and the delicacy of her charms invited all hearts to love, even as ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... you will never suffer from this marriage, not because my daughter will not make you happy—from this side I am easy—but because the situation that fate has made for us will weigh on you and fetter you? I know my daughter-her delicacy; her uneasy susceptibility, that of the unfortunate; her pride, that of the irreproachable. It would be a wound for her that would make happiness give way to unhappiness, for ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... you, dear mamma, pronounce his name so tout an long?" "Pardon my indelicacy, my dear; delicacy is a good thing, but truth a better. I have seen the happiness of many young women sacrificed by such false delicacy, and by the fear of giving a moment's present pain, which it is sometimes the duty of a ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... come here upon a most auspicious day, a red-letter day for me and my poor house, when all are welcome. Suffer me, with all delicacy, to inquire if you are ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... Lord Chancellor did not ask these lords what they had to say why execution should not be awarded. There was, it is probable, some little delicacy as to that point. But since the allowance of the benefit of the act, as to life and liberty, which was all that was prayed, was an effectual bar to any future imprisonment on that account, and also to execution, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... took it up as, apparently out of delicacy, he fairly failed—"whose father used to take the measure, down on his knees on a little mat, as mamma says, of my grandfather's remarkably large foot? Yes, we none of us mind. Do you think we should?" ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... the care of young ladies, had that care entirely devolved on herself; but it was impossible to attend the education of a numerous school without proper assistants; and those assistants were not always the kind of people whose conversation and morals were exactly such as parents of delicacy and refinement would wish a daughter to copy. Among the teachers at Madame Du Pont's school, was Mademoiselle La Rue, who added to a pleasing person and insinuating address, a liberal education and the manners of a gentlewoman. ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... "Northumberland," then came by official order to search his baggage and that of his suite, so as to withdraw any large sums of money that might be thereafter used for effecting an escape. Savary and Marchand were present while this was done by Cockburn's secretary with as much delicacy as possible: 4,000 gold Napoleons (80,000 francs) were detained to provide a fund for part maintenance of the illustrious exile. The diamond necklace which Hortense had handed to him at Malmaison was at that time concealed on Las Cases, who continued to keep it as a sacred trust. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... some sentiments you were not able to receive. I perceived at once, that on account of your resistance, I could say no more. From this experience, although painful as regards yourself, I learnt the extreme delicacy of the spirit that seeks to aid others; and the strength of man's freedom to oppose this operation. I realized, also, my inability to act of myself; for, as soon as the spirit in me was silent, I had nothing to say. I had, however, the extreme satisfaction of knowing, that this good spirit ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... associated with a mission so crimeful and an occasion so full of illimitable consequences to England's boasted generosity. Except that he too well carried out his imperious instructions, Lord Keith does not come well out of the beginning of the great tragedy. The only piece of real delicacy shown by Lord Keith to the Emperor was in allowing him to retain his arms, and snubbing a secretary who reminded him that the instructions were that all should be disarmed. This zealous person was told to mind his ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... this apprehension, so natural to one in the place of the Baron de Willading; for, until thought, and reflection paled her cheek, a more blooming maiden than Adelheid, or one that united more perfect health with feminine delicacy, did not dwell among her native mountains. She had quietly consented to the Italian journey, in the expectation that it might serve to divert her mind from brooding over what she had long considered hopeless, and with the natural desire to see lands so celebrated, but not under any mistaken ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... talks with her delicate irony, and says, "We plunged into subtleties which were beyond our intelligence." An example is the dispute whether "Grace is to the body what good sense is to the mind," or "Grace is to the body what delicacy is to the mind" should be the ultimate form of a maxim. They sometimes drew the spider's thread so ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... name was Quong Wo, but my brother Ajax always called him Mary, because the boy's round, childish face had a singular smoothness and delicacy. A good and faithful servant he proved during three years. Then he ran away at the time of the anti-Chinese riots, despite our assurance that we wished to ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... benefit of another which belongs to women,—willing to accept plentiful meals and a power of saving L20 a year as sufficient remuneration for all hardships, with no more susceptibility than a milestone, and as indifferent to delicacy in language as a bargee. There are such women, and very valuable women they are in that trade. Such a one was Miss Horsball, and in these days the sweetest of her smiles were bestowed upon ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... necessary and not to be embittered; to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation; above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself—here is a task for all that man has of fortitude and delicacy. ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... pitfall diggers. It was plain that the mother had spent most of the night about her young in a vain effort to release it. Well did the cave boys understand the signs, and, after their first wild outburst of joy over the capture, a sense of the delicacy, not to say danger, of their situation came upon them. It was not well to interfere with the family affairs of the rhinoceros. Where had the mother gone? They looked about, but could see nothing to justify ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... shop, which was an Aladdin's garden of shades and hues, for as the chemist's scheme of colour was more brilliant than the grocer's scheme, so it was arranged with even more delicacy and fancy. Never, if the phrase may be employed, had such a nosegay of medicines been ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... bottle, he showed the plebeian in a larger print; the low, gross accent, the low, foul mirth, grew broader and commoner; he became less formidable, and infinitely more disgusting. Now, the boy had inherited from Jean Rutherford a shivering delicacy, unequally mated with potential violence. In the playing-fields, and amongst his own companions, he repaid a coarse expression with a blow; at his father's table (when the time came for him to join these revels) he turned pale and sickened in silence. Of all the guests whom he there encountered, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... St. Paul dictated it, there was present with him a sense of almost nervous hesitation. He has exactly a gentleman's reluctance to do an ungracious action: while he knows that it is his duty to warn the Colossians of a serious danger, he knows that unless he does so with much tactful delicacy, they will resent his interference. So he begins by saying what polite things he can about them, and instead of going on at once to talk of the heresy, he first says with plain significance that he perpetually prays for their perfection in knowledge, activity, and constancy. ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... to be thoroughly enjoying his companion, gave his orders, and the waiter brought first a bit of caviar on toast. If Sylvester expected this delicacy to produce astonished comments, ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... settlements, too, for news spread quickly in that country, despite the distances. Tom McChesney was plainly a favorite with the men who had marched with Rutherford. All the week they came, loaded with offerings, turkeys and venison and pork and bear meat—greatest delicacy of all—until the cool spring was filled for the feast. From thirty miles down the Broad, a gaunt Baptist preacher on a fat white pony arrived the night before. He had been sent for to tie ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "she," in delicacy and jealousy of making public the beauty or conditions of the "veiled sex." Even public singers would hesitate to use a feminine pronoun. As will be seen however, the rule is not invariably kept and hardly ever ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... curiously furtive way, that puzzled look on her face becoming very noticeable. Her consciousness was never able to accept as a familiar and unimportant fact the vast difference between herself and her daughter. Marian's superiority in native powers, in delicacy of feeling, in the results of education, could never be lost sight of. Under ordinary circumstances she addressed the girl as if tentatively; however sure of anything from her own point of view, she knew that Marian, as often as not, had quite a different ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... Questions of delicacy and certain theological difficulties involved called for reflection, and the elder smoked a full minute on the question before be replied: "No, I wadna go so far as that. It stan's to reason as there's some of 'em there; on'y—I'm no so ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... earnestly). Miss Craven; delicacy and sincerity I ask you to be frank with me. What are the ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... am commissioned to smite you in print. Torpenhow refuses from false delicacy. I've been overhauling the pot-boilers in your studio. They are ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... such matters that if they had been set on the rack they would never have confessed them; besides, his poetical describing the circumstances of their meetings, as the well-ordering of a banquet, the delicacy of a walk, with interlacing mere tiles, as Gyges's Ring, {7} and others; which, who knows not to be flowers of poetry, did never ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... from motives of delicacy or policy, do not speak out—averse to saying anything that might be ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... churchyard,—a nostrum certainly very difficult to be procured, considering that the head must needs be abstracted from the grave at the hour of midnight. Being, however, a woman of a stout heart and strong faith, native feelings of delicacy towards the sanctuary of the dead had more weight than had fear in restraining her for some time from resorting to this desperate remedy. At length, seeing that her stock would soon be annihilated by the destructive career of the disease, the wife of Camp- del-more resolved ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... detail, in harmony with the vestiges of sculpture, proves to a practised eye that the mansion was built by a Venetian architect. The graceful staff is like a signature revealing Venice, chivalry, and the exquisite delicacy of the thirteenth century. If any doubts remained on this point, a feature of the ornamentation would dissipate them. The trefoils of the hotel du Guaisnic have four leaves instead of three. This difference plainly indicates the ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... so heavy a meal, if it was termed supper. There is a grossness in this arrangement which is strangely at variance with the real advancement of the age in refinement; but it has likewise a paralysing effect both upon the freedom and delicacy of social intercourse. These show-dinners are too costly to be numerous. Even a comparatively wealthy man is compelled to look closely to the number of his entertainments. He scrutinises the claims of his acquaintance; he keeps a debtor and creditor ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... been adopted on the destruction of Bagdat by the Moguls; but we learn from other travellers that, towards the end of the fifteenth century, Sultania was remarkable for nothing besides the minarets of a mosque, which were made of metal, and displayed great taste and delicacy of workmanship. ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... to Captain Cook by the Board of Admiralty, it now became necessary to demand of the officers and men their journals, and what other papers they might have in their possession, relating to the history of our voyage. The execution of these orders seemed to require some delicacy, as well as firmness. I could not be ignorant, that the greatest part of our officers, and several of the seamen, had amused themselves with writing accounts of our proceedings for their own private satisfaction, or that of their friends, which they might be unwilling, in their present form, to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... learned to adapt herself to all the changes of her new environment,—retaining only that indescribable something which to an experienced eye tells of hereditary refinement of habit and of mind:—a natural grace, a thorough-bred ease and elegance of movement, a quickness and delicacy of perception. ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... by the above, for the delicacy of detail rival the choicest Daguerreotypes, specimens of which may ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... started off to school. It was a longish walk across the moor and along a dusty road to the nearest village. Robbie, although seven years old, was exempted from going on account of the distance and his delicacy. Elsie bore in mind that Duncan had gone before he was that age, but Robbie was such a petted baby. He was not nearly so strong as Duncan had been ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... wise is the pupil of Calhoun and Slidell. He is the coadjutor of the subtle Gwin. Hardin feeds the flame of Maxime Valois' ardor. The business friendship of the men continues unabated. They need each other. With rare delicacy, Valois never refers to the blood-bought "beauty of the El Dorado." Her graceful form never throws its shadow over the threshold of the luxurious home of the lawyer. On rare visits to the residence of his friend, Valois' quick ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... that she has duties outside of the family, to the state and to society in the larger sense. This assumption that the daughter is solely an inspiration and refinement to the family itself and its own immediate circle, that her delicacy and polish are but outward symbols of her father's protection and prosperity, worked very smoothly for the most part so long as her education was in line with it. When there was absolutely no recognition of the entity of woman's life beyond the family, when the outside claims upon her were ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... she could not lay aside that regard and veneration which is attached to the name of husband; and therefore resolved to retire into a monastery, where she could spend the remainder of her life in devotion, without being exposed to any intercourse which might interfere with the delicacy of her sentiments on ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... soon appear what ailed the lad, and Cuthbert, greatly as he wished to know Owen's story, had too much delicacy to influence him in the telling; he had promised to open his heart to this new and sympathetic chum, and all would come ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... stems; and there he remained musing till, like a vision of May herself, she reappeared on the bank, the nut-bushes making a bower around her, her hands filled with flowers, her cheek glowing like her wild roses, and the youthful delicacy of her form, and the transient brightness of her sweet face, suiting with the fresh tender colouring of the foliage, chequered ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they are the first and sole thought, to find out those who love to think of them and for them. If you really love children, the dear little ones, with open hearts and unerring sense of justice, are marvelously ready to respond to love. Their love knows passion and jealousy and the most gracious delicacy of feeling; they find the tenderest words of expression; they trust you—put an entire belief in you. Perhaps there are no undutiful children without undutiful mothers, for a child's affection is always in proportion to the affection that it receives—in ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... eating. I had adjusted my dress, and I therefore left the school-room. I could not sit down without pain, so I leant against a post: the bread remained in my hand untouched; had it been the greatest delicacy in the world I could not have tasted a morsel; I was giddy from excess of feeling, my thoughts were rapidly chasing each other when I heard a voice close to me; I looked round, it was Walter Puddock, who had been flogged the ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... lived, and emotion more openly expressed, it was easier to trace this impulse. In the thirteenth century we have found Marie de France—a French poetess living in England who has been credited with "an exquisite sense of the generosities and delicacy of the heart," and whose work was certainly highly appreciated in the best circles and among the most cultivated class of her day—describing as a perfect, wise, and courteous knight a man who practically commits ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... of that "dream of loveliness embodied in white marble." The Taj has well been described as a work "conceived by Titans and finished by jewellers." The grandeur of the conception and the wonderful delicacy of the workmanship cannot fail to impress even the most unlearned in the architectural art. Much has been written, and all in unstinted praise, of this incomparable edifice; and yet, like the writer, every visitor comes to its presence, feels the growing thrill of its beauty, and ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... corrosive principle in the large command of machinery and decorations—a germ of perversion and corruption. It gets the upperhand—it becomes the master. It is so much less easy to get good actors than good scenery and to represent a situation by the delicacy of personal art than by "building it in" and having everything real. Surely there is no reality worth a farthing, on the stage, but what the actor gives, and only when he has learned his business up to the hilt need he concern himself ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... Those great pillars darkening the air were dense masses of that African delicacy, the ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... tails, are forking over the damned into frying-pans, while Satan devours them as fast as cooked, is common-place and vulgar. At the same time, it is certain that the whole composition shows much poetry of invention and delicacy of finish. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... just mentioned, the Christmas rejoicings in a cottage would not be complete. 'Black-ball' is a delicacy compounded of black treacle and sugar boiled together in a pan, to which, when boiling, is added a little flour, grated ginger, and spices. When it is boiled enough, it is poured into a large shallow dish, and, when partially cooled, is cut into squares and lengths, then rolled ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... what terrible thing the girl could have spoken. There was nothing coarse in her manner. Delicacy and grace seemed to mark her. And whatever it was she said she smiled luminously when ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... not pain him. The chief avenue, however, by which the delights of a gardener's life reach him is the sense of smell. He revels in sweet odours; but here, too, he seeks for strength rather than what we call delicacy. In short, the enjoyment which he finds in the tones of his native tom-tom may be taken as typical of all his pleasures. I find however, that Peelajee understands the principles of toleration, and, recognising that he caters for my pleasure rather than his own, ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... of a carefully calculated, unwasteful adaptation of means to ends quite in the spirit of their sparing ways. It was a beauty achieved by nature apparently with the surest, and yet with the slightest, expenditure of energy—a beauty of poise, of line, of delicacy, of reserve—with nothing of the superfluous, and little even of color, beyond a gleam of chrysoprase in fine, gray eyes and a coppery, metallic luster in hair that otherwise would have passed as chestnut brown. It was a beauty ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... Francis got to Leeds; of which enterprising and important commercial centre it may be observed with delicacy, that you must either like it very much or not at all. Next day, the first of the Race-Week, they ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... too astonished at what he saw to find fault, and when, later, he had eaten of grilled cod and boiled clams, seasoned with salt and cut-up bananas, a recipe which Melannie, with her woman's instinct, had invented for the preparation of this delicacy, he was so pleased with his food that ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... and silvery light. The self-coloured, unpainted paneling of the walls and bookcases—but one shade warmer in tone than that of the stone mullions and transomes of the lofty windows—gave an indescribable delicacy of effect to the atmosphere of the room. Through the many-paned, leaded lights of the eastern bay, the sunshine—misty, full of dancing notes—streamed in obliquely, bringing into quaint prominence of light ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... daughter of the ex-King of Spain, and it was not thought delicate to bring her within the territory of the reigning king. I have even heard that the commodore was offered an order of knighthood for the delicacy he manifested on this occasion, which offer he declined accepting, as a ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... which her soul's bark floated with the most loved freight of her thought's accumulation—the sunny waters of joy, where alone she was thought to voyage, being the tide on which her heart embarked no venture, and which seemed to her triflingly garish and even profaning to the hallowed delicacy of the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... remarkable for inquisitiveness than for correct breeding—one of those who, devoid of delicacy and reckless of rebuffs, pry into every thing—took the liberty to question M. Dumas rather closely concerning his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... the culinary department. Your natural poetry of palate will teach you the proper treatment of the onion, and you will ere long be able to handle that inestimable vegetable with the breadth yet delicacy which it requires. Many other things you will learn, which for your sake as well as my own I will not enumerate here. Let the above suffice ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... fashioning of tools, and is responsible for any beauty of form they may possess. Of all tools none, of course, is more exquisite than a fiddle-bow. But the fiddle-bow never could have been perfected, because there would have been no call for its tapering delicacy, its calculated balance of lightness and strength, had not the violinist's technique reached such marvellous fineness of power. For it is the accomplished artist who is fastidious as to his tools; the bungling beginner can bungle with anything. The fiddle-bow, however, affords only one example ...
— Progress and History • Various
