"Dilly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I take in the "Dilly" my place; By Zurich and Basel to London I rush, as if running a race. My quest and my troubles are over; As I drive through the desolate street To my Club in Pall Mall, I discover Sweet Solitude's ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... not?" the bandit asked. He was thoroughly weary of Gilbert's dilly-dallying, so foreign to his ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... you ought to invite Dilly to your party, Mildred," said Mrs. Fuller. "She lives so near us, and you've invited every other little ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 34, August 23, 1914 • Various
... was the scientific name of the creature, but the fact that it looked like a silicon armadillo had given it the popular name of "silly dilly." Apart from its desire ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... Dilly?" said her grandfather, in the same slow, mellow, jubilant tone with which he had propounded his discovery, and not withdrawing his fond smile from the heavens; "'s the log tew reoundin' for ye to ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Daffy-Down-Dilly O!" one of the quaintest bits of loving child rhyme in all the Scots tongue, composed soon after the birth of her first child, ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... last eighteen months he was accompanied by a brave woman who came out from England to Batavia to be married to him at the close of 1881. It is painful to read of the deadly ordeals of climate and the excessive discomforts and privations to which this lady was exposed. Her diary, kept at Dilly during her husband's absence, while she was ill, utterly deserted, and in danger of a lonely and agonizing death, makes a singular contrast to the record of Miss Bird and others of her sex who seem to have triumphed over all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... soft water, and eclipse the familiar and too legal drake. For a while they revel in the change of scene, the luxury of unsalted mud and scarcely rippled water, and the sweetness and culture of tame dilly-ducks, to whom their brilliant bravery, as well as an air of romance and billowy peril, commends them too seductively. The responsible sire of the pond is grieved, sinks his unappreciated bill into his back, and vainly reflects upon the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... about. It was just before I left, an' we was standin' at the gate, nigh my hoss and buggy. It had got sorter dark, and—well, I'll tell you all about it. Alf, I've heard fellows say (and they was men that had had experience with women, too)—I've heard 'em say that the chap that dilly-dallies with a woman, and always acts as sweet as pie, never makes no headway. Them fellows say you've just got to be sorter firm with a girl that won't make up her mind—that women like to have a man show that he ain't scared out of his senses when he's with 'em. ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... that evening I date the first dawn of my bliss; When we both rattled off in that dear little carriage, Whose journey, BOB says, is so like Love and Marriage, "Beginning gay, desperate, dashing, down-hilly, "And ending as dull as a six-inside Dilly!"[1] Well, scarcely a wink did I sleep the night thro'; And, next day, having scribbled my letter to you, With a heart full of hope this sweet fellow to meet, I set out with Papa, to see Louis DIX-HUIT Make his bow to some half-dozen women and boys, Who get up a small concert of shrill Vive ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... dressed us up as if we were going on a voyage to the North Pole and gave us a thousand instructions. "Above all things don't 'dilly-dally' on the way," she said. "The Breton was released from jail today, and you may depend on it he will not be in a very good humor. What a shame that Celestina should have such a terrible neighbor. You can never tell what a man like that may do. If my rheumatism ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... teams were managing to do a good trip; and Mac? Oh, Mac's getting along," he shouted; "struck him on a dry stage; seemed a bit light-headed; said dry stages weren't all beer and skittles—queer idea. Beer and skittles! He won't find much beer on dry stages, and I reckon the man's dilly that 'ud play a game of skittles ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... dilly-dallying. The most serious kind of business impended, and all were forced to prepare for it. In a twinkling, as it seemed, the hurry, bustle, and confusion suddenly ceased. Everything settled down into quiet, and the defenders, with their loaded rifles, calmly awaited the assault ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... liars as the bottomless pit is full of wood and coal merchants. And it doesn't become you to call the parson a Holy Joe. Maybe you've forgottten that when you busted your last cheque at Hooley's pub in Boorala, and had the dilly trimmings, that it was the parson who brought you back here, you boozy little swine. ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... figure, slovenly dress, and involved sentences were well known on the platforms where he advocated parliamentary reform. On May 17, 1784, Johnson dined at Mr. Dilly's. Among the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... that as his mother says, 'he's no fool'; but that only makes his dilly-dallying so much the worse. Still, I believe that if she were to lose all her money, and he were to fall very much in love and be refused, he might amount to something. But it would need both things to make a man ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... all edible to society," she said, "for I don't believe in that. I shall have Miss Lucy Grey, of course, from Grey's Park, for she is the cream-dilly-cream of Allington, she and your Aunt, Miss McPherson," turning to Daisy, "and mebby I shall ask Hanner Jerrold, though she never goes anywheres—that's Grey's aunt," and now she nodded to Bessie, who at the mention of the name Jerrold, evinced a little interest in what the lady ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... 'DILLY JONES' is one of those unfortunate wights 'just whose luck' it is never to succeed in any thing they undertake. In a state of 'mellow' mental abstraction, while lamenting that the trade of one's early days might not likewise be the trade of one's latter years, he unconsciously ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... Dr. Johnson to hear, 'Dr. Johnson should make me a present of his Lives of the Poets, as I am a poor patriot, who cannot afford to buy them.' Johnson seemed to take no notice of this hint; but in a little while, he called to Mr. Dilly, 'Pray, Sir, be so good as to send a set of my Lives to Mr. Wilkes, with my compliments.' This was accordingly done; and Mr. Wilkes paid Dr. Johnson a visit, was courteously received, and sat with him ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... Dilly, come and be killed!" Cried good Mrs. Bond to the ducks, in the story. Conceive with what rapture the victims were thrilled, And then picture the joy of our Turtle friends, filled With sweet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, March 4, 1893 • Various
... shows the splendor and wisdom of her military genius like her instant comprehension of the size of the change which has come about, and her instant perception of the right and only right way to take advantage of it. With her is no sitting down and starving out; no dilly-dallying and fooling around; no lazying, loafing, and going to sleep; no, it is storm! storm! storm! and still storm! storm! storm! and forever storm! storm! storm! hunt the enemy to his hole, then turn her French ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... seemed to be engaging his fancy. The old Victorian and pre-Victorian blague word "petticoat" had been revived in Fred's vocabulary, and in others, as "skirt." The lightsome sprig was hourly to be seen, even when university rulings forbade, dilly-dallying giddily along the campus paths or the town sidewalks with some new and pretty Skirt. And when Ramsey tried to fluster him about such a matter Fred would profess his ardent love for the new lady in shouts and impromptu song. Nothing could be done to him, and ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... good as told you already! When the time came and I asked her if she liked me, she said she liked no man half so well: and that being as it should be, the next thing was to put up the banns. There wasn't time that holiday: like a fool, I had been dilly-dallying too long, though I believe now I might have asked her a month before. So the wedding was held in the April following, my father going out to the Gunnel for a couple of days, so that Old John might be ashore to give his ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... carpenter was as Rare a pottlepot as he; and they two took to boiling rum in a calabash and drinking of it, and smoking of Tobacco, and playing at Skimming Dish Hob, Spie the Market, Shove-halfpenny, Brag, Put, and Dilly Dally, and other games that reminded them of the old country, for days and nights together so that the old Negro woman that belonged to the carpenter, seeing them gambling and drinking in the morning just as she had left them drinking and gambling the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... words, she put on a serious look, and gave orders that he should be taken out and administered twenty blows with the bamboo. When the servants perceived that lady Feng was in an angry mood, they did not venture to dilly-dally, but dragged him out, and gave him the full number of blows; which done, they came in to report that the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... respond to this heroic version of "Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed," our late henchman ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... she knew it. It was nothing to me anyway, and I could always plead that I was her servant and an Englishman, and didn't care a damn for this particular Emperor or any other. None the less, if she hadn't smiled upon me as she did at that particular moment—smiled like a daffy-down-dilly in April, and squeezed my hand as soft as June roses, which the same appeared to be done by accident, I might have left it alone, after all. As it was, I had set off at seven o'clock on the following evening, and ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... were no minutes in which I could