... His delicacy appealed particularly to his brother Philip, who was always ready to stand his friend, when his elder brother Robin was inclined to exercise a boyish ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... a courage and capacity destined to the greatest things. Of a complexion which strongly inclined to pleasure, he listened to nothing but ambition; at an age which is usually given up to passion, he submitted delicacy to politics, and even in his marriage only remembered the interests of a sovereign,—for, without examining too scrupulously into her character, he married Eleanor, the heiress of Guienne, though divorced from her husband for her supposed gallantries in the Holy Land. He made ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... she conveys her conceptions of the mission of art towards the oppressed unhappy labourer; oppressed and unhappy, because with form robust and muscular, with eyes to see, and thoughts that might be cultivated to understand the beauty and harmony of colour and sounds, delicacy of tone and grace of outline, in a word, the mysterious beauty of the world, he, the peasant of Berri, has never under stood the mystery of the beautiful and his child will never understand it; the result of excessive toil, and extreme poverty. Imperfect and condemned to eternal childhood, ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... shook off my delicacy, and grew, as you see, into a strong man. I then fought several battles at school; I learnt to ride, and came to have confidence in myself, and though I had no particular fancy for the army my father's heart was so set on it ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... must have remarked, that the various editions of the proceedings at this meeting were given in the public papers with rather more than usual inaccuracy. The cause of this was no ill- timed delicacy on the part of the gentlemen of the press to assert their privilege of universal presence wherever a few are met together, and to commit to the public prints whatever may then and there pass of the most private nature. But very unusual and arbitrary ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... above, for delicacy of detail rival the choicest Daguerreotypes, specimens of which may ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... on the instant, and saw before him, with the pure midday light shining full on her, a woman of the mixed blood of the European and the African race, with the Northern delicacy in the shape of her face, and the Southern richness in its color—a woman in the prime of her beauty, who moved with an inbred grace, who looked with an inbred fascination, whose large, languid black eyes rested on him gratefully, whose little dusky hand ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... resentment and sympathy. Delicacy and the fear of betraying some social disability on his own part of which he was unaware—some neglect of training which might be considered essential in well-regulated families—forbade his inquiring precisely what the process was. To him "martyring" meant some queer rite whose main and malicious ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... many fine thoughts and striking images. He evidently prefers Pompey to Caesar, and possessed a strong love for liberty, which lends vigor to his verses. His language is pure, his rhythm often harmonious, but he never attains the singular delicacy and ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... dragons for swallows was due to the transmission of a very ancient story of the Great Mother, who in the form of Isis was identified with the swallow. In China, so ravenous is the monster for this delicacy, that anyone who has eaten of swallows should avoid crossing the water, lest the dragon whose home is in the deep should devour the traveller to secure the dainty morsel of swallow. But those who pray for rain use swallows to attract the beneficent deity. Even in England swallows ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... who married him, his wife whom he seemed pleased to associate with his glory, and the venerable pontiff who, in spite of his age and infirmities, had come from a long distance, to call down upon him the blessing of the Most High. This argument offended not only every feeling of delicacy, but also the plainest principles of honest and ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... I have chosen is The Lament of the Roast Swan. It must be remembered that this bird was esteemed a delicacy in the Middle Ages, and also that pepper was highly prized for its rarity. This gives a certain point to the allusion ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... speaking or exquisite deportment; and if there had been, we, who are the narrators of these hitherto unrecorded transactions, should have been utterly unable to do justice to them. At that time of day the Christian had too much simplicity, the heathen too little of real delicacy, to indulge in the sublimities of modern love-making, at least as it is found in novels; and in the case before us both gentleman and lady will be thought, we consider, sadly matter-of-fact, or rather semi-barbarous, by ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... esteemed his brown-eyed fair-haired fiancee, considered her the personification of feminine refinement and delicacy; and congratulated himself warmly on his great good fortune in winning her affection; but tender emotions found little scope for exercise in his intensely practical, busy life, which was devoted to the attainment of eminence in his profession; and the merely dynamic apparatus ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... snuff-box!—Well done, Simplicity!—Yet I was forced to make my Hibernian believe, that he was corresponding, not with the aunt, but with the niece; for though not over rich, I found he had too much pride and delicacy to sacrifice the feelings of a gentleman to the necessities ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... relation existing between them and the state. Such an arrangement as this is needed in all the great cities of the world. London suffers from the want of it. In some places the parish authorities are at liberty to make grants to poor families, but it is nowhere done with such a system and with such a delicacy ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... the Exposition at New Orleans, I took for reading on the journey, the life of George Eliot, by her husband, Mr. J.W. Cross, written with great delicacy and beauty. An accident delayed us, so that for three days I enjoyed this insight into a wonderful life. I copied the amazing list of books she had read, and transferred to my note-book many of her ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... citizens of Cincinnati, Mr. Adams was introduced to the Astronomical Society by its president, Judge Burnet, who gave, in an appropriate address, a rapid sketch of the history of his life and his public services, touching with delicacy and judgment on the trials to which his political course had been subjected. The following tributes, from their truth, justice, and appropriateness, are entitled ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... accounts of easy motor-bike-cum-side-car trips round London, illustrated (we could never get that machine to work properly) by smudgy maps. Ollyett wrote the stuff with a fervour and a delicacy which I always ascribed to the side-car. His account of Epping Forest, for instance, was simply young love with its soul at its lips. But his Huckley 'Mobiquity' would have sickened a soap-boiler. It chemically combined loathsome familiarity, leering ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... faults—so have all the other varieties of apples of individual choice—and so have we—the growers; but for early fruitage, prolificacy, excellence for culinary use, extended period of usefulness, richness and delicacy of flavor when ripened in a cool cellar and good keeping qualities when under proper conditions it is placed in cold storage, there are few if any varieties other than this that combine so many splendid ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... judgment of the soul and the weighing of the deeds of the dead in the supreme scales, the offerings to the funeral divinities—adorned the pillars and the hall. They were carved in flat, low relief with sharp outline, but the painter's brush had not completed the work of the chisel. By the care and delicacy of the work might be judged the importance of the personage whose tomb it had been sought to conceal ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... be contended that the preservation of any race of men in the struggle for life ever depended on such an extreme delicacy and refinement of the internal ear,—a perfection only exercised in the enjoyment and appreciation of the most perfect musical performances. How, then, could either the minute incipient stages, or the final perfecting touches of this admirable structure, have been brought about by vague, ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... upon a plank—perhaps the worst state of the two—it certainly did him infinite credit. It was a flatbottomed outrigged deal boat, very long, and so narrow that to look over one's shoulder in it was a manoeuvre of extreme delicacy, especially where the rapids caused the water to be in wild commotion. I was told that it would go down stream like an arrow, and so it did. There was no need to row hard, for the current took the fragile skiff along with it so fast that the trees on the banks ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... for your health. She entreats you to be sober, and not to let yourself be trapped by women—That made me laugh; I am as sure of you as I am of myself. You will return to me rich and faithful. I alone know your feminine delicacy, and the secret sentiments which make you a human flower worthy of the gardens of heaven. The Bordeaux people were right when they gave ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... the preservation?—Independently of the preservation, I think it would be more beautiful. It gives an especial delicacy to light colors, and does little harm to dark colors—that is, it benefits delicate pictures most, and its injury is only to very ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Christendom, it already vied in every branch of learning with the most favoured countries. Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food were as wretched as those of the Icelanders of our time, wrote Latin verse with more than the delicacy of Vida, and made discoveries in science which would have added to the renown of Galileo. Ireland could boast of no Buchanan or Napier. The genius, with which her aboriginal inhabitants were largely endowed' showed itself ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the ship close to them, I got two or three others with all our firearms and shot the lot from the forecastle head. We had seal liver for dinner that night; one or two rather turned up their noses at it, but, as Scott pointed out, the time would come when seal liver would be a delicacy to dream about. ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... fine fingers of such tracery and separate action that every finger seemed to have a mind and function of its own. Looking at his hands only, one would have said: "There is here a pianist, a penman, a woman of definite skill, or a man of peculiar delicacy." All the fingers were well produced, as if the hand instead of the face was meant to be the mind's exponent and reveal ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... under his auspices, and exported their labours throughout the continent. Voltaire also invited to Ferney, and afforded protection to, the young niece of the celebrated Corneille; here she was educated, and Voltaire even carried his delicacy so far as not to suffer the establishment of Madlle. Corneille to appear as his benefaction. The family of Calas, likewise, came to reside in the neighbourhood, and to this circumstance may be attributed the zeal which Voltaire evinced ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... I felt a delicacy in asking Old Father Christmas about the tree. It was not until we had had tea three times round, with tasters and wasters to match, that Patty said very gently: 'It's quite dark now.' And then ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... understand you exactly, Mr. Newcome, by your bringing something in," answered I, with dignity enough to put a man of ordinary delicacy on ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... sweetness; whilst the poetry of the preceding age was as a meadow-gale of June, which mingles the fragrance of all the flowers of the field, and adds a quickening and harmonizing spirit of its own which endows the sense with a power of sustaining its extreme delight. The bucolic and erotic delicacy in written poetry is correlative with that softness in statuary, music, and the kindred arts, and even in manners and institutions, which distinguished the epoch to which I now refer. Nor is it the poetical faculty itself, or any misapplication ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... papa is nothing if not adventurous. Papa knows that without adventure you make no discoveries. But, wow! he did make a monkey of me. Just think of a floor-walker making a monkey of papa!" He pressed