dictate as many words as that, even if I wanted to, and that there would be many minutes in which I should not dictate any words at all, she said she was afraid that if she fell into a dilly-dally, poky way of working it would impair her skill, and it might be difficult, when she left my employment, to regain her previous expertness. She was quite willing, however, to engage with me, and ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... window curtains, and chair covers, but also with a white-draperied tent-bedstead, with bed-pillows and coverings white and soft as swan's down. In the glow of the coal fire in the inner room sat and waited a pretty mulatto girl, Delia, or Dilly, the dressing maid of ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... not think he will,' said she; 'with your good leave, talk of what you know something about. Tell him I want him. Why does the minx dilly-dally so?' ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... home ran away, Oh dear! oh dear! And did you not hear All that befell them on that day? Dilly, and Dolly, and Poppledy-polly— Did you ever hear, in your ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow
... to go back went, them didn't struck off gone wild. Miss Lucy and Mr. Bob Barnett give all of em stayed some corn and a little money. Then he paid off at the end of the year. Then young master went and rented at Dilly Hunt place. We stayed wid him 3 or 4 years then we went to a place he bought. Tom Barnett come to close to Little Rock. Mars William started and died on the way in Memphis. We come on wid the family. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... glad to have a roof to her mouth—I mean to her head,' he hurriedly corrected. 'But, Mother, she isn't poor. She has an amber necklace. Besides, she gave Dilly sixpence the other day for not being frightened of a cow. If she can afford to give a little girl sixpence for every animal she ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... won't take another cab just yet. Let's walk along the 'Dilly for a bit; it'll do me good, I think; and besides, I may as well get familiar with the old place again," said Carol, rising ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... long and lean and his darkly nervous self, except that he dilly-dallied on his heels like a much-too-tall boy not wanting to ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... Elizabeth made a decision, there was no dilly-dallying, no going back and wondering if she had done the right thing. Taking up her pencil, she began to jot down the names of those to be invited. Nora O'Day's name headed the list with Azzie Hogan's tagged on at the last. The majority of the girls were at class. Her ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... booksellers and friends, Messieurs Dilly in the Poultry, at whose hospitable and well-covered table I have seen a greater number of literary men than at any other except that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, had invited me to meet Mr. Wilkes and some more gentlemen on Wednesday, May 15th. "Pray" (said ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... mine own sweetheart, From thee I'll never depart; Thou art my Ciperlillie, And I thy Trangdidowne-dilly: And sing, Hey ding a ding ding, And do the tother thing: And when 'tis done, not miss To give my wench a kiss: And then dance, Canst thou not hit it? Ho, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... had nothing to fear; we were philosophical, upon honour—not deep, but feeling; we were pious; we drank tea, and bid each other adieu as finely as romance paints. She is my wife's dearest friend; so you see how beautiful our intimacy is. I then went to Mr. Johnson's, and he accompanied me to Dilly's, where we supped; and then he went with me to the inn in Holborn, where the Newcastle Fly sets out; we were warmly affectionate. He is to buy for me a chest of books, of his choosing, off stalls, and I am to read more ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... work to collect the beans, make the shell-planes, and do the shredding. In the first place the beans are cooked, the oven consisting of hot stones covered with leaves. In three or four hours they are taken out and planed, a dilly-bag (basket made of narrow strips of lawyer cane or grass) full of the shavings is immersed in running water for two or three days, the food being then ready for consumption without further preparation. In appearance it resembles coarse tapioca, and it has no particular flavour. To give it zest, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... sometimes she glanced towards him it was with the thought, "Fancy being one of the rising young men at the Bar, being the rising young man—the Bar, with silk and ermine and, why not? the Woolsack before you—and being that, doing that! Fatted calf; dilly, dilly, come and be killed, goose; ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... Johnson it is absolutely true without being in the least damaging. For his talk is always talk, not writing or preaching; and it is always his own. That dictum of Horace which he and Wilkes discussed at the famous dinner at Dilly's, Difficile est proprie communia dicere, gives the exact praise of Johnson as a talker. There are few things more difficult than to put the truths of common sense in {165} such a way as to make them your own. To do so is one ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... wrong," said Mona. Millie burst into mocking laughter. "I don't suppose you do! Silly-billy, cock-a-dilly, how's your mother, little Mona! Why, how stupid you are! Anyone can get a rise out of you! I only wanted to frighten you and get you downstairs. You're going to ask me to tea now, and give me a nice ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... tomorrow? Let's go now, Ivan Aleksandrovich, now, 'pon my word. To be sure, it's a great honor and all that. But really we'd better go as quick as we can. You see, they've taken you for somebody else, honest. And your dad will be angry because you dilly-dallied so long. We'd gallop off so smartly. They'd ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... anywhere, and this new privilege of free choice will simply bring matters to a climax. Your folks, confronted by the endless problem of choosing their own country and century, their own family and their own religion, will dilly-dally and shilly-shally and put off birth so long that they will never change their condition at all. They will come to the conviction that it is better not to be born; better to bear the evils that they know ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... Majesty and bring it to them in their provinces. This messenger was also secretly instructed to find out what the contents of the edict were, and if it was contrary to the desires of the Governor, he was to dilly-dally on the way home until the Boxer trouble was ended or until the foreigners had all been removed from the territory. And it was such conduct as this on the part of three Chinese and one Manchu viceroys that saved China from being divided up among the Powers ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... that when it may seem good unto his Majesty's pleasure, knighting my poor honesty"—here he made a slight obeisance—"the words may fall trippingly off the tongue, as though we were used to the title, and wore our honours like they who be born to them, sir. Proceed, sir. Why stand dilly-dallying here? Am I to wait ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the distance of 113 miles within 5 hours by day and 5.5 hours by night. As additional lines were opened, the old four-horse mail coaches were gradually discontinued, until in 1858, the last of them, the "Derby Dilly," which ran between Manchester and Derby, was taken off on the opening of the Midland ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... to have been an old soldier, but more still to have been a doctor. There is no time to dilly-dally in our work. And so now I made up my mind instantly, and with no time lost returned to the shore and jumped on board ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by a prompt refusal—falling back 'for reasons' on State rights. There should be, in these times, but one way of dealing with all such State rights gentlemen—arrest as traitors, and trial under military law. This is no day for dilly-dallying and quibbling about 'State rights.' There is only one right in such cases—the right of the Union, and fidelity to it. This rebuff is generally spoken of by the press as 'the Nashville Snag.' There be such things as snag-extractors, and we trust that our ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the holy scruples of his lordship's Reverend adviser, Padre Ambrosio, this connexion was suddenly dissolved at Paris; when Mrs. C——, no longer acknowledged as my lady, was at an hour's notice packed off in the Dilly for Dover, and her jewels, in half the time, packed up in their casket and despatched to Lafitte's, in order to raise the ways and means for the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... of Sonnets and other Poems, published by Dilly. To Mr. Bowles's poetry I have always thought the following remarks from Maximus Tyrius peculiarly applicable:—'I am not now treating of that poetry which is estimated by the pleasure it affords to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... was in the rear of the school building at the west end of the dormitory. I stepped inside to see how it was, and finding it squarely facing the setting sun, I thought I would melt. In spite of autumn having already set in, the hot spell still lingered, quite in keeping with the dilly-dally atmosphere of the country. I ordered the same kind of meal as served for the students, and finished my supper. The meal was unspeakably poor. It was a wonder they could subsist on such miserable stuff and keep on "roughing it" in that lively fashion. Not only that, ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... [stopping him, sharply.] — You will not. You'd best take the road to Belmullet, and not be dilly-dallying in this place where there isn't a ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... dilly, einy, einy, ducksey," according to the burden of a tune they seem to have accepted as the national duck's anthem; but instead of being soothed by it, they only quacked three times as hard, and ran round till we were ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... wanted a yellow room," David said, "a daffy-down-dilly room, and I've tried to