his hand to his brow. "Why, a floor-walker has been my especial delicacy—he has been my appetizer, my white-meat—but, wow! this fellow ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... place in our history, nor should we any of us miss the pathos of it were it not that so large a space is claimed for the exposure. As it is, one has almost to fight a battle to persuade the world that she has downright thoughts and feelings, and really a superhuman delicacy is required in presenting her that she may be credible. Even then—so much being accomplished the thousands accustomed to chapters of her when she is in the situation of Annette will be disappointed by short sentences, just as of old the Continental eater of oysters ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... portrait were things truly marvellous, to say nothing of the beautiful execution of the velvets, the linings, the satins, and all the other parts of the picture; and since Sebastiano was indeed superior to all other men in the perfect delicacy and excellence of his portrait-painting, all Florence was amazed at this portrait ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... often hackneyed English reader shows himself without philosophic knowledge of style in his applause. Schlosser thinks the style of Gulliver 'somewhat dull.' This shows Schlosser's presumption in speaking upon a point where he wanted, 1st, original delicacy of tact; and, 2dly, familiar knowledge of English. Gulliver's style is purposely touched slightly with that dulness of circumstantiality which besets the excellent, but 'somewhat dull' race of men—old sea captains. Yet it wears only an aerial tint of dulness; the felicity of this coloring ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... that's just what I want. She has all her life presumed on her delicacy, and her good looks, and her lady-like airs, till she forgets who she is;—and I'll give her one lesson that will bring ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... define. For a thing that is mastered must be really perfect. To master vocal art, the singer must have so developed his voice that it is under complete control; then he can do with it whatsoever he wishes. He must be able to produce all he desires of power, pianissimo, accent, shading, delicacy and variety of color. Who is ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... feasts, dances, he is our lord—supplying kindness and banishing unkindness, giving friendship and forgiving anmity, the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods, desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of delicacy, luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace, regardful of the good, regardless of the evil. In every word, work, wish, fear—pilot, comrade, helper, savior; glory of gods and men, leader best and brightest: in whose footsteps ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... the common order. In those, the genuine, most useful, and natural virtues and properties are vigorous and sprightly, which we have helped to degenerate in these, by accommodating them to the pleasure of our own corrupted palate. And yet for all this, our taste confesses a flavour and delicacy excellent even to emulation of the best of ours, in several fruits wherein those countries abound without art or culture. Neither is it reasonable that art should gain the pre-eminence of our great and powerful mother nature. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... deeply and divinely touch the heart of humanity as in the representation of woman." We have the grandeur of Portia, the sprightliness of Rosalind, the passion of Juliet, the delicacy of Ophelia, the mournful dignity of Hermione, the filial affection of Cordelia. How shall we describe the Pythian greatness of Miriam, the cheerful hospitality of Sarah, the heroism of Rahab, the industry of Dorcas, the devotion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... neck the man wore a silver cross suspended by a chain. This suggested that he might be a clergyman, and went far to confirm the broken talk of the French-speaking sailor. Clearly, also, he was a person of some breeding and position, the refinement of his face and the delicacy of his hands showed as much. While Morris was watching and wondering, suddenly the man awoke, and began to ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... to be unobserved by any casual passer-by. She looked up at him without emotion or apparent surprise; but he could then see that she was crying. The view, for the first time, of distress in an unprotected young girl towards whom he felt drawn by ties of extraordinary delicacy and tenderness, moved Pierston beyond measure. He ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... Betty, with that lamentable lack of delicacy which George had pointed out to her, who had not been ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... We pack our hamper for life's picnic with such pains. We spend so much, we work so hard. We make choice pies, we cook prime joints, we prepare so carefully the mayonnaise, we mix with loving hands the salad, we cram the basket to the lid with every delicacy we can think of. Everything to make the picnic a success is there except the salt. Ah! woe is me, we forget the salt. We slave at our desks, in our workshops, to make a home for those we love; we give up our pleasures, we give up our rest. We toil in ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... penetrative study of power and the need for love of a woman of sixty does not surpass The Garden of Allah. In Lady Sellingworth, Mr. Hichens is dealing with a brilliant woman. The theme is daring and calls for both skill and delicacy. Of the action, one really should not say very much, lest one spoil the book for the reader. The loss of the Sellingworth jewels in Paris had caused a sensation in the midst of which Lady Sellingworth was silent. She declined to discuss ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... said "Fais-moi ton compliment!"(208) You are sure how heartily M. d'Arblay would be ready to comply-"but "what," he demanded, "can be new to you of honours?" "I have succeeded," he answered, "for you!—the first Consul has signed your mmoire." When such delicacy is joined to warm attachment, my dearest father will not wonder I should be touched by ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... his burning blue eyes met mine. (But why did I choose moments when the playing of the piece demanded less than all his attention?) The Berceuse was a favourite. In sentiment it was simpler than the great pieces that had preceded it. Its excessive delicacy attracted; the finesse of its embroidery swayed and enraptured the audience; and the applause at the close was mad, deafening, and peremptory. But Diaz was notorious as a refuser of encores. It had been said ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... do anything for money. Poor devils! who can blame them, considering how little they get by their limited dealings in pen and ink! In fact, I am not at all certain but that a few English newspaper editors might be found capable of accepting a bribe, if large enough, and if offered with due delicacy. There are surely one or two magazines, for instance, in London, that would not altogether refuse to insert an indifferently, even badly written article, if paid a thousand ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... practically dissolved by this time, and very soon afterwards the catastrophe Beth had been dreading occurred, and wrought a great change in her life. It happened one day when she was not at home. Aunt Grace Mary was so alarmed by her cough and the delicacy of her appearance that she had braved Uncle James and carried her off to stay with her at Fairholm for a change. Once she was away from the sound of the knocks, Beth suffered less, and began to revive and be herself ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... matters he will be hooted as an "impatient man" and the wise will quote, "Man is created of precipitation" (Koran chaps. xxi. 38), meaning hasty and inconsiderate. I remark with pleasure that the whole of this tale is told with commendable delicacy. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... support of the old Bay State, in so far as you, Mr. Chairman, have expressed, in behalf of those whom you represent, your sanction of what I have enunciated in my inaugural address. This is very grateful to my feelings. The object was one of great delicacy, in presenting views at the opening of an administration under the peculiar circumstances attending my entrance upon the official duties connected with the Government. I studied all the points with great anxiety, and presented them with whatever of ability ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... think it probable she should never see him again. He too then understood now: he had made out that she had secrets and reasons and impediments, that even a poor girl at the P.O. might have her complications. With the charm she had cast on him lightened by distance he had suffered a final delicacy to speak to him, had made up his mind that it would be only decent to let her alone. Never so much as during these latter days had she felt the precariousness of their relation—the happy beautiful untroubled original ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... them, it would seem, were his intimates. Telling one or two incidents in which these distinguished friends had figured, he felt it expedient to sink his voice to a discreet undertone. There was plainly apparent a delicacy of feeling in this; one did not shout out the names of such persons for any curious passer-by to hear. It developed that there was one specially close bond between him and the members of General Dunlap's family, ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... looking through the complete works of Montesquieu, and cannot yet make plain to myself the impression left on me by this singular style, with its mixture of gravity and affectation, of carelessness and precision, of strength and delicacy; so full of sly intention for all its coldness, expressing at once inquisitiveness and indifference, abrupt, piecemeal, like notes thrown together haphazard, and yet deliberate. I seem to see an intelligence naturally grave and austere donning ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... driven, or think it fitter, to speak that in obscure words, or by circumstance, which uttered plainly would offend the hearers. Or to avoid obsceneness, or sometimes for pleasure, and variety, as travellers turn out of the highway, drawn either by the commodity of a footpath, or the delicacy or freshness of the fields. And all this is called [Greek text] or ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... agricultural affairs. In the old days Marcella had somehow tended to regard him as a man of few friends. And in a sense it was so. He did not easily yield himself; and was often thought dull and apathetic by strangers. But here, amid these old companions, his delicacy and sweetness of disposition had full play; and although, now that Marcella was in their house, he came less often, and was less free with them than usual, she saw enough to make her wonder a little that they were all so kind and indulgent to her, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pardon," said the count; "I did not intend to surprise your confidence. But you forget that I was present, and saw the impression which was made on your mind by a mother's want of a proper sense of delicacy and propriety—Lady Dashfort." ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... Under a jasmine-covered corner of the piazza, nestling in the depths of a great easy chair, lay Freshman Van Dyke. Senorita Dolores, in the role of ministering angel, was bending unnecessarily close. Dr. Mead, as near his patient as was consistent with delicacy, was lounging in a hammock, and smoking a good cigar. It is a tradition in Los Angeles clubdom that John Payson imports his cigars direct. In the middle-distance, Mrs. Payson was approaching with ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... there was a novel confession of embarrassment in her mantling colour and down-spread lashes. It had always to his eyes been, from the moment he first beheld it, the most beautiful face in the world—exquisitely matchless in its form and delicacy of line and serene yet sensitive grace. But he had not seen in it before, or guessed that there could come to it, this crowning ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
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