get her one. I know last year that Maggie Lou child refused to have yellow curtains in that flatiron shaped sitting-room of theirs, and Eleanor refused ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... of another way, Jim, the meeting is still open." Garlock was wiping his eyes. "But it'll have to be a dilly. I'm not exactly enamored of Lola's idea, either, but as the answer it's one hundred percent to as many decimal places as you want to take time ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... with whisky. Why, a feller as long as you be needs a good jolt for every foot of yuh—and that's about fifteen when you're lengthened out good. Come on—don't be a damn' chubber! Yuh got to sample m' hospitality. Hey, Tom! set out about a quart uh your mildest for Daffy-down-Dilly. He's dry, clean down to his ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... were in plain sight from the camp. Certainly I could not turn off, nor turn back. Not now. It was make or break. Hesitate I did, with involuntary action of muscles; I thought that she momentarily hesitated; then I drove on, defiant, and so did she. The fates were resolved that there should be no dilly-dallying by the principals chosen for this drama ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... transmitting it to the next, We will call our primary agent in London, Mr. Cadell, who receives our books from us, gives them room in his warehouse, and issues them on demand; by him they are sold to Mr. Dilly, a wholesale bookseller, who sends them into the country; and the last seller is the country bookseller. Here are three profits to be paid between the printer and the reader, or, in the style of commerce, between the manufacturer and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... down to the Piraeus and see if any merchantman has come in from Ephesus. It worries me to have my son dilly-dallying there so ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... motioned. It was as though he dismissed it. "My compliments to her mother and remember that I have your word. Don't dilly-dally. Good God, sir, can't you realise that any day now you may be drafted? You've no time to lose. If I were your age, I'd enlist to-morrow. Don't stand on one foot, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... a sharp look-out for the wind; for, immediately on a change to the nor'ard, no time would be lost in putting out to sea. We were further informed that, in the case of nearly every ship, passengers, through their own carelessness and dilly-dallying on shore, had been left behind. I determined, therefore, to ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... he saw Dr. Rees, editor of the Encyclopaedia, who had dined with Dr. Johnson and John Wilkes at Dilly's—not at the first dinner probably, for Boswell gives a list of the guests which does not include his name, but doubtless at the second, in 1781. Dr. Rees said that Wilkes won his way to Johnson's heart not, as Boswell ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... she pleases To call "making cheeses." I'm sure I could give it a better name. Call it playing at daffy-down-dilly, Call it playing at white day-lily: Either will suit me just ...
— The Nursery, August 1877, Vol. XXII, No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... Dhilla is the term for hair in Kabi dialect, Mary River, Queensland. Dirrang and jirra are corresponding words in the east of New South Wales. The aboriginal word dilli has been tautologically increased to dilly-bag, and the word is used by bushmen for a little bag for odds-and-ends, even though made of calico ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... or two one old salt, named John Dilly, took me in a manner under his wing, and I made shift with his guidance to bear my part in shortening and letting out sail. Fortunately the weather was mild, and the early days of my apprenticeship were not so terrible as they might have ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... cry "Dilly, dilly, einy, einy, ducksey," according to the burden of a tune they seem to have accepted as the national duck's anthem; but instead of being soothed by it, they only quacked three times as hard, and ran round till we were giddy. And then they shook their ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... before," he said, "but that's about as predictable as anything the planets can tell you. We can expect a flare, and probably a dilly." ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... got for dinner, Mrs. Bond?" "There's beef in the larder, and ducks in the pond;" "Dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly, come to be killed, For you must be stuffed, and ...
— The Baby's Opera • Walter Crane
... right, but he's such a wretchedly inefficient beast that he won't turn to and do it. I've no patience with that sort of dilly-dallying. I shall go down to-morrow and speak to him ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... Dilly-bag, n. an aboriginal word, coming from Queensland, for a bag made either of grasses or of fur twisted into cord. Dhilla is the term for hair in Kabi dialect, Mary River, Queensland. Dirrang and jirra are corresponding words in the east of New South Wales. ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris |
